Dirt Roads

“but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts.” (1 Thessalonians 2:4)

When I was a kid, I enjoyed flipping through my grandparent's photo albums. For the most part, things were black and white or color-faded photos from the 70s and 80s. It's incredible to consider how styles change from facial hair for men, haircuts for women, and pants. Bellbottoms, what were ya'll thinking? What catches my attention most often are buildings and roads that have transformed over time, especially in my hometown. In the not too distant past, dirt roads were more common, even on main streets and high traffic areas. I always wonder about the experience of driving down the main drag going 35 MPH with the windows down and dirt kicked up as one pushes the limits of the pre-modern paved roads.

I'm thankful for the modern privilege afforded by highways and paved roads. We can travel a lot faster, arriving at our destination more efficiently. We can use GPS instead of using road maps while navigating in our climate-controlled vehicles–a blessing no matter your climate. I've begun to view theology much in the same way. Admiration is a term that comes to mind in describing those who've come before me. The church fathers such as Augustine, the Gregorys, Athanasius, Basil, and Didymus are all crucial thinkers of the Christian thought with whom we should be acquainted. These men helped build roads for the Church to understand God more deeply and fully as they compacted the dirt underneath their tires, forming routes with their faithful exposition of God's Word.

 Looking forward to the pre-reformation, we have men like Jan Hus and John Wycliffe who prepared the way for those who would immediately follow: Martin Luther, Philip Melancthon, Ulrich Zwingli, Martin Bucer, John Calvin, Theodore Beza, Johannes Oecolampadius, and more built the highways for us to travel as they expounded on God's Word and handing down an Evangelical faith focused on the supremacy of God who justifies by the work of Christ through faith alone.

The Church Fathers left their writings for the Church to enjoy and lay the foundation of the Christian faith as found in the Apostle's Creed, Nicene Creed, Athanasian Creed, and Chalcedonian Definition. Luther and the Germans formed the Augsburg Confession, Luther's Catechism, and Melancthon's Loci Communes. Calvin is known for his beautiful Institutes of the Christian Religion, which stands as a master class in integrating systematic and biblical theology with a devotional tone. Those who would follow Calvin would create multiple confessions based on his theology and the Canons of Dordt.

Theology doesn't end with the Reformation and those who immediately followed. Instead, God continues to use men and women to engage with His Word and those writings that have come before us. Suppose you agree with me that the Bible is God's inspired, authoritative, and inerrant Word. In that case, it stands to reason that we should consider how others have understood that Word through the history of the Church in addition to engaging with other more contemporary Christians who hold that same truth.

Over the last couple of years, I've grown to appreciate those traditions that hold tightly to these confessions. You've got the Lutherans who enjoy the Augsburg Confession as the standard for what they believe the Bible teaches; Presbyterians have the Westminster Standards; Dutch Reformed embrace the Three Forms of Unity; Anglicans cling to the Thirty Nine Articles and the Book of Common Prayer; all of which are built upon the work of the early Church's ecumenical creeds.

I've taken these works within the Great Tradition as road signs and maps that help us navigate our journey to know God and enjoy him. God's Word is the foundation, the Church Fathers, the earliest explorers, and the Reformers as our tour guides. For this reason, I've found it quite troubling that in popular low-church Evangelicalism, we've often neglected our forbears as adversaries rather than elder-statesman. Instead of cruising down the highway that's been built and enjoying the beauty of God's scenery, we've sought to drive our vehicle down paths that haven't been cleared of shrubbery. 

The Advent Christian Church, in particular, has neglected signposts due to suspicion that to follow such a path is to leave those with whom we love in the dust. But what if that weren't the case? What if our zeal for unity produced something more meaningful than every man or woman for themselves? There are pockets of unity, however. In the Advent Christian Church, we have a diversity of united pockets. Largely, our Reformed brothers and sisters have coalesced by maintaining strong communication and shared theology. I'm not as familiar with other pockets that likely exist, and I hope they've found great joy in their cooperation. However, what I'm most concerned with is our ability to work more closely in proclaiming the Kingdom of God when we have no standards for what we believe the Bible teaches.

Consider the Statement of Faith (SOF) and Declaration of Principles (DOP). No church or pastor is bound to these documents. What does that mean? You don't need to believe a single word of the SOF of DOP to be an Advent Christian or an Advent Christian Church. Why? We've held individual interpretation in whatever means one might use as the most important interpretive principle for Advent Christians, whether implicitly or explicitly. We've not only rejected the work of those who've entrusted us with the Gospel, but we've also left open the door to many other gospels. When church historians look back on us as Advent Christians, what will they see in the photo album? Will they see progress from dirt roads to highways or a group of people who sought to navigate the woods by constellation and stars when paved paths, a GPS, and maps were available?