Sunday, November 1, 2009
Reflections on Joe and Ed's Presentation
I was really surprised by what I learned from Joe and Ed’s presentation. I had no idea that Presbyterianism traced its roots back to John Calvin. I really didn’t have any pre-conceived notions about what those in the Presbyterian faith believed, but I didn’t think it had anything to do with John Calvin and therefore Calvinism. I think the Calvinistic view of “works” or service is very interesting. They believe that people are saved through faith not works. However, they also believe that works are a manifestation of faith. This seems borderline contradictory but if I try hard enough I am able to understand what is meant by this. On many social issues I wasn’t surprised to find that Presbyterians seems to feel the same way many of the other religions felt. They are wishy washy on abortion and they are against capital punishment. Is there any Christian religion that actually supports capital punishment? Just curious. Anyway, I wasn’t that surprised either by the Presbyterians strong use of organization among its parishioners. I guess their affiliation with Calvinism reminded me of the early American settlers and how their Puritan groups were basically the government. I’m sure that I messed up something about those connections but that is what learning about the Presbyterian hierarchy so to speak made me think of. I really enjoyed the Presbyterian social creed. I think it touched on a lot of issues that the world needs to focus on today. I think it’s interesting that they updated this Creed from an earlier Creed. I think this revamping illustrates their motto “Church reformed, always needing reform, according to the word of God.” It shows that they truly do believe their church is always in need of reform, that we can always strive to be better.
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Finally, I was waiting for someone to bring up the Puritans, I was afraid we had all suppressed that memory of MOI due the trauma it had caused. I must admit I was quite biased when I first heard the name Calvin in the Presbyterian roots, and I thought that nothing good could come from it. But I was pleasantly proven wrong, especially in terms of the Social Creeds (the Creeds, by the way, are not Presbyterian alone, but are made by many congregations jointly as a statement for what should be, the Presbyterians did sign the latest one first however, so if you were given credit to them in that respect, I'm sure they would happily accept it). The motto about reform is definitely one of my favorite parts of the faith (maybe you can convince the Catholics to adopt it, eh?).
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