Because of a couple of questions, let me take a moment for a little aside before I return to my being a no-longer-teenage charismatic.
It has been mentioned that first I say that Radical Reformation Protestants and Calvinists form part of the philosophical background of today’s progressive/liberal Christians and then I say that extreme ecstatics are the spiritual precursors to today’s progressive/liberal Christians. Am I trying to simply jump on Protestants?
Well, I hope I am not simply jumping on Protestants. My intent is rather to trace a series of philosophy of history and spiritual developments that opened the door to many of today’s progressive/liberal hermeneutics. Having said that, it has been my conclusion that anytime any group has tried to fiddle with the Scriptural/historical foundations of the Church it has neither “returned” us to “true” Christianity nor has it “freed” us to listen to the voice of God. In this I agree with a friend of mine who publishes the Sarx blog. Of course, he would say that this is because there was no such thing as an Original and Trueâ„¢ Christianity.
My conclusion has been very different. The foundations of Christianity are inextricably wound up in both Scripture and history. I would go even farther than that. The foundations of Christianity are inextricably would up in both the written deposit of the faith–Scripture–and the verbal deposit of the faith–Holy Tradition. Yes, yes, I know that my friend on Sarx would argue that there is no such thing as Holy Tradition. Nevertheless, what is true is that every attempt to divorce Christianity from either Scripture (by way of the extreme ecstatics) or history (the alternate narratives proposed by the Radical Reformers and the Calvinists) has resulted in a Christianity that, eventually, begins to lose the ability to maintain solid moorings.
It is not the Reformation that bothers me. There is little doubt that the Roman Catholic Church was in desperate need of reformation. It is the arguments that were used by the Reformation Protestants that bother me. Reformation Protestants never figured out how to counter Roman arguments without destroying the philosophical and spiritual basis of the Church.
Well, of course there was Christianity in the early days… there is just nothing to return to: We need to find Original and Trueâ„¢ Christianity now. We don’t have a time machine.
We can no sooner go back to “the real thing” from “the early days” than we can go back to 18th Century Russia. (Iz not time machine! Iz OUTRAGE!)
Actually, I agree with you for slightly different reasons. We cannot return to a supposed New Testament Christianity. I am convinced that even the Twelve Apostles would not want us to try to replicate the beginnings of the Church under them. I am convinced that this is because they were conscious that the Church would develop a structure which they could not fully foresee nor foreplan. I would argue that the pastoral epistles already show an understanding that there is structural development happening under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.