From the outside, Christianity is a generic worldview. The mainstream simply isn’t privy to our movements, our debates, our inner circles. To them, Joel Osteen and R.C. Sproul are just pastors. As far as they’re concerned, both think and believe the same things. They see low-budget movies, Bible verse bumper stickers, people who don’t like gays and Republicans arguing over assault rifles. It’s only once you’re on the inside that you learn the vast differences in our denominations, history, and beliefs. Some Christians are content with ambiguity once they join the club. Some chose to mine the riches of doctrine and church history to determine if they’re in the right building.
My goal, in this short space, is to invite you out of generic Christianity and into a better place. If you’re still on the outside, unsure of what your church believes and how it got there, then I know exactly how you feel. I was once on the outside, and the place I’m talking about seemed like a cold British library filled with bear skin rugs, old guys sipping scotch and ten-dollar seminary words that went way over my head. It seemed like an intimidating place where I wasn’t welcome. Instead of trying to join them, I pushed back by saying that all I needed was the Holy Spirit and my Bible to understand what I believed. While I was right in one respect, that really is all you need, it now seems like an arrogant position. How could I believe that what the Holy Spirit was doing in my life and in my church was all that mattered? Is it not important to see what the Holy Spirit has been doing throughout the life of the church? Was his work in them, way back then, somehow less important?
Your church probably didn’t just show up one day, and if you’re a part of any denomination then you have a rich history of men and women that were led by the same Spirit. Trust me when I say that learning more about what your church teaches and her history will quickly become less like a cold library and more like a warm blanket that you’ll embrace. It’s good to be proud of where you worship and how, knowing what you believe and why. If you’re wondering how to get started then ask your pastor. Chances are he didn’t just fall into the denomination. Ask him for some of the books he studied while in seminary. Read them. Get online and find some articles and books from reputable sources. Read those. It isn’t hard if you’re looking in the right place. Check out your denomination’s statement of faith or confession. Chances are your confession wasn’t written out in a day and is more than a simple “What we believe” link on your website. Some of them date back more than 500 years and they provide a great summary of your church doctrine. This will all take some work on your part, but trust me when I say it’s time well spent. If you decide to go down this road then you need to pass on what you’ve learned. Start a small group so you can teach others about the history of your church or denomination. We don’t live in a time where church history or denominational distinctions are widely discussed on Sundays. I’ve heard the phrase “doctrine divides” more times than I can count but I couldn’t possibly disagree more. While doctrine does divide Presbyterians from Pentecostals, it shouldn’t divide a church. Doctrine unites those within the same building. It gives people a sense of comfort knowing that they’re a part of a church that teaches what they believe. Doctrine is only an issue if your church doesn’t teach what it confesses, or if it’s in error. If your church is teaching unbiblical doctrine then it might be the time you find a new place to worship. While I see no need to leave a church because of music, pastoral preference or worship environment, there is a good reason to leave if they aren’t teaching the truth of scripture on major issues. I also don’t believe there is any warrant to leave a church based on history. Most denominations have been around a really long time. They might have existed during slavery, prohibition, the Great Depression, World War II, you get the picture. Chances are your church didn’t always stand on the right side of the line during these times. Every denomination has gone through problems, splits, and has some embarrassment, but that shouldn’t stop you from learning more about your heritage. Let’s be honest, you’ll scarcely find a church that admits to unbiblical teaching, but one thing that can tip you off is the novelty of their doctrine. God’s word is not new, and neither is heresy. If you can’t find any historical reference to what you’re being taught then that should give you pause. History is not the measuring rod for theological accuracy, but it is a helpful guardrail. As much as I dislike analogies, if God’s word is an ocean, and your pastor the captain of the ship, then historical Christian orthodoxy is the GPS system that keeps you off the rocks. Paul is stern is his warnings to the churches in Galatia and Corinth when it comes to teaching a different gospel or doctrine that wasn’t delivered by the Apostles. The relentless assault on Biblical truth from both culture and philosophy makes navigation difficult, but finding historical context will allow you to know you’re on the right course. We