tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31896366.post6672740917784155791..comments2024-03-22T07:16:35.188+00:00Comments on Against Heresies: Maximus and MinimusMartin Downeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08019053545918223050noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31896366.post-31518483323512867332007-01-23T10:37:00.000+00:002007-01-23T10:37:00.000+00:00If heresy has not been a problem in a denomination...If heresy has not been a problem in a denominations past, or if the church does not see it as a problem, a minimal doctrinal statement will be likely. The same is true if the church has never had to wrestle with theological issues. The church I mentioned before is a case in point. It adopted the 1689 Confession AFTER a serious theological battle in the local Baptist Union which led to secession.Highland Hosthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18205436472908741409noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31896366.post-59309366819208362182007-01-22T10:43:00.000+00:002007-01-22T10:43:00.000+00:00I was using the "charismaticised evangelical mains...I was using the "charismaticised evangelical mainstream with Brethren roots" as an illustration. The Baptist Union would also have been a suitable one, and the history of the Down-grade controversy too. <br /><br />Minimal doctrinal statements can give the appearance of unity when in point of fact different groups are happy to interpret them in different ways (this can of course be done with longer statements too). <br /><br />People come at this issue from different directions and with different motives. You can live with some of that, but not all of it.Martin Downeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08019053545918223050noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31896366.post-3195522490376048932007-01-22T10:32:00.000+00:002007-01-22T10:32:00.000+00:00I am (I can only speak for myself) not asking the ...I am (I can only speak for myself) not asking the Charismatics to embrace the 1689 Confession. That is not the question. Nor is re-writing 1689. <br /> Charismatics are not the only people who have minimalist confessions, though. I know of a 100-year-old Church founded with a minimal confession that adopted in 1997 a revised version of the 1689 Confession.<br /> The weakness of Brethrenism is that there are no written standards, but quite a lot of unwritten ones (like the British constitution, then).Highland Hosthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18205436472908741409noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31896366.post-59500483859857202582007-01-21T14:25:00.000+00:002007-01-21T14:25:00.000+00:00Well made point. I like the point about how some ...Well made point. I like the point about how some people see the connections (behind the confession in Christ) and some just see a random list of assertions.<br /><br />And of course the bible is the maximal confession, from which the confessions, and minimalist doctrinal statements, are drawn.<br /><br />It's easy to be critical of the charismatics though. I mean, how much should we expect them to embrace with joy confessions written by people with a different heritage? Whatever the merits of OUR confessions, should we be insisting that the charismatics embrace them with similar happiness, or should we be re-writing them in vocabulary that is owned as much by them as by us?Dave Khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07274586753770186840noreply@blogger.com