tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-42255020163597988582024-02-19T01:39:00.354-06:00εἰκών βασιλέωςOccasional reflections on life and faith from a convert to Orthodox ChristianityDavidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08244026688548871531noreply@blogger.comBlogger413125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4225502016359798858.post-14360227377548569512018-11-17T13:07:00.001-06:002018-11-17T13:07:40.914-06:00The Unfiltered Scripture<a href="https://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-meaning-of-scripture.html">Last time</a>, I tried to lay down some helpful foundations for approaching questions and doubts about the Bible. To briefly summarize, the written word of God is given to lead us into knowledge of and participation in the true Word of God, that is, Christ; not to give us data points with which to build a system of theology or anything else. This came more or less naturally to Christians throughout most of the church's history, but more recent changes in how we read the Bible and how we think have made it harder (but not impossible) today. Reading the Scriptures is not about interrogating them to find "what really happened", but about letting them interrogate us, probe what's really happening in our hearts and lead us to better know the Truth.<br />
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What this approach to the Scriptures does for many of the "contradictions" people find is not answer or "explain" them so much as move them from the center of our spiritual life to the periphery. I'm referring specifically to questions like these:<br />
<ul>
<li>How is the seven-day creation account in Genesis 1 compatible with what we now know about the origins of the universe, the earth, and life? And, for that matter, how is it compatible with the other creation account in Genesis 2?</li>
<li>Is the earth about 6,500 years old, as the Bible has been calculated to depict, or billions of years old?</li>
<li>If Adam and Eve were the first humans, who was Cain worried would take vengeance on him after he killed Abel? And who did he and Seth marry?</li>
<li>Who exactly are the "nephilim" in Genesis 6?</li>
<li>Did the cataclysmic flood in Genesis 7 begin seven days or immediately after Noah and his family entered the ark? Where is the geological evidence for it that should exist? Where did the water making up the flood come from, and where did it go? And how do people and animals seem to have been living all over the world for up to millions of years when, according to the flood account, they all originated from the ark just a few thousand years ago?</li>
<li>What do we do with 1 Kings 7:23, which seems to say that pi is exactly 3? Or with Leviticus 11:19, which implies that bats are birds?</li>
<li>What are the "storehouses" of snow and hail in Job 38:22? Why does the previous chapter describe the sky as a solid object, "strong as a cast metal mirror", and what is the "leviathan" mentioned a few chapters later?</li>
<li>Why does the city of Tyre still exist when Ezekiel prophesied it would be destroyed and never rebuilt? (26:14)</li>
<li>Why is a miraculous event like Jesus' resurrection (and the various miracles that accompanied it and his crucifixion) so poorly attested everywhere outside the writings of the early church? The absences of other noteworthy events like the plagues of Egypt or Augustus' empire-wide census from the historical record are equally puzzling.</li>
</ul>
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In this post I will be answering precisely none of these questions—at least not directly. In light of our modern-day background knowledge, these are all perfectly valid questions to ask, some better than others. People can and, in fact, should seek answers to them. What I am shedding light on is our perceived <i>need</i> to ask these kinds of questions in order to make any sense of the Bible. Our need to get them "out of the way" as a prerequisite for any kind of deeper engagement with it.<br />
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As I indicated last time, I think this need comes from how our reflex as modern people is to interpret the Bible "like any other book", to seek objective truths in its pages and fit them into our inherited framework of truth, one in which scientific inquiry seems to be steadily gaining ground against ignorance. We read about a seven-day creation, a global flood, and other scientific and historical anomalies and can't fit them in, can't reconcile them to this framework. At this point we might respond in a few different ways. We might, as so many do today, conclude that the Bible is hopelessly outdated, benighted, revealed by science as the book of ancient fables that it is. We might, on the other hand, conclude that the conclusions of science are the problem, and that science done correctly will inevitably confirm the claims of Scripture as we read them. We might hold the two sets of claims at a distance from each other, and say they are really about different things, never to come into conflict. Or we might try and come up with explanations to reconcile our reading of Scripture to science, hopefully changing it as little as possible in the process.<br />
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I don't think any of these approaches is really sufficient for the Christian. The first is, of course, a renunciation of anything like traditional Christianity. The second is deeply unsatisfying, pitting different forms of truth against each other, observation versus revelation, and denying in practice that "the heavens declare the glory of God" (Psa 19:1). In fact, not only can we learn nothing of value from studying the handiwork of God, we are likely to be deceived by doing so, by light that <i>seems</i> to have been emitted or fossils that <i>seem</i> to have been deposited before the creation of the universe. The irony of the kind of faith that claims to "trump" science is that it is likely to itself be a kind of science, a substitute for what it rejects, whose claims are considered infallible because of their divine source, no matter how many links of reasoning there are in between.<br />
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The third approach corresponds to Stephen Jay Gould's theory of non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA), which strictly relegates religion to speaking about matters of values and other intangibles. While NOMA is insightful and helpful for calming the animosity between the clashing forces of "science" and "religion", I can't agree with its circumscription of the scope of religion, at least the Christian religion. It's not that there are areas about which Christianity has nothing to say (after all, we confess that God created all things), but it is not the only way of knowing about them that there is. While not a substitute for (say) scientific inquiry, the Christian faith can inform, guide, and fuel it, as scientists like Gregor Mendel, Georges Lemaître, and (more recently) Francis Collins have demonstrated. Lastly, given how central science is to the modern worldview, accepting NOMA virtually guarantees that our faith will be isolated from and irrelevant to whatever it touches; that is, most of life.<br />
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The fourth is the default for many Christians today, and it used to be for me. It seems sensible; denying the claims of science in favor of our interpretation of the Scriptures is a huge mistake, so isn't it our interpretation that has to give? So we look for ways to read the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, as true for us as modern people, as compatible with our more enlightened view of things, as if divine inspiration gave the biblical authors a scientific understanding of how things "really are", which instead of passing on they obscured beneath the trappings and language of a premodern worldview to which they were no longer bound. Examples of this tendency are attempts to match up the days of creation with ages or periods of time in natural history, or saying that biblical language like the "four corners of the earth" or the "fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven" (Gen 8:2) is merely a "poetic device" on the authors' part not meant to be literal descriptions of reality, in the face of the evidence that ancient people really did envision the cosmos in such terms.<br />
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So I think that even this way of reading the Scriptures, well-intentioned though it is, also fails to do them justice. It can't handle reading the Bible as the set of ancient texts that it is, and seeks to update, to "modernize" it to make it more sensible to us. This touches on a topic I hope to write about more in the future, how our modern, scientific worldview has become the exclusive lens by which we know <i>anything</i>, including the Bible. Everything must be filtered through the skeptical eye of objective inquiry in order to be believable, perhaps even comprehensible to us. This seems so obvious to us as to be hardly worth questioning. But I have to ask, why? Why do we approach the Scripture first as historians, scientists, or archaeologists, and only later as believers?<br />
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A common theme in the writings I've read of the Reformed theologian and philosopher James K.A. Smith, is on the power of formation: the Christian worldview isn't a matter of thinking certain thoughts, believing certain truths, and making certain decisions, but rather of ways of thinking, loving, and (as he calls it) "being-in-the-world" that sink into our bones through the repetition of habit and ritual. Christian worship, in his vision, is supposed to be such a formative force, shaping us into citizens of the Kingdom of God who are defined more by what we love than what we consciously believe. But there are plenty of counterformative forces in the world that would shape us in different ways; in a particularly memorable piece in his book <i>Desiring the Kingdom</i>, Smith depicts a trip to the shopping mall as a religious liturgy. I think the modern, scientific worldview is another such counterformative force, one far more powerful and pervasive than the mall. It is because this worldview is so formative for us as modern people that we can't help but view the Scriptures through it.<br />
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Not, of course, that I am anti-science—it's the second word of my degree, after all! But I think a healthier way to view it is as a useful tool for better understanding the world around us, not as an all-encompassing way of knowing everything, a universal litmus test by which any and every claim is to be evaluated. The Church is deeply compromised when its members are modern skeptics first, Christians second.<br />
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And I do mean the <i>Church</i>, as I now understand it. I don't feel able to speak to other Christian traditions, but hopefully these closing words are applicable them in some way. Though we are perhaps not as affected as other Christians, Orthodox, at least those in western countries, are not immune to such counterformation—especially converts like myself. But the Church is also well-equipped to resist it. In her liturgical life, events from the history of salvation are made present to us, and we become participants in them, as if we had been there. (Just recently we began the 40-day journey to celebrating the Nativity of Christ) There is an immediacy to this life that is lost if we merely study these events as historians, and perhaps try to glean from them some "timeless truths" to apply in our own day. As I mentioned last time, though our faith is based on events that happened in specific times and places, we don't partake in them, we don't know Christ "historically". Just as being present "there and then" was no advantage to many of those who encountered Christ in the first century, living in the "here and now" isn't necessarily a disadvantage for us. The life of the Church, her saints, her liturgies, her tradition, act as a sort of bridge that lets us close the distance the modern worldview can't help but see between us and the One we open the Scriptures to meet.<br />
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<i>Postscript</i><br />
Again, as I said before, this approach to the Bible, while (I think) helpful, is not the answer to all biblical doubt. This is particularly evident from the fact that the church fathers faced and wrote about many questions about it, questions which were just as apparent to ancient people as they are to us. Questions raised by seeming contradictions and tensions <i>within</i> the Bible, not between it and an externally imposed body of knowledge. To these I will turn in my next post.</div>
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Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08244026688548871531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4225502016359798858.post-91849006189082429152018-11-15T21:44:00.002-06:002018-11-15T21:44:54.790-06:00The Meaning of ScriptureMy sister recently sent me an Email recalling my struggles with Bible-induced doubt:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I was talking to a friend about commandments on the New and Old Testaments that seem to contradict each other (for example, "an eye for an eye" vs "turn the other cheek"). We were discussing this when I mentioned that you wrote in your blog about having doubts related to seeming contradictions in the Bible. ... How can God/the Bible be perfect with these contradictions? And how can we still consider the Old Testament a sacred text?</blockquote>
For context, she was referring back to how my struggles with religious doubt, much of it originating from the Bible, ultimately led me to join the Orthodox Church—a tale I later <a href="https://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2014/08/my-journey-part-1-back-to-beginning.html">told</a> in retrospect on this blog. Though I still earnestly believe this was the right move, my spirituality has (unsurprisingly) still been far from perfect since then; as Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick likes to say, "Orthodoxy is true, but not because of me." But one of my hopes as I was thinking about converting definitely came true: in the past few years, I haven't really struggled with biblical doubt at all! It's a night-and-day difference from earlier, when such doubt was nearly an obsession. As an Orthodox Christian, I know and feel that the biggest obstacle to my continued growth in Christ is myself, not any contradiction or inconsistency in the faith itself.<br />
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But this does make answering my sister's question harder. It's surprisingly hard for me to think about <i>why</i> I no longer struggle with contradictions in the Bible or the Christian faith. And any advice I can give will now be based more on my memories and studies than any lived experience. Nonetheless, I'll do my best to sum up the conclusions I've come to.<br />
<br />
She wasn't wrong to call the Bible "perfect". David the psalmist has high praise for the Scriptures:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple;<br />
the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes;<br />
the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever; the ordinances of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether.<br />
More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.<br />
Moreover by them is thy servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.<br />
But who can discern his errors? Clear thou me from hidden faults.<br />
Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me! Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression.<br />
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:7-14 RSV)</blockquote>
<div>
But it's worth asking, especially today, in what way is the Bible "perfect"? There are an array of explanations. For one interpreter, the Bible is infallibly true in every detail; for another, it is only infallible when speaking to "matters of salvation". For some Christians, its words are considered the very words of God, spoken/written through human intermediaries; for others, they are the testimony of godly and wise, but ultimately only human, witnesses to the God who transcends all description.</div>
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This question is important to ask because it strongly influences our expectations of the written word of God. And these expectations, in turn, determine the "biblical contradictions" we find.<br />
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Our expectations of the Bible tend to be different than those of the apostles and early Christians. This is partly because of differences in the Bible itself. For starters, because of how rare and expensive books were before the printing press, almost no one except serious (and wealthy) scholars would have had their own copy of the Scriptures. For nearly all Christians, the way they experienced them was by hearing them read publicly in church. The books that make up the New Testament (with the exception of Revelation) originated as the set of writings that were to be read in church. Having our own copies of the Bible separated out by book, chapter, and verse (and, more recently, searchable electronic Bibles) has produced new ways of interacting with it, not all of which are necessarily good.<br />
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And speaking of the New Testament, it didn't even exist for the first few generations of Christians. The books that make it up only began to be written in the second half of the first century, a few decades after Christ, and it took longer still for them to begin to be collected together. The gospels, Acts of the apostles, and some of the letters of Paul quickly became standard reading among the growing network of Christian churches, but other letters (like that to the Hebrews) and the book of Revelation took much longer to become commonly read, i.e. treated as "scripture". In the meantime, some other books, like the epistles of Clement and Ignatius, the Didache, and the Shepherd of Hermas were popular reading in various times or places but ultimately didn't gain universal acceptance. For the earliest Christians, "Scripture" was identical with what we now call the Old Testament. (Or rather the Greek version of the Old Testament, the Septuagint)<br />
