| Presbyterians embrace the motto, “The
church reformed, and always to be reformed,” yet in order
to understand the challenge such a formula places before the
modern church, it is important to understand its historic meaning.
In the 16th century when the motto emerged, it
was meant to have a radical implication in the sense of returning
to the roots of the Christian faith. Leaders of the
reformation movement were not striving for innovation for
the sake of change; instead, they were seeking to return to
the form of the church and belief originated by Jesus Christ,
lived out by the earliest disciples and born witness to in
the writings of the New Testament. Unlike the contemporary
belief that what is new and innovative is better, the Reformers
believed that what is older is better. Also, the Reformers
believed that all of us need reforming since we are all sinners
and that the church is not the agent of reform but that God
is the agent of reform. The church is the object of
God’s reforming work.
Three of the central tenets of Reformed belief are:
- That God creates, sustains, rules, and redeems the
world in the freedom of sovereign righteousness.
- That the understanding of the church is first and
foremost based on the teaching of scripture as found in
the Old and New Testaments.
- That Jesus Christ is God’s witness to the world
in terms of love, grace, mercy and justice.
When we live our faith within the motto of the Reformers,
we are called to a radical existence. Dr. Anna Case-Winters
stated the case well when she recently wrote, “This
motto…challenges both liberal and conservative impulses
and habits and agendas…it brings a prophetic critique
to our cultural accommodation…it invites us, as people
who worship and serve a living God, to be open to being ‘re-formed’
according to the Word of God and the call of the Spirit.”
Who needs reform? The answer is everyone—re-formed
by the grace and love of God as seen in the person of Jesus
Christ. Rev. Herbert Isenberg
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