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We have identified four pillars that are foundational to our vision.
Here is the backbone of good teaching. It’s interesting to note the majority of the Apostles’ Creed is not abstractions, but the historical work, the actual things that Jesus did while he was on earth. Again the Father is defined as the one who created heaven and earth, while the Spirit is defined as the one who dwells with the saints. God sent the Son of God to become man and experience time in the way men do. This makes the succession of time fundamental to our reading and understanding of scripture. The stories of Abraham and Adam are not just stories, but expressions of how God acts in real time. Their reality and place in history gives the Bible a solidity that other ‘scriptures’ do not have. The story of the Bible is foundational for grounding our own story. We are then against all Gnosticising of history.
History is also foundational to our thanksgiving. We are thankful for that moment in real-time, we might even say when time started, the moment God said let there be light. We are thankful for that moment in real-time when Christ died and how three days later in real-time, God said “let him live” and he rose again from the dead. We are thankful that God says over our bodies, dead in sin, ‘let these dead bones live.” And through the Spirit we are renewed to everlasting life.
We are thankful that God has refined his church, not just in some spiritualistic way, but upon the earth, through blood sweat, and tears, through the Spirit who is killing the flesh and bringing the new man to life. The heavenly city of God is resurrecting the cities of men in real-time. So we are thankful for the traditions handed down to us through his church. We retrieve, renew, and grow.
First of all, we desire unity with Christ and through him, fellowship with Father and Spirit as well. To do this, we commit to the pursuit of understanding the scriptures through reading an prayer.
Christ also prayed, “let them be one as we are one.” We believe that the unity Christ prayed for in John 17 is a visible unity. Though we are indeed united in the sense that we follow one Lord, we at the same see the terrible division that remains between Christians here on earth, not only between denominations and federations, but within denominations and federations. Sometimes the division is worse within than without because of the hatred between different factions.
While some divisions are good because they cut off those who reject Christ as Lord (For there is no unity with those who deny that Jesus is the Christ), many divisions cut off Christians from one another. Our work for reformed catholic renewal is not only to retrieve truth but through a newfound willingness to submit ourselves to scripture, to reform our worship, and to listen to our brothers and sisters in Christ, we may grow in unity with brothers and sisters.
We trust that the way to unity is not through papering over our differences but through digging deeper into the scriptures. The former way produces churches who lose the desire to grow in Jesus Christ, not only in good works, but also in knowing him. By failing to know him, they also lose the desire to do good work.. The latter produces churches that are able to distinguish between what is most weighty and what is less weighty. They will also grow in humility in recognizing what they cannot know.
We have created the category of ‘friends’ for the sake of pursuing this unity. We recognize that not everything in our statement of faith is of the same weight, and we desire to be sharpened by our friends. And by God’s grace to sharpen those who disagree with us, even on major things like infant baptism.
Finally, part and parcel with the unity of the church is the unity of the human race. God desires to reconcile all things to himself through the blood of Christ.
One of the great things that was recovered during the reformations was ‘The Freedom of the Christian.’ This was, in part, based on the recognition of the ‘priesthood of all believers.’ We all equally belong to Christ, we all have access to his throne, and through the Spirit each one of us is hidden at the right hand of God in Christ. This freedom is often misused but properly understood it is the freedom to fulfill one’s duty as a Christian. All institutions should be encouraged to recognize this freedom. This means that we don’t lord it over one another, rather, we are always careful to preserve the freedom of one another.
This is also why we are against forced conversions. Even though these men are not free in a spiritual sense, they are free in a political sense. There are other reasons, but this is the ultimate reason. We are called to honor all men.
As church officers, we are also careful about imposing something on someone’s conscience. We are careful to observe Romans 14 in things that are indifferent.
It is important to note that in the scriptures that we are freed, and then we are joined to a new order. Because we are free, we want to participate in the new created order.
This freedom is not limited to spiritual things. If God is Lord of the universe, his declarations about his sons, ought to receive the utmost respect from leaders in all sorts of institutions.
As freed people, God calls us to submit to his order. Because we are free people, we delight in doing so. Wives submit to husbands as those who are called to be the face of the household. And husbands love and care for their wives. Children submit to parents as those who are called to raise them up in fear of the Lord. And Parents are called to fairness and patience with their children. The members of the church are called to submit to the officers of the church in regards to the keys of the kingdom. The officers of the church are entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation. Citizens, including church members, are called to submit to the civil magistrate because they have been given the sword of vengeance. These and other institutions are to be upheld in prayer and shown free submission in all that we do.
The church is the new creation order. We walk in ranks in the Spirit. The church is a spiritual order. The institutions of this world are renewed, even resurrected in the church of Christ; including marriage, the family, and the civil magistrate. It should be noted that the officers of the church must be exclusively male because in the church reflects the first creation, where Adam was created first and Eve second.
We are called to be patient with these authorities, and even when they use that authority illegitimately, we are called to obey for the sake of Christ, hoping that unbelievers may praise God.
We are called to disobey when we must do something that would deny that we belong to and fear our Great Father and his Son, Jesus Christ.
We are a fellowship of pastors, elders and laymen working together to encourage one another to dig into the past in order to renew their communities so that they may season the world with salt with the goal of expanding the kingdom and glorifying God’s name.
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