As constantes mudanças em nossa sociedade nos dão a impressão de que não há absolutos. Sucendem-se as novidades e nada parece capaz de sustentar-se sem ser afetado pela velocidade da informação e do seu produto nas sociedades humanas. Governos caem, sistemas financeiros vão à falência. Mesmo na religião, e mesmo em igrejas Cristãs - mais ainda, mesmo em comunidades distintivamente tradicionalistas - as mudanças, drásticas mudanças, são notáveis. Porém a Escritura declara, confrontando uma superficial análise do mundo: "Aquilo que veio a ser é o que virá a ser; e o que se tem feito é o que se fará; de modo que não há nada de novo debaixo do sol" (Eclesiastes 1:9).
The church faces an arduous undertaking, with two mandates. On the one hand, the church is to be the pillar and ground of the truth, by its stable adherence to Scripture. At the same time, it must learn how to engage the new order emerging in its day, so that the church is always bringing the apostolic faith to bear on the conscience of its time. The first mandate requires tenacity, and the second adaptability.
Faced with this mission, some lose conviction concerning aspects of the doctrine and religious practice which the church had long understood to be taught by the Word of God.
For those who remain persuaded that the church's classic confessions of faith are faithful to Scripture, there must be discernment as to what should be let go from the past life of the church. Believers five hundred years ago could not have imagined the society we have today. Many social and technological developments have an effect for good on the lives of the Lord's people. But what ministers and elders, in being admitted to office, have vowed to conserve are those aspects of the church's historic identity which are doctrinal or which constitute specifically religious practice.
To have a classical Reformed persuasion means that one adheres to the same doctrine and religious practice as that of the Reformation, such as was embodied in the Reformed confessions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in the belief that these are in accord with the Word of God. In these areas our church seeks to preserve or restore historic doctrine and practice.
