DownloadOct. 20, 2008 issue
Speakers at upcoming Rosedale Bible College event discuss what makes vital biblical Anabaptism
By Vicki Sairs Rosedale Bible CollegeROSEDALE, Ohio — John D. Roth and Jonathan Sauder will tackle topics that range from who needs conversion to why Anabaptism has answers for the emergent church Nov. 13-15 at Rosedale Bible College.
John Roth
They will speak at Rosedale’s third Evangelical Anabaptist Symposium, “Following Christ: Discovering a Vital Biblical Anabaptism.”
Roth, a history professor at Goshen (Ind.) College, and Sauder, a history teacher at Faith Mennonite High School in Kinzers, Pa., discussed in a telephone interview why the subjects they will cover matter.
Roth opened the conversation by citing the changing landscape of American Christianity, the “erosion of traditional denominational structures,” and the “growing sense, perhaps particularly among young people, that religious life as we know it is either dead or defensive or coercive in some way.”
These challenges to traditional structures and ways of doing church are real, he said, and they serve as the backdrop to the central question he wants to ask: “What does it mean to answer the ancient question, ‘Who do you say that I am?’ ”
Roth said Jesus’ disciple Peter got it right.
“The answer is, Jesus is the Messiah, the son of the living God — and yet part of the appeal or the punch of that passage for me is that the story doesn’t end there,” he said.
Roth stressed that this confession is “an absolutely crucial first step” and that the evangelical part of the church has proclaimed loudly and clearly and confidently that Jesus is Lord.
“Yet in some ways the real work of the kingdom only begins with that,” he said. “And the question that faces Peter and the disciples, that faces all of church history, is ‘How are you going to make that real, and how are you going to make it tangible and visible in the world?’ ”
Sauder took the discussion from confession to conversion, explaining that he will be examining conversion in the Anabaptist and evangelical traditions.
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