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Our expectations are also different because of the enormous shifts in thought that have taken place between the first century and now. For most people today, truth is objective—that is, impersonal. Subjectivity is equivalent to "fuzziness", to unreliability. We have become interrogators of texts; we want "just the facts"; we want to know "what it means" (that is, the original intent of the author), or "what really happened". This approach to truth comes naturally to most of us; it's the water we've been swimming in all our lives. But it is quite different than how people thought and read when the books of the Bible were being written, and for most of the time since.</div>
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All of these factors make it easy, even natural for us (I'm not excepting myself here) to approach the Bible in a way very different from that of the apostles and fathers, and to get tripped up on questions and "contradictions" that never even occurred to them.<br />
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What I mean is that it's easy to treat the Bible as source material, full of "data points" to be fit into some kind of framework or system to help us make sense of the big picture. We feel a need to reorganize Scripture, to filter it through some kind of lens, to make sense of it. If ours is a system of doctrine, like Calvinism or dispensationalism, it can easily take on a life of its own and lead us to reasonings and conclusions increasingly remote from the gospel. If it is the broader, modern project of scientific truth, we are likely to spend a good deal of time wringing our hands over questions like what day of the week the Last Supper was held on or how the days of creation match up with what we know of cosmology and natural history—or conclude that the Bible is a bunch of fairy tales because it does not give ready or consistent answers to such questions. We may say that because it is inspired, the Bible isn't just "any other book", but what this can end up meaning is that we read it like any other book and then take the meaning we find in it as absolutely true and worth building our life on. Is this a fitting way to handle the Scriptures? I don't think so—and I think it's responsible for a good deal of the hangups people have with them.<br />
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The early Christians' approach to Scripture can <i>almost </i>be summed up by the fact that the phrase "the Word of God" did not, for them, refer primarily to any written text or texts but to Jesus Christ himself, and to the apostolic proclamation of his incarnation, death, resurrection, and lordship. (Behr 50) This concept is a part of the Orthodox faith that <a href="https://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2013/05/metatheology-part-i-second-trinity.html">fascinated</a> me almost from the beginning. For them, the meaning (in Greek, the <i>logos</i> or "word") of Scripture, the message it had to communicate, was not any doctrine or timeless truth, but Christ himself. In Luke 24, two of the disciples meet the risen Jesus on the road to Emmaus and, somehow, don't recognize him. Not only that, but despite spending years traveling with him and listening to his teaching, they still don't understand who he really is or why he's come. If this isn't enough to know Jesus, what is? It's not until they sit down and break bread with him, and listen to him expound on how "all the Scriptures" (v. 27) teach about him, that their eyes are opened and they recognize him. And then he immediately disappears from their sight.<br />
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This experience deeply informs how the Orthodox Church approaches the Bible. Christ is not known the same way we know historical events, through dispassionate research and objective analysis; despite being eyewitnesses his disciples were remarkably slow to "get it", and plenty of others who met him in person never did. Maybe living two thousand years after the Incarnation isn't as much of a handicap as we think. Instead, the Lord is known through the breaking of bread (understood to point to communion) and the opening of the Scriptures—the two focal points of how Christians worship every Sunday. Without denigrating the importance of what is today called a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ", this knowledge, this relationship, happens within the context of the Church. The liturgy, the doctrines, the traditions are not meant to be a substitute, much less a hindrance, to personal participation in Christ, but rather the fertile soil within which this participation can happen.<br />
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At the risk or repeating myself, the "Scriptures" from which Christ expounded himself in Luke 24 were what we now call the Old Testament. And to the disciples, it all really "meant" Christ. This is hard for us to imagine today with our emphasis on locating the "meaning" of a text in the original intent of the author. But this idea is a relatively recent one, and though some of the fathers practiced something like it, more popular among them (and, arguably, the apostles) was a typological approach that saw the whole of Scripture leading towards and finding its ultimate fulfillment in Christ. In the mind of the Church, God's resting on the seventh day of creation prefigured Christ's rest in the tomb on Holy Saturday; the burning bush through which God spoke to Moses was a type of the Mother of God, who bore the fullness of the Godhead within her and yet was not consumed; the <i>telos</i> ("end") to and about whom many of the Psalms are written (in the Greek) is none other than Christ himself. St. Irenaeus writes: "If anyone, therefore, reads the Scriptures with attention, he will find in them an account of Christ, and a foreshadowing of the new calling. ... The treasure hidden in the Scriptures is Christ, since He was pointed out by means of types and prophecies."<br />
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Hopefully I've offered a glimpse of how the inspiration of the Scriptures entails that they don't just mean more <i>truly</i>; they also mean <i>differently</i> than other texts. And though it's somewhat trite to say so, God can and does speak to us through them, reveal himself in a way that doesn't require us to analyze our way to the exact thoughts of the original author. But this brings me to one more difference: it's not enough to merely read the Bible; equally important is being <i>read</i> by it. We have become interrogators of Scripture; do we let it interrogate us? This is what the prayer in the second half of the above-quoted passage from Psalm 19 is about: opening ourselves to the Word of God; finding in and through the pages not just data points or puzzle pieces but a Person. The meaning of Scripture, the inspiration of Scripture are as much a matter of reading as of writing, of being guided by the same Spirit that guided its authors to communion with the Word of whom they wrote.<br />
<br />
<i>Postscript</i><br />
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I'm not claiming this approach is a panacea for all biblical doubt, an answer to every apparent contradiction. As I know well from experience, it's dangerous to claim that questions and doubts about the Bible always betray a problem with the interpreter and are better off not raised. But it is, I think, a better way than the more scientific approach to interpretation I used to follow, one that I need to keep learning to follow as well. The Bible is not primarily a knot to be untangled, a box full of puzzle pieces to be assembled, and it's unhealthy to dwell too much on "solving" apparent contradictions in it, forcing an artificial uniformity on the Scriptures that makes them into something other than what they are. The traditional approach to the Scriptures I sketched can go a long way toward reducing the confusion we can feel about the Bible as modern readers. In the next post, I'll apply this approach in more detail, particularly to some uniquely questions about the Bible. In the final post, I'll do my best to tackle some harder questions that aren't so easily dealt with, that the early church fathers often did notice and address.</div>
Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08244026688548871531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4225502016359798858.post-48786583562583130282017-10-31T06:44:00.000-05:002018-02-27T08:04:36.516-06:00Happy Reformation Day!Today is Reformation Day—and not just any Reformation Day, but a very special one. That's right, I'm going to take you on a tour of no fewer than seven different "reforms" that have been attempted in the Orthodox Church. (What do you mean, that isn't what Reformation Day means?)<br />
<h4>
Images of the Holy</h4>
Icons are a ubiquitous and central part of eastern worship, as spending any amount of time in a Orthodox church will make clear. The main part of the church will be full (in some cases <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Trinity_Monastery_(Jordanville,_New_York)#/media/File:Cathedral_of_the_Holy_Trinity_in_Jordanville_NY_USA.jpg">practically covered</a>) with images of the Lord, the Mother of God, the saints, angels, and significant events from biblical and church history. Orthodox homes will have a corner with icons for prayer and the reading of Scripture. Of course, this is a matter of considerable diversity among Christians; Catholic Churches tend to have not only images but statues, and most Protestant churches use no images in their worship besides the cross (and, perhaps, a smattering of "inspirational" stock photos).<br />
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This ambiguity has something of a parallel in the early Church. The use of images in worship developed largely organically in the early church and there are only brief mentions of it in the writings of the early fathers. After the conversion of Constantine and the subsequent spread of Christianity through the empire, it became commonplace for churches to be decorated with many religious images—along with images of the emperor. This may have been a Christianization of the pagan practice of depicting the divine in human form, which doesn't mean the Christian faith was being compromised; the church has a long history of selectively appropriating the best of the faiths around it, a reflection of the fact that though it uniquely proclaims the Truth in its fullness, the Church does not have a monopoly on truth. Early apologists like Justin Martyr applied this with regard to Greek philosophy, and later the pagan feast of Sol Invictus, the unconquered sun, was "Christianized" into a celebration of the nativity of Christ, the true Light of the World and fulfillment of the feast.<br />
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So when the church borrowed from the practices and ideas of the world around it, it never did so uncritically. But inasmuch as icon veneration was borrowed in this way, it was unusual in that there was no systematic defense or condemnation of the practice for the first seven centuries after Christ, only scattered expressions of approval or disapproval, such that both supporters and detractors of icons could find plenty of material in the writings of the Fathers to support their positions. This began to change in the eighth century when a series of Byzantine emperors, starting with Leo III, began trying to reform icons out of the Church. Leo's position on icons was somewhat obscure (letters by Patriarch Germanos refer to him as a friend of icons), but he seems to have raised concerns that their veneration was idolatry and to have taken measures to remove them from public places and ban their use in worship.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6b/Irenekirken.jpg/800px-Irenekirken.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><br /></a>Leo's son, Constantine V, was much more unambiguously opposed to icons and more theologically literate in his stand against them. In 754 he summoned to the palace of Hieria a council of 338 bishops to (but not including representatives of any of the five patriarchs), which condemned the depiction of the saints "in lifeless pictures" as "vain and introduced by the devil". Still less could the "divine image of the Word" be represented with material colors; how could mere wood and paint possibly do justice to the Incarnate God? Supporters of Constantine's stand against icons, the iconoclasts ("image-smashers"), cited the second commandment (Exo 20:4-5), which prohibited the making of "graven images" or likenesses of created beings as a form of idolatry, a return to paganism. Christ was suppposed to have inaugurated an hour in which the faithful would worship "in spirit and in truth" (Jhn 4:23); the adoration of images represented a regression back to pre-Christianity, the worship of material creature rather than bodiless Creator.<br />
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6b/Irenekirken.jpg/800px-Irenekirken.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="593" height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6b/Irenekirken.jpg/800px-Irenekirken.jpg" width="237" /></a>There was also a Christological component to the argument against icons; material images would necessarily either depict only Christ's human nature, separating it from his invisible divine nature (a form of the heresy of Nestorianism), or else conflate and confuse his natures by attempting to circumscribe the divine nature in a portrait along with the human (the heresy of monophysitism). Constantine, something of an armchair (throne?) theologian himself, considered a true image to be "identical in essence with that which it portrays", a definition repeated by his iconoclast supporters; of the "images" of Christ, only the Eucharist met this condition. In light of all these dangers, the iconoclasts called for the end of Christian religious imagery except the cross and the Lord's Supper. The Hagia Irene Church in Istanbul remains as an example of the changes wrought by the iconoclasts; instead of an image of Christ or the Theotokos in its apse as is now considered normal, it has only the stark outline of a cross. No church would again be gutted in such a way until the rise of Reformed Protestantism.<br />
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6b/Irenekirken.jpg/800px-Irenekirken.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
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The Council of Hieria was considered ecumenical (expressing the mind of the whole church) by its participants, but was summarily rejected by the wider Church as a "robber council". It was condemned in 769 by a council held by the Pope (who had not even been invited) and thoroughly overturned by a council held in Nicea in 787, which is now recognized by Orthodox and Catholic Christians as the seventh ecumenical council. This council heartily approved the Church's long-standing use of images and rebutted the anti-icon arguments of the preceding council. To the objection that it was demeaning to portray Christ with material paint and wood, it was rejoined that Christ made himself material by taking on flesh. What an icon does is not to circumscribe Christ, but merely to depict him as he manifested himself to us. And what is depicted is not Christ's natures in isolation, but his person in which both natures come together. Against Constantine's definition of an image, the orthodox presented a variety of alternate definitions which did not mandate that images be identical in essence with their subject. They drew both a close relation and a precise distinction between image and subject. St. John of Damascus, the most influential supporter of images in the years leading up to the council, defined an image as "a mirror and a figurative type, appropriate to the dullness of our body." He likened their veneration to showing affection to the garments or image of a departed loved one—for that is what the saints are to the Church.<br />
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Similarly, the second Council of Nicea drew a careful distinction between veneration and worship. It is possible to show honor to images without worshipping them, just as it is possible to honor friends, family, or teachers without making them into idols. St. Basil the Great was quoted as saying that "the honor that is paid to the image passes over to the prototype." Added to this was a healthy appreciation for the role of the material in our salvation, which began with the Savior taking on material flesh. Iconoclasm seemed to deny this role, coming dangerously close to the old material-denying heresy of Gnosticism. Saying it was blasphemous to depict Christ in a portrait seemed like docetism; if Christ truly became one of us, how could his body not be pictured like anyone else's? The distinction between pagan and Christian worship, the iconophiles insisted, was not one of matter versus spirit, but false realities versus true ones. Pagan idolatry is idolatry because of the ultimate unreality of the objects of worship, whereas icons depicted real people worthy of real honor, and the real Savior worthy of worship. The veneration of icons, far from a regression to paganism, was a celebration of Christ's triumph over the "elemental principles" of this world.<br />
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As for the iconoclast's protests on the basis of the second commandment, the supporters of icons followed an increasingly common Orthodox practice in referring it back to the first commandment: "You shall have no other gods before Me." Icons <i>per se</i> are not objects of worship, but representations and symbols of the One truly worthy of worship; still less are they analogous to pagan idols; therefore the second commandment prohibition does not apply against them. It should be noted that the second commandment in the Septuagint prohibits the making of <i>eidola</i> (that is, idols), not <i>eikona</i> (that is, images, as in Gen 1:26 or Col 1:15); the common King James translation of the prohibition to "graven image" obscures this distinction. This interpretation is bolstered by the fact that later in Exodus God instructs the Israelites to make the Tabernacle with images of cherubim (Exo 25:18-22, 26:1,31, 36:8,35). And finally, icons were and continue to be valuable teaching aids for presenting the content of the faith, to the illiterate and those unable to afford books (in the earlier church), to children, and to converts like myself. Just as preaching and the liturgy bring the words and teachings of Christ and the apostles to us in the present day, icons make them visually present to us.<br />
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A second period of iconoclasm began in the early ninth century. Emperor Leo V may have been influenced by a series of defeats at the hands of the radically iconoclast Muslims as a sign of divine displeasure. For inspiration he looked back to Constantine V who, besides his campaign against images was also remembered for his successful conquests against the empire's enemies, and rediscovered the acts of the council of Hieria. Despite the more recent memory of the second Council of Nicea, he became convinced of iconoclasm and once more began to roll back the veneration of images. This second phase of the controversy continued until icon adoration was restored once and for all in 843, a day which is still celebrated on the first Sunday of Great Lent as the "Sunday of Orthodoxy".<br />
