Daniel Zylstra

I don't know about that, Larry. My reading of the proposed article 18 includes brackets around that part where it talks about the heresy of the Anabaptists. This is similar to what was don with the H.C. and the Roman Catholic mass being a "condemnable idolotry"-- the translation committee elected to keep the language, but note that it was historical and that we no longer believe that this is the actual situation. 

On the other hand, the HC change had a footnote to that effect, and I don't see one here, so I wonder...what do those brackets mean here?

Thoughts, anyone?

in His service,

Dan.

It doesn't. I don't mean to be rude, but if you read my comment, I say that the remarks in question have square brackets around them, and that similar square brackets in the HC concerning Q&A 80 are followed with a footnote that indicates that we no longer believe this to be true about the Catholic Church. I then go on to ask whether or not thes square brackets are supposed to mean something similar with regards to the Anabaptists. I don't claim that they for sure do mean something similar, I simply am speculating.

Dan.

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<p>Thanks for all the replies everyone!

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<p>@ Bruce: I hear what you're saying about our particular flavour and aroma, and I would agree with you that, on an inter-denominational level we are definitely acquiring that kind of good aroma. I think that we're not all the way there yet, but things like the Reformed/Catholic dialogue on the sacraments and the revision proces for Q&A 80 in the Heidelberg Catechism bode very well for our future in that regard.

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<p>My questions have more to do with how we treat fellow believers from other traditions who come to worship with us. In this day and age when we are encouraged by the denomination (and rightly so) to start "counting to one", and when more and more people search out congregations based more on things like what sort of mission activities the church participates in, etc., and less and less on the nuances of doctrine (I'm not talking about the big stuff--people still care about that), then how should we respond to these "new" people in our midst?

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<p>Is it really right for us to say: "You cannot be a member of our congregation because you don't believe in infant baptism."? Or, "You can't be an elder in the church because you believe in the possibility of a second blessing."? What if these people hold these convictions genuinely, but are willing to submit to the teaching of the church and not to "promote" or "indoctrinate" others with their beliefs within the community, but are willing to present fairly what the church believes instead? 

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<p>For ministers there is room for a "gravamen" or some such thing (which is a whole 'nother discussion), but what about for people who would normally be perfectly suitable for serving as elder or deacon or Sunday school teacher? Where's the room for them?

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<p>@Bev: Thanks for your encouragement. Let me encourage you. I don't know where you're from, but here in Ontario there are many people who wrestle with these types of questions. My congregation is not the only one. Many ministers and church leaders wrestle with this type of question on a very frequent basis. Some congregations that I'm aware of seem to have abandoned any sense of a reformed identity and have basically "masked" themselves as non-denominational, community churches. Other congregations have taken a "harder" line and have not allowed people in membership or in leadership depending on their beliefs about relatively non-central things. And many other churches fall somewhere in-between. Ours falls currently somewhere in-between, in that we allow membership, but we don't allow certain leadership roles for people who believe differently than us in terms of (for example) infant vs. believer's baptism.

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<p>As far as our "fear of the Holy Spirit" goes, I can understand where you're coming from, and there are some folks in our congregation who feel the same way as you. I also understand the historical and theological context for others' "fear", as you put it. Again, this is an issue where there's legitimate room to say (IMHO) that there is not an ABSOLUTELY clear answer to some of these questions. We've wrestled with it as a denomination, and our "official" doctrine has come a long way (I'd encourage you to read the study reports on "3rd wave pentecostalism", if you haven't already). The practical living out of that doctrine is a different story for many of our congregants. But in the meantime, how can we create room for each other--for those who are essentially "cessationists" and for those who are essentially "3rd Wave Pentecostals"?

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<p>@Peter: Thank you too for your comments! I would agree with what you've said on so many fronts. I do think that sexual orientation is a significant part of this discussion as well. We have people (as do we all) who are homosexual and/or who struggle with what a proper biblical understanding of this issue is. In the past the church (as a whole) has had a pretty lamentable history of dealing with sexuality in general and homosexuality in particular. Still today there is not really a general recognition among Christians that sexual orientation is perhaps not quite as clearly black and white as maybe we once thought it was, and that there's a possibility that, no matter what viewpoint we have we might possibly be wrong...and that perhaps we ought to make room for each other in this too.

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<p>I guess I'm suggesting that there must be a different way altogether:

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<p>1.) Teach people what we (as Reformed Christians) believe.

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<p>2.) Acknowledge to our own people (in addition to other denominations) that we don't believe that we have an absolute corner on the truth, but that this is the best we've been able to understand His revelation so far.

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<p>3.) Allow for membership and leadership, provided the potential members/leaders acknowledge humbly that they too do not have an absolute corner on the truth and that they will not undermine the teachings of the church by proseletyzing others, etc.

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<p>Blessings, everyone. Thanks for contributing your thought. I appreciate them as I explore and seek to follow Him.

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<p>in His service,

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<p>Dan.

The problem with Ursinus' Larger Catechism here is the problem that I have with our historical stance on this, and the same problem we all (as Reformed People) have with our Baptist friends' theology: The kind of statement above (whether about Lord's Supper or about Baptism) is based on an arbitrarily drawn human line in the sand. Here are a couple of examples pointing to why this kind of thinking is problematic:

1) Seeing as we testify to the fact that God is ultimately unfathomable and His wisdom is so far above our own which of us can truly claim to actually be able to, in a substantially different way from children, really examine ourselves. On a scale of 0-Infinite (0 being just born and Infinite being God) We're all a LOT closer to the 0 than we are to the infinite. So who are we (or who is Ursinus for that matter) to say that a child is not capable of adequate self examination, but an adult is?

