At the beginning of a book I just opened, I read these words, "The only thing more difficult than finding the truth is not losing it. What starts out as new and precious becomes plain and old....The chief theological task now facing the Western Church is not to reinvent or to be relevant but to remember. We must remember the old, old story. We must remember the faith once delivered to the saints. We must remember the truths that spark reformation, revival, and regeneration." I think that these are thoughtful words in deed.
My current world is uniquely divided between the denominational world linked to a 500year tradition and the non-denominational world that is renown for innovation and recreating the faith on an ongoing basis. On the one hand is something connected solidly to the past through creeds, confessions, and tradition and on the other hand is something that exists totally oblivious to these same things. The one honors the faith of our fathers, the other seeks to "roll its own" rather than inhale from a recognized brand. Both have their moments...both have their problems.
The problems of those connected to the past through the great creeds, confessions, and traditions passed down are not, as many would conclude, their connection to the creeds, confessions, and traditions. These great standards in many regards represent time-honored truths that still serve us well. Most of the problems associated with traditional churches is that while holding to some form of verbal assent to the hand-me-down standards, they have in fact long ago departed from them in practice. They have eroded the truth with new ideas, and while giving lip service at the front door are talking and doing something completely different at the back. They have sadly embraced something other than what they claim to adhere to.
The problems of the "roll your own" group, (of which I most readily identify) are not as easy to diagnose. At the crux of the biggest issues I have had to work through in my journey as a believer, is the rebuilding of the faith that I rejected in the creeds and confessions and traditions that have gone before. I remember encountering the real Jesus in a dramatic conversion and thinking to myself, "Who needs an Apostle's Creed, or the Heidelberg Catechism, or the Westminster Confession? Who needs to study church history? I have Jesus! It is people like Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Wesley who brought about the whole denominational bondage that has kept me from Jesus!" So off I went like so many others who equated "luke-warmness" with tradition and rolled a new faith that was alive and vibrant and free from the dreaded practices of the past.
Off came the rules. Off came the rituals. Off came the liturgies. Off came the yearly church calendar. Off came the hymns. Off came anything that resembled the tradition of the churches that were not alive and vibrant and free like us. I joined countless numbers of people in our country who became as proud of our "non-denominational" status as any Lutheran might have been of his or her status. It was a badge of honor declaring that we were what God was doing and everyone else was some poor sap stuck in bondage to tradition. I still hear it today, especially from those who venture into the "roll your own" world from Roman Catholicism. It is stated in words like, "I was a Catholic but now I'm a Christian."
With the "roll your own" label comes an instant aversion to anything representing traditional faith. We always swing to extremes in our responses things. Mention the idea of confession of sin and former Catholics flee like roaches exposed to light. Mention obedience or works and the "roll your owners" immediately recoil and begin to hyperventilate until the word "grace" is repeated enough times to calm their fears. Dare to recite the Lord's Prayer or Apostle's Creed or some Psalm together in public worship and everyone is wondering if a minister's robe can be far behind. My question is, "What has all this aversion to tradition and disdain for our roots gotten us?" What have we "rolled out" in the past several decades that is not itself riddled with problems?
This dilemma was underscored by a conversation I had with someone close to me. He is a young man now with multiple children and is concerned that he is clueless as to his responsibilities to raise his children in the faith. What do I teach them he asked me. I thought about it a minute and said, "I'll get back to you." You see, for the most part all we currently have to show for our the crudely rolled butts that we have created is a declaration that we have accepted Jesus as personal Savior. His admission was that he didn't know much about the faith that could be passed on to his children except that he had a savior who secured heaven on his behalf. I suppose that securing some similar sort of decision from a "roll your own" child would satisfy the requirements of being a Christian parent under this scenario.
Is that all there is? God instructed Israel to teach their children his words, to set up stones and create altars to refer to when instructing their children of the faithfulness of God in days gone by, and celebrate yearly the great feasts that represented their history together. The instructions found in the epistles are to teach the things taught to you by others to others in order to perpetuate the faith to the next generation. The first several centuries of the church were dominated by something called "oral tradition" whereby those taught by Jesus verbally taught others what he said, who taught others what they said, and so on. It seemed to be enough to get the church through the most horrific season of persecution in its history. Could it be that those who have gone before us have something to say to us?
To deny the great creeds, catechisms, confessions, and traditions passed down through the ages is to insist that each of us is better able to hear from God ourselves and understand his will. It is the greatest of all issues of pride that suggests that I will know more through my personal relationship with God or we will know more through our contemporary collective personal relationships with God than those who have gone before us. I can think of a number of churches who specialize in "roll your ownism" who think exactly that. It is to suggest that in reading scripture, each individual will arrive at the right conclusion of truth from what they read. It is acknowledged that this might look different to each individual so we label it personal truth which is cause for great celebration in "roll your ownville". I am not overstating the fact that many believe that to read outside sources on scripture is to somehow tarnish or corrupt the scriptures. And so we "roll our own." If Martin Luther could see what we have done to the priesthood of the believer he would have a whole new set of theses to tack on the walls.
I am determined to connect with past. I am determined to revisit much of what I threw out early on. I am determined to understand the scriptures in their original context and to understand how each generation applied or deviated from that original context. I am determined to be open to voices and ideas of those who have gone before me. I am tired of "rolling my own" and am troubled by what is happening to the faith by "roll your own" churches. After all, there is a great cloud of witnesses who have paid the price to bring us a faith that was passed down to them. They deserve to be heard and followed as we follow Jesus.
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