How Old Are We?

"The common theme [of 'primitivism'], however, was that the forms and practices that had developed over the ages within the church were not normative, nor even valuable. Instead they represented a process of corruption and degeneration in which the purity of primitive Christianity had been lost. Things like creeds and ceremonies were merely human inventions that had crusted over the gospel like barnacles on a ship, which must be scraped away so that authentic New Testament worship could be restored." - Nancy Pearcy, Total Truth

This sort of Evangelical mindset practically gives birth to a new kind of Church. It is a Church that has recently been born again, freed from its slavish traditions and dogmas in order that it might get at the Scriptures as those who were the original readers. "Nevermind the scholarship, creeds and councils," they say, "such things should not get in the way of believers and God's word!" or my personal favorite, "My Christianity is authentic because it comes straight from the Bible and only from the Bible." Pick up a copy of Pearcy's book if you want to know where your Evangelical Christianity really comes from, the last half of this book is fascinating and ecclesiologically depressing (in a good "learn from your mistakes" kind of way).

Christ Everywhere = Christ Nowhere

"What is sacrificed for the sake of this Christus praesens, as Calvin noticed long ago, is his specificity as a particular man. Christ everywhere really means Jesus of Nazareth nowhere. In the ascension he becomes [out of place] in the most literal sense: he is unnatural, absurd, for he has no place of his own. (Vague talk among modern theologians about 'a change of state, not of place' hardly alleviates that difficulty, however effective it may be in turning aside impolite inquiries as to Jesus' actual whereabouts.)" - Douglas Farrow, Ascension and Ecclesia

I will qualify this quote by saying that Farrow is not arguing against the doctrine of the ascension, far from it. Rather, he is arguing against a particular interpretation of what it means for Jesus to be ascended. How often do we associate (or confuse, as it were) the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives with the presence of Christ? The reality of Jesus as a man should cause us to carefully consider how we understand Scripture's (namely Paul's) language of "Christ in you." As much as we talk about Christ's death and resurrection as a man, we often forget that He ascended as a man and remains a man even at the right hand of the Father. I'm looking foward to the rest of this book.