I thought this was an excellent point. It made me think about a letter written by Aaron Shank to his fellow Eastern bishops in 1988.JayP wrote: ↑Sat Jan 27, 2024 9:06 am But what strikes me is that some of the men who help create EPMC, I mean the young men in the trenches, not the bishops at the time, went on to become influential and themselves ministry. Yet, the excellent thinking they brought to the table, and I confess were significant in my choosing to join, is sliding away, as their prodigy are the product of their limited education systems and group think.
It seems Aaron Shank is committed to the practices he mentions, but is also committed to fundamentalism. So I find it surprising he's admitting an interpretative (extra-biblical?) framework is necessary because it's not obvious from the Bible which practices are binding to New Testament believers. John D.'s book is an answer to this question, but it's not an answer that fits with the fundamentalism that Aaron Shank and Steve Ebersole were using to critique certain Eastern practices they disagreed with.Aaron Shank wrote:Or maybe we do have a similar problem of understanding how to relate properly and when to apply Old Testament principles to New Testament church life. For example--with the exception of the occasions when the early church assembled on the first day of the week for fellowship, the New Testament is completely silent on the sacred observance of the Lord's day. We go to the Old Testament for our convictions on keeping the Lord's day holy. We do the same for the principle of spanking or for the using of the rod in child-training, for dress distinction of the sexes, for specific identification dress for God's children, for our use of the lot (which practice was never even alluded to after the birth of the church), etc.
Just when is it right to profit by and base our practice on Old Testament principles and when is it right to make authentic change where the New Testament does not require such a change? Maybe we should have a "Jerusalem Conference" on this problem sometime.
I am curious if PIlgrim actually came up with a framework to make these determinations about Old Testament practices the New Testament is silent about. My sense is (could be wrong) that Steve Ebersole and Aaron Shank were asking big questions (destabilizing to conservative Mennonite practice) that when they actually started their own conference they stepped away from. It seems like PMC is somewhat more intellectually honest and humane than EPMC, and is not fundamentally different.