What Is Essential of Our Faith?

This article is to continue the reflection of my Christian faith.

Now the next question is about confessions and other doctrines. Since I have thrown away Calvinism in recent years, I don’t want to answer “Yes” to any wrong questions. Here it is: “Do you sincerely accepted and embrace the essential tenets of the Reformed faith?”

My answer really depends on what is the description of “essential tenets of the Reformed faith”. I certainly hope it is not Calvinism, for after a few years of theological trainings, I got some tools digging into Calvinism and Arminianism and other history, I really prefer not to use those philosophical terms to define my faith. They are just inadequate, to say the least, or even misguided.

Thank God. Calvinism isn’t PCUSA’s essential faith. However I suspect that, the two long clauses that describe “the Reformed faith”, were originally part of question, for ordained to accept and embrace. It says that the reformed faith “is expressed in our church’s confessions”, and those confessions “faithfully and reliably interpreted Bible”.

No, not all of historically documented confessions are essential today, and not all that doctrines, particularly 5 points of Calvinism, can claim faithfully and reliably interpreted Bible, especially when the Reformed faith mainly refers to Calvinism. We are reminded time and again, that the Reformed faith keeps reforming even today. They are just not a fixed set of ideology as recorded in historical document. The bulletin lists 5 essential tenets of our faith as following, all of which I can heartily answer “Yes”:

The first essential tenet: God’s majesty, holiness, and providence. – I think Calvinists tried their best to describe God’s sovereignty using these terms. There is so much misunderstanding loaded into the word “sovereignty”, that God is eventually pictured as a stern and unpredictable God. I am glad that PCUSA removed the word “sovereignty” (Not that I deny God’s sovereignty).

The second essential tenet: God choose people is for serving/following God, not just for their salvation. “Salvation” is another loaded word... In other words, God’s purpose is not just to get us into heaven, but to get us into a life of discipleship with Christ, or to get into God’s mission. This is very Biblical indeed!

The third essential tenet: live a life of God’s covenant according to the Word of God, and this life are expressed as disciplines and structures that Christians should follow. – In other words, we are not just a bunch of individuals that each live independently, we have a history as God’s covenant people, and we are organized according God’s principles as we know of.

The fourth essential tenet: good stewardship of God’s wealth and gifts, against extravagant waste. I always thought wasting is but one of the sins, why this is listed as essential? But as I looked at it again, the essential thing is on stewardship. May be the emphasis is on the offerings, to church and to charities.

The fifth essential tenet: Recognize men have the tendency to be idolatry or dictatorship. Again, idolatry and dictatorship are but two of the sins. It somewhat surprised me to specifically list them here. Why not list other sins? My guess is that idolatry represents the sins that against God, and dictatorship represents the sins that against fellow human. Here I notice that personal secret sins, as usually perceived “sinful nature” in western society, are not mentioned here. I would say this is very biblical.

In conclusion, PCUSA consider essential tenets of Reformed faith concerns primarily on Christian practice of this life, not a fate after death. I cannot agree more to this!

As for all different authorities in our church life, PCUSA put Jesus Christ as the highest authority, whose life gave us revelation about what God is like. The Bible is the next level of authority, which is lower than God, but higher than church confessions. The PCUSA Book of Order is the regulation of the church, which needs revisions from time to time; its authority is lower than church confessions.

It is wise to set priority this way. For we worship God, orders and rules are important, but we do not worship these rules.

A Reflection on Faith

I became a Christian 30 years ago in Canada, where I was a “visiting scholar”. A Chinese Christian girl encouraged me to try Christian faith, so I tried, and found my prayers to Jesus worked wonders. Pretty soon I began to share my experience of new faith to my Chinese friends. Pretty soon people followed me to churches and sought out this faith for themselves.

All the Chinese churches I attended over years are pretty much fundamentalist. In other words, my savior saves me from a hell which I didn’t know previously. But my testimonies to all my friends never really mentioned the hell, because the true reason I’d like my friends to know about Jesus, was that God’s love demonstrated to me through my prayer.

I found Jesus amazing, not because he theoretically helps me escaping a hell, but I had found the new faith gave me a brand new identity, with a brand new set of values, which in turn proved worthwhile and honorable for me to explore.

So, my fundamentalist faith was only on the doctrine side, which never really matched my experiences. But I never realized this gap. I accepted Christian faith as absolute truth, mainly because my experiences were true.

It is when I attended seminary, especially after I received a M. Div., I began to realize the gap between my experiences and the fundamentalism doctrines. I spent much time digging into the gaps… I realized I had to discard the fundamentalist doctrines, for they are just biblically indefensible…I left the fundamentalism ideology.

Now, the day I am nominated and ordained to be a ruling elder, I had to face a few fundamental questions in the ordination. All the questions are supposed to have a “Yes” answer. I’d better be honest. I decided to carefully study every questions, 8 in all. The end result: I fully embraced PCUSA faith statement as listed and explained in the ordination study bulletin.

