ClarkeComments.com

Hello all:

My wife, son, and I went to Central Oregon over the weekend to visit my parents. We went to church with my parents on Sunday night, and listened to the second of a series of classes on Church History that one of the preachers is teaching.

The series was called, “Studying the History of the New Testament Church.”

It was a decent lesson for the most part, sparse with information, but that is to be expected when you only have 45 minutes to cover the ante-nicene period of Church History.

Things that struck me however: Ignatius of Antioch was mentioned as one of the most prominent martyrs of the period. What the lesson leaves out is that Ignatius was the bishop of Antioch when he was executed. The teacher asserted that the apostasy took place during the nicene period, however, Ignatius being the “Bishop” of Antioch over a group of elders points to the fact that already there had been changes to the leadership structure of the church. I assume the teacher left this out because it weakens his point about the apostasy.

One of the other things that struck me was that he talked about the New Testament Pattern. He related this to the idea of a dress pattern, and stated that if the dress didn’t come out exactly like it was in the pattern, that the pattern wasn’t followed. After reading Bobby Valentine’s post on Patternism I had a hard time agreeing with him on his statement.

The final thing that was stated that bugged me a bit was the comment that there were always those out there somewhere doing things just the way we do them today. While I think God’s will was always accomplished no matter what the church and people did wrong, I don’t think there was a group of people that existed the whole time that things the way we do them. The Orthodox kept up Baptism by immersion and, and some Orthodox kept up a capella singing… but otherwise I’d say alot changed…

On the positive side, there was talk about several martyrs, as well as a quote from Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, which was a pleasant surprise. There was good information about the period that was in the lesson that was helpful. I was happy to see that they had so many people there who wanted to learn about church history. Its just too bad its not coming from a more neutral angle.

-Clarke

Hello all:

I have a couple of different things to post about, but I’ll start with this one first.

A few days ago I was talking with my 80 year old Grandmother, who lives in Missouri, over the phone. I was curious, so I asked her how she became a Chrisitan. She told me that she grew up in the church, and that her mother had grown up in the church as well.

I made a comment during the conversation that her mother must have remembered the division between the Churches of Christ and Christian Churches quite well. My grandma wasn’t sure exactly when the division happened, but she did have something to say about it:

“You know, your granddad and I had friends in the Christian Church. Their service in town was before ours, so we would go and worship with our friends at the Christian Church, and could still make it to ours. They were pretty much just like us except they had an organ. I just couldn’t disfellowship those people just because they used an instrument.”

Thats a good example that we should follow today.

-Clarke

Hello all:

I just finished reading Kingdom Come by John Mark Hicks and Bobby Valentine.

It took me a while because I’ve been really busy with work. The book itself is an easy read and is a fascinating look into the beliefs and eschatology of our forgotten past.

Bobby commented a while back that he’d like to know what I think about pacifism and religous nationalism after reading the book.

Between the lecture they gave at Pepperdine, the book, and reading some blog posts by Travis and Greg, I’ve been thinking alot about these subjects.

And I’ve changed my mind.

I grew up in a very patriotic family. My grandfather wasn’t just an elder, he was also a soldier. I grew up reading the Constitution, Decleration of Independence and the Monroe Doctrine. I read those documents more than my bible. I persued a career working in government.

But now I’d have to say that I agree more with Lipscomb’s thoughts on government. If I remember correctly from the book, Lipscomb believed that human governments existed because man was unable to govern himself under the law of Christ.

So…on pacifisim. While I’m not sure I would take a completely pacifict position, especially when it comes to protecting my family, I think I can say that Jesus was serious when he taught “turn the other cheek,” and I don’t think he was alluding to just verbal insults.

And as far as religous nationalism…. it is nothing less than idolatry. While we live here in the United States and should be thankful to God that we have it easy, we should not assume that America has a special place in the heart of God. The thought that the United States is the new Israel is wrong. To view the United States as anything other than the Babylon, Assyria, or Rome that it is is to fool oneself and elevate the temporal state to a place that it doesn’t belong.

But, this is a mistake that has been made since Constantine. Its nothing new. But we as Christians must see it for what it is.

Bobby and John Mark’s book helps us do just that. Get a copy, and read it. If you read any book besides the bible this year, this should be the one.

-Clarke

Hello all:

My wife relayed a funny/sad story to me tonight.

Her best friend’s boyfriend goes to a non-denominational community church of some sort, and he has decided to be baptized.

He’s been waiting for three months.

The church he belongs to makes you sign up on a waiting list to be baptized. They do not want to fill the baptistry each Sunday, so they only baptize people twice per month, and when they do, they only baptize a couple of people each time.

So, he’s waiting. Sara told him that he could come to our church and be baptized right away, but he wants to be baptized in front of his congregation.

Since they believe that baptism isn’t necessary, its not really that important and so they don’t believe it matters when you are baptized. The one reedeming (I think…) thing to this story is that it sounds like they baptize more people per year than we do, but they are a large church which is constantly growing.

Sara was told by her friend’s dad that, “it doesn’t matter when you are baptized since you are saved when you start believing.” She didn’t really know what to say to him and didn’t want to get into an agrument so she stayed quiet.

I think we need to rethink our logical arguments on baptism and find one that works today. It drives me nuts to be listening to the local Christian music station and hear someone talk about “inviting Jesus into your heart to be saved.” Its such an obvious error, we’ve got to find a better way to communicate the importance and necessity of baptism.

-Clarke