Bedrock - Monday Musing, July 11, 2022

Dear Church,

Bedrock – solid rock underlying loose material within the crust of Earth; the fundamental principles on which something is based. A headline in the Cape Cod Times caught my eye the other day: “Biden: CIA is ‘bedrock’ of national security.” On a visit to Langley this past Friday, Biden marked the 75th anniversary of the agency’s founding after World War II. While at the headquarters in Virginia, he thanked the CIA for its work in Ukraine and called America’s intelligence officers “the best in the world.” I am sure that those who have a connection to “the agency” would agree. My thoughts, though, have lingered on the term bedrock, which has me wondering: “What is the bedrock of our faith?”

This might sound like a silly question coming from a minister – the answer is obvious, right? Perhaps the answer is more complicated when you consider the use of the word implies singular. And as we know, there is complexity to faith. Our faith centers on: God, the Creator; God, the Redeemer (or son, Jesus Christ); and God, the Comforter (or Holy Spirit). So we have three aspects of God that we define as the Trinity, but don’t forget about scripture, tradition, prophecy, prayer, and discernment. Doesn’t it take all of the above to form a community of faith? Is it possible to assign only one aspect of our faith as being the ‘bedrock’ – to