Dec. 15, 2008 issue
Symposium examines evangelical, Anabaptist perspectives
By Vicki Sairs Rosedale Bible CollegePage:
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ROSEDALE, Ohio — John D. Roth sees two impulses for renewal in the church today: the growing interest among young people in the Emergent movement, and the move in many churches toward more expressive worship.
John Roth, history professor at Goshen College, addresses Rosedale Bible College’s third Evangelical Anabaptist Symposium Nov. 13-15 at RBC. — Photo provided by RBC
Although the first “suggests a move from the evangelical world into Anabaptism” and the second seems like a move from Anabaptism to evangelicalism, he’s hopeful the two can be reconciled.
“The deepest and most exciting challenge ahead is to bring these two themes of evangelicalism and Anabaptism into closer conversation,” said Roth, professor of history at Goshen (Ind.) College, during a Nov. 14 talk at a Rosedale Bible College gathering.
“Following Christ: Discovering a Vital Biblical Anabaptism,” the third symposium sponsored by the Conservative Mennonite Conference college, drew more than 100 members of the evangelical and Anabaptist communities Nov. 13-15.
Roth also opened the symposium with a discussion of pluralism and what it means to confess Christ in the Anabaptist tradition.
Roth said one clear gift of the evangelical tradition is its focus on the urgency of Peter’s confession in Matthew 16: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Yet we haven’t grasped the essence of that confession until we are ready to take up our cross and follow Jesus, Roth said.
“The confession must become flesh in real space and time and culture,” he said.
Today’s fractured Christian landscape offers a free market of religious options, Roth said. Young people are looking in that marketplace for authentic faith, he said, yet they are suspicious of anyone who claims to know the truth “with a capital T.” They see such a claim as a form of power “that will inevitably justify violence.”
While some churches react to pluralism and diversity by retreating behind a short list of fundamental doctrines, others are downplaying denominational differences and embracing “a generic Christianity.”
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