Thus says the Lord: "Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.
But they said, 'We will not walk in it.'" --Jeremiah 6:16

 

7 November, 2006   comments: (0) Postmodernism   Is "Deeds Without Creeds" on The Ballot? - Part 2 Emergent leader Brian McLaren is quoted as saying "It used to be that Christian institutions and systems of dogma sustained the spiritual life of Christians. Increasingly, spirituality itself is what sustains everything else". He, like many other postmodern thinkers, are on a campaign to promote the belief that we have the freedom to choose a Christianity minus dogma. They imagine that we are able to opt-out of doctrine, thus casting a vote for deeds without creeds. But as the 19th century Scottish preacher Horatius Bonar explains, it was no more possible to separate these things in his day, than it is for men like Brian McLaren to do so in ours. In the Reformation we find doctrine, life, and action, nobly blended. Between these there was harmony, not antagonism. Some who have decried doctrine have set up life and dogma as antagonists; lauding the former at the expense of the latter. This is foolishness. What we accept, as the true adjustment of conflicting claims, is life and dogma in harmony; not life without dogma, nor dogma without life; not theology without religion, nor religion without theology. "Religion without theology" is a phrase meant to sound well; yet, after all it is a deception. There can be no such thing. A tree must have a root. The phrase implies that theology has been the prison-house of religion, and that there must be emancipation from theology before religion can exercise her functions. It looks at religion as a beautiful flower imbedded in a block of ice; and demands the melting of the ice, and the liberation of the flower. ... Christianity, say many among us, is a life, not a dogma; and they reckon this the enunciation of a great and unappreciated truth. It is, however, a mere truism, or it is an unmeaning antithesis, or it is an absolute falsehood. It sounds oracular and great; it is only pompous. Christianity is both a life and a dogma; quite as much the one as the other. But it is a dogma before it is a life; it cannot be the latter till it has been the former. It is out of the dogma that the life emerges; not the dogma out of the life; and the importance that is attached in Scripture to knowledge,--right knowledge,--should make us cautious in disparaging doctrine, as if it were harmless when wrong, and impotent or uninfluential when right. The mystics of different ages have tried hard to depreciate doctrine, to praise what they call "the spirit" at the expense of "the letter"; and it is somewhat remarkable that infidelity has generally taken their side, joining with them in their jests at creeds and their sneers at dogmas. Many of the statements which we hear from advocates of the "advanced Christianity" of our day are a mere variation of the old infidelity which told us, in the last century, "For modes of faith let fools and bigots fight, His can't be wrong whose life is in the right." The object of thus opposing life to dogma is obvious enough, though not generally avowed. These theological revolutionists dislike [hindrances to freedom]. Free-thinking in its widest sense is what they hold to be the creature's birthright. "Our lips are our own, who is lord over us?" is their maxim. Our thoughts are our own, who shall fetter them? Our pens are our own, who shall constrain them? Thus, secretly at least, do many reason. Creeds, they say, are dungeons for the old; catechisms are fetters for the young; and doctrine in general, at least if precise and defined, is inconsistent with liberty of thought and expansion of intellect. "Life" is a pliable thing; it is an unfenced common; it may be anything a man likes to call it or to fancy it; there is no imperiling of human liberty in calling Christianity a life; the men of "progress" and "freshness" are safe in making this their standard; for Christianity = life may mean just Christianity = zero; at least it is an equation capable of being so manipulated as to bring out any result which the theological algebraist may desire. The exultation expressed in many quarters at the variety of opinions afloat, specially in the ecclesiastical world, is indicative of anything but goodness. It is sheer love of discord or anarchy, that seems to prompt this exuberant glee. Every new utterance of skepticism, especially on religious subjects, and by so-called "religious" men, is cheered, as another howl of that storm that is to send all creeds to the bottom of the sea; the flowing or receding tide is watched, not for the appearance of truth above the waters, but for the submergence of dogma. To be continued in part 3 - next Tuesday. -- Horatius Bonar, Catechisms of the Scottish Reformation, 1866 Related Resources and Information: Read part 1 in this series of posts. Audio Clip: Love for Christ requires love for doctrinal truth Read an article by Michael Horton on this topic Posted by: Jim B.   Link: http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.528   Be the first to post a comment about this article        Home  |   About  |  Videos   |  Calvinism