April 8thFrom the Desk Of Our Executive Minister
Minority Report #3 - We are NOT Reformed (Determinists)
Minority Report #3 - We are NOT Reformed (Determinists)
That Neo-Anabaptist, pentecostal, Alliance theologian David Fitch writes, "In my view, the Anabaptist heritage offers an alternative way to both uphold Scripture's authority in the church as well as interpret it for a given context for mission. Drawing on streams of Anabaptist history, there are practices that guide our ways of submitting our lives and the church to Scripture. This is not to be confused with current denominational Anabaptism, many of whom could be blamed for following the same trajectory that I am blaming the Reformed crowd for doing in evangelicalism."
I chose to become part of the Neo-Anabaptist movement in how I pastored, preached, and tended to and built communities of old and new followers of Jesus. It's vitally important that the Westcoast Anabaptist Network (MCBC) understand that we have robust theological roots that are wanting to spring forth ever new in our churches and new church plants. We are not simply a polite, peace-making variation of Reformed evangelicalism. We are something theologically distinct, and that distinctiveness matters.
Anabaptist theology is fundamentally a Free-will theology. God's grace has empowered all people to respond, to become part of God's Kingdom community on earth, or to reject this. This is not a minor doctrinal footnote. It shapes everything: how we evangelize, how we understand conversion, how we read the Scriptures together, and how we structure life in community. We don't begin with a God who has pre-selected the saved and abandoned the rest. We begin with a God who invites, woos, and calls, and who takes human response with absolute seriousness.
Anabaptist theology dovetails with other highly relational and Spirit-filled streams of renewal that insist our head-and-heart theology must remain in ongoing conversation with the Bible and lived worship, not reduced to Bible study alone, nor to social activism alone. We have pietism woven into our local church focus. We are, at our best, communities of genuine disciples, those who give primary allegiance to King Jesus. That allegiance shapes ethics, economics, politics, and the way we eat together.
Fitch continues, "Let us shape a practice of communal reading of Scripture together, as led by pastors, teachers and prophets in a church community, where the historical-critical knowledge of the text is indeed present, but grounded in the Theological Interpretation of text — recognizing both the streams of tradition present in the circle, as well as the importance of faithfulness within the historic streams of interpretation we are a part of. Last but not least, let us practice Contextual Interpretation, the listening and understanding of the language and meanings at work in one's context, all located together in a community. This practice takes skills and must be cultivated in church leaders for mission."
This is what we are after. Not a lone-scholar hermeneutic handed down from above, but a communal, Spirit-led, contextually-grounded reading of Scripture that forms disciples together. This is why pastoral and theological formation in our network matters; it's not about credentialing, it's about cultivating the very skills Fitch is describing.
Fitch asks, "I could be wrong, (tell me how), but I don't see many streams of current Reformed theology in evangelicalism as friendly to this direction? I see Holiness theologies (the Wesleyan Quadrilateral, the society meeting, etc.), Pentecostal theologies (the Spirit's authority in inspiring the Word and enlivening it in the gifts), and of course Anabaptist theologies as places for these kind of Scriptural practices. Tell me how I'm wrong?"
I think he's right. And I think this is an invitation for MCBC churches to lean into who we actually are, rather than borrowing our theological imagination wholesale from streams that don't share our convictions about freedom, community, and the way of Jesus.
Fitch adds, "And just to be clear, I don't think anything I've said here denies 'the inerrancy' of Scripture, even though the term has its problematics. I also don't believe anything I've said here diminishes the authority of Scripture in the church and beyond. Quite the contrary."
Amen to that. We hold Scripture with high seriousness, read through the lens of Jesus, interpreted in community, and lived out in the world.
Palmer Becker's Anabaptist Essentials is a decent starting point, but we can and should go deeper. The well is far richer than an introduction suggests.
📖 Fitch: https://davidfitch.substack.com/p/why-im-not-reformed-post-2
📖 Becker: https://www.commonword.ca/ResourceView/82/19176
+Boese