2) We also have the issue of those who will NEVER be able to reach whatever kind of "age of discernment" we might set, mentally. I don't mean to make an argument from exceptions, but it remains worthy of note that, to some degree allowing mentally disabled folks to participate in Lord's Supper (something I'm wholly in favour of) points out the absurdity of cutting off those who are children on the grounds that they don't understand enough.

3) Another issue we have to face with Ursinus here is that, as we believe it to be the case with Baptism, we have no evidence to say that the disciples and/or the early church excluded little children from Communion. In fact the evidence seems to point to the small home churches of Acts and the early church being, for the most part, inclusive family affairs. Not only that, but we also have the Biblical pattern laid out, in both the case of circumsicion and the passover, that children were to participate. Not only that, but we also have Jesus' example of inviting the little children to come to him and his testimony that "to such as these belong the kingdom"

4) We also lastly have the issue that there are two errors we can fall into here: We can err on the side of too much constriction and "hedging the table" too much, or we can err on the side of too much generosity. Church history since the time of Constantine has generally (in my opinion) erred on the side of too much constriction in this respect (just look at the physical "shape" of the sacrament and compare it to what the early church seemed to celebrate as an example of this constriction). But a wise friend of mine once said to me that it is almost always better to err on the side of generosity than otherwise. If we're going to make a mistake (as we probably will, being who we are) then I, for one, would rather make it on the inclusive end of things.

in His service,

Dan.

I think this is a great report. I guess I just have one question really: What does "age and ability appropriate faith in Jesus Christ" mean?

Thanks for the affirmation, Colin. I couldn't agree with you more! ;-)

I too finished at CTS not that long ago (EPMC), but before that I was at Tyndale for my M.Div. When at Tyndale I was introduced to Accordance Bible Software for the Mac, Logos, eSword, the Christian Classics Etherial Library (from Calvin), BibleReader for Palm, etc., etc., etc. --there are a tonne of resources out there.

However, I ended up with Accordance. I've found that Accordance has more flexibility and power than Logos, has better attention to detail with the texts and modules, has a better layout in terms of usability, and pretty competitive pricing. I doesn't have as many modules as Logos, but I haven't felt any lack either. I used Accordance to write my original language exercises at Calvin and I was done substantially faster than most of the other students and was very please with how well the results turned out from the test. I found myself waiting for everyone else during most of the class sessions too.

That being said, I haven't worked with Logos 4, and I understand it's quite a new thing. Also, Accordance is only available on the Mac (or in emulation on a PC), whereas Logos is now available for both.

My advice (not that anyone asked) is to go with Accordance if you have a Mac, or if you're thinking of switching to one, UNLESS you're just entering CTS--then you should get Logos, because they're heavily invested in that software. Both are great pieces of software--I prefer one over the other for (I think) good reasons, but the difference between them in power and capability is really quite minimal, IMHO.

What about others? What do you use?

Dan.

The questions may or may not be super-different, but the issues are certainly more immediate. There are several families within our little congregation alone who wrestle with some of these issues. As a pastor, I do my best, but it would sure be good to have more updated denominational resources help us.

Our church has chosen to be entirely fragrance free for a few years now. It has been a mixed bag in terms of "success". On the one hand, people who suffer significant scent allergies and/or scent related migraines are very thankful and feel heard and loved in a way that they never had before. On the other hand, we've had the following issues:

1) Some people ignore the "fragrance free" request, in spite of our best efforts.

2) Guests don't know the policy before they show up, and either feel bad about having a scent, or will leave as soon as they see the sign, even!

3) We've tried having only a section of the church fragrance free, but that's like having a section of the church "air free"-- scents travel on the air; you can't limit them by having a fragrance free section, any more than you could limit smoke by having a non-smoking restaurant section, without walled off sections and completely separate air circulation systems.

In the end we maintain the policy out of love and compassion for those who really suffer, but we still wrestle with how to do it in a way that doesn't turn others away or make them feel bad.

As for Bill's comments: I'm really bummed out about them, Bill. You're comments display a fairly high level of ignorance and lack of compassion for anyone. It's unfortunate, in my opinion, that you saw fit to publish them here.

Thank you both for your comments. I really respect what you have to say, but I have a couple more questions for you, then. I think maybe that I was not clear enough in my first post: but your thoughts have helped me clarify in my own mind what I'm really asking, so maybe I'll be able to be clearer the second time around.

I think truly that I shouldn't have made it about advice vs. commands, but rather about literal commands vs. commands in principle. I'm not sure that's even the right phraseology--there's probably some latin term that would cover it nicely. But what I mean is this: when a command is given it can be given in such a way that the specific, literal interpretation is what is truly meant with the command, it can also be given in such a way that the principles that underly the command are the true command, and the details may be altered in different circumstances.

For example, when I tell my son, "Stop poking your sister with a stick", there's a lot of context there and a great deal of background stuff that I've tried to teach him about being merciful and kind, and gentle, and loving to his sisters. What I'm really saying is, "Be nice to your sister (and doing it by not poking your sister with a stick)." The details about poking your sister with a stick are not the main point really. It's a bit of a stretch, but I can imagine a scenario where it would be important and/or good for him to poke her with a stick (I have a good imagination).

However, there are some commands for which there is no underlying principle. For example, when Jesus says that the two greatest laws are to 'Love the Lord your God,... and to love your neighbour as yourself', He gets at the heart of the law, and all the other laws are subject to those two.

Therefore, if I read Mt. 18 correctly, there is a specific sequence of events that should be followed in the case of a Christ-follower sinning against another Christ-follower, HOWEVER, circumstances may dictate that the law of LOVE would teach us to modify the specifics to meet the higher principle involved.

I don't think I knew that's what I was proposing in the beginning, so I'm very greatful for your feedback. I'd be even more greatful if you had still more feedback for me.... what do you think?