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Like the heresy of Arianism centuries before, the iconoclast controversy found prominent leaders in the Church arrayed against a movement led and emboldened by a series of emperors determined to push the doctrines they had come to believe in upon the faithful. Whereas in the western churches the accumulation of excessive temporal power by bishops became a serious problem, the Christian east has struggled more with "cesaropapism", the appropriation and exercise of spiritual authority by secular rulers. This was especially true of the Byzantine emperors, but later on the Russian tzars (the word "tzar" coming from "Caesar") and their successors would follow in their footsteps.<br />
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<h4>
An ill-fated truce</h4>
By the 1430s, the situation of the Byzantine Empire had become truly desperate. It had shrunk from once encompassing the entire Mediterranean to a few scraps of land on the west side of the Bosphorus, the Peloponnese peninsula, and some scattered Aegean islands. The Ottoman Empire surrounded it on all sides, and the Muslims continued to close in. Emperor John VIII Palaiologos knew that the Empire's only hope of survival lay in timely assistance from the Christian west. In 1438 he accepted an invitation from Pope Eugene IV and sailed with seven hundred diplomats, scholars, and representatives of the Church to Ferrara (later Florence), where what the Catholics consider their 17th ecumenical council was in progress, to negotiate a reunion of the eastern and western churches as a prerequisite for military aid. In the formula of union that was drawn up, the Orthodox would accept the <i>filioque</i> clause (a western addition to the Nicene Creed stating that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father <i>and the Son</i>, which was a major factor in the east-west schism four centuries earlier), papal supremacy, and the doctrine of Purgatory. In exchange, they would keep most of their distinctive rites of worship and traditions, such as married priests and the use of leavened bread in the Eucharist, while in communion with Rome (these are basically the terms by which the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Catholic_Churches">Eastern Catholic Churches</a> would later reunite with Rome).<br />
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At last, this was it! The Great Schism of 1054 finally ended by consent of the Pope, Emperor, and Ecumenical Patriarch! All the bishops present, knowing that they had little choice, signed the formula—except for one: Mark, Archbishop of Ephesus. Mark, who is today commemorated as a saint and a "pillar of Orthodoxy", turned out to have the broad support of the Church on his side; the union was widely rejected by monks, civil authorities, and laypeople; many of its signatories revoked their signatures when they returned home; the emperor did not dare proclaim it publicly in Constantinople until 1452. Byzantine Christians would rather suffer under Islamic rule than compromise their faith. The Russian church angrily rejected the union upon hearing of it, and prelates who showed any sympathy for it were ousted. Despite the emperor's best efforts, little western aid came to Constantinople, and it fell to the Turks on May 29, 1453.<br />
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The failure of the "union of Florence", like that of the "union of Lyon" in the thirteenth century and the Council of Hieria in the eighth, is demonstrative of the nature of authority in the Orthodox Church. Authority is not simply top-down, residing in any one leader or even a ruling council; nor is it simply bottom-up, with prelates ultimately subject to the will of the laity. The final authority is rather <i>the whole Church</i>, the apostolic consensus that has always been the core of Holy Tradition. The Church is the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim 3:15), the true temple in which the Holy Spirit dwells (1 Cor 3:16), and this Church always gets the last word on the acts of the hierarchy. The difference between an ecumenical council and a "robber council" like Hieria or Florence is whether its rulings are received or rejected by the whole Church.<br />
<h4>
St. Nilus and St. Joseph</h4>
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A major critique of the Protestant Reformers against the Roman church was its excessive wealth and opulence, which compromised the church's intended role as defender of the poor and its ability to truly be "in the world, but not of the world". This problem was somewhat mirrored in the Christian east, though more with land than with riches; by the turn of the sixteenth century, about a quarter to a third of the civilized land in Russia belonged to monasteries. In 1503, at a synod in Moscow, the monk St. Nilus of Sora (or Nil Sorsky) raised the question of whether this should be so. Similarly to the Reformers to the west, Nilus and his supporters (who came to be known as "Non-Possessors", due to their belief that monasteries should not possess land) argued that such excessive landownership made monasteries too worldly, compromising them in their calling to prayer and piety. Monks were supposed to support themselves with the work of their hands, not act as wealthy landlords.</div>
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Responding to Nilus at the synod and in the wider controversy that followed was St. Joseph, abbot of Volokalamsk, who emphasized the social role of monasticism: caring for the poor and the sick, showing hospitality, offering religious instruction; these tasks require money, and therefore land. Monks do not use their land or money for themselves, but for the benefit of others. His followers, the Possessors, had the saying: "The riches of the Church are the riches of the poor."</div>
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Besides their disagreement over monastic holdings, Sts. Nilus and Joseph clashed on a few other subjects centering around the relationship of Church and state. Joseph, like most Christians of his time, supported the imposition of civil penalties on heretics (the burning of heretics has historically been much rarer in Orthodox than in the western churches, but it was sadly in practice at that time), whereas Nilus thought the state should take no part in the punishment of heretics. The Possessors believed in a closer partnership between Church and state, whereas the Non-Possessors were more aware of the other-worldliness of the Church. Joseph the abbot focused more on rules and discipline, Nilus on in the inner life of prayer and personal relationship with God. Joseph celebrated the role of beauty and the material in worship (in this he was largely in line with the second Council of Nicea); Nilus emphasized the need not to be ensnared by the material, but to look beyond to seek knowledge of the invisible and indescribable God.</div>
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The fact that both participants in this debate are now recognized as saints shows that it was not as one-sided as the other controversies I've been describing. The Russian church recognized that both saints placed stress on valuable and real parts of the Christian faith—although the Non-Possessor movement <i>per se</i> did not do so well, and Russian monasteries continued owning land until the Russian Revolution in the twentieth century.</div>
<h4>
The tragic tale of Cyril Lucaris</h4>
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Cyril Lucaris (1572-1638), Patriarch of Constantinople, was a brilliant man born into a very difficult time for the Church. When Lucaris was born, the Reformation was convulsing western Christendom, with opposing Catholic and Protestant foes exchanging verbal if not physical blows. As a resident of Crete, part of the Venetian Republic, Lucaris had a closer view of this enmity than most Orthodox, especially as he studied at the university in Padua (discreetly hospitable to Protestants), and later in Wittenberg and Geneva. Caught in the crossfire between Catholicism and Protestantism, he began to develop sympathies for Reformed Christianity. These sympathies were bolstered by his intense hostility to Catholicism, which may have led him to feel an affinity for Reformation leaders also struggling against Rome.<br />
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This hostility was bolstered when, at the age of 24, he was sent to lead the Orthodox opposition to the Union of Brest-Litovsk, a union between Polish-Lithuanian Orthodox and Rome similar to the one attempted at Florence—only ultimately successful. Lucaris was appalled at the capitulation, attributing it to the inferior education of Orthodox clergy compared to the erudite and missionary-minded Society of Jesus. In 1601 he was elected Patriarch of Alexandria, and in 1612 he became the Patriarch of Constantinople. With this authority, he set out to reform the Church to better withstand Catholic influence—along increasingly Reformed lines.<br />
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As Ecumenical Patriarch, Lucaris reopened the old Academy in Constantinople and provided it with a printing press to publish instructional materials. He sponsored the first translation of the New Testament into modern Greek. He corresponded with English and continental Reformed leaders, and sent Orthodox clergy to their schools for training. Fatefully, he authored a <i>Confession of Faith</i> (as numerous Protestant groups were had been doing), first published in Geneva in 1629, which expounded a synthesis of Orthodox and Reformed theology. Among other things, it espoused justification by faith alone, unconditional predestination, a rejection of icons, a rejection of the infallibility of the Church, and acceptance of only baptism and the Eucharist as sacraments.<br />
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Most other Orthodox were livid at Lucaris' <i>Confession</i> (no doubt encouraged in their rejection by the Jesuits, though there was plenty in the <i>Confession</i> to reject anyway), and he spent his later years embroiled in controversy not just within the Church but also as Constantinople became another front for the Reformation; he was forced to resign five times at the influence of Catholic diplomats and reinstated at the influence of Protestant ones until finally being sentenced to death in 1638, strangled by Ottoman Janissaries and thrown into the Bosphorus. His <i>Confession</i> was repudiated by six local councils in the following decades, and two other Orthodox hierarchs, Peter Mogila of Kiev and Dositheus of Jerusalem, composed their own confessions to oppose Lucaris' and reiterate Orthodox doctrine. Dositheus' <i><a href="http://www.crivoice.org/creeddositheus.html">Confession</a></i> in particular is regarded to this day as an apt exposition of the Orthodox faith in distinction from both Catholicism and Protestantism, though written in a Catholic tone.<br />
<h4>
Two fingers or three?</h4>
Nikon, who became Patriarch of Moscow in 1652, was not a very humble man. He sought to reverse the decline in the Patriarch's power relative to the Tsar's, assuming the Tsar's title <i>Veliki Gosudar</i> (Great Lord), and even claimed the right to intervene in secular matters like the popes had done centuries earlier. This eventually earned the resentment of the Tsar, who called a council that deposed him in 1666. But Nikon undertook another initiative which would have more lasting consequences. A strong admirer of all things Greek, he was concerned with how Russian liturgical usages deviated from the Greek ones. So he had Greek service books translated and set out to impose them on his flock.<br />
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The reforms Nikon proposed seem trivial to us today (saying three alleluias instead of two, spelling the Lord's name slightly differently, removing a few superfluous words that had been added to the creed), but they provoked fierce opposition. A particular sticking point was his attempt to change how Russian Orthodox made the sign of the cross: not with two fingers extended (representing Christ's two natures), but three (representing the Trinity, as all modern Orthodox make the sign). The ubiquity of the sign, not just in church but in everyday life, and its deep symbolic connection with the dogmas at the very center of the Orthodox faith, made changing it feel like changing the faith itself. The old two-fingered sign became a symbol of conservative resistance to Nikon's reforms.<br />
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Compounding this was the heavy-handed, characteristically authoritarian way in which Nikon tried to make his changes. He did not consult parish clergy or call a council, he continued to press on even as opposition arose, and he persecuted resisters fiercely, repeatedly imprisoning their leader, Avvakum, who was eventually burned at the stake in 1682 (a practice which, it should be remembered, is historically rare in eastern Christianity, and which had already ceased in the west). He even had churches whose architecture he deemed nonconforming demolished and rebuilt in a more suitably Byzantine style, and had soldiers search houses for icons whose style was deemed too "western" and destroy them.</div>
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Given all this, it's not too surprising that a vehement resistance to Nikon's reign developed. Despite persecution at the hands of church and state, the movement persisted, eventually going into full schism with the Orthodox Church while continuing to suffer persecution. They remain in schism to this day, and are known as the Old Believers.<br />
<h4>
Russian Meddling</h4>
Tsar Peter I "the Great" was determined to prevent any more Nikons from challenging his authority. When Patriarch Adrian of Moscow died in 1700, he declined to appoint a successor, instead having another bishop administrate the church in his stead. In 1721 he abolished the patriarchate and organized the twelve-man "College for Spiritual Affairs" or "Holy Synod" to rule in the stead. His aim was to make the Russian church subservient to the Russian state; the arrangement was unprecedented in Orthodox canon law but similar to that of state Lutheran churches in northern Europe (where Peter had gone to study how "enlightened" western states were run). The Synod's members were nominated by the Tsar, and could be dismissed by him if they got out of line. Even more radically, a 1722 decree obliged clergy to break the confidentiality of confession if they heard any plans against the government. Monasticism was restricted; westernizing reforms were imposed. It was not an attempt to destroy the church but rather to make it an arm of the state.<br />
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Perhaps the most distressing thing about the two hundred-year reign of the Holy Synod was how little opposition there was to it. Protests within Russia were stamped out, and the rest of the Orthodox world, mostly living under Ottoman oppression of their own, were not in a position to stop the reforms. It was a time of relative stagnation and westernization for the Russian church, but all was not lost. St. Tikhon of Zadonsk had a mystical streak like that of St. Nilus, and he drew upon western theology without abandoning Orthodoxy. Under the imperial radar and in reaction to the church's domination by the state, the tradition of the Non-Possessors was increasingly reintegrated into Orthodox spirituality and teaching. The nineteenth century saw the rise of the <i>starets</i> (elder), through whom the continuing vitality of the monasteries influenced the life of lay people; the extraordinary monastic St. Seraphim of Sarov is the best example of this. There was also an increase in mission work (including the spread of Orthodoxy to North America, by way of Alaska); later in the nineteenth century, Russian theology increasingly broke free of its western influences and saw a revival both within the empire and beyond which arguably continues to this day.<br />
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The Synod remained until 1917, when the Patriarchate was finally restored after the collapse of the old Russian regime. But there was little time to celebrate before the church entered into seventy years of persecution by a militantly atheist regime without historical precedent.<br />
<h4>
What's the difference between eastern and western Christianity? Thirteen days</h4>
For the first fifteen centuries of the Church, all of Christendom used the Julian calendar, introduced before Christ by Emperor Julius Caesar, which adds a leap day once every four years. During the Middle ages, Catholic scholars realized that this calendar was inaccurate, drifting backwards one day relative to the true astronomical time every 128 years. As a result, the calendar date had drifted over a week back from the "true" date. In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII decreed a new calendar, in which every year divisible by 100 but not 400 would not be a leap year. This mostly fixed the problem of the calendar drift. To correct the drift that had already happened, he also decreed that October 4th of that year would immediately be followed by October 15th, which must have been an extremely disorienting change. The Protestant churches at first rejected the new "Gregorian Calendar" as a papal innovation, but eventually came to accept it, as has most of the world.<br />
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Such a jarring reform needed the authority of a pope to make it happen, which may be partly why the Orthodox world never adopted the Gregorian Calendar (except for the Finnish Orthodox Church). By the early 20th century, the gap between calendars had grown to thirteen days. Finally, in 1923, Patriarch Meletios of Constantinople gathered a council which called for the adoption of the Revised Julian Calendar (RJC), developed by Serbian astronomer Milutin Milanković. This calendar would be slightly more accurate than the Gregorian Calendar (though remaining identical to it until the year 2800) and come with a time jump of thirteen days to get back on track. The "new calendar" proved controversial; some churches adopted it for fixed feasts while others rejected it, and no one has adopted it for reckoning the date of Pascha and all the feasts dated relative to it. Some small groups have gone into schism over the matter of the calendar, and others, while remaining in communion with the Church as a whole, regard those who have adopted the RJC as having compromised the purity of the faith.<br />
