A Confessional Church in a Pluralistic World
Playing Ball on a Field Without Boundaries
by James R. Edwards
Perhaps the most fundamental issue before American Christianity—both liberal and conservative—is what it means to be a confessional church in a pluralistic world. Christianity is by nature confessional. American democracy is by necessity pluralistic. The Church—at least, the Church militant—never exists apart from a cultural context. The longstanding alliance between Protestantism and American democracy makes the Church particularly vulnerable to a confusion of creed and context, of confessional status and pluralistic environment. Our quandary over the confession by which we live and the pluralistic culture in which we live is sometimes like trying to play football on a field without sidelines and end zones.
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