I was reading an online opinion piece this morning while I was letting our ferrets run around the apartment. The topic: standing for something and being willing to take it on the chin. The basic gist of the piece has to do with those in the public arena (politicians, columnists, and so forth) who get a bit upset that their views are no longer popular and want to blame it on something other than their views. (Without getting political, a prime example is Senator Daschle's blaming Rush Limbaugh and company and their "shrill rhetoric" for the Democratic losses in the election.)
I got to thinking: this is pretty parallel with the churches in America. Ever since the advent of the seeker service model, we are more about people feeling comfortable in our services than we are about taking a clear and definite stand. We don't want to "offend" anyone. We don't want to turn them away by enacting any of those "negative stereotypes" about church.
All well and good. There is much that is peripheral to the Gospel in our modern churches, and whatever we can get out of the way so people can really encounter the Gospel message is great. It doesn't seem to me that sweaty men in leisure suits jumping up and down and screaming is really all that effective.
On the other hand, the Gospel is, by its very nature offensive. Sure we learn about the dogged and costly love of God--and we can't get enough of that message, let me tell you!--but we only understand how that love is costly and dogged when we understand that we are sinners. And in the words of the Church Fathers, being sinners means we are desparately sick and in need of healing.
So far so good. Now granted, many people don't like to think of themselves as diseased beyond their own ability to recover, but in our health conscious society this is a metaphor that I think can work, would we but utilize it. Now, however, comes the rub. We are sick by our own choosing, and the thoughts and behaviors we have chosen we must reject if we would be whole again.
That offends like telling a smoker they're killing themselves. Not big tobacco. Not society. But they, themselves. They chose their addiction. (Not a way to win friends and influence people.) And in a similar vein this is what the Gospel message is saying.
But, I guarantee, this doesn't fly well with modern pastors and priests--not most anyway. Under pressure from their congregations and boards to "grow" the parish, they too often (thankfully not always) opt for the easier way of comfort. "Make them want to come by how welcoming and friendly we are."
Welcoming and friendly is a main Christian discipline, don't get me wrong. But making a dying person comfortable and not telling them how to get well . . . well, that's malpractice.
We might not get as many seekers at our services, but since when was "church" about getting people to services? Seems to me, the Church is about evangelism--the gossip Gospel. One friend tells another friend, tells two more friends, and so forth. The work is done prior to the service, not just during. We make them feel welcome by sharing our own lives with them and inviting them to dinner. Getting to know them. Sharing our own stories of feard, doubt, sin and forgiveness. We don't hand them a tract. We offer them our lives. And we tell them they're sick and need a Physician. Since we're part of the church, we ask them to be a part of that with us. It's church as hospital and not church as country club, or day care, or . . .
Doing this won't turn a parish with an attendance of 50 to one with an attendance of 500 in a matter of five years. Who cares? Jesus didn't send us into the world to grow churches. He sent us into the world to make disciples.
This view ain't the popular one. And some pastors and priests will have to take it on the chin from churches who like numbers better than they like conversions. But they don't call such bold leaders men (and women) of God for nothing.
Sorry to blather on about all this, but I'm on my own peregrine trajectory regarding Tradition, Scripture and the Church, and what I believe about all this. Consider this a continuation of the previous posts on relativism, borders and such.
I said earlier that Tradition is that with which we inescapably have to do. I must confess, the two church groups with which I have been aligned in my life, the non-denominational Christian churches and churches of Christ and the Episcopal Church, have, frankly, not done so well with Tradition.
For the Stone-Campbell churches (the non-denoms), Tradition has always been a bad thing--at least mostly so. We never did want to jettison Tradition completely. But Tradition took a back seat, way in the back, to Scripture. We were all about "restoring" the New Testament pattern of the Church in our day. Not that the Church itself had been lost, mind you (though different restorationists would give different opinions on that). Rather, the simplicity and robust faith of the New Testament Church, so we believed, had been organized away in favor of bishops and hierarchy, formal theology and liturgy. (I'm caricaturing the Stone-Campbell position just a bit, but not a lot.) Tradition came in to play only when blessed by the clear and consistent witness in Scripture. To overstate somewhat: if you could book-chapter-and-verse it, it could stand.