The first question: Do you trust Jesus Christ as your savior, as the Lord of all creation, as the head of the church? And through Jesus believe the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Of course! Except I want to be very clear, I am not very sure about the existence of a literal “hell”, which is supposed to be created by God, for the purpose of punishment of sin. If I am doubtful about hell, how Jesus is my savior?

I know for a fact, that everybody has sinned against somebody, intentionally or not, because we have been separated from God the Creator, therefore lost the art of perfect love and communication. Christ saved me from self-centered life values, from pursuing only selfish fulfillment and pride. He saved me into a life of God’s bigger purpose -- freely spreading God’s loving-kindness towards people.

How? He teaches me new perspectives, new values. I believe there is no life damaged that Jesus cannot redeem. God helps and strengthen us in our weakness, disadvantage, and troubles. He is also the Lord of relationship, so that we can learn to forgive.

I believe this PCUSA view of redemption is very biblical, for Gospels and Pauline letters all proclaimed that Jesus resurrected to be the King of God’s Kingdom, which has been established on earth among His people, that we all are God’s works. They never really emphasized a life after death as Christian hope.

Regarding Trinitarian God, the bulletin especially points out that “Father” is a traditional way of description for God, and He definitely is not a male idol. Very good! To many people who never know how a good father is compassionate towards his children, this is a comfort.

The second basic question to ask: Do you accept the Bible as the Word of God and the highest authority, which is inspired by the Holy Spirit and witness to Christ? -- I put the question as I understand it, which no matter what church tradition you are in, a “Yes” answer would be warranted. But to the ear of theologian and seminarian, the question itself sounded somewhat like “do you accept Bible inerrancy doctrine”?

No, I don’t believe any of the extant manuscripts were inerrant. But thanks to the works of many textual criticism scholars, the texts of Hebrew and Greek Bible in print today are highly reliable and trustworthy as it stands to the earliest originals. It is amazing work of the Spirit as a whole.

Regarding the interpretation of Biblical text, i.e. translations and theologies, we have much difference derived from the same Bible. Every faith traditions and denominations offer somewhat different system theologies; each interpretation and understanding has certain historical or culture reasons. Therefore, I am fully aware that, to respect Bible’s authority cannot be just a sound bite to claim.

We uphold Bible’s authority, which cannot mean to claim our own tradition as the only absolute truth, others are heresies. Historically, our own faith tradition had used our own understanding of Bible authority to justify slavery, to justify discrimination against women, to justify wars etc, all proven wrong.

After careful consideration, I concluded that if we really uphold Bible’s authority, we have to keep learning, keep on searching. Whenever we realize our knowledge was incomplete or mistaken, we have to be ready to yield.

This I feel PCUSA is doing much better than many fundamentalist churches! (To be continued here.)

聖詩：這是我天父的世界

這是天父世界，我們側耳靜聽，
宇宙唱歌，四圍響應，星辰作樂同聲。
這是天父世界，我心滿有安寧，
花草樹木，穹蒼碧海，述說天父奇能！

這是天父世界，群鳥歡唱齊鳴，
清晨明亮，百花美麗，證明創造精深。
這是天父世界，祂愛普及萬千，
風吹草聲，知祂經過，隨處能聽祂言。

這是天父世界，叫我不可遺忘，
黑暗勢力雖然猖狂，天父卻仍作王。
這是天父世界，我心不必憂傷，
天父是王，宇宙同唱，祂治萬國萬方。

評估：形形色色的大道小道消息

論到各種報道來源是否可靠，有一位律師畫了下面這個圖，在社交網上分享。我想她的目的是幫助大家分辨報刊的可信程度，鑑於現在假消息變多，值得分享給華人朋友，供您參考。



首先，各種報導都很容易偏左偏右，寫手們把自己的意見從措辭上表現出來。圖中左邊的報刊是自由派的，越左越偏激，不太理會正宗的新聞專業培訓所教導的公平原則價值觀。而右邊的報刊是保守派的，越在右邊越偏激，同樣不太理會公平報導的價值觀。

其次，她把報導的品質分成高等和低等。擺在上面的報刊是寫作嚴謹、筆法流暢、消息來源清楚可靠的，當然其中有比較自由和比較保守的。

所謂的「主流媒體」，一般是指寫作品質達到相當的標準，不明顯偏左偏右的新聞報刊。我們看到中間那個圓圈中，列出幾個眾人常聽的廣播站和幾家眾人常讀的新聞社，還有大多數的地方報刊，收在圖書館的那些，都屬於主流媒體。