all want to believe that Christianity has sailed on smoothly ever since the resurrection of Christ, but it’s not that simple. While you might not be able to decipher the earliest writings of the church, you should find some solace in getting as close to the source as possible. If you can’t follow the theological breadcrumbs back to the source, then don’t panic. The internet wasn’t all that popular back then. However, if your trail goes cold in the 18th or 19th century then it might be time to rethink your starting point. The invention of the printing press allowed for the floodgates of theological documentation to be poured upon the masses. Tracing your church’s doctrine through the centuries and back to the development of Protestantism is sufficient to ensure that you’ve reached the hallmark of Biblical accuracy, Sola Scriptura. Most of the theological development since that period is really just recycled heresy from previous centuries with new names attached. Officially getting off subject: Hang on as I jump into a completely different aspect of this topic. If you stick around, you’ll see how nicely I tie them back together. Right now I’d like to appeal to the fathers out there. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re losing our kids in droves. Now I don’t pretend to have all the answers here, and my understanding of soteriology prevents me from believing that we can educate our kids into salvation, but I do understand why some kids are leaving the church and I think we can help them. One of the reasons they leave is that they don’t have a good concept of the church as a whole. They see Sundays inside a vacuum. The church is just the place they went every Sunday from the time they could walk until the day they left for college. It’s good for our kids to be able to look down the tunnel a bit and see that some of the greatest thinkers and leaders throughout time have been Christians. Men like Calvin, Edwards, and Augustine. These men are worthy of your time and respect and they’re worth the respect of your children too. We have all these great confessions, all this rich church history and doctrine and yet we never teach it to the next generation. One day, other people will start to treat our children like they’re smart. They start to college and automatically inherit a feeling of intellectual superiority, even though they’ve yet to really earn it. Their intellect gets challenged for the first time and they like it, they feed on it. They look around the intellectual landscape today and they see Dawkins, Harris, and droves of other New York Times best-selling authors that form the collective atheistic pope. Sadly, most people today don’t have the capacity to recognize the fact that anything that’s a best seller is neither truly scientific nor profoundly philosophical. Books that meet those criteria are not easily digestible, nor intended for mass consumption. They satisfy their hunger with something that’s more like a pop tart than a steak. With no frame of reference, our young adults eat it up and feel like they’ve walked away with enough talking points to rattle the cages of their old friends from the youth group when they return home. Instead of letting them wait to be challenged by their secular professors, let’s challenge them now, in church. Let’s give them Boettner. Let’s give them Van Til. Let them wrestle with Hume, Nietzsche, and Marx to show them how Christianity has always been able to respond to even the most formidable opponents. Fill them up and stuff their faces with so much theology and Christian philosophy that when someone slides them a Hitchens paperback they see right through his self-promoting, book-tour atheism and recognize it for what it is; well written entry-level thought. The alternative is leaving them unprepared for even meager assaults on their worldview and left with no armor to fend off the trolls. Now, while they’re in your care, use the time to ground them in their pedigree and ensure that their roots grow deep by expanding their minds and building up the necessary walls that will protect them from impromptu attacks that more resemble a homemade pipe-bomb than a well thought out battle plan from a capable military. That tie-in I promised earlier. It’s an amazing time to be a Christian. The resurgence of Reformed Theology is providing us with so much meaty Christian thought that it seems like the internet can barely contain it all. There’s a real thirst for older books, older sermons, and a genuine desire for historical worship, especially in our younger generations. There’s always going to be a place for newer, more innovative ways to do church, but what was old is now new again. The search for truth and an orthodox anchor has taken us right back into the days of the Reformation. We need to learn from our history, and to do so means we need to learn our history. So this is an open invitation to all Christians. You’re being invited into the library. It’ll take some time to get up to speed so don’t get in a hurry. Don’t get frustrated and leave too soon. The end result is worth the effort, and the benefits could easily outlive you as they’re passed along to our youth.
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