"We Believe" Back to the Source!




A few weeks ago, I started teaching an impact group Tuesday nights at On Ramps Covenant Church. (see flier above). It is a kind of "basics of Christian faith" study and we are using the Apostle's Creed as a road-map for discussing the core, historic, orthodox beliefs of the Christian Church.

For the next several weeks I will be posting notes and reflections from this study, morphed into blog form. So if you are a part of the study and want to find more info, or are interested from afar, feel free to join me in exploring the "Contempor-Ancient" faith of Christianity.

So what is Contempor-Ancient faith?
Contempor-Ancient is a phrase that Pastor Phil Skei coined to describe the mood of a generation of Christian communities. One that is;
"looking backward and forward at the same time...
Maturing into a non-dualistic organism, [returning to] where we once began before there was an Eastern Church and a Western Church – when there was one Church."

"Contempor-Ancient" describes the desire for a church that faithfully embraces, and actively draws on the wisdom of it's historic roots, while staying committed to embodying the gospel contextually within the specific time, place and space to which God has called it.
Phil is currently fleshing out the contours of this idea over at his blog, which you should check out.   <----- !

This vision of faith is very exciting to me, and it is something that I have desired to be a part of for a while now. I am very excited to be a part of a community that is living into that "whole Church" kind of calling.


Church Tribalism
Although this kind of tension-embracing, ecumenical and eclectic way of doing faith is so life-giving, it isn't the norm. Not to mention it certainly wasn't the faith I was introduced to as a young Christian. Although I don't remember being explicitly told this; Growing up my understanding of "Church history" started at Martin Luther or later, and I had a low-level suspicion of most Christians outside of my "group". 

Mainliners, more "liturgical" Protestants, Pentecostals... not to mention Roman Catholic, Anglican or Orthodox Christians (not that I knew any personally) all seemed strange at best and a bit dangerous at worst. I definitely was never given the impression that I had things to learn from these Christians or their histories.

Let me reiterate, no one told me to think this way, and I was never zealously dogmatic about it. There was more of a mood, or low-level assumption floating around. Either way, God has changed my heart 180 degrees from that tribalism.

Evangelical Ressourcement
Many people coming from the Evangelical church in the U.S. are recognizing and lamenting our chronically schismatic heritage. We can sometimes feel like we are making our faith up as we go. We long for an anchor. We also long for a way to relate positively and fruitfully from Christians who are different from us.

We all too often suffer from an extreme pragmatic individualism, along with an anti-historical, anti-authoritarian suspicion. This combination tends to repel us from the riches of our deep Christian history and can limit our faith to simply "the bible and now" (to quote Hauerwas).

What we are looking for is a Ressourcement, to go back to the ancient source of our common faith; The Gospel of Jesus Christ, as defined by Christ and the Apostles, defended and interpreted by the Church Fathers, summarized in the creeds and passed down to us by the Church through the scriptures... what C.S. Lewis called "Mere Christianity".

Ressourcement, according to the theologian Henri de Lubac is about a...
"demand [for] more attention to the deep and permanent unity of the faith, to the mysterious relationship... of all those who invoke the name of Christ.”

Ressourcement is about remembering that we don't get to make Christianity up, it is always received. After all, it is the faith "once for all, delivered to the saints" (Jude 1:3).  


In other words, contempor-ancient faith recognizes the deep, mysterious and grounding connection we have with Christians across all time and throughout the world. We also recognize we cannot be "in Christ" without being in fellowship with ALL the other members, lest we become a floating hand or removable eye... and I know Halloween just happened, but usually that kind of stuff is unacceptable for bodies...

Contempor-Ancient faith laments the ways in which historical infighting and suspicion has caused much disunity and factionalism within the Church, ultimately dishonoring the God who has brought us together as that one body, in Christ. 
 " Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ  For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many." 
(1 Cor. 12:12-14)
 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—  I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 
(John 17:20-23)
This way of doing faith seems to me to be in alignment with the instruction of St. Paul and the prayer of Jesus above. A faith where we strive to be one. Not out of uniformity but out of, and for the purpose of Love. Not mushy anything-goes love, but costly self-giving love. The kind of love that reconciles. The kind of love revealed by Jesus. the kind of love that God is. The love that heals divisions, and people and neighborhoods and beyond.

For me, that is what contempor-ancient faith is all about.

 Stay Tuned for the next installment when we get down to the Apostle's Creed, What is it? Why should you care?
Then eventually I will be posting my notes from the actual classes going through the Apostle's creed and musing on the beliefs of the Church. 

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more nerdy theological fun! I look forward to your comments and discussion.

 [IMPORTANT P.S.]
The whole "contempor-ancient" thing is just one iteration of a much larger movement within theology to reclaim and embrace the whole tradition of the church for the whole body of Christ. Below are some links to relevant people, organizations and books if you find this concept interesting.
















Comments

  1. Ed BolingDecember 11, 2015 at 1:42 PM

    Hey Erik, I took a New Testament survey course at Westmont College many moons ago! I remember a few things to this day. He was a world scholar on the book of Mark and was excellent at taking on the personality (really just the mindset) of various theologians and 20th century thinkers.

    BUT one of the things that stuck with me most was a comment about the church before the big split between Protestant and Catholic. He stated that the church before that split focused on both purity and unity. Since, the Protestant Church focused solely on purity, which has lead to so many damn denominations. And, the Catholic Church focused on unity, which has lead to so many damn awful things happening in the shadows.

    Since then, I've always searched for people within the church who cared about both purity and unity.

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