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Before you conclude that Orthodox are inflexible grumps who hate any change, no matter how small, some context is in order. Patriarch Meletios called the council a "Pan-Orthodox Congress" (an unusual and unprecedented title), but in reality only Constantinople, Cyprus, Serbia, Greece, and Romania were represented. Conspicuously missing were representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church (the largest one) and the other three ancient patriarchates, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. His own canonical status was in question; he was allegedly a freemason, which is forbidden for Orthodox; a meeting of clergy and laymen even sought to depose him during the Congress. Much like with Patriarch Nikon, there was a good deal of attempting to push well-intentioned reforms through in an underhanded and one-sided manner.<br />
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The content of the reforms sought was also problematic. The congress was called in response to a 1920 <a href="http://incommunion.org/2004/10/24/unto-the-churches-of-christ-everywhere/">encyclical</a> which marked the entrance of the Orthodox Church into the ecumenical movement and called for the rekindling of love among the churches, "so that they should no more consider one another as strangers and foreigners, but as relatives, and as being a part of the household of Christ and “fellow heirs, members of the same body and partakers of the promise of God in Christ” (Eph. 3:6)." The first measure the encyclical called for was the acceptance of the RJC. Other measures included allowing priests to wear lay clothing outside of church and marry or remarry after ordination. Most troublingly, representatives of the Anglican Church were invited to one session of the Congress and given seats of honor. They bore a petition by 5,000 Anglican clergy calling for union with the Orthodox (a dream of Patriarch Meletios'); the reform of the church calendar to match the Anglicans' was explicitly construed as a first step toward that union. Of all these measures, only the calendar reform was accepted, and even then only for fixed feasts (those not dated relative to Pascha, which is why Orthodox usually celebrate it after western Christians have had Easter).<br />
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The result of all these reforms being introduced at such an unusual council by such a controversial patriarch was that the matter of calendar reform was poisoned in the minds of many Orthodox, especially those belonging to churches not represented at the Congress. The rejection was an example of a staunch opposition to the great heresy of "ecumenism" (i.e. the compromise of Orthodox faith and tradition in order to get along or achieve "union" with other Christian communions) that still exists in the Church today. <a href="http://orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/photii_2.aspx">This article</a> expressing the "old calendarist" view describes the association of the RJC with ecumenism: "The basis for Church Calendar reform obviously does not have its roots in tradition, theology, liturgical life or the canonical rules of the Orthodox Church, but rather in the one-sided, semi-religious, semi-social approach of the ecumenical cult which is grounded in a political-religious ideal of 'Christian unity.'" Opponents of the RJC also point of that the reasons given for changing the calendar tend to be social or worldly (getting along better with other Christian communions, better scientific accuracy) and not theological, and that since the Julian calendar was officially adopted by the Council of Nicea, only another ecumenical council can replace it.<br />
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Proponents of the RJC argue that there is nothing sacred about the Julian calendar (which was, after all, developed by a pagan); that the Council of Nicea did not intend to sacralize the Julian Calendar in particular but simply to adopt the civil calendar of its time for church use; and that calendars are ultimately just manmade tools and not articles of revelation or doctrine. A calendar is a system for measuring time based on the motions of astronomical bodies, and the fact is that the RJC simply does this task better and more accurately than the Julian Calendar; therefore it should be preferred. To the "new calendarists", the old calendarists display the same kind of dogmatism on peripheral points and usages as the Old Believers, and a tendency to denigrate the importance of the Church's relationship with the world (as both creation and mission field) in favor of her spiritual relationship to God. They also tend to conflate the matter of calendar reform with the compromises of early 20th-century ecumenism rather than consider it on its own merits; changing the calendar is seen as a prelude to changing any number of things and ultimately capitulating to western errors. But is the Church really taking the same approach to ecumenism today as she was 100 years ago?<br />
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We should, after all, earnestly hope for the reunion of Christians; this is not a goal to be scoffed at, and we already pray for "the peace of the whole world...and the unity of all" in every liturgy. And there are other ways to frame the question of calendar reform besides the first step toward the kind of formal union-by-majority-vote the early ecumenical movement seemed to think was imminent. We are not nearly so close to this union as some of the early ecumenists seemed to think and there are plenty of legitimate obstacles to it, but need the calendar be one of them?</div>
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Though I disagree with the Old Calendarists, I find it more comforting than discouraging to belong to a church that can't even update its calendar. For we it can't do this, it's hard to imagine our forebears radically changing the faith once delivered to the saints.</div>
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<h4>
In Quest of Reform?</h4>
A basic definition of "reform" is making a change to something in order to improve it. In the modern, progressive world, reform is generally considered a Good Thing. We want reform for our healthcare system (though there are wildly differing visions of what kind of reform), for our educational system, for our economic system, for the government itself. And we as modern people celebrate the Protestant Reformation for ushering in the world we know, if not for its liberation of the true gospel from papal tyranny. When a system or institution has become corrupt, mired in abuses or stubbornly clinging to outmoded ways, reform is usually the go-to solution.<br />
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But as history shows, reform can just as easily be the means by which something is corrupted, rather than how institutional corruption is corrected—especially for the Church. Attempts to impose heresy on the Church (as with iconoclasm, Arianism centuries earlier, the ill-fated Union of Florence, or Cyril Lukaris' Reformed reforms) are obvious examples of the former.<br />
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Reform can still be risky even when the change desired is not outright heresy. Patriarch Nikon's goal of bringing Russian and Byzantine liturgical practice into sync was admirable, but the authoritarian way in which he tried to do so caused a tragic and entirely avoidable schism. If the Revised Julian Calendar had been proposed at a more inclusive council by a less controversial patriarch, it might be in use by all Orthodox today. For a western example, the repeated about-faces in the direction of the English Reformation depending on the convictions of the current monarch engendered hardened dissent and numerous schisms that are responsible for much of the present-day diversity of Protestantism.<br />
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By nature, reform tends to be centrally imposed by a visionary individual or small group. It is self-consciously <i>in</i>organic change. Sometimes this is necessary to end abuses, but when Christian reformers seek to alter the structure or faith of the Church according to their convictions (or nefarious schemes), the universality of the faith is endangered. No individual, whether Pope, saint, or brilliant theologian, can possess the fullness of the Christian faith; it is the property of the whole Church. If a reform is the expression not of the broad consensus of the Church but merely of the mind of a reformer seeking to reshape it according to their will, it will fail, or worse, lead to a schism. This pattern is borne out time and again in the history of Christianity, both eastern and western.</div>
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Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08244026688548871531noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4225502016359798858.post-21074317055364406992017-06-04T13:29:00.000-05:002017-06-16T15:20:45.272-05:00The End of Protestantism<div class="separator tr_bq" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In preparation for a discussion group, I recently finished reading Peter Leithart's book, <i>The End of Protestantism</i>. If this rings any bells, it's because it's based on a blog conversation and subsequent panel discussion that transpired a few years ago, right as I was working through my questions on the gospel and church unity. I later wrote a <a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-future-of-protestantism.html">post</a> summarizing the conversation and offering a few brief responses, though I was already well on the road to Orthodoxy by that point. Now Leithart has developed his vision for a united "Reformational Catholic" church into a book, which I have read as a communing Orthodox Christian. So, is it any good?<br />
<h3>
Summary of the Book</h3>
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The State of Our Disunion</h4>
Leithart begins his discourse with a biblical text to which he repeatedly returns, namely Jesus' "high priestly" prayer to the Father at Gethsemane for the unity of his disciples (emphasis added):<br />
<blockquote>
I do not pray for these [the Twelve] alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; <i>that they all may be one, as You, Father, [are] in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us</i>, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. (Jhn 17:20-24)</blockquote>
<div>
This is the unity Jesus wants for his church, but Leithart forcefully argues that it is <i>not</i> what his church is now. His first chapter is largely a comprehensive overview of all the ways in which Christianity is presently divided, and a critique of ways of handling this disunity that fall short of Jesus' vision, such as denominationalism, theories of the continuing "spiritual" unity of the visibly divided church, or saying that the "church" remains united as other groups falsely calling themselves churches have merely divided away from it. None of these "solutions" to the present division of Christianity are what Jesus prayed for, they are merely ways of making ourselves more comfortable with the division.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And, Leithart believes, this division runs wide and deep. Doctrinally, virtually every church has added to the basic creeds Christians have in common; we may affirm the same doctrines but understand them differently. To say we agree on the "fundamentals" of the Christian faith assumes we agree what these fundamentals are, but again this is not the case. Our worship practices are widely diverse; we cannot agree on the number or nature of the sacraments. Believers expelled from one church can easily find another to receive them, no questions asked.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Ever the optimist, Leithart believes that this division, not being an original part of the church, cannot last forever; it is in no way essential to the church. In many ways God is answering Jesus' prayer for the church before our eyes. To be a part of the solution, we must die to our currently churchly identities, insofar as they are rooted in our distinction from our Christian brethren. "If the gospel is true, we are who we are by union with Jesus in his Spirit with his people. It then <i>cannot</i> be the case that we are who we are by differentiation from other believers." (p. 6)</div>
<h4>
Church United</h4>
<div>
After laying out his basic vision for the book and the church, Leithart explains more of the theological basis for the unity to which it is called. Unity with himself and each other has always been God's plan for humanity, and though we have made a mess of it, God promises that sin and alienation will not get the last word. "Jesus came to fulfill this promise of reunification" (p. 13), to unite all of humanity together to himself in the church, breaking down every barrier between us (cf. Gal 3:28). The church <i>is</i> the fulfillment of this promise, breaking into the present.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
If this is all true, what do we make of the division within the church that Leithart just described? He again calls out the common Protestant answer of saying the church is <i>spiritually</i> one even as it is institutionally divided: "The true church, it is said, is an invisible reality that can coexist with visible conflict, division, estrangement, and mutual hatred." (p. 18) Leithart contrasts this with Paul's great concern for unity in the churches he oversaw: "When the Corinthians divided their loyalties among their preferred apostles [1 Cor 1:11-13], Paul did not excuse them by saying that, despite it all, the church is still one. He was <i>outraged</i> that the Corinthians had divided Christ." (p. 18)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Leithart argues that the unity of the church, rather than a spiritual reality, is "a <i>future</i> reality that gives present actions their orientation and meaning." (p. 19) This unity is strongly eschatological; it will be consummated at the end of the age when God is "all in all" (1 Cor 15:28), but like so many other eschatological blessings we have a share in it now through Christ. We must not overrealize our eschatology and suppose that the church is already as united as it will ever be, nor underrealize it and come up with ways of making peace with divisions in the church. Leithart is unafraid to use the word "catholic" (i.e. universal) to describe this unity and the reunited church he envisions.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Reunion will be the titular "end of Protestantism", insofar as our "Protestantism" is defined by its differences from Roman Catholicism and other Protestant denominations; Leithart argues that it will also be the fulfillment of the original vision of the Protestant reformers, who (he argues) were not individualists but sought to <i>restore</i> catholicity to the church where it was lacking because of Roman abuses. "Some of the Reformers spoke of an 'invisible church', but that did not undermine concern for visible reform and visible unity. On the contrary, they spoke of an invisible church out an interest in reforming the visible." (p. 40) They viewed the Roman Catholic Church not simply as "un-Christian" but as a church of some kind, albeit unsound and in need of the reforms they were proposing. With the confessional era, in which "each church formulated its theology in responses to controversies with other branches of the Reformation" (p. 48), the early divisions in Protestantism solidified, but this was a departure from the intent of the early Reformers.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In chapter 3, Leithart boldly presents a vision of what this united, fully "catholic" church could look like. He strongly believes that this church will not simply be a continuation of any presently existing church, but a new church, the original apostolic church transformed and resurrected in a new form that reflects and contains the historical journey of division and reunion its members have traversed.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
"The reformed, united church of the future will be a biblical church." (p. 27) In their study of the Bible, its ministers will draw from the whole of the Christian tradition, east and west, ancient and modern. Confessions and creeds will remain in play, but they will no longer be used as wedges to codify divisions between Christians, and will be open to correction from the Scriptures. The whole Bible will be taught, without favoritism of books; theologians will be open to the truth on both sides of formerly divisive controversies. The future church will not be perfectly united in belief (when has the church ever been?), and indeed there will be more theological battles once division is no longer an acceptable way to relieve disagreement. Expulsion from this church will plausibly be seen as expulsion from <i>the church</i>, without the easy option of simply joining another one.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This future reformed catholic church will be sacramental and liturgical, its services each beginning with confession and absolution of sin and reaching their climax with the Lord's supper. Worship will truly be "the work of the people" (the meaning of "liturgy"), not a performance put on by the ministers with the laity as spectators. Worship will be biblically rooted as well as passionate and charismatic, with music again drawn from the whole tradition, though not from commercialized pop music. The government of this church will not be a World Council of Churches-style bureaucracy, but a local and global communion of pastors and overseers exercising discipline with gentleness. All pastors will recognize the ordination and authority of all others; they will coordinate the church's mission to the world; they will speak with a united voice instead of a cacophony of small voices, many of them outraged.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Leithart concludes, "To achieve anything resembling this vision, every church will have to die, often to good things, often to some of the things they hold most dear." Every church will have to change, to lay aside the things they claim to in order to distinguish themselves from other Christians, the ways they "normalize" division or try to somehow justify it.</div>
<h4>
Church Divided</h4>
<div>
