Note: the banner above used to adorn my Blogger blog. As of July 16, 2006 I switched to WordPress.com.
How do you like my new banner?? I have been toying around with redesigning my template, but being not all that HTML savy, I have opted for merely adding this banner. The banner highlights my new motto, “striving for the unity of the faith for the glory of God.” I give five Bible verses in support of my motto:
Eph. 4:3 “…eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
Eph. 4:13 “…until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,…”
Rom. 15:5-7 “May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.”
These verses stress that God desires us to be in unity. Moreover, “the unity of the Spirit” and “the unity of the faith” result in a unity of praise from God’s people.
The purpose of my blog has been to promote unity. And by the grace of God this will continue.
Now some might say, “How can Bob truly be promoting unity when he continually rants and raves about the errors of fundamentalism?” Well, first off, make sure you understand exactly where I am coming from in my critique of fundamentalism. If you do not want to read my extremely long (sorry :)) personal story, at least read this post and maybe even this post. And do not neglect to read my earlier clarification post. But beyond what I have said previously about the issue, consider this. My concern over fundamentalist doctrinal and practical errors, is really a concern for more unity in the church. And unity is by no means at odds with doctrinal clarity.
Let me explain. Although I believe that the fundamentalists often inflate the importance of minor doctrines at the expense of unity, I still think it is important to promote the importance of minor doctrines. I think it is so important that much of this blog discusses them. The more we agree on minor doctrines, the better our practical unity will be. Yet we still share a huge degree of unity with those who may disagree with us on some clearly minor issues. Why? Because we share agreement the most important and fundamental doctrines in Scripture! For a better defense of this, see Nathan Pitchford‘s latest article on unity–he does a masterful job presenting how unity and doctrinal precision are not at odds.
Now, why am I so hung up on fundamentalists? I mean Evangelicalism has its fatal flaws too. I know, but I was raised a fundamentalist. Thus, I know their flaws, and want to see them fixed. Further, too often fundamentalists seem to cushion themselves from any personal evaluation due to their loud defaming of evangelicals. Often such loud speech merely covers for problems equally appaling of their own.
In conclusion, I have brought forth this new motto to stress the fact I am promoting unity. I think fundamentalism–even its best representations–practically distorts unity. It is a hindrance to unity. Yet I want to realize that fundamentalists–all of them–are my Christian brothers, with whom I have real unity (whether they {or I} acknowledge it). So this banner will help me remember to disagree and fight for doctrinal truth in a loving way. The previous subtitle I had, was more of an explanation of my blog’s title. “Out of the fog of independent fundamental Baptist extremism, into the light of Reformed Theology–a journal.” This clued you in on the nature of this blog, and what kind of topics I would discuss. This is still valuable and so I have kept it as a title for the banner–hover your cursor on the banner, and you should see that line. Yet, I think it brought a connotation that I was all out to bash IFBs or something. This is not the case, as this post has labored to explain.
∼striving for the unity of the faith for the glory of God∼ Eph. 4:3,13 “¢ Rom. 15:5-7