Riverwood Presbyterian Church

Church and Worship

From the Mud Room to the Library

by Blake Johnson

In an upcoming Salt and Light article, I will be addressing the issue of how we as Reformed and Presbyterian Christians should interact with the wider Christian world. Reformed Christians in America have an upleasant history infighting and sectarianism (see Machen’s Warrior Children). In my view, whatever one thinks about the Federal Vision in all its particulars, a consistent and positive thrust of the movement has been the willingness to interact with those outside the relatively small Reformed world, and even smaller world of the Presbyterian Church in America. Presbyterian minister Doug Wilson made these instructive comments recently:

When C.S. Lewis wrote of mere Christianity, he used the image of the hallways of a great house. He emphasized that it was in the rooms that one slept, took one’s meals, visited with family and friends, and so on. All the action took place in the rooms — and that is where my Reformed identity resides. That’s where I keep my books, and my slippers, and my laptop. But it is possible (and desirable) to go out into the hallway from time to time and fellowship with the other residents of this great house. I can do that without forgetting where my bed is, and without trying to get all the Christians to sleep in the hallways. When a particular tradition becomes in-grown it is easy to think that “this room” is the only room where anything worthwhile is going on. One of points of FV catholicity is that we don’t think this is true — God is doing wonderful things in other parts of the house. This has been taken (and ought not to have been taken) as us expressing a desire to move out of our Reformed library with its fat books and burnished leather chairs, and tobacco, and Drambuie on the rocks, and carpet you could lose a shoe in. So don’t get me wrong. I like it here and have no intention of moving out — although I still reserve the right to get chased out. But I can still be grateful for those Campus Crusade guys staffing the mud room, getting new people into the house, and making it possible for them to eventually make their way to the library.

The context may be found here. Healthy ecumenism is not coming together to feel good about coming together. Healthy ecumenism is coming together around the truth of the gospel that has been believed by all Christians everywhere at all times.

Like Wilson, I like our room. When my friends in the room lock the door, however, and tell me I can’t take a stroll down the hall to borrow a book from another room, or perhaps borrow an insight from another room, I think we are dealing with an incredibly historical naivety and ridiculous insularity. Let’s continue to decorate the room and invite others in, but for the love of all that’s good, let’s keep the door open.