The other place I blog is the Web Site of Confessing Christ. Here is A Brief history of Confessing Christ by Pastor Frederick R. Trost: “In August of 1993,a Convening Committee for Confessing Christ was on the phone, composed of pastors and teachers of the Church and a graduate student in American Church history.Might there be a way of gathering others in the United Church of Christ who love the Church and are devoted to its ministry, to talk about our “life together” for the sake of our mission as Christians and our commitment to social justice, liturgy, and pastoral care? From the beginning there was agreement on the necessity for solid, joyous, theological work in the Church, for Biblical study and conversation with our varied, rich, and living theological heritage in the United Church of Christ. We took as our theme the words of the First Article of the Barmen Declaration:
- with joyful seriousness,
- not as a kind of hobby,
- not with any desire to settle down in the sixteenth century
but to honor our baptism, to see how dialogue with one another and with those who believed before we were born, can reform the life of the Church for the sake of its vocation in the world.
There are times when we have to face the fragile state of our life together. We believe this is one of those times. There are moments when the question “What is truth?” won’t go away. This is one of those moments. There are hours when the ancient query “What think ye of Christ?” cannot be avoided. We believe this is one of those hours.
When I Survey . . . 