"That a high percentage of the non-Advent Christian youth pastors working in Advent Christian churches will search the scriptures thoroughly for understanding and interpretation"
Christians have always been a right vs. wrong, us vs. them kind of people - think Crusades. Once the protestants of modernity began the denominational-izing of the faith, we began to eat our own. We all want to be right and feel that our denominations are right in every doctrine and pseudo-doctrine. Otherwise, why bother pouring ourselves into something that we feel may be wrong, right? And why hire and ordain those who are not going to teach and hold to our own secondary distinctives?
There is a lot of self-preservation in this prayer request. Instead of asking God to infiltrate the hearts and minds of these leaders in such a way as to show love, grace, and acceptance to a youth culture that is awash in their own self-preservation caused by adult-led, institutional abandonment of their needs as young people, some (including this request) seem more concerned that they know how to teach students how to sleep when they die.
Have we become so marginalized that we make these leaders feel as if they are not doing a good job if their emphasis is not on keeping us marginalized (and irrelevant)?
Denominations have their place and I appreciate the history and heritage of my own, but I long for the day when our hearts break for those who need love and acceptance regardless of their dogma.
Thanks, yaaase!
7 comments:
I'm only in it for the pacifist clause. I'll fight for that any day.
A resounding Yaaaesse!
I'll grant my education was highly steeped in 19th century reform and while I never allowed my mind to be swept by their logic, I found this quote to be honoring of the Church; if it is that anymore...
"But men cannot give up their opinions, and therefore, they can never unite, says one. We do not ask them to give up their opinions--we ask them only not to impose them upon others. Let them hold their opinions, but let them hold them as private property. The faith is public property; opinions are, and always have been private property. Men have foolishly attempted to make the deductions of some great minds the common measure of all Christians. Hence the deductions of a Luther, and a Calvin, and a Wesley, have been the rule and measure of all who coalesce under the names of these leaders. It is cruel to excommunicate a man because of the imbecility of his intellect."
-Alexandar Campbell
"The faith is public property; opinions are, and always have been private property. Men have foolishly attempted to make the deductions of some great minds the common measure of all Christians."
Nice quote, oh anonymous one.
I wonder, therefore, how we separate faith from opinions inside our denominations, or do we create denominations so that we can fuse faith and opinions and then call the new creature "distinctives" and then, over time, call these distinctives "dogma," and eventually, "faith?" (a born grammarian!)
When does our faith become our own? If we only allow the doctrinal statements by which we probably don't even understand to shape what we would call "our faith," how are we making any claims of a belief system? I think what angered me about the original quote more-so than the arrogance with which it was written was the fact that by that logic, we can never form our own distinctives, dogma, faith!
I wonder, therefore, how we separate faith from opinions inside our denominations, or do we create denominations so that we can fuse faith and opinions and then call the new creature "distinctives" and then, over time, call these distinctives "dogma," and eventually, "faith?"
After a re-read on this, I want to clarify that this is not a circular idea I am getting at, i.e. faith plus opinions => distinctives => dogma => healthy faith. It is not a healthy faith that results from distinctives and dogma, imho, but an unhealthy one that often seeks to make the world Rome.
Good discussion.
Can I give you a Hug
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