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Questions of Faith and Practice

Introduction

Let us pray.Direct us, O Lord, in all our doings by your most gracious favor, and further us with your continual help; that in all our works, begun, continued, and ended in you, we may glorify your· holy Name and, finally, by your mercy, obtain everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Welcome to this second discussion of "questions of faith and practice." I thank all of you for your presence and your willingness to participate in our discussion; and I especially thank those among you who took the initiative in helping to give shape to it by submitting written questions in advance, thereby allowing me time to think about them and to prepare my responses accordingly.

Because the questions we are to consider are about Christian faith and practice, I naturally assume that the answers they call for are the answers to be given to them by an adequate Christian witness and theology. Of course, this can only mean, in practice, the answers given to them by particular Christians and theologians who take, or, possibly, mistake, the answers to be adequately Christian. Therefore, I shall offer my initial responses to the questions as what, in my own best judgment as a Christian and as a theologian, are the answers called for by any adequate Christian witness and theology. This means, among other things, that I will be arguing more from my own positions as a Christian and·as a theologian than for them. So there is all the more reason for you to appropriate my answers critically in the light of your own best judgment about how the questions are to be answered if they are to be answered Christianly, from the standpoint of adequate Christian witness and Christian theological reflection on it.

I should also say that, since my written answers to the questions discussed last year are conveniently available at the church's website, I advise consulting it to any of you feeling the need for more of a response to some of the questions before us this evening than I shall take time to give in my initial

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