This page comes from the newsletter of Broadmead Baptist Church, known as The Record. The Record has been produced since 1934.
The Broadmead Cross
This cross, like all representations of the cross of Jesus Christ, symbolises his suffering and death for all humanity.
The arms reach outwards, like the arms of God, in love and forgiveness, gathering all suffering to himself
The space between the two upright members represents the fact that Christ is no longer dead. Beyond the cross there is the Resurrection.
The upright members point upwards to denote Christ's Ascension.
From The Record - Knowing what we believe
There is an old story, no doubt untrue, of a conversation between three people at an ecumenical gathering. They were discussing who had the final word in their respective churches. The Baptist was able to answer clearly that it was the bible which was the final arbitrator in church life. The Roman Catholic could be equally clear; it was the parish priest, possibly with the bishop looking over his shoulder. The Anglican was less sure and said that it was probably the previous vicar.
There are so many issues on which the church has changed its mind in recent years that it is hard to know what Christians believe and how they arrive at the conclusions they reach. The best we can say today is ‘this is what some Christians believe’ or even ‘this is what I believe’. Examples of change in the last 50 years would include the way many Christians view cohabitation, homosexuality and the place of women in church leadership. These changes may be right and proper, but that is not my point. My concern is about how we decide which changes are good, and on what basis can we describe something as ‘Christ- ian’. If we don’t know what we believe and why we believe it we can hardly commend our faith to someone else.
Clarity about such matters has practical importance. The Baptist Times of 4th June carried an article looking at recent research on church growth. According to this research all denominations are expected to continue to decline between now and the year 2020, with the sole exception of the Pentecostals. Within the Pentecostal churches growth is strongest in the black majority churches. The research on which the Baptist Times article was based did not offer much analysis of the reasons for this, but suggested that a combination of friendliness and clear teaching were important factors.
The church historian Herbert Schlossberg (Conflict and Crisis in the Religious Life of Late Victorian England, page 287) believes that the decline in church life, which began in the late-Victorian era, was in part because the church lost its nerve and adopted the values of the society around it. He quotes another historian, Edward Norman, who argues that the church was not overwhelmed by scientific and secular thinking, but that it chose to adopt them; in effect it chose to keep up with the intellectual fashion. Norman memorably describes this as “death by one’s own hand”.
As Christians, we need to be clear about our faith and to understand how belief determines the values by which we live. We need to be sure who has the final word! Christian beliefs and behaviour should be different from the rest of society until the Kingdom comes and everyone lives in God’s ways and by God’s values.
JOHN HOUSEAGO
Last updated: 28-06-10