You can access an interesting article here about this subject. I find that there is a lot of ignorance in many UK churches about what it means to be ‘reformed’. I have blogged about this already but I will say that many people have a poor or caricatured understanding of what it means to hold to a ‘reformed theology’. When people first discover my unashamed theological leanings, I can almost see the dismay and incredulity etched on their faces. How can I be a church planter and a 5 pointer at the same time? How can I have my testimony and hold to a missiological cessationist position with regard to the spiritual sign gifts (not that these things necessarily mean I am reformed)?
Sadly, there are lots of opinions but not a lot of ‘informed’ and ‘well read’ considerations on some of these issues. I have a lot of friends who disagree with me on a lot of topics but I like to think we can have intelligent debate rather than the sort of crinkly nosed, ‘I don’t like it therefore I am going to dismiss it after 5 seconds’ responses that many people give to deep, theological issues today.
It worries me that, in some circles, it can seem almost ‘cool’ to disdain any sort of rigorous theological thought and doctrine in inner city planting areas. I think that this is dangerous and ultimately undermines the Bible and sells our congregations short. I know many believers who have been involved in inner city missions for many decades and yet are still babes in the deep things of God. More than that, they have an almost paranoic suspicion of anybody who teaches anything other than the ‘good old fashioned gospel’.Whilst that sounds spiritual, it can lead to people imbibing all sorts of theological nonsense and leave many with crippling sin issues that have never been dealt with due to a poor comprehension of the rich diversity of scripture.
We don’t have to tell our people everything we know as we work in these difficult estates but we do have a God-given responsibility to help them engage with Him better and grapple with some of the bigger issues of scripture and how they apply to all of our lives (whatever our socio-economic background). We are people ‘of the book’ after all and if we are working amongst a largely non reading culture then we must not only do it for them but seek to pass on what we have read in a culturally contextual, engaging and applicable fashion. For those that can we must help them to delve in and get to grips with some of the big themes. They can handle it better than we think.