New Geneva OPC's Debt to the Reformed Faith
by Rev. David Bass

Fort Apache was an outpost on the early frontier. It was small, vulnerable, and surrounded by hostile forces. Yet it stood for several decades as a beacon of safety and civilization in a wild and woolly west. In terms of bringing the reformed faith to Southeast Idaho, New Geneva OPC is a kind of Fort Apache. We are small, vulnerable, and surrounded by forces which, if not hostile, are at least indifferent to the doctrines of grace and the rich tradition of the reformed faith. In the face of these daunting obstacles, anyone who would begin the process of education in biblical faith must do so at a very basic level. We attempt to address that particular need. We do not break new intellectual ground nor solve cutting edge issues in contemporary reformed circles. Our need in this Fort Apache of the gospel is basic: what do we tell people is the reformed faith when they ask?

This task is increasingly difficult in our generation with the collapse of biblical and theological literacy in the Church over the last several generations. What has settled over the spirit of evangelicalism is a deadening "Protestant amnesia." Amnesia is "a total or partial loss of memory." This condition manifests itself as we attempt to live the Christian life and participate in worship as if we could take our Bibles and "leapfrog" over 2000 years of Christian experience and thought directly to the book of Acts and just do it the way they did it in the first century. Implicit here is a built-in naivite about God and the faith. Is our generation the first one to ever think about Jesus and his human and divine nature? About the Trinity? Spiritual gifts? Family ministry? Worship and music in the service? Emphatically no. Do we do a better job of it than our forefathers? It would be arrogant of us to think so.

In contrast, the Reformed faith is continuous with this heritage of life and faith. The Reformers were not innovators. They were returning to first century, biblical Christianity, with this important distinction from today's evangelical believer: they were deeply conscious of the debt owed to those who went before. They took the best and the biblical from them, realizing the only way the Church was going to be "reformed" was if it was divested of the heresy and deep error that had accrued to the Church over the past. This was not mere traditionalism; they had their Bibles in their hands as they examined what was taught by their forebearers! But they also knew the biblical faith had been passed on as a heritage, as Paul admonished Timothy: "And the things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also." (2 Timothy 2:2)

For instance, John Calvin, in his battle with the Roman Catholic Church, invited Sadolet (a Roman Catholic Doctor of Theology with whom Calvin debated) to "...place, I pray, before your eyes, that ancient form of the church, such as their writings prove it to have been in the age of Chrysostom and Basil, among the Greeks, and of Cyprian, Ambrose and Augustine, among the Latins; after so doing, contemplate the ruins of that Church as now surviving among yourselves." After doing so, Calvin was certain that "our agreement with antiquity is far closer than yours" and that "all we have attempted to do is to renew that ancient form of the Church, which, at first sullied and distorted by illiterate men of indifferent character, was afterwards flatigiously mangled and almost destroyed by the Roman Pontiff and his faction." (Selected Works of John Callvin: Tracts and Letters. vol. 1, Tracts, part 1, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983, p. 37-38) He does an important thing here: he compares "that ancient form of the Church" with that of his contemporaries. This process is not only consistent with the Bible, but with what the Church has done throughout her history, walking upon the stepping stones of those who went before.

The historian Walter Savage Landor said, "We must see through many ages before we see through our own distinctly." Can you see through our own age and see the face of Jesus? "Why, yes, of course!" you say, "I have my Bible and I just read it and believe what it tells me. I don't need to study creeds, fancy theologies, philosophy, or what people like Origen, Augustine, Luther, or any of those others thought in the past. All I need is Jesus and my Bible."

While this sounds good at first, a moments reflection will show its foolishness. For instance, we are indebted to Tertullian and Athanasius for a full articulation of the doctrine of the Trinity. Although the doctrine is in the Bible in its basic form, the term and its articulation took centuries to hammer out (stated fully at the Council of Nicea, AD 325). Although "Trinity" is a term which all Christians have used since for centuries to describe the Godhead, it is doctrine bought dearly with time, thought, labor, and - in some cases - with blood.

More to the point of concern is the doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone, a doctrine which Luther says is "the article upon which the church stands or falls." The Reformation reclaimed this from the ash heap of dead works and superstition. Not only so, but the reform swept through the entire area of Christianity, transforming our worship, church government, the family, life and ministry in the Church, and the average believer's everyday walk with God. Three examples come to mind:

1. The Reformers re-introduced congregational singing to worship. For long, only the choirs sang.

These are all things we take for granted. Yet, in a real sense, every time we see Jesus in the Bible, we see him through "lenses" ground in part by others who went before us. No one comes to the faith in a vacuum, no one understands the Bible apart from others who have acted as mentors and teachers. Anyone who reflects for a moment upon their own conversion and growth in discipleship will see that an entire matrix and network of people have helped to shape their understanding of the faith. Anyone who claims otherwise is either lying or self-deceived. This being the case, it is not only incumbent upon us to understand the Bible as best we can, but also to understand how we understand it, to examine the "lenses" and those who ground them. There is a blissful ignorance and patronizing boredom with this task in todays church, however.

With these things in mind, we at New Geneva OPC wish to lay the groundwork for greater things to come, a true rennaissance of reform in this inter-mountain region of the West. It is quite audacious to name our fledgling work after the greatest nexus of Reform in the history of the church, the city of Geneva, Switzerland. Yet, we hope that it will constantly remind us that we have greatness after which we can aspire. Pray that God will use us to transform Fort Apache into New Geneva!

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