“In the first place, I ask that men make no reference to my name; let them call themselves Christians, not Lutherans. What is Luther? After all the teaching is not mine [John 7:16]. Neither was I crucified for anyone. St. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 3[:22], would not allow the Christians to call themselves Pauline or Petrine, but Christian. How then should I — poor stinking maggot — fodder that I am — come to have men call the children of Christ by my wretched name? Not so, my dear friends; let us abolish all party names and call ourselves Christians, after him whose teaching we hold.” – Martin Luther, ” A Sincere Admonition to All Christians” (1522)
Reformation Day is on 31st October. I’m finalizing some thoughts for tomorrow morning’s Reformation Sunday worship. We just had our KL district Reformation Service at 5pm on Saturday. so, all this Reformation stuff is very much floating in my mind.
So I guess the time is ripe to start a grassroots campaign to rename BLC to Ekklesia Kristian Bangsar .. the EKB abbreviation can also be short for Evangelisch Kirche in Bangsar 😀
Hi sivin,
Happy Reformation Day.
I like Luther’s quote- something we need to kep in mind that we are not building our own little kingdom- ekkelsia or otherwise.
I was reading this paper by Rodney Mckean, “The State of Christian education” Christian Education Journal, Winter 1988, Vol. VIII, No 2, 25-32. He maintain that the educatian we do in our churches are neither Christian or is it educaion. What is interesting is the way he describe Christians. In the Middle Eastern culture, names are important like Simon ben Jonah. Names indicate ancestry and character of the person. So, Christ-ians are translated as “sons of Christ”. Meaning they are descended from Christ and bears the character of Christ. Bears remembering in this Reformation period.
shalom