Here are four ways we can get reconnected with our spiritual
heritage—
Know the roots,
Taste the fruits,
Understand the teachings,
and
Try the rituals.
Know the roots
Evangelicals are fond of saying that “faith has no
grandchildren.” While it is true of
individual churches, it is not true of
the church at large. What God started in Christ will not end because of our
incompetency or neglect. Their work will stand until Christ returns, and on
into eternity afterwards.
Each generation of Christians brings a new perspective. The
early church relied on the Holy Spirit and on the authority of the living
apostles. The ancient and medieval churches, developed habits of devotion still practiced today. The Sixteenth Century gave us thinkers and
theologians who took us back to the essentials--Christ alone, Scripture
alone, Faith alone, Grace alone, for God’s glory alone. Eighteenth Century pietism challenged the overly scholastic heirs of the
Reformers to experience God with their heart.
Writers like Blaise Pascal and Jonathan Edwards put the heart and the head together. Puritans
emphasized separation from the world and a whole-life commitment. Moravians,
Anabaptists, and Methodists emphasized Christian community. The Holiness, Pentecostal, and Charismatic
movements cherished the warmth of the
Spirit. Millerites, Adventists, and
Dispensationalists gloried in the Second Coming, while the Salvationist and
Missionary movements emphasized societal and personal change. Every branch of
the tree of faith has some dynamic and useful aspect to contribute to the whole.
Start exploring the Christian heritage by discovering your
own spiritual roots. Many times people criticize the differences between these
groups as if being different was necessarily wrong. But it’s not the differences that are bad,
but the intolerance and hatred of people who see things differently, plus the
prideful assertion that only our denomination is right that divides the
church. We can enjoy our distinctives
without being intolerant of everyone else.
Our roots are worth preserving. Each branch of our faith preserves a portion
of the whole. If one segment of the
church is lost, we are diminished, and a piece of Christ is missing.
Taste the Fruits
What are the positive fruits of our tradition? Baptists are
known for their upbeat worship and doctrinal simplicity. Presbyterians emphasize education and the
majesty of God. Methodists have a tradition of transformational social action. Pentecostals
are known for their enthusiasm and the reliance on the Spirit. Lutherans emphasize
grace and the sacraments. Catholics are marked by their elegant and elaborate worship
and their emphasis on humility. Every
tradition of the church has aspects that all Christians may admire.
We know, or think we know, our tradition only through the experience
of our own home church. This is like
saying we know our country because we know our own back yard. Our heritage is
larger and richer than we can possibly imagine.
Our own experience is extremely limited. Until we study the fruit of our
faith tradition, we cannot fully comprehend it.
After we have tasted the fruit of our own tree, we should
sample some of the fruit of others. It
is a sad mistake to think we can understand the whole of Christianity from our
own limited perspective. Being a Presbyterian does not mean we cannot enjoy a
Baptist revival or a Catholic cantata. Other
Christian traditions are not competitors—they are companions on our journey to
spiritual maturity.
Many recent authors have recently written the positive
nature of Christian diversity. Books
such as Kenneth Boa’s Conformed to His
Image and Longing for God: Seven
Paths to Christian Devotion by Richard Foster and Gayle Beebe have explored
the rich, historical landscape of the multi-traditional church. We can enrich ourselves
from the Puritan writers, the early Methodist classes, as well as the ancient
traditions of lectio divina and the
daily office. All lift up Christ, and
each explores a different aspect of Him.
The more places we look, the more ways we learn to tune our hearts to
God.
Understand the Teachings
Of course, we should try to understand what our church
actually believes.
All attempts to explain God ae really only metaphors. They
are our attempts to explain the unexplainable.
Most of the time,
when comparing what churches believe, we focus on our differences. This is unfortunate. A more interesting study is to look at how traditions
approach expressing the same truths. The
Westminster Confession of the
Presbyterians and the Second Helvetic Confession
of the Dutch Reformed are similar, but not the same. The Eastern and Western
branches of the church expressed the Trinity differently. On
issues where we disagree--such as baptism, church government, and
predestination—there is much to be learned from both sides. Debates over doctrine have been going on for
centuries, and much careful thought has gone into all sides of these
issues. It is unlikely we could come up
with any arguments that have not been suggested before. But reading the
arguments helps us to understand the awesomeness of God and His Scriptures.
God gave us scholars and teachers who debated, challenged,
speculated, and questioned, discarding bad ideas and keeping good ones, seeking
always for the truth, to give us a firm grounding in what it true. We are free to doubt, disagree and speculate,
also, but we must understand with whom we disagree.
Try the rituals
Ritual is history lived out in practice. It is our way of
remembering what should never be forgotten.
Not long ago, I attended for the first time a high Lutheran
service. When I entered the sanctuary, I
was surprised to find the baptism font in the center aisle. As people entered the sanctuary, the made the
sign of the cross with their hands on their forehead. At first, I was put off by this, but I came to
realize what they were saying. They were
not being baptized multiple times but signifying that everything we do is
covered by the grace, expressed in that original baptism. Each time they entered, they celebrated that
grace. It was not the way I had seen it
before, but it made sense, and it was beautiful.
Don’t be fooled by pseudo-knowledge passed down from
uninformed laypeople. When visiting a new church, don’t assume you understand
what people mean by it. Take the time to
read what the church says about itself, and hear their own reasons in their own
words. Don’t go by hearsay, but discover
the meaning from informed people within that tradition. You can accept or reject is, just make sure
you properly understand it before you do.
Rituals speak to us when words do not. A dying man asks for communion or
baptism. We child learns to fold hands
in prayer and bow his head before he learns to speak. People go to church even when they are too
deaf to understand a word. It is the
actions themselves that preach louder than the words.
Rituals remind us of God’s continual presence. It is not necessary to do them all, but
neither is it necessary to perform all physical exercise to keep in shape. We
choose to perform the rituals which most closely remind us of God’s power and
goodness.
Here are some questions to get you started thinking about
your heritage:
Do I
know the faith traditions of my parents and my grandparents?
Can
I trace the history of my church back, without skipping large parts of that
history?
Do I
know what makes my church tradition different from others?
Can
I accept other traditions of the church, without judgment or feeling compelled
to point out why they are wrong?
What
can I point to in my church tradition that makes me proud to be part of it?
What’s your faith tradition?
What do you like about it? What have you learned from the traditions of
others? What would you like to know
about your own faith tradition, or from others?
I’d love to hear what touches you in your own faith
background. Write a comment below.
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