In his second part, Leithart offers an in-depth critique of denominationalism, which he considers a false union, the "institutionalization of division" (p. 4). He first explains more what denominationalism is: A denomination is a religious structure that is adapted to a pluralistic society, in which religion is a voluntary activity, an individual choice between different options courteously competing for peoples' affiliation on a level playing field. This competition resembles a free market in economics, except that it is a market of ideas rather than goods and transactions. It has no coercive power, and doesn't want <i>anyone </i>to have it where religion is concerned. "A denomination is not a <i>dis</i>established church. Denominationalism is the <i>established</i> church of pluralism." (p. 59, emphasis the author's) Denominationalism, he points out, was not the meta-structure of Christianity in the immediate aftermath of the Reformation.<br />
<br />
Before critiquing it, Leithart first tries to appreciate the ways God has providentially worked in and through denominationalism in spite of its shortcomings: first, it allows Christians of different convictions to coexist peacefully and in a limited sort of union, while preserving freedom of conscience. It is arguably an improvement over the narrow-minded confessionalism that arose in the more immediate aftermath of the Reformation, in which theological disagreements could and sometimes did lead to ugly verbal and even physical conflict. The atmosphere of free competition between denominations has helped keep American Christianity more vibrant and resistant to secularization than European Christianity, much as a free market tends to be healthier than a tightly-controlled one.<br />
<br />
With that said, Leithart has plenty to say against denominationalism. Even at its best, "denominationalism is an <i>alternative</i> to the one church that the Father promised....In its <i>essence</i>, denominationalism falsifies central Christian truths about the church and her members." (p. 71, emphasis the author's) The denominational names by which we call ourselves—Lutheran, Reformed, Baptist, Methodist, and so on—serve to divide us from other Christians, define us by our differences from them, when the only name we are supposed to be named with is the name of Jesus. Denominationalism institutionalizes these divisions, makes them seem "normal" or "the way things are", when (historically and theologically) they are anything but normal.<br />
<br />
In a competitive religious landscape such as exists in America, it's easy for denominations to reinforce peoples' existing biases. Congregations tend to become internally homogeneous, both ethnically, racially, and socioeconomically as people find it easier to associate with others like themselves. "The problem is not that the church fails to meet some external standard of diversity. It is that the church mimics and mirrors the world's own divisions" (p. 75)—when it is supposed to transcend them.<br />
<br />
Denominations also tend to become <i>theologically </i>homogeneous, as Christians self-segregate into denominations that share their particular beliefs. This creates even bigger problems. It makes long-standing theological disputes impossible to resolve as Christians can coexist peacefully <i>without</i> resolving or even talking about their differences. It makes believers ambivalent about their own theological commitments, which seem to be serious enough to keep us from sharing in church life or the sacraments with those who disagree, but not serious enough to keep us from freely acknowledging them as fellow believers. Denominationalism also makes identifying or prosecuting heresy almost impossible; one denomination's heresy may be another denomination's fundamental belief. Denominations feel no responsibility for the false teaching or misdeeds of other denominations, another betrayal of catholic unity. Ultimately, "the marketplace analogy [for religion] is itself an accommodation to worldly patterns of society" (p. 79); it reduces faith from a matter of absolute truth to an individual preference.<br />
<br />
The same boundary-forming process that makes denominations internally homogeneous also deepens and perpetuates schisms between denominations. Denominations need defined boundaries to justify their continuing existence, and these boundaries invariably involve reasons for <i>not</i> being some other denominations. The original reasons for a schism may be largely personal or political, but they are cloaked in theological rationale and doctrinal distinctives. The generous spirit of denominationalism, which acknowledges other denominations as fully "Christian" and denies that any one denomination has an exclusive claim to the truth, lowers the barriers to schism; small differences can escalate to schisms, and then harden into denominational identities. Denominational theologies develop in order to justify their continuing existence, and biblical texts that call these theologies into question are minimized.<br />
<br />
Leithart also believes denominationalism has contributed to the secularization of American society. Following Will Herburg, by "secularization" he means a gap between <i>conventional religion</i> (whaqt is actually practiced by religious adherents) and <i>operational religion</i> ("public religion", the set of beliefs, rituals, and values that shape public life and binds society together). In traditional societies (and, to a lesser extent, in European countries with established churches) there is no distinction between the two, but "in a denominational society, <i>no</i> conventional religion is the operational religion. None is <i>permitted</i> to be." (p. 83) By definition, then, denominational societies like that of America are secularized. "One might also say that America has not been secularized because it started out <i>pre</i>-secularized." (p. 82)<br />
<br />
The operational religion that prevails in American society is "a religion thoroughly secularized and homogenized, a religion-in-general that is little more than a civic religion of democracy, the religionization of the American Way." (p. 84, quoting Herburg) Any prophetic voice of religion that may be raised against America is reduced to a matter of private opinion, subordinated to this prevailing civil religion. The result is that the Christian witness of churches that accede to the denominational system is greatly compromised; the voice of the church is fragmented into thousands of little, contradicting voices that are easily ignored. In his next chapter, Leithart enumerates two historical failures which demonstrate the failings of American denominationalism: the treatment of African-Americans (and the formation of black denominations as they found themselves no longer welcome in white ones) and the history of Protestant prejudice against Catholics.<br />
<h4>
Intermezzo: From Glory to Glory</h4>
Leithart turns to biblical history for several examples of the pattern of creation, corruption, and recreation-anew which he is seeking to apply to modern Christianity. During the creation week God creates something, separates it into pieces, and rearranges those pieces in a new, harmonious way (seen especially with the creation of man, then his division into male and female) We see this pattern repeatedly in God's dealings with his people, with the element of judgment added. The world became corrupt, so God separated Noah out of it and preserved him through the flood to a world purified and restructured. He scattered the builders at Babel after they became united against him and called Abram out of the diaspora. Centuries later, God passed judgment on Egypt and brought Israel out to be a people to himself. When Israel later divided against itself and fell back into sin, God preserved a remnant through exile and eventually brought them back to the promised land. And, of course, "the church came into being as another, final revolution in Israel's history" (p. 112), again separated out from the larger Jewish community. To summarize this pattern: "A system is established, sanctioned by God. Human beings sin and corrupt the world, and so the Lord comes to dismantle it and erect something new." (p. 111)<br />
<br />
At each chapter in this story, the conditions of God's relationship with his people are reshaped; God gave Noah and Moses new laws after delivering them; second-temple Judaism took on quite a different shape than before. "At each juncture, God calls his people to shed old ways and old names, to die to old routines and ways of life, including ways of life God himself has previously established." (p. 103) This insight resembles a less-systematic version of dispensationalism, but Leithart's point is that this pattern should continue to apply to the church, especially in our present state of disunity. "Though we have come to the final covenant order, the pattern of death and resurrection that characterized the history of Israel continues within the history of the church." (p. 113) Paul, Constantine, the rise of Islam, the Great Schism, the Reformation, have all reshaped the church in their own ways. And we cannot assume that the church reached its final form with <i>any </i>of these past developments; we cannot be complacent about its current state. "Division <i>cannot</i> be the final state of Christ's church. The names we now bear <i>cannot</i> be our final names." (p. 114) We must remain open to God working something new in the church to restore its original unity, and even to being part of this work.<br />
<h4>
Divided Church Dissolving</h4>
In the next part Leithart looks at some possible ways in which this "something new" may be springing forth in the present, in which the prevailing denominationalism is breaking down. The standard division of Christianity as Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox is becoming increasingly outdated, especially as new Christian movements in developing countries like the Evangelical Church of Congo, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aladura">Aladura</a>, and the explosive growth of Pentecostalism in China refuse to fit cleanly under any of these three heads. Leithart suggests that Pentecostalism itself, a new but rapidly growing form of Christianity, may be a new, fourth basic category of Christianity rather than merely a form of Protestantism. Meanwhile relations between the three traditional Christian communions have changed in their shape over the last century or so: the Roman Catholic Church has adopted a nicer, more open outlook towards Protestantism and modernity (especially since Vatican II), and the trend of Orthodox theologians studying in the west (originating with the Turkish conquest of the Byzantine Empire) has opened up new avenues of dialogue between east and west where there was once cold distance. "The restructuring of the global church offers an occasion to overcome the painful divisions of centuries. It opens an opportunity for Reformational Catholicism." (p. 122)<br />
<br />
Leithart next looks for signs of renewal and change in contemporary American denominationalism, which he hopes may signal the breakdown of its institutionalized divisions. Nondenominational churches are becoming increasingly large and common, and denominational churches are free to draw from various nondenominational resources for worship, instruction, and ministry, blurring the lines between churches of different denominations. It's becoming more common to switch churches, denominations, or even communions (case in point: the present author); it is no longer the norm to remain in one church for one's entire life. And in the era of the "culture wars", the widening division between conservative churches and those influenced by secular modernity is becoming much more significant than the old confessional divisions; churches on the defensive against secularization are turning to each other for support and community. (A prominent theme of the other book I've been reading and hope to blog about, Rod Dreher's <i>The Benedict Option</i>)<br />
<h4>
United Church Reborn</h4>
In his last chapter, Leithart reiterates his call for Christians to pursue Catholic unity and "die to our divisions" (p. 165), offering some practical ways to do so from our present situation. He offers the idea of "federative" ecumenism (common action without the expectation of doctrinal uniformity or intercommunion) as a stepping stone on the way to full communion. Also needed is "receptive ecumenism", an "acknowledgement that we do not know or possess everything we need in our own branch of the church" (p. 167), and a willingness to receive from other traditions to fill what is lacking in our own as we move toward unity. By doing so we do not betray our own Christian tradition, but see it transformed and completed as what was destroyed or distorted by division is restored.<br />
<br />
He then offers a response to Catholics and Orthodox who hold that the path to unity consists of all other Christians rejoining their "mother church", as well as to Protestants considering converting to one of these churches. The united church of the future will not be a simple extension or continuation of any existing church, at least if the biblical pattern he outlined holds. The Reformation recovered some central, biblical truths which ought not to be sacrified, Leithart believes; Catholics and Orthodox have their own forms of tribalism that they need to get past, such as their refusal to partake in eucharistic fellowship with other Christians. He considers this distancing of oneself from other Christians to be "uncatholic", leading to the quotable line that he is "<a href="https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/leithart/2012/05/too-catholic-to-be-catholic">too catholic to be Catholic</a>".<br />
<br />
Finally, Leithart offers some ideas for how Christians can become "reformational catholics" in their own lives, to embody his vision for church unity. Theologians, while continuing to insist on the importance of doctrinal truth, can adopt the way of humility, opening themselves to correction and remaining willing to move outside denominational barricades. He uses the Protestant-Catholic debate on soteriology and the Lutheran-Reformed one on sacramental theology as two in-depth examples of what this doctrinal rapprochement could look like, without making rigid prescriptions. Pastors, meanwhile, can rediscover the theological and liturgical resources of the shared Christian tradition and aim for closer relationship and cooperation both with other churches and the wider society. Lay Christians can pray, minister, or even worship with Christians of other denominations, and seek to move beyond the "agree to disagree" stage of theological dialogue toward more constructive conversation, greater mutual understanding, and ultimately harmony.</div>
<h3>
Response</h3>
Though I have moved out of the target audience for this book since I first watched the discussion between Leithart, Sanders, and Trueman at Biola, I greatly enjoyed reading it and appreciated several of Leithart's points. His concern for the unity of the church reminds me of my own years ago when I was searching for a truer faith, though of course much more eloquently expressed and biblically supported. I appreciate his maximalistic interpretation of Jesus' prayer in John 17, and his refusal to be content with the "solutions" to divisions in the church put forward by other Protestants like invisible-church theology and denominationalism. Like I did, Leithart perceives that the "unity" preserved in these schemes is only a shadow of the unity for which Christ prayed, which is supposed to be a symbol or representation of the indescribable unity of the Trinity, the unity of a single body, all the parts living and working together in harmony. I also appreciated his understanding of this unity as something Christ prayed for, that God promised and will reestablish, not merely something for us to work towards; this almost prophetic vision is the basis for the infectious hope that pervades the book.<br />
<br />
I also appreciated his warnings against defining yourself by what you are not, or using labels to needlessly differentiate yourself from others. In my reflections on the <a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2014/04/gospel-faith-alone-negative-gospel.html">gospel</a> I glimpsed the danger of defining yourself by negation; this is a danger for Orthodox (especially those undergoing "conversion sickness" as I did) as well as for Protestants. Orthodoxy is much more than simply not-western-Christianity, not-modernity, not-ecumenism, as it is sometimes caricatured to various degrees both by its proponents and detractors. To the extent that we get our Christian identity from <i>not</i> being something or someone else, we have to die to this identity in order to be one.<br />
<br />
As might be expected, though I appreciated the general spirit of Leithart's book, I do have some significant disagreements with his vision of Christian unity. Before beginning my critical response, I should mention that Robert Arakaki on the Orthodox-Reformed Bridge blog has written a fairly thorough <a href="https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/orthodoxbridge/review-peter-leitharts-end-protestantism/">review</a> of the book, which is at least as worth reading as this one and to which I'll be referring in my response.<br />
<h4>
Future Church</h4>
One of the first things that jumped out at me in <i>The End of Protestantism</i>, literally from the first page, was the fact that Leithart has a fairly unique understanding of what "the church" really is (though not without precedent, as Arakaki points out). Consider this quote:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The church is divided. It is <i>not</i> that the church has remained united while groups falsely calling themselves churches have split off. It is <i>not</i> that we are spiritually united while empirically divided. (p. 1)</blockquote>
Leithart here specifically rejects the characteristic ecclesiologies of both historical <i>and </i>Protestant Christianity. He rejects the notion that the continuing unity of the church is merely spiritual in nature, but also the notion that the church remains one while schismatic groups may separate from it. He would thus directly deny Bishop Kallistos Ware's saying that "There can be schisms <i>from</i> the Church, but no schisms <i>within</i> the Church." No, Leithart seems to be saying, <i>all</i> schisms are schisms within the church.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
We cannot exonerate the church by treating division as <i>extra</i>-ecclesial, ecclesiologies that imply that "the 'Church as such' is never divided." (p. 22, quoting Ephraim Radner)</blockquote>
