In Acts 2, when the Holy Spirit filled the 120 remaining disciples of Jesus and they began to declare the wonders of God in the languages of the people gathered, from many places, in Jerusalem, Peter raised his voice and addressed the crowd, and, referring to the writings of the prophets, declared that God had made Jesus, whom they'd crucified "both Lord and Messiah." (NIV)
People in the crowd were cut to the heart by the message and asked, "What shall we do?"
Peter replied:
"Repent and be baptized..."
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It seems to me that, in the centuries that have followed, one of the dysfunctions among followers of Jesus is that, while Peter was clear that both repentance and baptism are essential to inclusion among the people of the Kingdom,...
...people of the church have normally tended to emphasize either repentance or baptism.
The ancient Christian truth is that the two must exist as an organically connected whole.
Tragically, some make the act of repentance everything...
...while others yearn to see men and women participate in the ritual of baptism and, ultimately, other rituals as well, without the raw and untidy emotionalism connected to the godly sorrow that produces a repentance that leads to salvation.
Both are dysfunctions, corruptions...sins.
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If you read this blog regularly, you might conclude that I'm one of the people who beats his drum for repentance to the exclusion of baptism.
However, that's not true.
The truth, as I see it, is that, in my faith tradition, I see little, perhaps no, awareness of the need for repentance at all, and, on the other hand, a growing passion for participation in ritual.
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There was a time, not even so long ago, that here in the Churches of God, General Conference, (which, I believe, is typical of many small, now declining, Protestant denominations) that observance of Advent, for example, and Lent was virtually nonexistent.
These days, however, these observances are commonplace.
And, calls for repentance, now, are nonexistent.
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Oddly, and to add to the dysfunction,...
...while the body has been adopting formerly High Church practices, at the same time...in the past decade, in particular...
...the church has formally reaffirmed its founding vision, which was vehemently and radically Low Church...
...and, very much on the side of the "repent only," "Repent and be baptized" dysfunctional divide.
And, so, today, the body is a:
Confused,
Self-conflicted,
Visionless,
Muddled...
...mess.
And, as must follow, it is declining numerically and decaying spiritually.
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In an age of decline and decay of God's Kingdom in the West, it's time to reverse course...
...to call for repentance and to accept that the emotional messiness of repentance is a part of the way of Jesus who declared as blessed, the poor in spirit, those who mourn, are meek and who hunger and thirst for righteousness...
...and it is also time to see the organic connection of the process of repenting to, well, call it, ritual...
...but with the understanding that ritual only operates in a way that is true to Jesus when every disciple is empowered to function as a member of what Peter labeled the "royal priesthood."
We must turn from the dysfunction that separates repentance from baptism.
We must repent.
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