Trouble is, such a position, well-intentioned though it is, is either utterly naive, or overly hubristic. The fact of the matter is, we do not approach Scripture apart from tradition (in modern hermeneutical terms, "presuppositions"). Case in point: Alexander Campbell, one of the early leaders of the Stone-Campbell movement, wrote a book which has been given the title Christianity Restored. (The book was actually a series of magazine articles Campbell had written serially, so take the title with a grain of polemical salt and attribute it to the publisher, not to Campbell.) In the book, Campbell is arguing for the "Restoration Plea" noted above: to "restore" the New Testament pattern of the Church in our day. But with what does Messr. Campbell begin? Hermeneutics. It's obvious to me, though I cannot speak for Alexander, that one will come to the same conclusions from reading Scripture as Mr. Campbell . . . if you follow his hermeneutical method. And on what was the method based? The Enlightenment thinkers John Locke and Francis Bacon. Even Campbell has his tradition. And with it he interprets and applies Scripture.
For the Episcopal Church (ECUSA), the odd thing is, for the most part Episcopalians have not wanted to buck Tradition. Given that they arose from the English Reformation, and thus had certain evangelical foundations, this is saying something. They kept the traditions of baptism and the Eucharist, of clerical ordination, the church kalendar, and so forth--all woven throughout with evangelical flavor. (Different periods and regions of ECUSA have been more and less Protestant than others, so there's some variations within my general point.) Oddly enough, however, over the last few decades, ECUSA has given less and less weight to Tradition. Taking our cue from modern sociopolitical movements, we went from an all-male priesthood to female clergy, we've restructured the liturgy in such a way so as to remove almost all masculine references to God--in some cases replacing them with feminine references, and we've definitely moved away from the traditional morality of the last two thousand years, not merely in terms of gay and lesbian concerns, but now also accepting those in conjugal relationship who are not married on the same terms as the married. (If your head is spinning, sit down and breathe into a paper bag.)
So, I am from a movement who rejects Tradition outright, and have lately been in a group who pick and choose (on the basis of modern mores shored up by theology) what of it they want to adhere to and what they want to reject.
Yes, I know of Stone-Campbell ministers who have a deep respect for Tradition. I correspond with them regularly. I also know of Episcopalians (whole dioceses, mind you) who are as horrified as I at the mishandling of Tradition by their fellow Episcopalians. But this does not negate the trends and ethoi.
There is another way. A better way. Indeed, one that I think more honest--if one will claim Christ's name. That is to take the Tradition of the Church as is. Let it and Scripture tell us where we're wrong. Scripture and Tradition do not carry their authority because some uptight celibate males got together and said so. (Though that is the modern caricature of what happened.) Rather, they carry their authority because they, like us, are given life and indwelt by the three-personed God. Not for nothing is the Incarnation an important fact and doctrine.
"To Thee, our Lord, do we commend our bodies and our souls. Do Thou bless us, have mercy on us and grant us eternal life."
Okay, the point thus far: theological thinking is inescapably perspectival. That is a big revelation, I know. But it's important to point out. For the sola scriptura folks, there's no Lockean tabula rasa on interpreting Scripture. We all come with presuppositions. For the rationalists, reason, though a sharp tool, is fallen and its critical faculties often moved by inclination. For the scientistic types, get over it.
At this point the relativists (or semi-relativists, if such creatures there are) are smiling smugly and sipping their chai. "Yes, of course. We know all this. This is why no one can really claim to have a lock on the truth. All our knowing is provisional." [Sip.] "Let's just get over it and commiserate." [Sip.] And the doors of the unseen trap close upon them.
