A couple of articles from meeting agendas in 2008 by Rubel Shelly in I Just Want to be a Christian. Goes along with some of what we were talking about yesterday.
Good Ideas Have a Way of Going Bad
Sociologists and anthropologists have occasionally pointed to a pattern of change which tends to occur in institutions from one generation to the next. Think of the history of some great nation, or some labor movement, or educational enterprise. Think also of the direct implications it has for the life of the church.
The first generation is made up of the "founding fathers and mothers" who have some things in common. They are drawn together by a vision of something new, for which they have paid a high price. Often they have left some old institutions to join the new movement. Friends and relatives sought to draw them back and, when this failed, cut them off. Moreover, they faced high risk, for there was no assurance that the new organization they founded would survive. Cut off from their old world, they are bound together by strong ties of fellowship and oneness of purpose.
The second generation is made up of the children of the founders, or by the generation that takes over from the founders. Here a major structural change takes place. While the founders paid a high price to leave their old institutions to form the new one, the children grow up within the framework of the new institution and its programs. The cost is not so high, but neither is the commitment. Members of the second generation do grow up amid the excitement, sacrifice, and commitment of the new movement, but they acquire second-hand the vision that motivated their parents.
By the third, fourth, and fifth generations, the new movement has become "the establishment." These generations grow up with the institutional structures. In churches the children go to Sunday school and youth meetings with their friends, then with those friends they make profession of faith and are baptized. In schools and mission agencies, people work their way through the ranks to positions of leadership. For all of them, to remain within the institution is the path of least resistance and cost.
The Disciples of Discoverers
Daniel Boorstin, Librarian of Congress since 1975 and winner of a Pulitzer Prize for a volume of American history, has made an observation, which seems relevant here. He says: "the disciples of discoverers are enemies of discovery."
The American Restoration Movement began as an exercise in discovery. Bright men with open minds looked to Scripture in an effort to discern the will of God, distinguish that divine will from accretions and departures, and to practice the former without being encumbered by the latter. These men urged their pupils to be open-minded, but some of those students turned their ideas into dogma. The exciting sense of discovery and restoration began to give way to the dull and confining task of maintain the approaches to spiritual knowledge now regarded as traditional.
Socrates loved ancient Athens but was distressed in his belief that what had made Athens great was being abandoned by most of his own generation. Thus he went on a mission he regarded as divine. Saying that Athens was like a powerful but sluggish horse, he described himself as the "gadfly of Athens." He saw his mission in terms of stinging the city, not to hurt it but to awaken it.
To quote Boorstin again, "The great obstacle to progress is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge." Until we are humble enough to resume learning, we are not true "disciples" of the Son of God. Openness precedes learning and growing. What we thought was right all along may or may not be right after all; only honest investigation can settle the matter. If what we have been taught is right, our personal study will result in transforming tradition into genuine faith; if anything we have been taught is wrong, we do ourselves a favor to discover and move away from it. We have never hesitated to challenge our Presbyterian or Baptist neighbors to "lay aside prejudice and study for yourself"; we must not hesitate to display the virtue we call for in others.
Thanks, John Jenkins
865-803-8179 cell
Gatlinburg, TN
Email: jrjenki@gmail.com
Website: http://www.greenbriersolutions.com
"Remember, the only difference between marital and martial is where you put the 'i'"
Albert "the Reb" Lewis
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