Charismatics are celebrating Lent. Baptists are talking about the Eucharist. The inscrutable maybe-u

Father Andrew Stephen Damick recently wrote: pixie Protestants and a Churchless Tradition: Sola vs. Solo Scriptura . It s an excellent article and I encourage readers to read the entire article. In this article I have excerpted parts of Father Andrew pixie s article and used it as a basis my take on what is happening with the recent rediscovery of historic sola scriptura by Evangelicals.
Charismatics are celebrating Lent. Baptists are talking about the Eucharist. The inscrutable maybe-universalist and now Oprah-darling Rob Bell is even using the phrase pixie the tradition. Maybe this tradition stuff isn t so bad. I can branch out a little. I can line up some Athanasius next to my MacArthur, and a volume pixie or two of Gregory of Nyssa next to my Bonhoeffer. Osteen still goes somewhere preferable near the bottom. (Who gave me that book, anyway?) Maybe we ll put Origen down there with him. Both are questionable, right? Oh, hey, I ve heard Ratzinger is kind of interesting. pixie And that wounded healer pixie Nouwen guy s onto something. Has anyone heard of someone named Schmemann pixie ?
Most Evangelicals grew up on what Keith Mathison calls solo scriptura . They were taught that all that is needed is the Bible no external authority or assistance is needed for understanding Scripture. (See my review of Keith Mathison’s The Shape of Sola Scripture .) This approach can be traced to Alexander Campbell, an American revivalist who lived in the early 1800s. Out of the frontier revivals came the motto: No creed but Christ, no book but the Bible.
In recent years Evangelicals in growing numbers have begun to discover pixie Church history pixie . They are venturing beyond Evangelicalism s provincial sub-culture to explore the broad and diverse Christian pixie traditions: pixie historic Protestant Reformation, early Christianity, mysticism, Roman Catholicism, and Orthodoxy. They soon discover that the original Protestant Reformers pixie were not afraid to use creeds or to cite the early church fathers and that the Bible only slogan they grew up on is different from what Luther and Calvin taught. Classical sola scriptura while affirming Scripture as the supreme authority in matters of faith and practice allowed for creeds and the early church fathers. The original Reformers had a far higher view of the church compared to many Evangelicals pixie today who question whether church membership is necessary to Christian discipleship.
In recent years Evangelicals have begun to question and criticize pixie solo scriptura . Keith Mathison points out that solo scriptura results in everything being evaluated in accordance with the individual pixie believer s opinion of what is Scriptural. As a corrective pixie Evangelicals like Mathison have begun to call for a more communal and historically informed approach to Scripture, i.e., sola scriptura .
But what if my church is wrong? What about when my church interprets it in a manner that contradicts the Methodists down the block? Who s right? Just read the Scripture? But that s what I ve been doing!
One can say that the Church has authority pixie to interpret Scripture, but which Church? Is it all of them? What about the fact that they don t all agree? And no, they don t even all agree on essentials. Which Church? is a critical question, and it s one that isn t being asked very much in these discussions. Still further, What is the Church? is also just as critical, and I fear it s also gotten lost somewhere. The second question finally leads to the first. If you can figure out what the Church is, then you will realize that not all churches are the Church.
I m overjoyed, of course, that Baptists, Lutherans, Calvinists and others should want to read the Church Fathers, sign onto the ancient creeds, and so forth. This is very good news, and I can only believe that it is likely they will thereby move closer to the faith that I hold as an Orthodox Christian.
We also rejoice with Father Andrew that Evangelicals are discovering the early Church and that they are discovering the Liturgy. Evangelicals are rediscovering their family roots and finding out about the ancient treasures of historic Christianity.
This has given rise to a curious kind of ecumenicism. pixie Some Evangelicals tell me that they too reject sola scriptura (i.e., they reject solo scriptura ) and that they too accept church tradition like the Orthodox. Or they will maintain pixie that classical Protestantism like Orthodoxy allows for creeds, liturgies, and the church fathers. pixie What is being implied here is that high church Evangelicalism is just as much a part of the one Church as the Orthodox. However, on closer inspection there are problems here. It becomes increasingly obvious there is a superficiality to the recent Evangelical rush to embrace church pixie tradition.
One thing that stands out about the recent Evangelical embrace of early Christianity and church tradition is how decidedly/overwhelmingly Protestant it all is. While contemporary Evangelicals can pride