A new year, a new topic
The Rector’s Forum meets on Sundays at 9:00, discussing all manner of topics. In 2017 we begin with a look at church history, answering four important questions:
- What is the Church and what is essential to it?
- How can the Church be renewed and reformed if needed?
- How are Church and State related and what should be their relationship?
- What is the Church’s mission and what should it be?
These questions have implications for church life today, and the answers through history can give us directions for where to go.
Can’t make the Forum on Sundays? Check here regularly for updated ideas and an opportunity to give your own ideas. Here’s how the Episcopal Church answers that first question, an answer articulate in 1888 and now part of the historical documents of the church. Check back here next week to find out what this means:
The Essential Nature of the Church, according to the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral of 1888 (BCP pp. 876-878):
- Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament as the revealed Word of God/ “containing all things necessary to salvation,” the rule and ultimate standard of Faith.
- The Apostles’ Creed, as the Baptismal Symbol; and the Nicene Creed, as the sufficient statement of the faith.
- The two Sacraments ordained by Christ Himself—Baptism and the Supper of the Lord—ministered with unfailing use of Christ’s words of Institution, and of the elements ordained by Him.
- The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods for its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples…