The final entry responding to the following article by Rick Wade entitled, Scripture and Tradition in the Early Church at http://www.probe.org/content/view/911/77/

The Body and the Church Fathers

A core belief is that "the church is not an institution on account of its structure or external rites, but exists only when it is voluntarily composed of the faithful." Scripture and Traditions of the Early Church, Rick Wade

What is the church? Who is and who isn’t? I had a very good friend who was a mentor and elder in a church we were part of for several years. When I felt God moving us beyond the fellowship of my youth he changed.

My wife wasn’t raised going to any church. She had no background. Was she at a disadvantage? She didn’t understand any of the in-group language. She didn’t know any of the unwritten rules.

She told my mentor that we had taken on a job with a community church. She didn’t know what this would mean to him. To him it meant we had left the church. He was concerned for our souls. My wife didn’t understand because she hadn’t changed, we hadn’t changed. Our passion for lost souls was the same. The desire to be Christ in our world. She didn’t understand because she doesn’t think in formulas. She doesn’t approach it all like it is a science.

My mentor put us in a slot. A+B=C and C wasn’t good.

We didn’t talk for over two years. Recently he called and I felt the need to better explain our situation. You see it is in most ways a Church of Christ with instruments. I know, I gave him a formula he could handle. After I told him we were associated with the Independent Christian Church things changed. We moved again from lost to found. The entire conversation took on a different tone.

I don’t get this because I am on the other side of the enlightenment. I don’t understand this way of thinking. I will never forget reading the early fathers Treatises on Baptism and being shocked at their approach to baptism. Was it essential? Without question, and yet because they didn’t see formulas they were also able to say that if a person couldn’t be baptized they would be saved because they called on the name of the Lord.

In the enlightenment we said that couldn’t be. That won’t fit a scientific formula. It has to be one way or the other. You can’t be church unless you follow our way.

What formula do you follow? I have friends leery about our fellowship because they think we are charismatic. What they really mean is they think we fit a formula for charisma that was created by enlightenment thinking, but they wonder all the same. We believe in the power of the Spirit working today but special gifts are not the focus of our church.

Sorry, I don’t feel a need to fit a formula, a pattern, I know it was created by a rationalism that the early church didn’t share. Can we ever return to a place where both James and Paul are right and we don't have to harmonize their views? Can I be in a place where to call on the name of the Lord and baptism are not at odds but a part of a more complex journey of faith?

I’m not sure and maybe that is why I type these words, to find what others think. I have heard people talk about it but I don’t know if we will ever truly embrace the other side of the enlightenment. It seems at times that some are just creating a new formula that you must fit to really get it.

The early church believed in the power of the name of Jesus. They had a distinct character, an identifiable body but because they truly embraced the name of Jesus, his Lordship.

They didn’t think people were healed because you had the right amount of faith and spoke it with power. They didn’t think you were saved because you had your mouth just the right way when you were baptized. Do we see how backwards this is? They believed what they believed because they saw power in the name of Jesus. I pray we find their Christ-centered view, not because of a right formula, candles and incense versus structured experience, but because Jesus is our King.