interviews Keith Drury on his latest book
Common Ground -- What All Christians Believe and Why It
Matters.
(From BookWatch in CrossReference)
Drury Sees Urgent Need for Orthodoxy
|
Few people are as at home in a
crowd of twentysomethings as is quintessential baby
boomer Keith Drury. The sixtysomething associate
professor teaches Christian ministry at With one finger on the pulse of
the next generation and another taking vital signs
on the church, “Coach” Drury has a knack for identifying emerging trends. So
what should we be talking about right now? Doctrine. Cross Reference conducted
this digital interview with the prolific author, who speaks candidly about
the looming crisis of orthodoxy and the subject of his latest book, Common
Ground: What All Christians Believe and Why It Matters. |
CR: Why a book on the Apostles’ Creed?
KD: Two reasons. First, these are the things all Christians have in
common, thus it emphasizes Christian unity as a witness to the world.
Second, the challenge to Christianity in the years ahead will not be to explain
second-level teachings like entire sanctification or eternal security. It will be to defend the core beliefs Christians have held for 2000
years.
CR: You think the threat to orthodox
faith is that serious?
KD: I do. The American church includes millions of people
who say they have been born again yet reject ideas like the resurrection of
Christ and the final judgment. The Apostle’s Creed affirms the essential
beliefs that we must never lose sight of.
CR: So what’s the future if we don’t
adjust?
KD: We’ll have churches populated by people who think
right about social issues like abortion and concern for the
poor but who are completely wrong on matters like the full humanity and full
divinity of Jesus. They’ll be unchristian Christians.
CR: So this book is about defining the
minimum standard of Christian belief.
KD: Exactly. Christians should believe more that what is
stated in the Apostles’ Creed, but they cannot believe less.
CR: Evangelicals have tended to
downplay creeds in general. Will they go for a creedal faith now?
KD: We don’t want a formal religion, and Wesleyans in particular
downplayed belief in favor of lifestyle issues. Yet what we believe matters as
much as what we do. A person lives a beautiful
life but does not believe that Jesus rose from the dead is not a Christian.
CR: Which statements in the creed are
most urgent right now?
KD: The notion of the holy, catholic—meaning
universal—church is most needed, for there is an idea afloat that each of us
can be a Christian all on our own with no connection to the church. After that the affirmation of a bodily resurrection is most
urgently needed. About half of the students coming into a Christian college
reject the resurrection of the body. They believe our bodies rot forever and
our Spirits go to heaven. This heresy has plagued the church since the first
century, yet it is taught in Sunday school classes
every week.
CR: What do you hope to accomplish with
this book?
KD: I pray it helps Christians refocus on the core
doctrines that make us Christian. We are facing an increasingly pluralistic
amid powerful and attractive religions that are not Christian. I hope this book
reminds us of these core doctrines.
And I suppose I should admit that I wish it would prompt
Christians to actually say the creed once in awhile in worship. We have taken
believing these core doctrines for granted for so long . . . I hope this book
will draw us back to what Christians have always believed.