Update
I didn't even realize I hadn't posted to Livejournal since I learned I was coming back to Kent. Yes, I'm here for one more year, translating Berlioz writings (from French to English) for a thesis and studying more Latin as well as starting Russian and Italian. A friend has also started a Stammtisch group so I get to keep my (poor) German in practice. Things are busy but not too bad.
I'm attending a Lutheran church this year rather than my former non-denominational (bur really Reformed Baptist) church. I like the sense of being in the historical Church that comes along with going someplace more liturgical. It also matches better my beliefs as they've changed over the last year or so (the real presence of Christ in the sacrament, baptismal regeneration). I even get to take communion there, although Missouri Synod Lutherans are normally closed communion - I talked over it with the Lutheran campus minister and he said that since I claimed Christ as my Savior and believe that the sacrament is, indeed His body and blood, I could take communion. This also has something to do with being a campus environment where he feels they should be more open - this last makes even me a bit uncomfortable but what can I say - I have access to the sacrament in a church that I believe possesses correct doctrine concerning it and I WILL NOT be faced with (and repulsed by) a bowl full of shredded Wonderbread for communion as I was at the last place. Going to a mass every weekend in a church that looks like a church rather than an office building, taking communion correctly, stepping into the Church and loving her, living in her traditions is a joy I cannot fully express. I will not go back to a Baptist type church again except to visit friends when I go home.
My struggles with doctrine still continue though something like 'progress' is being made. I am more secure in my belief concerning the nature of the sacrament and I am more and more certain of the role of baptism in salvation. The conflict is strongest where the essential points of the Reformation are concerned (and I am highly conscious that I write this entry on the 490th anniversary of its beginning - October 31, 1517 was when Luther nailed the ninety-five theses to the door of the castle church at Wittenburg). Reading the Bible, I am more and more convinced that our salvation comes from Christ's finished work on the cross and nothing else, that we ourselves contribute nothing to it. I am however disturbed by the lack of scripture which states that scripture alone is authoritative. I pray for God's continued grace as I search for final rest in this matter which can only come from certain knowledge of the Gospel in its entirety. I am blessed by the fact that in addition to co-leading the Gospel of Matthew study with my friend Kris Herman as I have been doing for over a year now, I am also leading Kent Graduate Christian Fellowship through Genesis (the patriarchs) - it was in teaching the Bible that both Luther and Augustine became solidified in doctrine.
I am amazed as I realize how much of our sense of assurance of our salvation comes from unchallenged acceptance of what people around us say. They teach us how to read the Bible and then we read what they've taught us into the Bible over and over again. It's interesting - no matter what Christian denomination you count yourself a part of, there is someone else who claims also to be a Christian who insists that you are a hellbound heretic as a result of the doctrine you profess, and that is true even if we make sure not to count the views of obviously heretical groups like Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses (both of whom deny Christ's divinity). No matter what denomination you pick, there will be someone to shake your hand and tell you that you've made the right choice and there will be someone else who will come along and tell you that unless you repent of the church you've chosen, you do not know Christ. The point is this: if you don't know the Bible, and if you don't study it for what it says rather than trying to read someone else's ideas into it, you make yourself a victim of every idiot who walks through the door calling himself a theologian. I've been reading a little Luther lately - it was striking for me to learn that he considers my old Baptist church to be heretical because they believe in free will and also because they rebaptize (and on the latter count Luther condemned all of the Reformed Baptists who run around touting his teachings constantly, which is downright funny).
A tenebris inscientiae libera me, domine. Lux mundi qui vita hominum est luceat mihi. Salve me, domine. Amen.
(From the darkness of ignorance set me free, Lord. May the light of the world who is the life of men shine upon me. Save me, Lord. Amen)
Incidentally, I love writing little prayers in Latin.
I'm attending a Lutheran church this year rather than my former non-denominational (bur really Reformed Baptist) church. I like the sense of being in the historical Church that comes along with going someplace more liturgical. It also matches better my beliefs as they've changed over the last year or so (the real presence of Christ in the sacrament, baptismal regeneration). I even get to take communion there, although Missouri Synod Lutherans are normally closed communion - I talked over it with the Lutheran campus minister and he said that since I claimed Christ as my Savior and believe that the sacrament is, indeed His body and blood, I could take communion. This also has something to do with being a campus environment where he feels they should be more open - this last makes even me a bit uncomfortable but what can I say - I have access to the sacrament in a church that I believe possesses correct doctrine concerning it and I WILL NOT be faced with (and repulsed by) a bowl full of shredded Wonderbread for communion as I was at the last place. Going to a mass every weekend in a church that looks like a church rather than an office building, taking communion correctly, stepping into the Church and loving her, living in her traditions is a joy I cannot fully express. I will not go back to a Baptist type church again except to visit friends when I go home.
My struggles with doctrine still continue though something like 'progress' is being made. I am more secure in my belief concerning the nature of the sacrament and I am more and more certain of the role of baptism in salvation. The conflict is strongest where the essential points of the Reformation are concerned (and I am highly conscious that I write this entry on the 490th anniversary of its beginning - October 31, 1517 was when Luther nailed the ninety-five theses to the door of the castle church at Wittenburg). Reading the Bible, I am more and more convinced that our salvation comes from Christ's finished work on the cross and nothing else, that we ourselves contribute nothing to it. I am however disturbed by the lack of scripture which states that scripture alone is authoritative. I pray for God's continued grace as I search for final rest in this matter which can only come from certain knowledge of the Gospel in its entirety. I am blessed by the fact that in addition to co-leading the Gospel of Matthew study with my friend Kris Herman as I have been doing for over a year now, I am also leading Kent Graduate Christian Fellowship through Genesis (the patriarchs) - it was in teaching the Bible that both Luther and Augustine became solidified in doctrine.
I am amazed as I realize how much of our sense of assurance of our salvation comes from unchallenged acceptance of what people around us say. They teach us how to read the Bible and then we read what they've taught us into the Bible over and over again. It's interesting - no matter what Christian denomination you count yourself a part of, there is someone else who claims also to be a Christian who insists that you are a hellbound heretic as a result of the doctrine you profess, and that is true even if we make sure not to count the views of obviously heretical groups like Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses (both of whom deny Christ's divinity). No matter what denomination you pick, there will be someone to shake your hand and tell you that you've made the right choice and there will be someone else who will come along and tell you that unless you repent of the church you've chosen, you do not know Christ. The point is this: if you don't know the Bible, and if you don't study it for what it says rather than trying to read someone else's ideas into it, you make yourself a victim of every idiot who walks through the door calling himself a theologian. I've been reading a little Luther lately - it was striking for me to learn that he considers my old Baptist church to be heretical because they believe in free will and also because they rebaptize (and on the latter count Luther condemned all of the Reformed Baptists who run around touting his teachings constantly, which is downright funny).
A tenebris inscientiae libera me, domine. Lux mundi qui vita hominum est luceat mihi. Salve me, domine. Amen.
(From the darkness of ignorance set me free, Lord. May the light of the world who is the life of men shine upon me. Save me, Lord. Amen)
Incidentally, I love writing little prayers in Latin.