In USA Today (HT: Geneva Redux)
R. Scott Clark
R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.
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Why isn’t this USA Today article citing the research company’s name? It does matter on grounds of keeping people accountable for throwing statistics.
“3 out of 5 statistics cited by unnamed research companies in news articles are bogus and misleading.” says a research company based out of Wayland, Mi.
So what?
“…. There is some evidence of liturgical organization and we know from the synagogues that there were set prayers and we know that the early Christians
followed the synagogic pattern (see RRC) we can reasonably assume that they followed this pattern as well….”
Yes, indeed. Rev. Cwirla has done a nice job of covering this, as well. See his article at:
http://www.modernreformation.org/default.php?page=articledisplay&var1=ArtRead&var2=681&var3=authorbio&var4=AutRes&var5=201
Following up on Philip’s point:
Given that a confessionally reformed Christian moving from one state to another might quite reasonably transfer membership from the OPC into the URC. Does this suggest that we should be looking more closely at the possibility of organic union between some of the denominations in NAPARC?
Ha! Talk about lobbing an easy ball…
Philip,
I take your point about brand consistency. Hmm, someone should write a book about that!
Hi Conor,
Thanks for the encouragement.
I took a look at Tony’s essay. He’s making a similar distinction to that made by Reformed folk between “elements” and “circumstances.” See RRC on this. He also seems to accept, however, assumptions about the nature of apostolic worship and organization that I have come to doubt.
He says
“We don’t find evidence of set prayers and orders of liturgy, for a start. There is also no evidence of the word or concept of ‘worship’ being applied to what New Testament Christians did in their gatherings.”
There is some evidence of liturgical organization and we know from the synagogues that there were set prayers and we know that the early Christians
followed the synagogic pattern (see RRC) we can reasonably assume that they followed this pattern as well. Tony is assuming the “kerygma to dogma” story of the early church. That the apostolic church was a free-form “kerygmatic” and charismatic organism that gradually took on form and extraneous accretions and organization. He’s more willing to defend the accretions but I doubt the premise.
See these essays for a start:
The Church
Principles of Reformed Worship
The evidence from the NT is admittedly scanty but when interpreted against the background of what we know to have happened contemporaneously, what we know to have happened before it and what we know to have happened by the end of the 1st century, it’s reasonable to think that there was more structure to apostolic worship than frequently thought.
I know the headline conclusion is striking, but I think the bigger story here is that with so many extant and fissiparous denominations, it is little wonder that people change frequently.
So, does someone who moves house and, by force of circumstance, moves from a URC in MI to an OPC in PA count as “brand disloyalty”, even if there isn’t a URC for miles and an OPC on the doorstep? I suspect that changing denomination when you move to a new town or city is commonplace and often necessary.
Consistency is important, too. As the researcher points out, the name on a church sign so often tells you very little about what will happen when you walk through the doors.
I can get Colgate anywhere in the world, practically; and it is a consistent product. Can I say the same even about conservative Reformed churches?
Hi Scott. Big fan of your blog. Didn’t know how to contact you other than by posting a comment on this blog entry, even though my query is not related.
Reason for writing: I’d be really interested in hearing your thoughts on this blog from Sydney, Australia. http://solapanel.org/article/this_is_not_a_real_church/
Know you are busy, so no worries if you can’t get to it,
Conor.