Leithart's ecclesiology is most similar to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branch_theory">branch theory</a> which holds that the Christian churches of today are all "branches" that have split off from the original, apostolic church, except that he believes that this condition is <i>not </i>God's will; it <i>is</i> sinful division and needs to be overcome. He believes that "the church <i>as such</i> is a historical community and thus <i>as such</i> is both sinful and divided." (p. 23) In my journal I contrasted these three ecclesiologies with a simple diagram of three propositions, each of which is accepted by two ecclesiologies and rejected by the third.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJI_jlEN5fhPOjrYN1g3csMWtjaEpbDSFLk9ESbsfbEaSYv0Qb3fpnxWuBmijd0Wv1K1sQdu4GMPRloKHK-jIuhVOZ0vsHI-29uHgdxIXt-5RS03D6DmPGphvVt5VVB1DKIZKcKqEJ9IM/s1600/Unity.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJI_jlEN5fhPOjrYN1g3csMWtjaEpbDSFLk9ESbsfbEaSYv0Qb3fpnxWuBmijd0Wv1K1sQdu4GMPRloKHK-jIuhVOZ0vsHI-29uHgdxIXt-5RS03D6DmPGphvVt5VVB1DKIZKcKqEJ9IM/s400/Unity.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pick two.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Specifically:<br />
<ul>
<li>Catholics and Orthodox believe that the church is visibly one, and identify that church (i.e. the "One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church" of the Creed) with their particular communion.</li>
<li>Most Protestants believe that "the church" includes Christians of all communions and confessions with authentic, saving faith in Jesus Christ, and that this church, not to be identified with any institutional church, is one in a spiritual sense, through believers' saving union with Christ, rather than in a visible sense.</li>
<li>Leithart himself continues, in the Protestant fashion, to define the "church" broadly, as encompassing Christians of all confessions and communions, but he distinctly rejects both the Protestant understanding of its unity as merely spiritual <i>and</i> the Catholic/Orthodox identification of the church with their particular church. He reconciles these by instead denying that the unity of the church is a present reality; the church is <i>really</i> divided. Rather, he views unity as an eschatological, "now but not yet" reality.</li>
</ul>
Leithart intentionally contrasts this eschatological view of church unity with the spiritual one of most Protestants: "The unity of the church is not an invisible reality that renders visible things irrelevant. It is a <i>future</i> reality that gives present actions their orientation and meaning." (p. 19) He applies the "now and not yet" sense in which God's promises are realized in Christ and the church, yet awaiting complete fulfillment in the eschaton, to church unity. He isn't afraid to describe this in language that seems contradictory: "[The church] is one now because it <i>will be</i> one in the consummation, in the last day. We are what we will be. And we strive to be what we will be. What the church <i>will be</i> is one catholic church. And we strive to be what we will be." (p. 21) In much the same sense that Luther declared the sinner to be "simultaneously just and a sinner", the church is simultaneously one and divided. We live now as we will be, but the paradox will not be fully resolved on this side of eternity.<br />
<h4>
Is all division <i>within</i> the church?</h4>
I'm not sure Leithart fully realizes how radical this ecclesiology is, especially if we try to apply it historically. The significant matter is his flat-out denial of the traditional view of schism. In the Orthodox (and Catholic) understanding, those who consciously break with the teaching of the Church (or continue promulgating a teaching after it has been condemned by the Church) are considered to be heretics (from the Greek meaning "choice" or "preference", highlighting the intentionality of the break from the received teaching) and are excommunicated, i.e. barred from partaking in the Eucharist with the Church until they accept her teaching and faith. Excommunication is not viewed as an act of disunity in itself, but as a sadly necessary response to the heretic's divisiveness; he is understood to have removed himself from the unity of the Church and gone into schism, and excommunication merely makes tangible this reality. The Church itself remains one and undivided, as Ware and others have said, though she has lost a member, whose reconciliation is to be earnestly desired.<br />
<br />
Leithart seems to be claiming that this never happens. He outright rejects the practice of excommunication for false teaching, reserving it only for flagrant, impenitent acts of sin (p. 181). As previously mentioned, he denies that there can be schisms <i>from</i> the church. Rather, despite the reality of the schism, both parties somehow go on as part of the church, which has now taken another step away from the unity for which the Lord prayed. And he also says that both parties to schisms are changed by it; neither is to simply be identified with the united church that preceded the schism:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[After listing a number of turning points in church history] At each of these transition points, the church was transformed in its liturgy, in its internal structures, and in its relation to political power. ... The division between East and West created two churches where there had been one. Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism were both <i>created</i> by the schism, just as Catholicism was formed by the split of the Western Church at the Reformation. (p. 114)</blockquote>
Because no church has escaped Christianity's damaging history of division, no church fully "gets it right"; no church has the right to claim the right course is for everyone else to become just like them. This is the basis for his repeated statement that the united church of the future will not be continuous with any presently existing church (pp. 26, 170), and that "no tradition has been spared the desolation of division. <i>Every</i> Christian tradition is distorted insofar as it lacks, or refuses, the gifts that other traditions have. <i>Every</i> Christian tradition must be as ready to receive as to give." (p. 167) Thus, "in receiving from others, we are enriched as the particular kinds of Christians we are. ... Catholics become more fully Catholic as they become appropriately Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, Orthodox." (p. 168) Though this mutual enrichment and reception of truth, what were once divided churches grow together into one, united catholic church.<br />
<br />
I wonder, how far one can take this relativization of Christian churches' claims to truth; if the universal language of the last two quotations is any indicator, Leithart doesn't seem to set any limits. In the segment I was quoting from, he seems to implicitly deny that any of the doctrinal differences that divide Christian traditions are really absolute—no one is "just wrong" about anything. Merely backtracking and repenting of one's errors is never the way forward; . We become more, not less, of whatever we are—Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Baptist—as we tear down our walls and receive the treasures of other forms of Christianity from which we were separated.<br />
<br />
To be blunt, I think Leithart downplays the seriousness and depth of the doctrinal issues that divide Christians. The Great Schism did not occur simply because east and west lost a spirit of charitability or stopped receiving truth from each other, but because (from our perspective) the west embraced errors that struck at the heart of ecclesiology and theology proper. What could "receiving" things like papal supremacy and the <i>filioque</i> from them entail if not the abandonment of our Orthodox faith in favor of the Roman Catholic one? The question is even starker if we think of early Christian heretics: the Judaizers, the Gnostics, the Arians. Was the Church right to condemn and separate from such teachers, or was this another instance of the disunion Leithart laments? Did the excommunication of teachers such as these really constitute a division <i>within</i> the Church, transforming it and depriving it of something we need to recover? Do I really stand to become more Orthodox by becoming more Arian? I think not.<br />
<br />
This kind of thinking, that both sides in an intractable dispute are partly right but incomplete and need to accept what is lacking in their views in order to harmonize them, sounds good and I would <a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2016/09/charles-taylor-on-locating-truth.html">broadly agree</a> with it in my own approach to Christian disunity, but it is not a universal rule. Sometimes (though, I grant, certainly not all the time), it is possible for one of the parties in a theological dispute to simply be right, and the other wrong. The correct course of action in such cases is not for each of the schismatic parties to remain open to receiving or learning from the other, but for the party which has departed from the truth to repent and return to it.<br />
<br />
Ironically, Leithart seems to agree with this point, albeit mostly implicitly. In one place he denies the possibility of excommunication over doctrinal error (p. 181), yet mentions that in the future church "some opinions and teachers will be judged a threat to the gospel itself, and impenitent teachers will be expelled from the church." (p. 29) Later he writes that "we cannot assume that every church that calls itself Christian is in fact Christian. Some movements ... have abandoned fundamentals of Christian faith—adherence to Scripture or confession of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and are not Christian." (p. 128) Yet in the beginning he says that "Virtually every church has added to the early creeds and made those additions fundamental to the church." (p. 2) Yet from the perspective of such churches (such as the Orthodox Church), Leithart has abandoned central truths of the faith just as he calls out other movements for doing.<br />
<br />
What Leithart seemingly fails to see is that in standing up for basic Protestant orthodoxy he is still doing the same kind of boundary-keeping which he elsewhere laments as divisive. Leithart <i>is</i>, in fact, adopting a particular stance on which doctrinal disagreements are to be allowed within the united reformational catholic church, and which are serious enough to place someone outside the bounds of this church. Yet he seems to decry <i>all </i>division over doctrine and says <i>every</i> church must "come and die", must become more fully itself by receiving the riches of estranged Christian traditions.<br />
<br />
In fact, beneath his calls for catholic unity, Leithart remains unapologetically Protestant.<br />
<blockquote>
The Reformation recovered central biblical and evangelical truths and practices that Protestants ought not to sacrifice. Even after Vatican II and the ecumenical movement, even after the joint Lutheran-Catholic statement on the doctrine of justification, many of the traditional Protestant criticisms of Catholicism and Orthodoxy (of the papacy, of Marian doctrines, of icon veneration, of the cult of the saints) hold. (p. 169)</blockquote>
He assumes that Protestant distinctives like <i>sola scriptura</i> and emotive, pietist worship will be part of the reformational catholic church of the future, and doesn't consider "dying" to these things. Meanwhile, he also assumes that this church will have no appeals to Mary and the saints, no icons (pp. 32, 169), and no bishops. Following after Luther, he considers the veneration of saints, relics, and religious images to be idolatry, deeply opposed to the communion of saints (pp. 42-43), whereas for Orthodox these things are inseparable from each other. In his overarching ecclesiology he still assumes something very much like the theory of a "great apostasy" in the church's history, presumably dating back to when the first division made two churches out of one previously whole. By clinging to innovations such as these, Leithart ironically echoes the sort of stubborn insistence on the rightness of one's own reading of things that produced so many of the post-Reformation schisms in the first place. He presumably expects Catholics and Orthodox to receive and be perfected by such teachings; in the future church, he says, "enhanced by exchanges with low-church, biblicist evangelicals, Orthodoxy will not remain the same." (p. 168) <i>Me genoito</i>! (May it never be!)<br />
<br />
So I think Leithart greatly overstates the revolutionary nature of his position. Explicitly (in his talk of denominations needing to throw off the divisive tenets they have adopted and be open to receiving the treasures of other traditions, of no one church being able to claim it has preserved the truth perfectly that that others should just join them) it resembles the old-school ecumenical movement (as Arakaki points out in his critique). Implicitly (in his continued willingness to make judgments about what is essential, permissible, or forbidden and refusal to relinquish "central...truths and practices") he continues to resemble other conservative Protestants—and, indeed, Catholics and Orthodox. This common insistence on received truths, different though those truths may be, is a potentially fruitful avenue for real ecumenical dialogue.<br />
<h4>
A wound on the body of Christ</h4>
It is this continued underlying resemblance to those he considers "uncatholic" or "divisive", while calling his audience to renounce divisiveness, that I think makes Leithart's critiques of Orthodoxy fall flat. He holds somewhat of a strawman view of our attitude toward divisions between churches:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
We must utterly reject ecclesiologies that imply indifference to visible division. We cannot exonerate the church by treating division as <i>extra</i>-ecclesial, ecclesiologies that imply that "the 'Church as such' is never divided." ... Orthodox think that the church is the Orthodox Church and therefore any division is happening to something <i>other</i> than the church. We should have no patience for such cheap solace, which only makes us complacent in the face of disunity. (pp. 22-23)</blockquote>
This is rather uncharitable; he doesn't make much of an effort to understanding what lies behind our ecclesiology (this is an area in which Leithart seems unwilling to budge, after all). At the risk of covering <a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-incarnational-unity-of-church.html">well-trodden ground</a>, Orthodox ecclesiology starts with the Lord's founding of the Church on the witness the original twelve apostles, and the promises he made: that the Holy Spirit guides the Church into all truth (Jhn 16:13), that the gates of Hades will never prevail against her (Mat 16:18) are two of the most prominent ones. The Fathers understood Paul's language of the Church as the "body of Christ" (1 Cor 10:16, 12:27) to mean that the Church is not just an institution, but more truly an <i>organism</i>, essentially one and whole. This preunderstanding is the basis for the affirmation of the Creed that "We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church".<br />
<br />
Perhaps Leithart would agree with all of this. Where Orthodox part ways from his position is our belief that this Church still exists; it has continued from the first century to the present day, and that it is the worldwide communion of Orthodox churches. We do not believe that heresies and schisms in the Church have destroyed its faith or its intrinsic unity, as Leithart seems to, for to accept this would be to admits that the Lord's promises have failed. Indeed, the Lord and the apostles expected such troubles to arise (see Mat 24:10-12,23-24, 2 Peter 2), and the Church to survive them, albeit as a remnant. By Leithart's logic, the <i>original</i> Church was destroyed in its infancy when it split into Judaizing and gentile-accepting factions, a split well-documented in the New Testament (cf. Acts 15, Galatians 2), each defining themselves over against the other. Given the short lifetime (in his terms) of a church founded and led by those who had directly heard from the risen Christ himself, one can't help but wonder at Leithart's optimism regarding the unity of the reformational catholic church of the future.<br />
<br />
In the Orthodox understanding, heretics have gone out from us; they have forsaken the deposit of faith with which they were entrusted. (see 1 Jhn 2:18-25) Their departure (or excommunication) does not destroy the essential, organic unity of the body of Christ. It is true that we don't consider them to be part of the Church, for "what communion has light with darkness?" (2 Cor 6:14) But this <i>in no way</i> precludes sorrow over our division from the heterodox, or a concern for reunion with them. In a recent <a href="http://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/areopagus/can_we_talk_god_stuff_without_getting_angry">episode</a> of a podcast by Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick, he had a quote by St. Gregory the Theologian, about theological disagreements with heretics, that grabbed my attention as I was preparing this post: "For we
are not seeking victory, but to gain brethren, by whose separation from
us we are torn." (<i><a href="http://newadvent.org/fathers/310241.htm">Orations</a></i> 41.8; it is at around 30:00 in the podcast for those interested)<br />
<br />
The Russian Orthodox Church has published a fairly extensive document, <a href="https://mospat.ru/en/documents/attitude-to-the-non-orthodox/">Basic Principles of Attitude to the Non-Orthodox</a>, which explains it better than I can. While affirming that "The Orthodox Church is the true Church of Christ established by our Lord and Saviour Himself" (1.1) and that "Every division or schism implies a certain measure of falling away from the plenitude of the Church" (1.14, as opposed to constituting a division within the Church), it laments the currently divided state of Christianity and affirms the importance of restoring its unity: "Due to the violation of the commandment of unity which has led to the
historical tragedy of schism, divided Christians, instead of being an
example of unity in love in the image of the Most Holy Trinity, have
become a source of scandal. Christian division has become an open and
bleeding wound on the Body of Christ." (1.20)<br />
<br />
The document rejects a merely spiritual understanding of church unity (2.4), the branch theory (2.5), some common assumptions of the twentieth-century ecumenical movement (2.6, 9, 10), and something like Leithart's understanding of division as the tribalistic addition of additional criteria for membership to distinguish ourselves from each other (2.8). Nonetheless it affirms, citing from the same passage of Scripture that Leithart keeps returning to, that<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The essential goal of relations between the Orthodox Church and
other Christian confessions is the restoration of that unity among
Christians which is required of us by God (Jn. 17:21). Unity is part of
God’s design and belongs to the very essence of Christianity. ... Indifference to this task or its rejection is a sin against god’s commandment of unity. (2.1, 2)</blockquote>
