Newsweek's expose' on the Bible

Newsweek Magazine kicked off the new year by running an expose' on the Bible entitled "The Bible: So Misunderstood It's a Sin." Ministry Matters offered an excellent response and critique of the Newsweek piece, which can be found HERE. 

I suppose, as a committed believer in Christ and as a clergyman of his holy Church, I am about as much of a religious "insider" as one can be.  So perhaps I'm more "irked" or bothered than the average person when secular (and supposedly "objective" or "neutral") news media outlets publish stories on Christianity, the Bible, or religious issues that so often misrepresent the church's belief, or just plain "don't get it."  I think there is a certain irony about the title of this Newsweek article.

Very often these stories demonstrate a seriously flawed understanding of what grown-up and intellectually vigorous evangelical Christians actually think and feel, leaving the audience with caricatures rather than insights.  Such stories, when combined with sensationalized headlines and publication dates timed to correspond with the high holy days of the Christian faith (like Christmas and Easter), can even leave one with the feeling that a secular organization is using its massive influence and resources to deliberately sabotage the faith of Christian believers.  One also gets the sense that Christianity is being singled out - targeted - for more critical scrutiny than would be given to any other of the world's venerable world religious traditions.

Perhaps I really should be thankful that topics like Christ and the Bible are still so central to the national conversation in my country and, as the Ministry Matters article points out, these types of stories do afford the church an opportunity to respond with grace and also with thoughtful clarity about what we Christians actually do believe.  It is really true that many church-members (in addition to secular news editors) do not have a very full-grown or nuanced understanding of the Bible.  There really is opportunity here.  Yet one cannot help feeling at least a little bit frustrated when the loudest voice in the room is also the one that is misrepresenting one's own beliefs.  

"Act of Faith" Prayer

On one or two occasions when flipping past a (Roman) Catholic TV station or looking into a church, I've run across a prayer known as the "Act of Faith" or "Act of Faith Prayer."  There is nothing at all in the content that a Reformational Christian who can affirm the Apostles' Creed would find objectionable.

In fact, I'm not too sure why this Act of Faith developed, since everything in it is basically already found in the Apostles' Creed and certainly in the more comprehensive Nicene Creed (though the Creeds affirm some other things not found here, as this Act of Faith is actually even shorter than the Apostles' Creed).  But as a short confession of faith in the form of a prayer, it is impressive.

Maybe Methodists, Anglicans, Lutherans and other "Reformed catholic" Christians would profit from using this prayer devotionally.

 O my God, I firmly believe that you are one God in three divine Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I believe that your divine Son became man and died for our sins, and that he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe these and all the truths which the holy catholic church teaches, because you have revealed them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived. Amen.