列在下面的是寫作品質較差的報刊媒體。如果文章不左不右，就還算可讀--知道消息總比不知道好。但那些偏左偏右的，你最好小心分辨，知道其左右傾向，作為參考。

至於左下角和右下角的博客、小報網站，很多純屬「標題黨」，吸引眼球卻文不對題，或真假混雜，不值得閱讀，或浪費時間。但中間偏左翼的The Huffington Post(赫芬頓郵報)，和中間偏右翼的Fox News(福克斯新闻)，都有一部份文章很接近主流媒體，可是有相當一部份的報導，這位律師評論說，你讀了可以證實自己已信的東西，卻說服不了不信的人。

還是建議大家閱讀主流媒體。川普總統不喜歡主流媒體，大概是因為嫌他們對他的誇讚不夠。

西方的跨文化宣教挑戰

Paul Hiebert是另外一位近代的宣教學家，神學院的教授，2007年才過世。他研究不同的文化中不同的神觀，因為他的父母是美國去印度的宣教士，他出生在印度，了解東方人的文化和世界觀。

Hiebert教授用「有機的」和「機械的」兩種特性，來描述全世界各種不同的世界觀或宗教。每一種都有不同程度的這兩種特性：「有機」意思是指萬物之間都互相有關係，彼此有正面或負面的影響，「機械」是指萬物之間有不同的自然力量彼此影響，所發生的事是不能掌控和非倫理的。

然後，人把世界又分成看不見或屬靈的部分，其中有神明、天使、或其它的靈，以及看得見、摸得著、可試驗觀察、可研究規律的部分。在看得見和看不見的事物之間，有不少世界觀還相信有鬼魂、邪靈、死人的靈魂等等東西存在。如下圖所示：



Hiebert教授說西方社會看世界缺少了中間那一層，我們把那一層當作迷信、虛假、或不存在。結果我們的宣教士去到一個相信中間那層勢力實際存在的文化中，就完全沒有辦法應付。巫師咒詛帶給人災禍，但基督徒相信基督的能力勝過那些。巫醫有能力治病，基督若是不能，誰還會信？只好讓人回到巫醫那裡。

我們既不能夠用世俗化的方式，否定那些世界觀就完事，也不能把所有的事都解釋成神秘兮兮的屬靈爭戰。目前的神學系統框架以哲學為基礎，聖靈論不夠，Hiebert教授建議發展「整全的神學」，Holistic Theology。

如何知道一條新聞是假的？

美國的中學生都有學習一個閱讀技巧，叫作「批判性思維」，即critical thinking skill。我有一年給孩子挑選暑期作業本，就選過那麼一本，其中含有大量的批判性思維的習題。顯然很多人缺乏這種技巧，他們讀到一些很低劣的搧動性文章，就信以為真。

今天看到一篇文章，為大眾分享如何識別假新聞，也就是如何使用批判性思維，就想要轉發一下。

1. 察看消息來源，看看是從哪個網站傳出來的。有些媒體來源比另一些來源可靠。那些匿名發表的微信消息有可能是某人的謠傳，或者故意把舊的資訊誇張一下，變得聳人聽聞。
2. 讀消息不要只讀標題，要點擊鏈接，進去讀原來的完整報告。你若仔細看，有時鏈接和轉發者的標題根本不符，並不支持轉發者想要說明的問題。
3. 看看文章作者是誰，是真人實姓，還是假名。
4. 檢查一下文章日期，有時資料已經過期，要看update的資料為準。
5. 看看是否是開玩笑的文章。沙堤亞風格的英文有可能被中國人誤解，翻出來就成了假消息。
6. 檢查自己的偏見。你如果對某人有偏見，就很容易相信關乎這人的某類謠言。
7. 請教專家。到圖書館看看，或察看一些專門察驗和報告消息是否屬實的網站，比如snopes.com。

當然，偶爾政府官員也公然散布假新聞，誠實報道的媒體會說：「某人如此是說，其實沒有證據。」你如果不相信主流媒體的報導，總要去找其它更可靠的消息來源，不能隨便信小道消息。但假如所有的主流媒體從不同角度的報導都一致，那你應該相信。

我們是鹽和光嗎？

你們是地上的鹽。鹽若失了味，怎能叫它再鹹呢？它不再有用，只好被丟在外面，任人踐踏。你們是世上的光。城造在山上是不能隱藏的。人點燈，不放在斗底下，而是放在燈臺上，就照亮一家的人。你們的光也要這樣照在人前，叫他們看見你們的好行為，把榮耀歸給你們在天上的父。

Yes! so let your light shine before men; that they may see ... your Father who is in heaven.



昨天我們這個小教會的新牧師帶領大家在神面前尋求教會的異像。耶穌對祂門徒說的上面這段話成為多數人贊同的一個形象，來代表我們教會的目標。--這並不是那麼容易，我們認識到現在是有差距的。--我們當中的很多人，別人恐怕不知道他們的恩賜；無論誰有甚麼亮光，他們恐怕也沒有甚麼機會分享。

在教會中沒有機會作鹽作光，你會怎樣？我們需要增加靈裡的聯結for sure，才能各自反映出天父的榮耀。