January 1, 2010

Why Study Church History?

I stumbled upon this post today in my RSS Reader and thought I’d share this snippet from Josh Congrove written in response to the question, “Why Study Church History?”

It’s here that Church history becomes a great help to us. Understanding Church history shows us that the most incredible, most sophisticated discoveries in the Christian faith were made long ago. It shows us that our great need today is not to let postmodernism inform the doctrine of the Trinity, but rather to proclaim its doctrine, already discovered, to a world that needs old truth explained, not new truth uncovered. Church history shows us that most of the new perspectives we think we’ve opened today are really little more than rehashing of old heresy. Open theism is nothing more than the posterity of Pelagianism, and its adherents, if more sophisticated, are only the degraded descendents of a man whom St. Augustine defeated 1,600 years ago. Feminism is nothing but ancient goddess worship revived, and abortion nothing but ancient child-slaughter dressed up in American language. And so Church history shows us in detail what we already should have known from Scripture, that there is “nothing new under the sun” (Eccl. 1:9), no temptation but such as is common to man (1 Corinthians 10:13), and that those who ignore the lessons of God’s Church reveal a desire for self-imposed darkness.

But lest I end this brief defense on a negative note, consider also how Church history is a constant testimony to the faithfulness of God among His people. For 1,900 years after the apostles’ passing, the Chief Shepherd has safeguarded His sheep, allowing sinful men still to serve as defenders of the truth, and His Church still to show itself as the “pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15).  And so those who ignore this history deprive themselves of the blessings of 2,000 years of God’s working in ways that even the Apostles likely never imagined. Upon closing the last book of Scripture, did the Apostle John see how wondrously God would provide for the Church he had served so faithfully?  Could he see how it would endure, protected from Arianism, from Pelagianism, from Islam?  Could he also see how God would protect it from itself, even?  How the innocent purity of the Apostolic message would be corrupted in the coming centuries by sacramentalism, indulgences, and Mariolatry?  And how God would use His servants in recovering the truth of the Gospel but without disregarding the truth that had endured?

You can continue reading his piece here.

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December 27, 2009

Christmas and the Post-Reformation Church

Tim Phillips quoted a Wall Street Journal article on the history of Christmas. The author makes an interesting observation as to how Christmas returned to the churches after the Reformation.

With the Reformation, Protestants tried to rid the church of practices unknown in its earliest days and get back to Christian roots. Most Protestant sects abolished priestly celibacy (and often the priesthood itself), the cult of the Virgin Mary, relics, confession and . . . Christmas.

In the English-speaking world, Christmas was abolished in Scotland in 1563 and in England after the Puritans took power in the 1640s. It returned with the Restoration in 1660, but the celebrations never regained their medieval and Elizabethan abandon.

There was still no Christmas in Puritan New England, where Dec. 25 was just another working day. In the South, where the Church of England predominated, Christmas was celebrated as in England. In the middle colonies, matters were mixed. In polyglot New York, the Dutch Reformed Church did not celebrate Christmas. The Anglicans and Catholics did.

…

By the middle of the 19th century, most Protestant churches were, once again, celebrating Christmas as a religious holiday. The reason, again, had more to do with marketing than theology: They were afraid of losing congregants to other Christmas-celebrating denominations.

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December 11, 2009

Sproul Answers the Question, "What is Reformed Theology?"

Ligonier Ministries have launched their new website. Thanks to Tim Phillips I’ve discovered one of the many resources they offer is a free introductory video teaching series entitled “What is Reformed Theology?” by R. C. Sproul. Enjoy.

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October 16, 2009

Semper Reformanda

If you’ve been in Protestant circles for very long, whether conservative or liberal, you may have heard the phrase “reformed and always reforming” or sometimes just “always reforming.” I hear it a lot these days, especially from friends who want our Reformed churches to be more open to moving beyond the faith and practice that is confessed in our doctrinal standards. Even in Reformed circles of late, various movements have arisen that challenge these standards. How can confessions and catechisms written in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries guide our doctrine, life, and worship in the twenty-first? Liberal Protestants frequently invoked this phrase to justify their captivity to the spirit of the age, but some conservative Protestants also use it to encourage a broader definition of what it means to be Reformed.

What will no doubt be provocative to many is Michael Horton’s following statement:

[To them] This means that to be Reformed is simply to be reformed and to be reformed is simply to be biblical. All who base their beliefs on the Bible are therefore “reformed,” regardless of whether their interpretations are consistent with the common confessions of the Reformed churches. However, this runs counter to the original intention of the phrase.

Continue reading Horton’s brief treatment of the history and meaning of Semper Reformanda at Ligonier Ministries.

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The Priesthood of all Believers, Careers, Culture and this World

Below are several excerpts from a small section in Michael Horton’s Putting Amazing Back into Grace on the subject of the priesthood of all believers. I would have loved to share the entire section if I was able. In our zeal to serve the Lord I fear many of us fall into a form of gnosticism where we oppose anything “physical” (of this world) and pursue only what we deem as “spiritual” (of the world to come).  If this is your tendency (which I’ve been guilty of in the past) then consider Horton’s words humbly (and maybe buy his book).

In the medieval church, the Sacrament of Holy Orders entered those who were really “sold out” for the Lord into “full-time Christian ministry.”  Christians were separated into “secular” and “religious” callings, as though those who decided to work for the church or Christian ministries were somehow more spiritual than those who engaged in “worldly” vocations. (p. 208)

Against this “sacrament,” the Reformers launched their biblical notion known to use as “the priesthood of all believers.” This doctrine insists that the milkmaid has as God-honoring a calling and contributes as much as any priest, though in a different way. One need not be a monk (i.e., an employee of a Christian organization). Christians ought to be involved with the world, as salt and light. (p. 208)

Bach’s chief ambition was to represent the Reformation in music both in secular as well as in church scores. In fact, he signed all of his compositions (secular and religious) with the Reformation slogan, Soli Deo Gloria, “To God Alone Be Glory.” (p. 209)

There was a tremendous sense among the Reformation’s adherents that this world is terribly important too. To be sure, heaven is the believer’s ultimate hope, but it is in this world where God has chosen to reveal, act, redeem, and restore. (p. 209)

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