This document is, I think, an example of how a concern for Christian unity not unlike Leithart's can coexist with a belief in the visible, organic unity of the Church and that "genuine unity is possible only in the bosom of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church." (2.3) It combines concern for the healing of Christian divisions with an equal or greater (and much-needed) concern for the preservation and proclamation of the apostolic deposit of faith.<br />
<h4>
Orthodoxy as Denomination</h4>
The misunderstandings don't end there. Leithart tends to group Orthodoxy (and Roman Catholicism) in with Protestant denominations during his calls for those denominations to set aside their walls of division. "When unity is realized, individual congregations and groups of
congregations will no longer identify themselves by denomination. There
will be no Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Presbyterian, Reformed, Methodist,
Baptist, Lutheran, or other churches. Churches will erase theologically
exclusive names from their signs." (p. 26) And later: "If our name is "Father, Son, and Spirit", then our name <i>cannot</i> be Lutheran, Reformed, or Orthodox." (p. 72)<br />
<br />
Similarly, he lumps our claim to be the authentic continuation of the apostolic Church with those of Protestant denominations, in order to dismiss them all: "Catholics, Orthodoxy, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Baptists—we
all think that the church will be perfected when everyone else is
enlightened enough to become like us." (p. 167) And he considers Orthodox (and, again, Roman Catholics) to be defining their religious identities just as negatively as Protestant denominations: "Despite claims to the contrary, Roman Catholicism and
Orthodoxy, as much as Protestantism, are defined by their differences
from one another and from other parts of the church." (p. 38) He assumes our doctrinal distinctives are unnecessary additions to the faith which serve only to divide us from other believers:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
our theological and practical differences <i>must</i> be serious enough to keep us from giving up our identities and uniting as a single church. Sometimes we consider our differences serious enough to keep us from sharing the Lord's Supper together or acknowledging each other's baptism. Ultimate and necessary truths <i>must</i> be at stake. Inevitably, this means that we are adding to the gospel. It is not enough that someone profess that Jesus is Lord and live the life of a disciple; if she was not baptized by immersion, or if she does not affirm a Lutheran view of the real presence, or if she does not acknowledge the bishop of Rome as the head of the church, she is not in full fellowship. What makes us a community is not what we hold in common with other believers. but what we hold together <i>against</i> other believers. (pp. 76-77)</blockquote>
My disagreements here mostly go back to our differences in ecclesiology. To Leithart, schisms mean both parties have added to their prior, common faith in mutually exclusive (and equally unnecessary) ways; I have already shown both my reasons for disagreeing with this, and how he is not willing to apply this theory to question certain Protestant <i>sine qua nons</i>. Again, trying to apply it historically raises difficult questions: was the use of the term "Nicene" to define catholic Christians over against the Arians unconscionable? When Gnostic heresies started appearing as early as the late first century, did the self-definition of the Church change from its proclamation of the incarnate, crucified, and risen Christ to a denial of esoteric, philosophical systems of cosmology and salvation? Was the use of the term "Orthodox" to differentiate the faith of the Church from what the Fathers viewed as grievous mutilations of that faith "uncatholic"?<br />
<br />
If, as I suspect, Leithart would side with the Orthodox church in these historical instances, I would ask: how are the divisions he decries so different, except for the fact that they persist to the present day (and that his church is a product of them)? There is certainly no need to go to the lengths some of the Fathers (and the apostles Peter and Jude) did in their denunciations of false teachers, and indeed I applaud the "soft ecumenism" of twentieth-century Orthodox authors like Georges Florovsky as a welcome change from centuries of relative insularity, but if Leithart hopes that Orthodox will set aside the faith they have received in favor of a minimalistic gospel stripped of "divisive alterations" for the sake of "catholic unity", he is sure to be disappointed.<br />
<h4>
Too Orthodox to be Catholic?</h4>
On page 170 (in the section where he calls himself "too catholic to be Catholic"), Leithart poses a series of questions to "Protestants considering a move into Catholicism or Orthodoxy". Having done just this, I thought it would be a helpful exercise to go through answer them.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>What are you saying about your past Christian experience by moving to Rome or Constantinople?</b></blockquote>
The same thing I felt implicitly even as a Protestant—that it was incomplete, dysfunctional in ways I couldn't quite explain, always missing something. I was always awaiting some new revelation, not so much new information as a new hermeneutical insight or "aha moment" that would finally make the pieces fit together and make sense of my questions. Now, in the light of the Orthodox tradition, I can actually see what my faith was missing.<br />
<br />
Also, from a historical perspective, that my old faith was the product of a series of schisms, reforms, simplifications, and reformulations; countless offshoots and branches away from the true source, a derivative of a derivative. Now I have found that source, and I feel blessed and privileged to be able to draw from it.<br />
<br />
In all of this I am not claiming any sort of special holiness or moral status simply by being Orthodox. Right belief is good and necessary, but unprofitable on its own. "Even the demons believe—and tremble!" (Jas 2:19) Knowing the truth only brings greater condemnation unless I abide in it, follow it, love it. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick has a saying I really like that gets this point across: "Orthodoxy is true, but not because of me."<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Are you willing to start eating at a table where your Protestant friends are no longer welcome? How is that different from Peter's withdrawal from table fellowship with gentiles?</b></blockquote>
Here and in the paragraph after the one with his questions, Leithart shows his commitment to the Protestant understanding of the Eucharist as a mere sign of Christian goodwill and fellowship.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
When I attend Mass and am denied access to the table of <i>my</i> Lord Jesus, I cannot help but wonder what is the difference between Catholics and the Wisconsin Synod Lutherans or the Continental Reformed who practice closed Communion. ... Size and history apart, how is Catholicism different from a gigantic sect? Does not Orthodoxy come under the same Pauline condemnation [Gal 2:11-14] as the fundamentalist Baptist churches that close the table to everyone outside? To become Catholic I would have to <i>contract</i> my ecclesial world. The communion I acknowledge would become smaller, less universal. I would have to become <i>less</i> catholic—<i>less catholic than Jesus</i>.</blockquote>
His allegiance to open communion is understandable in a way, since it is a distinctively Protestant practice that he is no doubt loath to rethink. But it is baffling in another way, since open communion is a very tangible expression of the Protestant ecclesiology he deplores, which holds that the Church remains spiritually one (and its members are thus able to commune with each other) despite its visible divisions. The reality of these divisions and the doctrinal disagreements and historical schisms that produced them is minimized, pushed to the background, without actually being addressed; intercommunion makes it easy to believe we are already "united enough" in what really matters. This seems counterproductive to the kind of open, mutually receptive dialogue to which Leithart summons Christians. (It is worth noting that open communion is a new practice, dating back no more than a century even among Protestants)<br />
<br />
The Catholic and Orthodox churches (and the few Protestant churches that still practice closed communion) approach the matter differently. We <i>are</i> divided from each other, as Leithart insists elsewhere, so we can no longer partake in the Holy Eucharist (historically the celebration and supreme fulfillment of our unity with Christ and each other) together. To do so, from the Orthodox perspective, is to endorse a fiction, to pretend we are something we are not, to lie before God and each other. To offer the bread and cup to those who do not confess the Orthodox faith is to allow them to partake in an unworthy manner, which Paul sternly warns against (1 Cor 11:27-30). And again, there is the historical dimension to consider: modern differences between Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox don't seem to matter enough to be worth breaking communion over, but what about historical heresies? Should the Church have continued offering the Body and Blood of the Lord to people who denied his divinity, his humanity, or that the elements really are his body and blood? For Orthodox, Holy Communion is much more than a mere gesture of Christian good will; it is our actual, tangible, sacramental, mystical participation in the body and blood of Christ.<br />
<br />
Ultimately, closed communion is different from Peter's separation from table fellowship with gentiles because the truth of the faith is worth standing up for in a way that Jewish identity is not. I would liken it more to Paul's opposing Peter to his face: Paul did not merely ignore Peter's actions or suppose that their disagreement wasn't a problem because they both still "loved Jesus"; he confronted and corrected what he knew to be wrong.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Are you willing to say that every Protestant or Pentecostal saint you have known is living a sub-Christian existence because they are not in churches that claim apostolic succession, no matter that they live lives fruitful in faith, hope, and love?</b></blockquote>
This is a surprisingly uncharitable caricature. The many loving, godly Protestants I have known throughout my life (especially my grandma Louise) prevent me from saying any such thing, and Orthodox teaching does not lead to such a conclusion. In general, while Orthodox are willing to make strong doctrinal statements where Holy Tradition is clear, there is a blessed reluctance to make similar statements about the state of anyone's spiritual life (and, by extension, of their salvation). Exchanging the truth of the apostolic faith for errors cannot help but have <i>some kind of</i> effect on spirituality, but discerning what that effect is in a specific person requires a strong, deep relationship with the person and a healthy dose of humility. Just after the quote related by Fr. Damick above, St. Gregory the Theologian continues, addressing non-Orthodox Christians and displaying a willingness to critique doctrine but not spiritual practice:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This we concede to you in whom we do find something of vital truth, who are sound as to the Son. We admire your life, but we do not altogether approve your doctrine. (<a href="http://newadvent.org/fathers/310241.htm">Oration 41</a>.8)</blockquote>
In relationships with non-Orthodox, we are encouraged to focus on recognizing and affirming what is true about their beliefs, and building on that towards the Orthodox faith. We look for what Justin Martyr called "seeds of the word" in other faiths, for no other faith is entirely devoid of truth. And while we affirm, from the promises made by the Lord, that the Orthodox Church is the temple and dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 3:16), we don't make bold pronouncements about the work the Spirit may (or may not) be doing in other faiths. So St. Philaret of Moscow, a prominent 19th-century bishop whose adherence to the Orthodox faith did not preclude a charitable attitude toward non-Orthodox or a hope for reconciliation not unlike Leithart's:<br />
<blockquote>
I do not presume to call false any church which believes that Jesus is the Christ. The Christian Church can only be either purely true, confessing the true and saving Divine teaching without the false admixtures and pernicious opinions of men, or not purely true, mixing with the true and saving teaching of faith in Christ the false and pernicious opinions of men. ... You expect now that I should give judgment concerning the other half of contemporary Christianity, but I do no more than simply look out upon them; in part I see how the Head and Lord of the Church heals the many deep wounds caused by the old serpent in all the parts and limbs of this body ... In such wise I attest my faith that in the end the power of God will evidently triumph over human weakness, good over evil, unity over division, life other death. (Philaret of Moscow, <i>Conversation between the Seeker and the Believer Concerning the Orthodoxy of the Eastern Greco-Russian Church</i>, 27-29, 135; quoted in <i>Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy</i> 2nd Edition, Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick, 358-359)</blockquote>
The document on relations with non-Orthodox published by the Russian Church, to which I linked above, is unsurprisingly in agreement with Philaret. One way in which the Church affirms the partial truth of other Christian faiths is in its willingness to receive converts from them (such as myself) without the baptism ordinarily given to converts (Oriental Orthodox are received simply by confession, and Roman Catholic clergy can be received by re-ordination):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The orthodox Church, through the mouths of the holy fathers, affirms that salvation can be attained only in the Church of Christ. At the same time however, communities which have fallen away from orthodoxy have never been viewed as fully deprived of the grace of God. Any break from communion with the Church inevitably leads to an erosion of her grace-filled life, but not always to its complete loss in these separated communities. This is why the orthodox Church does not receive those coming to her from non-orthodox communities only through the sacrament of baptism. In spite of the rupture of unity, there remains a certain incomplete fellowship which serves as the pledge of a return to unity in the Church, to catholic fullness and oneness. (1.15)</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The existence of various rites of reception (through baptism, through chrismation, through repentance) shows that the orthodox Church relates to the different non-orthodox confessions in different ways. The criterion is the degree to which the faith and order of the Church, as well as the norms of Christian spiritual life, are preserved in a particular confession. By establishing various rites of reception, however, the orthodox Church does not assess the extent to which grace-filled life has either been preserved intact or distorted in a non-orthodox confession, considering this to be a mystery of God’s providence and judgement. (1.17)</blockquote>
As I mentioned above, the Church clings to and proclaims the truth of the faith with which we are entrusted, but the state of someone's spiritual life is known only to that person and to God.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The ecclesial status of those who have separated themselves from the Church does not lend itself to simple definition. In a divided Christendom, there are still certain characteristics which make it one: the word of God, faith in Christ as God and saviour come in the flesh (1 Jhn 1:1-2;4,2,9), and sincere devotion. (1.16)</blockquote>
In other words, this statement is not willing to simply say that Protestants and Pentecostals are living a "sub-Christian existence". These Christians retain many tenets basic to the Christian faith which, while not a sufficient basis for full union as Leithart seems to think, provide many starting points for dialogue and fruitful relations as fellow believers.<br />
<div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
To become Catholic or Orthodox, I would have to agree that I have never presided over a valid Eucharist. To become Catholic, I would have to begin regarding my Protestant brothers as ambiguously "separated" brothers rather than full brothers in the divine Brother, Jesus. <b>Why should I distance myself from other Christians like that? </b>Reformational Catholics are too catholic for that.</blockquote>
Quite simply, because doctrine matters, and truth excludes error. As Leithart pointed out in the first chapter of his book, we <i>are</i> divided; we don't agree on the "fundamentals" of the faith or what they are; "every apparent point of unity is also a point of conflict and division." (p. 2) The distance is already real; sharing a watered-down form of the Eucharist doesn't make it go away. Why is simply recognizing this preeexisting division considered divisive? Does Leithart seriously think simply ignoring it will make it go away?<br />
<br />
I find myself coming back yet again to the tension I see at the heart of this book. Leithart rejects the traditional Protestant attitude of relative complacency toward Christian divisions which supposes that people in all denominations still "love Jesus" and agree on the essentials; he deplores denominationalism as an unbiblical alternative to real unity—yet in this section he dismisses Catholicism and Orthodoxy's strong claims to absolute truth as divisive or "uncatholic" in favor of downplaying differences between camps, emphasizing "catholicity" (i.e. warm feelings of fellowship and goodwill), and a least-common-denominator gospel underlying the divisive tenets we have added as litmus tests. Yet even beneath this, Leithart continues to display the same behavior he criticizes as "uncatholic", holding tightly to Reformation doctrines which in turn distance him from Catholics and Orthodox. He is willing to make the same sorts of judgments about what is "Christian" or "orthodox" that we are, albeit with different criteria.<br />
<div>
<h4>
The Church of the Future...is the Church of the Past</h4>
Also in this section of the book, Leithart cautions that the united church of the future will not be continuous with any existing church: "if the biblical pattern holds, the church of the future is <i>not</i> continuous with the church of the present." (p. 170) This should be obvious by now: the reformational catholic church Leithart envisions will not be a continuation of any extant church because it is his personal dream church, resolutely Protestant with the best parts of various Reformation traditions and historic Christianity mixed in. His vision looks very different from anyone's vision of a united church before the Reformation.<br />
