Erica asks a good question: "Why become a theological liberal?" Her question really raises the whole issue of what is real Christianity? What is true Christian faith and life, and why would someone want to deviate from it? If true Christianity is the Christianity that is lived in the Tradition, why isn't everyone that sort of Christian?
Over at the atheist message boards I visit (far less frequently now than once was the case), which I've written about before, I find myself often in a two-pronged argument against the anti-Christian posters as well as the fundamentalist Christians who take great delight in sawing off the branch of the argument-tree on which they sit. The atheists and anti-Christians love it: "Here are two Christians disagreeing over the basic beliefs--so they claim--of their irrational doctrines. Let's just let them go at it and maybe they'll off one another and we won't have to worry about them anymore." It's not that I enjoy arguing against fundamentalist Christians, but to make an advancing argument against atheist attacks, I often find myself fighting a rearguard action so as to establish my advancing argument. Frustrating as heck, I must say.
There are two simple answers to Erica's question, or at least Erica's question as broadened by me here: Those Christians who do not follow the way Christianity has always been lived fail to do so either from ignorance (this was the case with me and many of my fellow parishioners, for example), or because they are convinced that there is no such thing as "the way Christianity has always been lived." These two answers, at least, fit the majority of people that I know personally. There is a third answer, which Erica gives in her post, and which I will comment on below. But I want to spend time with the first two possibilities I present here.
First of all, some Christians just simply are ignorant that there even is such a thing as the Tradition. The only understanding of tradition they've ever been given is Jesus' condemnation of the Jewish leaders of his day. They think, then, even if unconsciously, that Christianity must always be renewed from old practices lest we establish "traditions of men." Thus most present-day Christians have been taught to look no further back then yesterday's experience to guide tomorrow's actions. They fail to realize, however, that this is as much a human tradition--albeit an iconoclastic one--as those they think they're avoiding.
Of course, they also misunderstand not only our Lord's criticism of the Pharisees and scribes as well as misunderstand what the Tradition itself really is. Our Lord wasn't condemning all tradition altogether, but rather condeming the sort of tradition that by its very form and structure promotes the violation of God's will. If our Lord was against tradition altogether, he never would have commanded his apostles to "teach them [i. e., the disciples they would make of all nations] to obey everything I have commanded you." Indeed the one traditional thing many present-day Christians hold on to, failing to realize that it itself is as much Tradition as is the ancient liturgies, creeds, and dogmas of the Church, is the Scripture itself. Indeed, if there is one tradition of men that Protestants in particular continue to practice that keeps people from the full revelation of God it's their truncated Bible sans the so-called "Apocrypha."
Let me stress, very, very few of them do this maliciously. They're just simply practicing what they've been taught, and handing it down to those they teach. In other words, it's their tradition. Not a few, once they come to realize this inherent contradiction they've been unwittingly practicing all their lives, do the biblical thing and repent. And they come back to the one and only Tradition that gives Life because it comes from Christ himself.
The second answer to the above question, that Christians do not live the Traditional Christian faith because they are convinced that there is no such thing as "the way Christianity has always been lived," has various causes. These second sort of Christians do have a bit more historical awareness of Christianity. They know of the creeds, the battles over heresy, the practice of episcopal polity, and so forth. But they view the past through distorted lenses. They do not think there was a way that Christianity was always lived because they think Christianity has always been developing and growing, coming to greater awareness of the truth, and attaining ever greater maturity. They ascribe (falsely as it turns out) to the ancient Church views that we now have "grown out of," for example that the Church condoned slavery. (See the link just above and here.) Many who take these views do so innocently, sincerely, and with the best of reforming intentions. The trouble is, they haven't done two things: examined their own presuppositions and examined history more closely.
In their view basically all of the previous traditions and beliefs of the Church are mere human constructs built over the Gospel kernel. Since Tradition is a mere human construct, in their view, there really is no single way that Christianity has always been lived. Nearly everything is just historical accident. The early Church, for example, didn't ordain women because that just wasn't done in earlier societies. But we have outgrown such chauvinistic attitudes, they claim, and we can ordain women if we want. In fact, their view of the battles over heresy in the early Church is viewed from a sociopolitical standpoint--it just so happened that one group seized and wielded political power, smashing their opponents and rewriting history. Had Valentinus or Arius and their followers won out, we'd be badmouthing Athanasius.
