Some Christian Convictions: A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day ThinkingCoffin, Henry Sloane
Religion
Some Christian Convictions: A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking
Coffin, Henry Sloane
Christianity -- 20th century; Theology, Doctrinal -- Popular works
They have bequeathed to us a solemn trust; they have
enriched us with a priceless heritage; they have transmitted to us
their life with Christ in God. The Church comes to us saying:
I am like a stream that flows,
Full of the cold springs that arose
In morning lands, in distant hills;
And down the plain my channel fills,
With melting of forgotten snows.
But the historic succession of Christians through the centuries is not
our sole connection with Christ; we not only look _back_ to Him, we also
look _up_ and look _in_ to Him, for He lives above and in us. The Church
is not a widow, but a bride; and shares its Lord's life in the world
today. The same Spirit who lived and ruled in the Church of the first
days has been breathed on us, through the long line of
apostolic-spirited men and women who reach back to Jesus, and lives and
rules in us. We must keep the unity of the Spirit with the believers of
the past, and with all who are Spirit-led in the world today; and we
must remember that "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."
We are not bound by the precedents of bygone centuries in our
organization; we are free to take from the past what is of worth to us,
and we are free to let the rest go. Is not the Spirit of God as able to
take materials at hand in our own age, and to use them for the
government, the worship, the creed, the methods of the living Church of
Christ?
We cannot, of course, be content with an unrealized unity of the Church.
Every little group of Christians, in the first age, felt itself the
embodiment in its locality of the whole Church, and it was at one in
effort with followers of Jesus everywhere. It exercised hospitality
towards every Christian who came within its neighborhood, welcoming him
to its fellowship and expecting him to use his gifts in its communion.
We want the whole Body of Christ organized, so that it is vividly
conscious of its unity, so that it does not waste its energy in
maintaining needlessly separate churches, so that followers of Christ
feel themselves welcome at every Table of the Lord, and every gifted
leader, accredited in any part of the Church, is accepted as accredited
in every other where he can be profitably used. The practical problem in
Church reorganization is identical with that which confronts society in
politics and in industry--how to secure efficient administration while
safeguarding liberty, how to combine the solidarity of the group with
the full expression of its members' individualities. To be effective the
Church must work as a compactly ordered whole. Individuals must
surrender personal preferences in order that the Church may have
collective force. Teamwork often demands the suppression of
individuality. There will have to be sufficient authority lodged in
those who exercise oversight to enable them to lead the Christian forces
and administer their resources. But we dare not curtail the freedom of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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