Dear Neighbors,
As an educator I learned that often you must go slow to go fast. In a learning environment if you begin with key information early, theory/vocabulary/concepts, the pace of learning in the course of study will become faster and faster. Early in this Blog I will try to write directly to some Christian concepts and vocabulary that I was taught.
BOUNDARIES
A retired professor at the Air Force Academy shared with me a couple of years ago the there were over 4,000 different denominations, sects, and cults that claim to be Christian. Are they all valid views? I would have to say no. Many are some strange mix of Americanism and simple (not mere) Christianity, or some rediscovered heresy. I suppose that is going to hurt someone's feelings, maybe a lot of someones. So let me explain what I see as the boundaries of the Church.
The great British professor and apologist C.S. Lewis felt that to call an institution a Church it had to be definable or have boundaries. It didn't develop new traits like peas in a monk's garden. It would be the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, a faith once given, until the coming again of our Lord to judge. This is the little device I was taught by those who raised me in the faith, though some would expand it much further:
“One canon [the Bible] reduced to writing by God himself,
two testaments, three creeds, four general councils,
five centuries, and the series of fathers in that period -
the centuries, that is, before Constantine, and two after,
determine the boundary of our faith.” Lancelot Andrewes
The mighty God in Trinity, eternal, and the Church Catholic of Christians existed before there was a Bible. The thinking that somehow the Bible is all we need is far too limited. There have been great writers and thinkers who have been guided by the Holy Spirit in every age since Christ's great sacrifice.
The Bible is foundational, though. It is a library, not a book. Each book within the Book is amazing for the truth it shares. Each human writer had a style, and sometimes we see numerous styles in a single book, even chapter. What the authors all have in common is inspiration and comfort from the Holy Spirit.
The same Holy Spirit led the early councils of the Church, especially the first four Ecumenical Councils (the next three made some significant doctrinal statements, also). And the Holy Spirit was there guiding the selection of the writings that would be collected to become the Bible. Some writings were excluded. Those books or letters were found to be lacking in authenticity. Such comfort and guidance came from the Holy Spirit.
Next week we will talk about PRAYER and the CREEDS.
In Christ's love,
Fr. Robert Pax
BOOK: “Why We Can’t Wait,” The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
I was a young man in high school when I first began to read and try to understand this book. It changed my life. I had not grown up in cultural repression. I was just finding a faith. Rev. King’s writings gave me a context for my faith under repression, be it personal. He was a Christian father to my infant faith. Along with my priest and many college chaplains, this and other books began my fall into the arms of my God.
QUOTES: “Freedom is never given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” - M.L. King, Jr.
“On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" And Vanity comes along and asks the question, "Is it popular?" But Conscience asks the question "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right.” - M.L. King, Jr.
