Tony Payne over at the Sola Panel has, again, written a superb blog regarding a current movement within our churches towards ‘generous orthodoxy’. I understand, from personal experience, that this movement is mostly seen in response to the growing ‘New Calvinism‘ which is sweeping across America and having (relatively) positive impacts on Western churches world-wide.
Tony’s post has given me pause to think through recent debates I’ve been caught up in. Am I debating firmly matters of secondary importance or matters which go the heart of our faith – particularly those who most would class as ‘brothers in the faith’. Whilst some of these debates have been over secondary issues, I believe that other debates I have been in recently have been to do with ‘central’ issues.
By way of short examples, secondary issue debates I’ve been caught in recently have centred on whether or not the KJV bible is the only infallible Word of God. Whilst I have firm views on this I also believe that those who I’ve had debates with are ‘brothers in the faith’.
But then a more recent debate has shown to me that the issues we are debating are secondary to a more pressing central issue – the authority of scripture. The debates I’ve had recently on gay-marriage and separation of church and state have led me to believe that these issue are symptomatic of a larger problem – that is the authority of scripture. So whilst some may have read these debates as ‘heated’ and over ‘unnecessary’ issues, I hope my arguments have been clear enough to show that what really is at stake is much more important. Otherwise please pray that I would be humble enough to know the difference.
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