Tribute in the Coming Year
In the Scorsese interviews with Bob Dylan, the song-smith was asked if he was a rebel when he was a youngster in northern Minnesota. Dylan replied that it was northern Minnesota and it was too cold for rebellion. My family and I live close to the 45th parallel north. Maine often wins the trophy for the least-churched state in the nation. This is a kind of one-two punch. It’s cold: physically and spiritually. That’s why the Church in Maine needs to huddle.
Beginning in January, Tribute will become an online magazine that will showcase the work of folks other than simply myself. I write on a quarterly basis for Theopolis; I’m submitting pieces elsewhere; and Kingdom work in Maine would be greatly encouraged by more consistent interconnectivity of believers, especially ones gifted and called to write about the Church.
Listen to the words of Richard Baxter, from whom Lewis lifted the clause Mere Christianity:
I am a Chrisitan, a Meer Christian, of no other Religion; and the Church that I am of is the Christian Church, and hath been visible where ever the Christian Religion and Church hath been visible: But must you know what Sect or Party I am of? I am against all Sects and dividing Parties: But if any will call Meer Christians by the name of a Party because they take up with Meer Christianity, Creed, and Scripture, and will not be of any dividing or contentious Sect, I am of that Party which is so against Parties: If the Name Christian be not enough, call me a Catholic Christian; not as that word signifieth an hereticating majority of Bishops, but as it signifieth one that hath no Religion, but that which by Christ and the Apostles was left to the Catholic Church or the Body of Jesus Christ on Earth. - Church-History of the Governance of Bishops (1680)
People sometimes go too far by suggesting that Baxter’s use of mere dosen’t mean mere. By Baxter’s day, however, the word had gone from meaning “pure” to meaning something like “nothing more/nothing less”. If anyone meant something like ‘simply Christian’ when saying ‘mere Christianity’ it was Baxter. And Lewis. And Wright.
There are a couple of basic principles that will be set forth in attempting to create a resource for the curating of Reformed Catholic content in Maine. Firstly, the thought begins with the pressing need to root one’s understanding and one’s theological standing in history. As progressive thought advances into every institution, including the Church, and untethers individuals from one another and from history, burning all bridges to the past and all in the name of freedom, someone needs to be pulling the maps out of the fire.
If Protestantism can only be discussed as an equal and opposite pole to Roman Catholocism, then it’s not only worthless but hostile to the true covenant people of God. As Leithart warns us, if Christianity is only one option at the banquet of world religions, then its most pressing claims are simply not true. Jesus did not start a new religion; He started a new human line.
The Reformed Catholic tradition emphasizes the clarifying agency of the Reformation. They were not simply men and women on the right side of a theological debate, they were used by God to bring the expression of the Gospel back to a purer state. The ‘nothing more/nothing less’ of the Reformation was liberation theology in its truest form. The ongoing need for the clarified church to constantly be clarifying became the mantra (Ecclesia Reformata, Semper Reformanda). Somehow, this eventually devolved into something like, “The qualified church must always be qualifying.” Rather than clarity, obfuscation and complexity abound. While unity in the Church should never be attempted for its own sake, it should be attempted for Christ’s sake.
As soon as one says something as monolithic as “The Reformers”, one has to recognize we are inventing something of an apparition. The Reformers agreed on some things, but similar to their Puritan ancestors, there was a great deal of disagreement that lived beneath that mantle. Exactly. That’s exactly the point. In the tradition of Perkins, Baxter, Schaff, Lewis, and many more, the desire is not to sacrifice true Gospel for unity, but to rather establish a true unity on what is historically understood to be true Gospel. More to come. Feel free to check out Boniface House.
