Formed to seek common ground
Throughout
these weeks of Lent, we are considering the Reformed confessions from a
somewhat unconventional angle – focusing our attention not just on the content, on what the confessions say,
but on how those confessions work, the particular sensibilities or
habits of mind they display, the postures they embody. We are asking: If we gave the time and effort
to discern those sensibilities, habits, postures, and lingered with them for a
while, trying them out, how might they form
us
as a Christian learning community?
I invite you over
the course of the next week to consider some selections from the Belgic
Confession, which offers a refreshing approach for defining and proclaiming our
distinctives. The Belgic Confession was
written on behalf of a minority group, evangelical Reformed Christians who with
this document were pleading to the majority Roman Catholic Christians – who
also had the government on their side – pleading with them for a place at the table,
for recognition as faithful Christians.
The document
makes its case for this recognition not by ignoring differences, but by seeking common ground. Over and over again, the Belgic Confession
works by saying: we have our distinctives, our differences, but those
differences are not the deepest or truest thing about us; what is most deep and
true in us is what is most deep and
true in you – the overwhelming
goodness that comes from one source alone, the one God, and that our Lord
graciously shares with all of us.
As
you linger with these seven selections – maybe even reading them out loud with
someone else! – you might ask yourself, for each one: how does this selection seek
for common ground? And what would it look
like, how would we be formed, if we did likewise? How might we be formed in ways that is more responsive
to God, more hospitable, more connected?
The links below
are to an online version of the Belgic Confession maintained by the Reformed
Church in America, one of the several church bodies that seeks to live by this
confession.
Article 2 https://www.rca.org/sslpage.aspx?pid=319
Article 6 https://www.rca.org/sslpage.aspx?pid=325
Article 13 https://www.rca.org/sslpage.aspx?pid=332
Article 24 https://www.rca.org/sslpage.aspx?pid=344
Article 27 https://www.rca.org/sslpage.aspx?pid=347
Article 29 https://www.rca.org/sslpage.aspx?pid=349
Article 35 https://www.rca.org/sslpage.aspx?pid=355
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