Greetings!
The Protestant Reformation was, from a human perspective, fueled by the recovery of ancient learning. The Reformers recovered the ability to read ancient languages, and thus they recovered and read the texts of the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the writings of the church fathers.
From those documents they recovered and learned again the gospel of Jesus Christ and the faith of the ancient church. On the basis of that recovered learning, they worked to correct in their own day the church's reading of the Bible, the church's understanding of the gospel, the church's articulation of its faith, and the church's governing of its life.
This project is not yet complete. There is still much work to be done. We continue to need to correct the church's reading of the Bible, the church's understanding of the gospel, the church's articulation of its faith, and the church's governing of its life in our own day.
And this ongoing reformation of the church in our own day will continue to be fueled by the recovery of ancient learning. This is how it worked before. We pray in good faith that it shall work that way again.
The Foundation for Reformed Theology was created for, and continues to exist for, both this recovery of ancient of ancient learning and also its application to our current situation. This is why we were founded. This is who we are. This is what we are about.
Our mission and work focus first on recovering the learning of the classic writings of historic Reformed theology and then second on applying that learning to reforming the church in our own day. The two go together. The first is the means, the second is the goal. Learning without application would have little or no point, while any application without learning would have no substance or direction and hence would not and could not be faithful reformation.
Note especially that in and through this first step of recovering of Reformed theology, we shall also necessarily recover the Reformers' own reading of Scripture and of the church fathers. That is included. It cannot be otherwise.
I am writing today to invite us all to participate in, and to support, this ongoing recovery and reformation project. Ministers are invited to participate in our ministerial study seminars, ongoing communities of guided study. We hope to provide additional seminars for elders, too.
All members of the church are invited and welcomed to read from, and so to drink deeply from, the wells of our Foundation Bibliographies, lists of readings from historical Reformed theology on thirty-five or so theological topics.
And all are invited and urged to give to the Foundation both in order to support our current work and also in order expand our work so that we will be able to reach more and more people in the future.
The Protestant Reformation was fueled by the recovery of ancient learning. Help the Foundation to continue and to extend this great project in our own day. Thank you! |