After reading that previous post, I can imagine what you are thinking and you may be right. I was pretty much in a sour mood as I was writing and I am sure that was reflected in my entry. But, I struggle to not be sour when I look at the state of the modern church. It is especially distressing when I look at the state of the modern day Reformed churches. About the only Reformed churches that I have much positive to say about, in my limited experience, are the Reformed Baptist Churches. They at least tend to know who they are and why they are who they are. But, the PCA is so concerned about being "relevant" and telling "redemption stories" that we have forgotten our own history, and as a result, our own identity. So, we have become Baptist Light. I think the least we can do is just admit it, rather than causing our Reformed forefathers to roll over in their graves by claiming any connection to them, except as members of the Church Catholic.
One PCA church has this statement on their website: speaking of Biblical transformation it says, "In the Bible, such change isn't driven by personal moral or religious efforts but is empowered by God's Spirit through the gospel. He activates change in people not through guilt and law but through grace." Consider this statement for a moment. Does the Reformed faith really teach that the law and guilt have no place in bringing about the change/transformation that happens when one becomes a Christ follower and grows in sanctification? That seems to be exactly what this website is saying. How does that fit with the threefold use of the Law that the Reformed faith actually teaches? (The Reformed view is that the Law has three uses which are to show our sin and thus draw us to Christ, to guide us how to live, and to restrain sin in the culture allowing for the spread of the Gospel). How can one even understand grace without a knowledge of sin? Grace becomes meaningless because sin becomes meaningless. How can one understand sin apart from the Law? One can't and all one is left with is a vague awareness that we live in a "world broken by sin" which largely remains undefined as to what that means. Basically, it means we are all aware of being "unhappy" about our current situation and Christ is the answer to our unhappiness. Life sucks and Jesus can is the cure. (Do I see a comparison to Santa Clause here, again, I digress...) When one becomes a Christian is there no place for the Law in our now Christian lives? Dispensationalists answer "no" to this question because we are not under Law but under grace. But Reformed Christians see a third choice between the antinomianism of the dispensationalists and the legalism of the pharisees. That is, the Reformed faith teaches that there is a rightful place for the law in the Christian life, and that is to guide and direct us how to live (at least this is one purpose). In other words, thou shalt not steal still has meaning for the Christian and should not only invoke a desire to honor God with our possessions, but also drive us to realize the only way to do that is to depend on Him for the grace of forgiveness and the grace to obey. Forgiveness and obedience - two words that can't fit into a church's vocabulary when a church doesn't believe there is a rightful place for the Law.
By the way, just for the record, when is the last time someone became a Christian without guilt as a part of the process? Isn't understanding our guilt a prerequisite to embracing Christ as Savior? What did He come to save us from anyhow? The fundamental flaw in the statement of this website is the dispensational and un-Biblical assumption that Law and Grace don't work together but rather are enemies of one another. Paul is correct when he says "the law is good if one uses it lawfully" in 1 Timothy 1:8. See also Romans 7. These statements were not written to the Jews but to Christians, so take that you Dispensationalists (and Baptist Light PCA people!)
My point here is not just to argue for a Reformed view of sanctification and role of the Law, but to bring to mind the larger question of what, if anything, does it mean to be Reformed in the modern world. You see, it used to be that Reformed Churches didn't have to have their own particular statement of faith for their own particular church because they understood and subscribed to the Westminster Confession of Faith. That is what it used to mean to be Reformed (at least in the Presbyterian variety, I realize there are other Reformed confessions of faith). By having your own confession at your church that is not the WCF, you are making the assumption that somehow the Westminster Confession of faith either isn't accurate and true, or it just isn't relevant any more because the issues of our day are "new".
In other words, the assumption is that we need to reinvent what it means to be Reformed in the modern world because those stupid guys in the past just didn't really see clearly what the inherent issues were in the Gospel. In fact, who did they think they were to actually try to define the Gospel in a confession of faith? How proud of them!! How un "post modern" and all the more reason to reject their statement of faith. They probably are burning in hell for being so proud to think that they might have actually gotten the Gospel right! They got it wrong and their understanding of the Gospel is meaningless for today.
Well, you can reinvent the wheel all you want, but please just be honest about it and don't lay claim to being something you are not. In this case, you are not Reformed but something new (I was thinking maybe Deformed might be a better descriptor for your church). I would suggest that you just might have given in to that false god today that says "if it is new it is better, and if it is old it just won't do because history is inherently irrelevant". This is the tyranny of change for change's sake. To be post-modern is to embrace change after all! I would think that we just might have learned this lesson when we elected President Obama without really asking him to define what change meant. But then again, "Don't Ask Don't Tell" was his campaign theme wasn't it? Don't ask me any hard questions (like defining who I am or what I am going to do to the country), and I won't tell you the same thing twice. I'll just tell whichever audience I am speaking to what they want to hear so I can get elected. Bush is bad...change is good. But I digress...
Once again the issue here regarding history is a fundamentally anti-Christian assumption that history really has no prominent feature in our Christian life. In fact, Christianity, of all the world's religions, rests on the basic assumption that history does indeed matter and demands the utmost respect. For, Jesus was born into history, lived in history, died in history, and rose again in history, all for our salvation. Any theology that doesn't respect history doesn't respect Christ and is fundamentally anti-Christian in that regard. In addition, to disrespect those great Christians who gave gone before us is to fundamentally deny their proper place in the Communion of Saints (there I go again bringing up those stinking confessions!)
Just one final thought. I have no problem with adding to the Westminster Confession of Faith to clarify issues that have arisen in our modern day. For example, a church might have to clarify its position on the onslaught of homosexuality, or women elders/deacons, or define its distinctive worship style. Although the WCF does address these issues, we can and sometimes should highlight them because of how significant and prevalent these issues are to the modern church. That is a far cry from reinventing the wheel. It is merely high-lighting the Reformed position on contemporary issues. So, are you Reformed or Deformed? Which version of Christianity will you embrace? Or does it even matter to you because all you want to be is nice to your neighbor and be happy? I don't want you to think too hard about these things, because that might actually cause some tension in your life. I wouldn't want you to have to actually put some effort into being a Christian for that is way too demanding! Go on, continue being spiritually lazy, because all that matters is that you are happy even if your happiness is really just good old self-deception. How many "Christians" will comfortably and happily descend straight into hell because they never took time to actually think about what it means to be a real Christian? Please don't be among them!!
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