Browsing Tag

Tripp Hudgins

social media

The edgy Christian media startup you need to check out

More and more, Christian media outfits try to create their own social media platforms to get noticed. However, a new edgy social media startup, “Sogo” is taking a different route on social media to get their message out.

Sogo describes itself as: Sogo Media Tv – a new kind of Christian television network that uses the exploding platform of YouTube to distribute exclusive videos from an impressive collective of progressive Christian voices, as well as curates the religion and spirituality niche on YouTube. Founded in 2012, Sogo is short for “social Gospel,” a play on words that also refers to “social media + Gospel message.”

If you have ever been on GodTube or FaithVillage, you know those are specially Christian websites for Christians to share Christian content. Many Christian social media platforms want to create their brand of Christian media because of concerns of secular culture’s negative affects on social media. Sogo doesn’t seem interested in creating an alternate platform for its content, but rather desires to use the existing and popular YouTube instead.

Brian McLaren, who was one of TIME magazine’s “25 Most Influential Evangelicals”, agreed to be a contributor. McLaren lauded the new startup, Continue Reading…

sacrament

Guest Blogger: Tripp Hudgins the AngloBaptist

Part III: Sacrament vs. Ordinance: Guest Blogger, Tripp Hudgins (AngloBaptist).  Check out Part I & Part II.

Alan generously asked me to participate in this blog series on Baptist sacramentality and immediately I said yes. I wanted to chime in. But it took me a while to figure out how I could share my thoughts. As a baptist, I think the testimony might be the best mode of communication in this instance. I hope you will all bear with me.

I was in seminary listening to a lecture on the Eucharistic Prayer, that traditional prayer that many denominations use when celebrating the Lord’s Supper. We were walking through some of the history, form, and theological function of the prayer and when we got to the epiclesis I had an epiphany. Really, one hopes for an epiphany at the epiclesis, but how often does that happen? And yet, there it was. Whammo!

The epiclesis is the part of the longer Eucharistic Prayer (aka anaphora) where the presider (priest or pastor, typically) prays for the Holy Spirit to be present in the elements at the table. I was listening with Baptist ears on as my Episcopal professor explained the historical use of this prayer. I was on the lookout for magical thinking, or mechanistic ballyhoo. None. Zilch. Nada. Then…Then it hit me.

Hold on! What are all the elements present at the table for communion? Bread, wine (or juice), a presider of some sort, and, well…the people. The gathered faithful, The Body of Christ, are present at the table of the Lord! Don’t baptists believe that the Holy Spirit transforms us? Don’t we believe that we are somehow renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit? Don’t we pray that God would be present in our hearts? Isn’t this the same thing? Is this baptist sacramentality?

Continue Reading…

Baptists

Early Baptist Use of Sacraments

Much to the ignorance of many modern day Baptists, the word “sacrament” or sacraments was used by Baptist framers in their creeds and confessions.  Yes, I said it.  I used the words “Baptist” and “creed” in the same sentence.  Recent Baptist history upholds that Baptists are non-creedal, however it is clear that Baptists in the 17th and 18th centuries used creeds.  Later, Baptists called these creeds “confessions of faith” as did many other protestant groups.

Baptists affirm the theological statements in the creeds but do not use them to be  identified as a “Baptist.”  But, some Baptists used

confessions of faith as creeds.  This is the paradoxical nature of Baptists and their confessions of faith because their statements were directed at excluding other completing theologies. That is exactly what the creeds do, among with affirm what people believe. We receive the word “creed” from the Greek word credo meaning “to believe.”  Clearly, the Baptists were using creedal statements and formulas, but many Baptists did not want to call these doctrinal statements creeds in reaction to the creeds of the Catholic Church and the Anglican Church.

Alright, on to the use of the word “sacrament” in early Baptist thought and writings. William Joseph McGlothlin compiled a collection of early creeds and confessions of faith that our modern day Baptist life is modeled from.  McGlothin’s,  Baptist Confessions of Faith, was written in 1911 is a very helpful source book to understand how Baptists used “sacraments.”

The following are excerpts from, Baptist Confession of Faith, of the “English” living in Amsterdam in 1614, who desired to correct John Smyth‘s “errors” :

Continue Reading…

On Facebook