Faith into Action??

2008-11-14T20:56:40+00:00

The September 2008 Newsletter contained an essay by Philip Sudworth on Point 8 which he entitled “Faith into Action”. Part of what he wrote is reproduced below with permission.
* How do you respond to his assessment? Is he right in commenting,”PCN will come of age when its focus moves from what we believe to what we are going to do about it,” or should PCN remain fundamentally as a discussion forum?
* Pavel
* *

“Faith into Action
* “I am quite sure that the discussion groups serve a very useful purpose in supporting forward thinking Christians, who often feel isolated within traditional churches, and in introducing them to writers, teachers and scholars who will help them to take their thinking further. I know from personal experience that, after struggling with faith for years amongst those who have simple, unquestioning, traditional beliefs, it is very comforting to realize that one is not alone and that there are many others on the same quest with whom one can be open about doubts and dreams.
* “Yet, if our approach to God is truly to be through the life and teachings of Jesus, we must realize that faith is far more about challenge and commitment than feeling comfortable. While coming to a personal position on theological points is important in establishing our individual integrity, it is only when this is translated into action on behalf of others that it begins to have real value. To paraphrase James 2:17: “It doesn’t matter how modern your faith is. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.”

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“Of course, PCN members will all be active in a wide variety of charity work as part of their discipleship, but how many of them are doing this in their role as a PCN member or feel that they are “equipped” or even supported by PCN, practically or spiritually, in the work they are called to carry out?
* “The reason I have remained within my local evangelical Methodist church, despite being told frequently that I am not a Christian, is because it provides a societal framework through which I have been able to respond much more effectively to local community needs than I ever could as a lone searcher after truth. PCN may keep me spiritually sane, but it is the traditional church that supports me in expressing my faith practically, even as it reiterates that good deeds will avail me nothing without the ‘right’ beliefs.
* “PCN will come of age when its focus moves from what we believe to what we are going to do about it. This would probably involve a change in its mission statement from “to promote and support open and contemporary Christian understanding” to something like “to provide encouragement, support and training for open and contemporary Christian discipleship.” Then its conferences and courses will spend far less time in differentiating itself from conventional Christianity and far more on practical issues. How do we communicate our modern thinking to the great majority who don’t read theology without appearing to debunk Christianity totally? What words of comfort do we give to the dying and the bereaved, if we don’t believe in a traditional Heaven? What are we actually going to do to carry out the mission Jesus declared - struggling for justice for the oppressed, ministering to the broken-hearted, supporting and encouraging the poor and giving those leading restricted lives new horizons? How do we bring hope to a European continent that is increasingly rapidly losing faith?
* “From my experience churches don’t become communities because the people share the same beliefs or participate in worship together but when its members care for each other. The best way of engendering the spirit of community is to work together on some project that is focused outside the church. We need to look at how we make our local PCN groups much more than talking shops.
* “In PCN we have to be more passionate about people than points of theology, we need to see ourselves as doers rather than doubters, and we must express our liberalism through the way we love and live. It is then that we become true followers of Jesus and can justifiably begin the Eight Points with - ‘We are Christians.’”
* Philip Sudworth

New Wine

2010-07-28T11:23:17+00:00

New Wine – William Barclay’s Commentary on Matthew 9:16-17

“No-one, said Jesus, tries to put new wine into old wine-skins. To put this into modern terms: our minds must be elastic enough to receive and contain new ideas. The history of progress is the history of overcoming the prejudices of the shut mind. Every new idea has had to fight for its existence against the instinctive opposition of the human mind. The motor car, the railway train, the aeroplane were in the beginning regarded with suspicion. Simpson had to fight to introduce chloroform, and Lister had to struggle to introduce antiseptics into the work of the doctor and surgeon. Copernicus was compelled to retract his statement that the earth went round the sun, and not the sun round the earth. Even Jonas Hanway who brought the umbrella to this country had to suffer a barrage of missiles and insults when he first walked down the street with an umbrella.

“Within the church this resentment of the new is chronic, and the attempt to pour new things into old moulds is almost universal. We attempt to pour the activities of a modern congregation into an ancient church building that was never meant for them. We attempt to pour the truth of new discoveries into creeds which are based on Greek metaphysics. We attempt to pour modern instruction into outworn language which cannot express it. It may be that we would do well to remember that when any living thing stops growing, it starts dying. It may be that we need to pray that God would deliver us from the shut mind and give us the open mind.

“Viscount Samuel was born in 1870 and he begins his autobiography with a description of the London of his childhood. ‘We had no cars or buses or tube trains; there were no bicycles – except the high penny-farthings; there were no electric light or telephones; no cinemas or broadcasts.’ We are living in a changing and an expanding and a growing world. These verses are Jesus’ warning that the church dare not be the only institution which still lives in the past.”

Footnote
William Barclay wrote this commentary in 1956, over 50 years ago. Just think how much society, our awareness of the world around us, our use of technology and our knowledge of the vastness and complexity of the universe have all changed in the five decades since then - and how little the church has changed. In the early days of the car, a law was passed in 1865 that a man had to walk 55 metres in front of a car with a red flag and the speed restriction in towns was 2 mph. What’s the equivalent of the Red Flag Act within the church? Philip Sudworth

Discussion Forums

Faith into Action??

New Wine