As the weeks of the summer vacation quickly disappear, I seem to have embarked on a whistle stop historic tour. Last week I spent most of the week talking, or rather listening to numerous papers, about the church in England during the 17th century and tomorrow I head to Belgium and the Western Front to find out about what the Church was doing during the First World War.
But I'm training to minister in the world today, so why bother with what happened in the past?
Well, as was pointed out to us last week, Christianity is a religion rooted in history. The Bible is full of historic stories. The Church, its faith and mission, have been shaped by history. The Church today is the result of what happened in history.
And as I train for ministry in the United Reformed Church, I am training alongside others who are training to minister in the Anglican Church, the Methodist Church, the Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church. There are of course theological differences between the denominations, but the only way to truly understand where these difference emerged is to look back in history. It is also a good place to start when trying to work out how we can work together.
1662, the year of the Book of Common Prayer or the year of the Great Ejectment - depends which denomination you are - but an important date for the church in England. However, what happened has, for most, been lost in time and as the church in England we have just been living with the consequences. But maybe its time to stop living with the consequences and start trying to understand what happened and how what seems on the surface to be a negative event can be something positive. So as denominations together we come to understand more about our differences and use this knowledge to allow us to work together for the glory of God in our neighbourhoods.
See Church History does that a point!
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