While generally living as committed Christians and followers
of Jesus Christ, Presbyterians hold some beliefs different from what other
Christians believe. A while back, the Presbyterians Today magazine
cited eight such belief differences in an article by Presbyterian pastor James
Ayers.
Where do you stand on each of these eight topics?
1.) Good works or grace? Conventional
wisdom says that good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell. Are
you good enough for heaven? Are you sufficiently righteous to go to
heaven when you die? Presbyterians have always insisted that, as we all
are sinners at birth, no one is good enough to deserve salvation. We are
saved only by God's grace. Despite our failures in life, God
already has decided to save us as evidenced through the incarnation, death and
resurrection of Jesus.
2.) Reincarnation or eternal life?
Some Eastern religions say that after we die, we are reborn as another
person or as an animal. They believe that the world is an endless cycle
of death and rebirth. Therefore, that one continually gets "another
chance" until we finally get it right. Presbyterians believe that
Scripture does not teach reincarnation. Instead, it points us toward
eternal life in the presence of God. Think about it ---- isn't belief in
reincarnation just a severe form of believing in righteousness by one's works,
as one lives over and over until we have attained a certain level of goodness?
3.) Fate or predestination. Some
believe that every event may be caused by previous events. If so, they
say, it is an illusion to suppose that your decisions actually change
anything. If you do a good deed, that is what you were fated to do.
If you do something evil, that is just the outworking of your predetermined
fate. This is different from the Presbyterian doctrine of predestination,
which says God chose to redeem us, long before we could even understand what
that might mean. Because God chose us before the foundation of the world, that
means we are predestined to make life's choices. We make many free
choices every day. Predestination teaches us that God has given us a new
and bigger freedom ---- the freedom to fulfill our destiny as we understand it.
4.) Alter or table? An alter is a
place where a sacrifice is offered, and it is often viewed with special
reverence. In the traditional Roman Catholic understanding the priest
during Mass re-offers Christ on the alter as a sacrifice to God.
Presbyterians believe the sacrifice of Christ has already been offered once and
for all. The sacrifice needs no repetition, and the action of a priest
cannot make it occur again. Therefore, Presbyterians see the Lord's
Supper as taking place at a table rather than at an alter. Although many
communion tables are rather ornate, the table itself holds no particular
significance or holiness for Presbyterians.
5.) Purgatory, heaven, hell. Where
do people go when they die? Many people would say "heaven or
hell." Yet in the Middle Ages people thought that if heaven is where
the saints stand in the holy presence of God, and hell is where the wicked get
sent, what about those people who have not had a chance to have all of their
sins forgiven? Our lives are still impure when we die, so how can we
exist in heaven, alongside the holiness of God? Thus, the doctrine of
purgatory was created ---- a place where any sins not forgiven since our last
confession, would be purged. Presbyterians believe God will indeed redeem us and
cleanse us from all our sins, and we will be readied for heaven, without
needing to postulate a third possible place to go when we die.
6.) Ranking sins. In Roman
Catholic thinking when you die you are carrying the guilt of all the sins you
have committed since your last confession. If your sins are venial
(relatively slight), you will now work them off in purgatory. A mortal
sin, in contrast, cannot be resolved in purgatory. An unconfessed mortal
sin means you are damned to hell. Presbyterians do not believe that sins
can be graded this way. Sin is sin. Forgiveness is God's free gift
in Christ. Confession and assurance of pardon are not what enable God to
forgive us, but rather what enables us to recognize or feel or
experience that we are forgiven.
7.) To whom do we pray? When you
have problems, you may ask your friends to pray for you. But why restrict
yourself to present-day friends? Why not also ask radiant Christians from
previous centuries to offer up their intercessions on your behalf? This
is perhaps the most positive way to think of praying to the saints. Yet
there is a problem here. Asking Mary (the mother of Jesus) or Saint Joan
to pray for you becomes praying to Mary or Saint Joan. But praying
is an act of worship and devotion, and this should be offered only to God, in
the Presbyterian view.
8.) Authority figures. Where is
the authority of the church based? Our differing understandings of
appropriate church governance are perhaps the greatest source of disagreement
among Christians. We have different ways of ordering our lives together
as communities of faith. Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist and Episcopal
churches believe that temporal authority is carried in the office of the
bishop. The doctrine of the "historic succession of bishops"
means that bishops receive their authority from previous bishops, all of whom
received their authority from still earlier bishops. Catholics and some
Anglicans trace this authority back to the apostles themselves. Presbyterians
believe church authority is not carried in individuals this way. Instead,
church leaders can declare the will of God only on the authority of
Scripture. Presbyterians are on record that our way is not THE way, but
simply the way that works best for us.
Now that you have taken the test, how
"Presbyterian" do you think you are?
________________________________________________________________________________
These thoughts are brought to you by CPC's Adult
Spiritual Development Team, hoping to encourage you to pursue some personal
spiritual growth this winter at CPC.
________________________________________________________________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment