Richard Foster has come out with a new book, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of the Christian Faith (Harper, 424 pp.; $20). According to one review, the author celebrates the diverse traditions of Christianity. He sees the contemplative tradition as practiced by monastics, the charismatic tradition of modern Pentecostals, the social justice tradition of theological liberals, the incarnational tradition of Catholics, and the evangelical tradition of conservative Protestants as different streams of the same people. The implication is that we can learn something valuable from each of these "great traditions."

There is nothing new under the sun! I'm reminded of the reactions of F.D. Srygley to an article by John Brandt along the same "stream" of thought, published in the Christian Standard about a century ago. Like Foster, Mr. Brandt writes,

"If we could embody in one congregation the economy and charity of the Catholics, the zeal and business sagacity of the Methodists, the educated ministry and respect for law and conscience maintained by the Presbyterians, the brotherly love manifested by the Congregationalists, the tenacity of the Baptists, the dignity of the Episcopalians, a financial system as successful as that of the Mormons, the house-to-house visitation of the Adventists, the missionary zeal of the Moravians, and the doctrines of the Christian Church, we should have a model church -- a church which would in a goodly degree be a reproduction of the ideal church of Christ."

This is how Srygley reacts to Brandt's suggestion:

"This brings out with admirable clearness the theological scrap system of denominationalism in religion. No denomination embodies all religious truth, nor is any denomination without some truth mixed with a considerable quantity of error. The world looks almost entirely to denominations for religious instruction. Few people have yet grasped the idea that a man can be a Christian without being a partisan, or that he can learn the way of life without instruction from some denomination....

"The chances are that the average seeker for truth among the denominations will swallow sectarian error enough with the first grain of good doctrine he gets from a denominational teacher to make him a religious partisan, and forever shut him up to the modicum of truth held by the denomination of his choice. Thenceforth he will chew the dry cud of partisan husks without finding truth enough in the sectarian straw which bigoted shepherds put into his denominational manger to keep his hungry soul from growing as lean as Pharoah's famished cattle....

"No man can hold the truth represented by all denominations and belong to any denomination. No denomination will allow its members to hold the truth represented by all the other sects in religion. The sum of it all is, therefore, that those who want all the truth of God and no error must keep out of all parties and hold fast the form of sound doctrine in religion as it set forth in the Bible....

"No denomination can teach anything that is worth learning which the word of God does not teach, nor is there in all the Bible a single one of the blighting partisan errors each denomination mixes with the truth it holds. 'I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; preach the word.' (2 Tim. 4:1,2.)"

(The New Testament Church, pp. 37-40)