Wednesday, March 03, 2004 AD
Who are you calling a theological "serial monogamist"?
As chief Lollard Daniel Stoddart gently pointed out in a comment on Josh's blog, my switch from Anglicanism to Lutheranism is pretty recent. Indeed, I could be accused of being something of a theological flibbertigibbet, given that in ten years I've gone from atheist, to conservative evangelical (v.briefly diverted into liberalism), to vaguely charismatic (with occasional, tentative forays towards Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy), to Reformed, and now (on the verge of) Lutheran.
One could be forgiven for saying, "Hmmm, wonder how long this latest phase is going to last?" Who knows, you may be right. Perhaps CaNN's webcreature will succeed in persuading me of the merits of Orthodoxy. And I certainly felt pretty convicted by the Lutheran in a Tipi's comments the other day:
But in my defence, I'd like to point out that there are certain constants that have been there all the way, and that have ultimately kept me from veering off the road into the various ditches of liberalism, charismaticism, Roman Catholicism or whatever. In vaguely descending order (1 & 2 being far and away the most important):
1. Commitment to the truth and reliability of Scripture, but also to its instrumentality, its use by God to actually do things, rather than just being a textbook for "living the Christian life".
2. Commitment to substitutionary atonement and justification by faith alone.
3. A conviction that the sacraments should matter more than they do to most evangelicals - and in particular, a commitment to infant baptism - but combined with a degree of confusion over what the sacraments actually do.
4. Frustration with the shallowness and novelty of much contemporary evangelicalism, which often seems determined to give the impression that Christianity was invented in around 1960.
5. A love of liturgy, not just for aesthetic reasons, but as a perfect vehicle for the Gospel.
To be precise, numbers 3 to 5 have been the factors keeping me dissatisfied with much of evangelicalism, while numbers 1 & 2 are the factors that have actually kept me evangelical despite it all. But in the light of that, you can probably see why Lutheranism scratches an awful lot of itches for me. And why, for various reasons, moving on to what some people might see as the obvious "next stages" of Orthodoxy or Roman Catholicism would require infinitely greater upheavals in my core convictions (esp. numbers 1 & 2) than changing from Reformed Anglicanism to confessional Lutheranism.
One could be forgiven for saying, "Hmmm, wonder how long this latest phase is going to last?" Who knows, you may be right. Perhaps CaNN's webcreature will succeed in persuading me of the merits of Orthodoxy. And I certainly felt pretty convicted by the Lutheran in a Tipi's comments the other day:
Some people can be serial fanatics; that is, they are obsessed by something new every week (or year, or decade), sometimes ruthlessly casting off or disowning their old achievements in the process. Some have "renaissance mentalities" and are interested in everything; this can be deadly in an information age.Heck Twylah, you haven't even met me and you seem to know me better than my mother ;-)
But in my defence, I'd like to point out that there are certain constants that have been there all the way, and that have ultimately kept me from veering off the road into the various ditches of liberalism, charismaticism, Roman Catholicism or whatever. In vaguely descending order (1 & 2 being far and away the most important):
1. Commitment to the truth and reliability of Scripture, but also to its instrumentality, its use by God to actually do things, rather than just being a textbook for "living the Christian life".
2. Commitment to substitutionary atonement and justification by faith alone.
3. A conviction that the sacraments should matter more than they do to most evangelicals - and in particular, a commitment to infant baptism - but combined with a degree of confusion over what the sacraments actually do.
4. Frustration with the shallowness and novelty of much contemporary evangelicalism, which often seems determined to give the impression that Christianity was invented in around 1960.
5. A love of liturgy, not just for aesthetic reasons, but as a perfect vehicle for the Gospel.
To be precise, numbers 3 to 5 have been the factors keeping me dissatisfied with much of evangelicalism, while numbers 1 & 2 are the factors that have actually kept me evangelical despite it all. But in the light of that, you can probably see why Lutheranism scratches an awful lot of itches for me. And why, for various reasons, moving on to what some people might see as the obvious "next stages" of Orthodoxy or Roman Catholicism would require infinitely greater upheavals in my core convictions (esp. numbers 1 & 2) than changing from Reformed Anglicanism to confessional Lutheranism.
