Tuesday, 25 June, 2002

The lead piece is from "Amazing Grace by Kathleen Norris. In this book she takes many of the words and images of the faith and attempts to put some reality and life to them.



HERESY (I just had to continue with this one. Especially after I noted how important it was to study church history.)

Many American Christians, for example, are Donatists at heart. Donatism is a heresy that arose in the early years of the church, following the last great persecutions of Christians under the Roman Empire. (...questioning whether other Christians, including priests or bishops who had turned over their Bibles to be confiscated and offered pagan sacrifices in order to save their lives, were now worthy to be church members or to administer sacraments.)

Donatism surfaced recently on the "Faith page" of the Bismarck Tribune, where a pastor related having to convince skeptical Lutherans in a rural parish that having a United Church of Christ minister conduct their communion service did not invalidate the sacrament. "What if that person doesn't believe like we believe?" he was asked, and he replied that for Christians the question had been settled in the fourth century. "The person administering [the sacrament] could believe anything," he explained, "and it doesn't change it. It is not that person's table we are coming to, but the Lord's."



The response to the members dates back to an Argument from St. Augustine. But it also is a part of what was Luther's thought on the sacraments. So even today, there are those who would like to think in old patterns that can as Norris says, "keep coming back to haunt the church." We do many things in the church for the sake of "good order" and yet those orderly things cannot be the final word. We must be willing to keep wrestling with what brings the Christ into the center of our life together....and "life" is the operative word here. Not everything goes...and yet many things can "go." The important part is that we all become aware of those things that are very central to our life together. I am finding more and more that Luther's catechism is a good refresher.



Connection: Sometimes it is good to simply listen to what is being said when people start talking about the life of the faith. I find that this is easily done with things like superstitions. There are no superstitions in the church...and when we hear things that sound like..."if you do this...then this will happen" - be careful.



Lord of all the ages and foundation for the adventures of our lives, keep our eyes set on the vision of your Gracious reign that we may tune into the words and actions and life that make up the many facets of your faithful people. Amen.