It seems to me that the only real means for Christians to handle doctrinal truths is to stand in the tension between Scripture (or rather our interpretation of it) and the two thousand year tradition of the Church. As Paul says to the Corinthians: "You received that which I passed on ["traditioned"] to you." We 21st century Christians neither have the luxury nor the right to reinvent Christian faith. (Sorry, Messr. Spong. Get over it.) We can only receive that which we've been given. Which is not to say, that we accept it uncritically. In the Orthodox traditions, even ecumenical councils must be received by the laity. And one of our testing resources for tradition is the Scripture. But in true dialectic, the Tradition shapes our understanding of Scripture as well. Thus there is the ongoing interplay between the Scripture and Tradition. Both have the same source and confirm each other. Through the lenses of both, Christians can come to understand the truth. Or, more accurately, the Truth: he in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
In the last week a couple of posts from Tripp and Todd have got me thinking about doctrine and belief, and the relation between borders and doubt.
There are those, in concert with Descartes, who would subscribe everything to radical doubt--but not so as to reject it, rather to get to the heart of that which is true. And, like Descartes, they want to deal with clear and distinct ideas. Those fuzzy areas are fine and dandy, but we don't need to make shibboleths out of them. This is seen in the well-intentioned desire to get to the "core of the Gospel." If we're not talking about "Gospel matters," then we can leave things in the realm of the less-than-clear and focus on what really counts. There may be more subtle and interesting nuances than my overbroad generalization indicates, but this seems to me to be the prevailing mindset.
The problem is: What are the Gospel matters about which we should be definite, and which demarcate out those things with which we can live in fuzzy diversity? In the sexuality debates (by way of example, but a topic about which these thoughts are not), it is asserted by some that Jesus never said a word about sexuality (minus a passage or two on adultery), and therefore we are free to find our own way and come to our own conclusions. (No matter if they coincide or conflict with Paul, say.) Others, however, assert that sexuality (even if Paul the repressed homophobe is the locutor) is mentioned in Scriptures (a normative set of writings by the by), and is therefore "Gospel matter"--even if it isn't in the Gospel texts per se.
I utilize the sexuality question simply because it is so clearly illustrative of what I think is going on regarding these matters of relativism, borders, belief and doubt. What determines the evaluation of core matters? It seems to me the answer is relatively simple: one's own presuppositions. If one assumes Scripture to be the norming influence on Christian thought, then Scripture will determine the core matters. (I leave out for the moment questions of hermeneutical stances.) If one assumes that human history has revealed the dubiosity of most (if not all) external sources of determinate importance, then it is pretty much up to the individual (the Protestant notion, for example, of soul competency). Then there are those who are of the mind that one's group (here in my discussion, the church) is the only realistic starting point for evaluative thinking.
The difficulty, however, is the relative blindness to the already-given nature of our presuppositions. So much goes on in our thinking that gets little attention. Epistemic humility is rarely the order of the day. Take for example those who dismiss Paul with even a most articulate version of "Well, we know so much more than did he." Hmmmm. No presupposition there? What is it that we "know"? That which has been scientifically "proven"? But what gave to scientific endeavor that authority? And will science ever discover the core explanation for why it is I love my wife--even when she most exasperates me? (Freud has his answers. But sometimes love is just love.) Further, how is it our knowledge privileges us to disregard Paul? Has there really been that much positive evolution in the last two thousand years? How do we know? Even something so "objective" as science cannot provide us with determinative answers.
So are we left with solipsism? It's my way, baby, right or wrong? Rightly, some reject this sort of individualistic notion. They want to affirm and assert that there is a reality: Truth is, Agent Scully, out there. So how do we find it?
Scripture? The Protestant sola scriptura doesn't, it seems to me, have worked very well, despite its hopeful promise. After all, which hermeneutic does one choose? How do we know we have the right interpretation? Those are questions that do not seem readily answered by Scripture alone.
Human reason? But reason, if it can be asserted to be pure, is all too often perverted by human evil. How can we purify reason in such a way that it would instill a good will in us? To ask that question, however, is similarly to step outside reason. If something can purify reason, it must be greater than reason and able to tell reason where it is corrupt.
The church? But which one? Can the Southern Baptist Convention tell the Episcopal Church where it is wrong? Will the non-denominational Stone-Campbell churches accept the decrees of Rome?
[I'll have to finish this later: Plato awaits]