But this view of history, and here I must speak bluntly, is distinctly pagan. The biblical and Christian view of history is one of the sovereignty of God which we humans experience as divine Providence (for exhibit A in this, refer to the book of Esther, especially the Hebrew version). The biblical view of history is not that it is getting better and better, humanity getting wiser and more mature. No, the biblical view is that history is getting worse, humans getting more and more wicked and devilish, and suffering is increasing. Indeed were it not that Christ will return to judge the living and the dead, there would be no hope, not even the elect would be saved. The darkling Norse understanding of Ragnorak is more Christian, at least in form, than the view of history of many Christians today.
Furthermore, if they'd just take a longer look at their presuppositions, they'd see that, like the ignorance mentioned above, their own view of history falls apart on its own weight. If history is little more than human constructs, then so is such a view. That is to say, it is a contradiction in itself. In point of fact, one has to come at Christian history with a presupposed hermeneutics of suspicion to build a case for such a radical diversity so as to do away with the claim that there is a single Tradition handed down faithfully from the Apostles to our own day.
When looking at the full history of the Church with an open mind, one cannot but come away with a strong understanding that there is, indeed, a single deposit of Faith, recognizably clear and the means by which we ourselves are judged today.
Nonetheless, those who are blind to their own contradictory presuppositions, who view the Tradition as merely human--including, by the way, the Scriptures as especially a mere human document--do find even in their distorted view of Church history, something in the Lord of Church history, Jesus the Christ, that they cannot but be attracted to. They are, at least the best of them are, so "in love" with Jesus that they want to honor what they take to be the truth of his Gospel and build an edifice to him. Because they have done away with the standard by which to build, they cannot but build askew, their walls and roof and doors leaning and discordant. They seek justice when they should find mercy. They seek liberation when they should be finding sanctification. They seek empowerment when they should be finding servitude. The Lord whom they love--even when they do not love the way of life he laid down in time and space for his Church--did not seek justice, but gave himself up to God and was unjustly condemned for us. The Lord they love did not seek liberation, though he could have called ten thousand angels to his side. The Lord they love did not seek empowerment, but emptied himself of his divine perogatives, and became a slave for our sakes. This is the way of life the Lord has laid down. If we love our Lord we will abandon all the counterfeits of human justice, political liberation and social empowerment.
We now come to the third answer to Erica's question, the one she herself gives. And here I cannot but agree and make some further comment. There is a segment, thankfully small but satanically wielding enourmous influence, of modern day Christianity who do not seek Tradition because they know it to be their enemy. These Christians know the Truth and reject it, point by point. When anyone of good conscience, like my atheist interlocutors on the message board referenced above, come to the decision that everything about historic Christianity they reject, they have the decency to abandon the name and religion they no longer claim. But these last enemies of Tradition are evil liars. They consciously seek to destroy. They hate the Lord and his Church, and fired by the demonic delusion to which God has given them up, they seek to undermine and destroy God's Church from within. They seek only to rape, pillage and destroy, hiding their vicious violence under a velvet glove and a whitened-sepulchre smile. We need not name them for their works are evident, and their lies betray their paternity.
What we need to do is to remember that these enemies that seek destruction and subversion were once men and women like you and me. But one day they made a decision to abandon one little aspect of the Faith. It was only a small thing, maybe fasting. They found they could still look like a Christian and sound like one, and so they let fasting go. But that small thing made it easier to let go another slightly bigger thing, like daily prayer. And those two things made it even easier to forego almsgiving. And thus their heart was shut to themselves, to God, and their fellow man. And being empty, but clean, seven terrible spirits moved in. And those seven will not now be evicted.
Those of us who love the Lord and his Tradition, his Way of Life, would do well to take heed lest we fall. We do not know today whether we will be found faithful, and so we should not worry too much as to which Christians we meet fall into which category. Their deeds will reveal them, as will our own. May our deeds say of us, "This one was born in Zion."
Posted by Clifton at January 30, 2005 01:12 PM | TrackBack