Faith
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Thinking the Faith, Praying the Faith, Living the Faith is written by the PC(USA) Office of Theology and Worship.
Thinking, praying, and living the faith is at the core of ministry in the Office of Theology and Worship. In the following videos, learn more about what thinking, praying, and living the faith means to the leadership of the Office of Theology and Worship. Discover why it matters and what difference it makes in our lives, work, and worship.
Charles Wiley
Barry Ensign-George
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Christine Hong
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Remembering John Stott
John R.W. Stott died last week. I never met him or spoke with him. I’ve never been associated with his global ministries. I can’t even claim to be much of an expert on his writings. But he did have a profound shaping influence on my life at a very critical time.
I grew up a Holiness missionary kid. When I entered Davidson College as a freshman in 1980, my faith was challenged like no time before or since. I won’t go into the whole story, but the intellectual challenges to my faith were not answered by the resources I’d grown up with. I’d grown up in a binary world where everything was holy or evil, pure or sinful. I was now dealing with folks who claimed no faith, or a different faith, or a faith in Jesus Christ that didn’t fit the definitions that were familiar to me.
As I groped around that year, the ministry of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and InterVarsity Press was enormously helpful in restoring my capacity to have faith in Jesus Christ. As my theological world was being reconstructed, two books by John Stott shaped me. The first was his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, Christian Counter-Culture. It helped integrate the best of the Holiness tradition with a more rigorous scholarship and a wider vision of God’s will was for us: "The followers of Jesus are to be different," writes John Stott, "different from both the nominal church and the secular world, different from both the religious and the irreligious. The Sermon on the Mount is the most complete delineation anywhere in the New Testament of the Christian counter-culture. Here is a Christian value-system, ethical standard, religious devotion, attitude to money, ambition, lifestyle and network of relationships--all of which are totally at variance with those in the non-Christian world. And this Christian counter-culture is the life of the kingdom of God, a fully human life indeed but lived out under the divine rule." No longer would I see following Jesus exclusively in the terms of personal holiness, whether one danced, drank, or wore shorts on Sunday. Here was a vision of Christ’s rule where everything in life was implicated, where economic practices and social justice were as key as integrity in personal relationships. This vision was so much bigger and grander and truer than that in which I was raised.
My college years were marked by having my attention drawn as a Christian to racism, poverty, hunger, homelessness, and other justice issues. But I still believed that the proclamation of the Gospel was at the heart of Christian discipleship. Central to my formation on this and a number of issues was Stott’s little booklet with the innocuous name: Balanced Christianity. Stott wrote that Christians were subject to unnecessary polarization in our theology and practice. He identified five areas that he thought Christians should keep in creative tension instead of moving to one side or the other:
I haven’t read the booklet in at least a couple of decades, so I cannot recall any exact texts. But as I review his thesis and topics, I continue to believe what he taught me in that little booklet. It is my conviction of this basic approach to the Christian life that drew me to the Reformed tradition and the PCUSA. I believe that the Reformed tradition, at its best, has the capacity to hold these poles in creative and faithful tension. I remember being convicted that pushing toward one pole or the other of these tensions would leave me with a faith not worthy of the Gospel. On this day, I am thankful for the life and ministry of John R.W. Stott.
For all the saints, who from their labors rest,
Who Thee by faith before the world confessed,
Thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!
- Posted at 3:11 p.m.
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