I went back and revisited Tripp's blog last Wednesday which was something of a reply to my blog and previous comments in other places, on the issue of authority. Tripp and his commentors bring up some important points. Most especially Tripp's emphasis on love and forgiveness is always a needed corrective, especially given this faceless, bodiless medium through which we all communicate.
Tripp is also right that our first duty in communication is listening. It is not always possible to "put ourselves in someone else's shoes," though we might come as imaginatively close as possible. I cannot, for example, know what it's like to have lived and prayed as a Roman Catholic. I do know what it's like to be a Protestant, generally. So although I'm not a Baptist, nor ever have been, I can get a little closer to where Tripp comes from. On the other hand, my Protestantism was of a more traditional kind, and would have found some of Tripp's conjectures rather curious.
My brand of Protestantism, however, was very much of the "get back to the New Testament Church" kind, with a heavy emphasis on the authority of the Scriptures. I mistrusted anything smacking of universal authority (i. e., Church), and looked askance at Tradition. After all, they sure didn't baptize babies in the New Testament--well, at least it's not explicit that they did so . . . er, well, I can at least doubt that they did so.
I inentionally structured that last sentence as I did, because in it is what I take to be the failure and the promise of Protestantism. (Sorry, Megan, I can only speak theoretically about Rome; and therefore I should not say much at all.)
Protestantism began not as a theology, as it were, but as a critique. It's purpose was not to dismantle Rome altogether, so much as to excise the tumorous growths that endangered the Gospel. This critique served its purpose well--indeed, too well--but the gesture of critique is only the beginning of what's necessary.
It is this stance of critique which is the catalyst for the 22,000-plus Christians groups and denominations around the world. There's the joke about getting x number of Protestant believers from y denomination in a room and having x+1 number of opinions. We laugh not because it's absurd, but because it's true.
Protestants, then, come in two stripes--and, when examined, there really are only these two--those that insist on their (or their group's) particular intepretive and dogmatic position and those who insist on plurality. Neither can sustain their own perspective under the examination of their own presuppositions.
The dogmatists in the end must convert the other to their interpretive practice. But this begs the question as to why their practice is preferrable. It is a question that cannot be answered from within the paradigm.
The pluralists in the end must argue for a point about which they have no argument. If any number of interpretations are equally true or valid, then why ought we accept theirs? Indeed, why should they?
I have drawn the contrasts to these positions starkly, but life isn't always so neatly binary. Indeed, many pluralists are such only in theory. Truth is, they are rather dogmatic about their pluralism. And many dogmatists are in reality a bit soft; they're dogmatic perhaps about vague generalities, but hesitate to get too dogmatic about the so-called "non-essentials."
Now the response of these sorts to those such as myself that want to argue for the authority of the Scriptures within the Tradition of the Church is usually along the lines of either a lack of charity or a false naivete in the ability of God to guard the holiness and infallibility of his Church and written witness. I'll hold off on the charge of dogmatism, especially in how it differs from the Protestant kind.
The charge of lacking charity is largely ignorant of what exactly charity is--or for the sake of the allegation, modifies the definition. In our hyper-tolerant age, there is no room for discernment (read "judgment") in charity. All roads lead to Rome, after all, and the doctrinaire are only voicing their preference, not reality. To say to someone that they're wrong--especially in religious matters, which after all, are merely private matters--is tantamount to condemnation.
But charity, when examined a bit more closely, is seen to be fundamentally discerning. Charity loves a specific person, not some amorphous mass of humanity. Charity sees this person here now. It distinguishes between this person and that person. Charity does not pray for another about "the sin that leads to death," nor does it hesitate to confront a brother who has sinned so as to bring that brother to repentance (or to disfellowship). Charity demands discernment, or, to be truthful, judgment. Love, as I've noted elsewhere is experienced either as mercy or as judgment; never as indifference. God loves always. But he separates the sheep from the goats and calls us to test the spirits and to refrain from casting our pearls before swine.
The charge of naivete affirms God's power to preserve the Church--in the theoretical. But in practical terms, they assert, humans have sullied the Body of Christ and infected the Scriptures, and thus neither are to be trusted, at least not wholly. But this is a false dichotomy, essentially denying the Incarnation, or perhaps its efficacious power. Indeed, for many Protestants, the Incarnation is merely a doctrine, since, denying the sacraments, they don't believe that the one and only Incarnation of Christ has any other effect than that it opens the way for God's juridical fiat that we are no longer sinners. But if one can answer how it is that common elements such as bread and wine--which left in a damp musty basement will mold and turn to vinegar--become the real Body and Blood of our Lord, then one has the answer to how it is that God can preserve the holiness the Church and the infallibility of its Scriptures.
Contra Tripp's assertion, those of us who believe in the authority of Church and Scripture, do not do so because it is more provable than competing claims. We do believe our claims are more solidly and evidentially valid, that's true. But we believe the authority of the Church and Scripture because this is the millennial witness we have inherited. Many of us, including myself, did not at one time know this was our inheritance. But now that we do, this knowledge not only validates itself through its powerful divinizing effect, but through its expected reasonableness. We both live its promise and give an answer to those who ask.
For many who disagree with us, especially those in the pluralist camp, we seem to be little less doctrinaire than the Protestant dogmatists we reject as having an invalid argument. Does not our critique of them similarly undercut our own assertion? No. And here's why: our very narrative, the witness of the Gospel, the testimony of the Apostles and the martyrdoms of countless millions of Christians, presumes and reveals that our paradigm demands it. A demand not necessitated by way of rational argument (though that also is true), but primarily necessitated by the very nature of the Church and the Scripture themselves.
Those who would argue that the Church is merely an amalgamtion of sinful humans--that is that it has systematically failed to be who it is--or who argue that the Scripture is merely a human document--with all its sinful prejudices and biases--face a daunting task. They must prove their assertions. But each time they attempt to, those very assertions, and the critics themselves, fall under their own indictments and lose the fight before it's begun. And even those who would deflate the authority of Church and Scripture on the basis of their human natures (though attempting to keep their divine elements), find themselves without a Gospel to preach because they find themselves without an actual Incarnation.
Tripp et al rightly exhort us Orthodox/wannabes to "walk a mile in their shoes." Hopefully I am demonstrating that I have, even if my walk constrains me to say, "These shoes don't fit." But Tripp & Co. should also try to walk a mile in our shoes. We say Church, but they hear, reflectively, Evil Empire. We say Scripture, but they hear Oppressive Narrative. It seems to me that though I and others have tried to answer these charges, that we aren't really being heard.
But then again, this electonic medium is damnably difficult for conversation. And maybe we've been missing each others' signals.
Posted by Clifton at August 21, 2003 06:03 AM | TrackBack