Corby Amos

I take the first sentence, especially in the context of both current events and perennial Church teaching, to mean “God does not bless any and all conflicts,” rather than “God blesses no conflicts.”

So my hottest take on "non-denominational" churches is that Im not sure they can be classified--on historic Protestant grounds--as true churches. They're more like missions, or pre-ecclesial assemblies, than true churches in their own right.

Those of us who have been engaged in retrieval conversations for the last 10-15 years need to take note of Protestant conversions to Orthodoxy and Catholicism and why they happen. There are obviously a million reasons why people change church traditions, and they’re often not merely intellectual, but I think it’s part of it. I’ve been convinced the last few years that we need to talk a lot more about Protestant methodology when it comes to retrieval. The whole church tradition absolutely belongs to Protestants too (and the Reformers constantly said this). But mistake I made, at least early on, was introducing students and pastors to the Christian tradition without helping them think through how to do it in a way that is Protestant (biblically regulated and critically appreciative) versus some sort of narrative about unity and historical purity going back to the apostles. This is where theological interpretation (or choose whatever phrase you want to replace that with) can be so helpful. We need to have a hermeneutic and methodology that roots doctrine in Scripture, rather than merely tradition. We need to affirm the Trinity, for example, because we think the Bible clearly teaches it, not merely because it is a good doctrine of necessary consequence hashed out in later centuries or because we think the Nicene Creed is important. I have been much more intentional in my church history classes, for example, of showing students how different traditions receive church history, and why it matters. If people are going to leave Protestantism, we want them to actually know what they’re leaving and what they’re headed to. It can’t be merely on vibes, grievances, or buying false narratives. Ad fontes! Semper reformanda! Etc!

absolute patriot