"Frames" Make All the Difference

Today, on Ken Schenck's blog site, he has an entry on "Confirmation". (He does seris of different kinds. This one is on "the Church"). His point in the entry is that there are many and various ways of understanding "membership" in Church.

Since his commitment is to "bibilcal studies" and he is a biblical scholar, as well as an ordained minister in the Wesleyan church, his frame is on "tradition/scripture" (not to say he cannot work within other frames and he does, as a bibilcal scholar).

As I was thinking more about it. I was thinking how someone committed to the Church would view another. Say, for instance, the other was not working within or understanding the organized structure of the Church, as they were using critical analysis and not faith in understanding tradition.. Someone working from a "tradition/scripture" and faith frame would "judge" that this other person would be a 'person" gifted for evangelism, as John Wesley said that "the world was his parish". But, is this necessarily so?

No. The "critical" person is working from a different "frame" altogether. Their frame is not a frame based in faith, but reason. For instance, a critical frame of reference would be using "reason" as the frame, not tradition. Someone could be interested in the psychology of religion and be interested in the similarities between people when they have a religious experience (reason/experience). Or someone could be interested in how history has been affected by the Church (tradition/reason). Or someone could be interested in the development of traditions (reason/tradition/experience). There are many ways that reason "understands". And the ways of understanding are found within the academic disciplines.

I find it frustrating when people "peg" me to "tradition" or "scripture". And I am sure others would feel the same if they were "pegged" (per-determined).