<br />
I would ask: If the future church is not continuous with any church of the present, how can it possibly be continuous with the church of the apostles? How can the solution to discontinuity be more discontinuity? This gives credence to Arakaki's assessment that "Pastor Leithart has an evolutionary understanding of the Church in which doctrine, practice, and worship evolve over time." Like most Protestants, he seems less interested in finding the original Church than in assuming there is no need to rejoin it (not merely because it no longer exists, but also because of his thinking here on biblical and church history) and reinventing it in his own image.<br />
<h4>
Conclusion</h4>
</div>
</div>
<div>
I hope all the preceding criticism didn't obscure the fact that I enjoyed this book. For all its flaws and internal tensions, I really did appreciate its assessment of Christian divisions, its call to come out from complacency and seek reunion, and the practical wisdom and examples it gives on how this can be accomplished. I don't share Leithart's opinions on what a reunited Christendom will look like, but perhaps I can come to share his hope, his optimism that it is something worth pursuing, and his concern for manifesting the Christian unity for which Christ prayed in my own circles as I am able.<br />
<br />
As regards the central tension I have pointed out, the confusion between liberal mushiness on doctrine and conservative insistence on Protestant tenets, I see two ways this book could be improved. Leithart could act consistently with the book's strain of implicit doctrinal relativism and espouse a willingness to question basic Protestant dogma—really lay everything on the table, question everything he holds sacred for the sake of reconciliation with other believers. (As, I would note, he seems to be calling Orthodox to do)<br />
<br />
The second option, which I would much prefer to see, is to be admit his Protestant biases and sacred cows, that other Christian churches and communions have central beliefs mutually incompatible with his (adding things he denies or denying things he adds), and that they are no more willing to give these beliefs up than he is his. This approach would make it harder to blithely assume that the reunited church would be essentially Protestant, following patterns of teaching, worship and practice unknown for most of Christian history. It might make for a less dynamic and radically challenging book, but the result would also be more honest, more realistic, and more authentically hopeful for reunion.</div>
Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08244026688548871531noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4225502016359798858.post-36390228077684910082017-04-17T20:58:00.001-05:002017-04-17T21:05:29.397-05:00The Rhythm of Salvation (Why I Am Orthodox, part 2)This Bright Monday marks one year since my chrismation and entrance into communion with the Orthodox Church. I finally got to experience the Church's Paschal (Easter) services in full, and they were everything I had hoped and so much more (more on that later). On Holy Saturday I got to witness and photograph the baptism and chrismation (respectively) of two of my friends in the parish. In the past year I have grown in love for God and his Church; I have started teaching Sunday school again (where I'm probably learning more than most of my students); I've started building friendships that I hope will bear fruit for many years to come. I've never been happier to say: Christ is risen! Glorify him!<br />
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Two related things I love about my church have risen to the surface in the last year; neither was a significant motivator during my conversion (which was initially driven by doctrine) simply because they have only become clear as I've gotten more integrated into my parish. Consider this an addendum to my <a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2016/01/why-i-am-becoming-orthodox.html">post</a> from last January on why I am Orthodox.<br />
<h4>
Orthodoxy gives me something to do</h4>
I should clarify. Evangelical churches like my old one certainly give you plenty to do: worship services and Bible studies to attend, worthy causes to volunteer for or donate to, inspirational books to read or talks to listen to. But there is a very real sense, which is intentionally reinforced through the prevailing teaching, that these things <i>don't matter</i>. Good works serve only as manifested evidence of our salvation, the total inner transformation wrought in us by conversion to Christ, without contributing to it in any way. Avoiding "works-righteousness", the sin which lurks in everyone's heart of trying to earn one's freely-given salvation, is a constant concern. And for fear of people just "going through the motions" of the Christian life while lacking the heartfelt, authentic faith which alone saves, prescriptions of what this life "should" look like are generally kept vague, more adjective than verb or noun, to be worked out between the individual believer and God.<br />
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Compared to this, Orthodox spirituality (never more so than during Great Lent) feels distinctly concrete. There are numerous things that we are expected, more or less strongly, to do as we prepare to celebrate the Lord's Pascha. We fast, at a minimum from meat, eggs, and dairy, to train ourselves to master our desires and deny ourselves (Mat 9:15, Rom 13:14). We confess our sins to Christ with a priest as witness and advocate, that we might receive forgiveness and be healed (Jas 5:16). We regularly say prayers (especially the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayer_of_Saint_Ephrem">Prayer of St. Ephraim</a>) and read spiritual writings (patristic or modern) to train ourselves in godliness (1 Cor 9:24-27). And perhaps most of all, we attend the services and observances of the Church, journeying through Lent together (more on this in a bit). There are definite ways set out before us in which to grow in obedience to the Lord, and not just as individuals but as the body of Christ. I find this to be a great aid.<br />
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Yet in all of this I am not seeking to "earn" anything, or prove anything. The services and practices of the Church invite us to strive for holiness in a thoroughly orthodox, not Pelagian way, following the example of St. Paul among many, many others in the ascetic tradition. We are working not as the authors of our own salvation, but to be open recipients of grace; there is no anxiety that everything depends on us. One piece of good news I found in Orthodoxy is that there is a definite place for effort, for my <i>active</i> participation in the Christian life, and I am increasingly getting to see what this looks like in practice.<br />
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The more I do them, the more I find that these practices are complementary, not detrimental, to the authentic, heartfelt expressions of faith I so valued as an evangelical. We are encouraged to add our own requests and intercessions when praying, and I actually find praying within such a framework easier than ad-libbing everything; for the first time I've started keeping a list of people I pray for daily (not being confused about whether prayer actually does anything also helps). Besides the actual sacrament of confession the <a href="https://oca.org/orthodoxy/prayers/before-and-after-holy-communion">prayers we say before and after Communion</a>, humbly examining ourselves, confessing our unworthiness, and boldly asking for the grace that makes us worthy to partake in the very body and blood of the Lord, powerfully lead me toward reflection and repentance. This is because the relationship between the state of one's heart and one's actions is not strictly one-way after all. Actions teach us, change us; we learn by doing, not just as children but throughout life. In the book I just finished reading for Lent, St. Nicholas Cabasilas wrote that "It is by actions that the soul is disposed towards one habit or the other, so that men may partake of goodness or wickedness, just as in the case of crafts we acquire skills and learn them by becoming accustomed to their exercise." (<i>The Life in Christ,</i> 7.15)<br />
<h4>
The liturgical calendar</h4>
My appreciation of the liturgical and devotional practices of the Orthodox Church is inseparable from my love for the liturgical calendar. Fragments of it have persisted in popular American Christianity (Christmas, Good Friday and Easter, maybe some observance of Advent and Lent), but throughout the Orthodox <a href="https://oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/worship/the-church-year/church-year">church year</a> we walk through virtually all of the events and episodes in the gospel accounts as if following after Christ. All of the Church's feasts and fasts are centered around and intended to lead us towards Great and Holy Pascha, the feast of the resurrection of the Lord, which we just celebrated yesterday morning. Orthodox view this singular event as the very foundation of the gospel, the ground and substance of our faith, the ultimate triumph of God over all the powers of darkness. It was absolutely worth staying up until 4 AM on Sunday morning, and I already can't wait to do it again next year.<br />
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Pascha comes as the culmination of a journey begun over two months earlier. The Lent cycle begins with several <a href="https://oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/worship/the-church-year/pre-lent">pre-Lent Sundays</a>, usually in February, commemorating Zacchaeus (Luk 19:1-10), the publican and the pharisee (Luk 18:9-14), the prodigal son (Luk 15:11-32), the Last Judgment (Mat 25:31-26), and the expulsion from Eden; on this last Sunday we also seek forgiveness from all our neighbors before beginning the fast, in fulfillment of Mat 5:23-24. Each of these themes is intended to lead us toward reflection on our sin and repentance.<br />
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Then begins the Great Fast itself. The point of <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4225502016359798858#editor/target=post;postID=3639022807768491008;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=0;src=link">fasting</a> is not to become proud or to satisfy some legalistic requirement (Mat 6:14-21, which is read at the start of Lent), but to lead us to repentance, to the cessation of sin and the beginning of holiness. In accordance with the character of Lent, the <a href="https://oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/worship/the-church-year/liturgy-of-the-presanctified-gifts">presanctified liturgies</a> we hold during the week in place of the regular, joyous Divine Liturgy are instead penitential in character, and the vestments and candle coverings are changed to somber, darker colors. We say the aforementioned Prayer of St. Ephraim, ideally on a nightly basis. The <a href="https://oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/worship/the-church-year/sundays-of-lent">Sundays during Lent</a> continue to highlight themes of repentance, purification, and the pursuit of holiness as our goals during this seasons of preparation.<br />
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Great Lent technically ends on the Friday nine days before Pascha, through the fast continues until then as we enter <a href="https://oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/worship/the-church-year/holy-week">Holy Week</a>. Our devotional preparation for Pascha is most intense after Lent has ended, and we start following the last days of Christ's ministry in "real time": that Saturday is <a href="https://oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/worship/the-church-year/lazarus-saturday-and-palm-sunday">Lazarus Saturday</a> (Jhn 11), followed by Palm Sunday (Jhn 12:12-19); each of the days of Holy Week has its own theme, based on gospel readings from Christ's last week. Unfortunately, my own observance of Holy Week was interrupted by illness this year, and I resumed attending on <a href="https://oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/worship/the-church-year/holy-saturday">Holy Saturday</a>. This is traditionally when catechumens are received into the church, just in time for Pascha, and so it was with my friends this year. The vesperal Divine Liturgy that morning includes 15 Old Testament readings, all of which look forward to Christ's resurrection as the summation of God's plan of creation and salvation. The resurrection is constantly in view during holy weekend; even on Holy Friday we commemorate the crucifixion of the Lord with hope, looking forward to his impending triumph. The victory has already begun; to signify this, the vestments and candle coverings are changed to pure white in the middle of the Saturday liturgy.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My church after Bridegroom Matins (as we await Christ's resurrection like the bridegroom coming in the night; Mat 25:6) on Holy Monday.</td></tr>
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And then, finally, the triumph comes. As if unable to wait any longer, Orthodox begin celebrating <a href="https://oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/worship/the-church-year/easter-sunday-the-holy-pascha">Pascha</a> at the stroke of midnight Sunday morning, if not even earlier. After finishing reading the Psalms and Acts of the Apostles over Christ's tomb, we sing the nocturne services in a darkened church, then leave the church and process around it three times, recalling the procession of just-baptized catechumenates to church. Then, at midnight, the priest announces the resurrection of the Lord from the church doors and we enter a church flooded with light. The bells are loudly rung in celebration, and we constantly greet each other with "Christ is risen!" "Indeed he is risen!" in various languages and sing the Paschal troparion: "Christ is risen from the dead/Trampling down death by death/And upon those in the tombs bestowing life!" It is the resurrection of Christ that gives us all our hope, joy, and life, and the whole church year seems focused on it, intended to direct us toward it and prepare us along the way.<br />
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I love how, through the liturgical calendar, we <i>experience</i> the gospel and the Christian faith, not just hear and believe them; as consisting in historical events, as story, not just doctrine. And not only the events of the gospels, but the outward rippling of the gospel through history, human lives, and the Church, a story still being written by the Spirit even to this day. (So we also commemorate events in the lives of the Theotokos and hundreds of other saints; the season of Advent becomes a sort of "mini-Lent" leading up to Christmas) There is a profound sense of continuity with the rest of salvation history, with our fathers and mothers who came before us in the faith, an unbroken chain back to the apostles. The unity of the liturgy is spatial as well as temporal; as we celebrate these same things together with Orthodox around the world, it feels as though the whole Church is striving, journeying together toward communion with the Lord. When I was home sick, unable to attend the Holy Thursday and Friday services, I more fully appreciated how communal our faith is: "And you [plural] are witnesses of these things." (Luk 24:48) And all of this in a single year, letting us revisit the readings, fasts
and feasts of the church year repeatedly, each time as if for the
first!<br />
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If I were asked if my church has a "statement of faith", I might point to the Nicene Creed, though obviously it presents the faith in a greatly distilled, propositional form. More accurately, the liturgical journey of the church year is our unabridged statement of faith, for "the rule of prayer is the rule of belief". For one curious to know what Orthodoxy is all about, explanations of doctrine have some benefit, but the best advice comes from the apostle Philip (Jhn 1:46): "Come and see."Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08244026688548871531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4225502016359798858.post-7531892011569472832016-09-20T18:30:00.001-05:002016-09-20T18:30:28.043-05:00Charles Taylor on Locating the Truth<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<h3>
Reading Charles Taylor</h3>
A few months ago, I finally made it through Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor's landmark book, <i>A Secular Age</i>. I won't even try to respond to the book in general, which was the densest, richest, and most thorough analysis of the spirit of our time I've ever read; I can't claim to have internalized much of what Taylor put into it on first first. (I do highly recommend it, or James K.A. Smith's <a href="https://www.amazon.com/How-Not-Be-Secular-Reading/dp/0802867618/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1474122722&sr=8-3&keywords=james+ka+smith">more readable guide to it</a>) But I came across a passage toward the end of the book that perfectly articulated something I'd been trying to think about in Taylor's typical, fuzzily precise way, and I want to expand on and respond to it here. (If you happen to have the book, it is section 4 of chapter 20)<br />
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The context of this passage is Taylor (a practicing Roman Catholic) reflecting on Vatican II and the tensions between its theology and the "established Catholic tradition", exemplified by the decrees of the Council of Trent. In other words, "what should we make of the reform of Vatican II?" Taylor begins by saying:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Now there are two clear perspectives in which this can be seen. On one hand, we can postulate that what is at stake here is the ultimately and totally right understanding of Catholic Christianity. Then this issue is, who got it right, Vatican II or Trent, and/or in which respect? (p. 752)</blockquote>
Regarding Charles Péguy, a twentieth-century Catholic theologian whose thought was influential for Vatican II, Taylor says that in this perspective (emphasis added),<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
We would be dealing with his background in the way that is familiar from many debates in secular history. For instance, the way in which believers in Progress argue that earlier ages couldn't have been expected to see certain truths which are obvious to us, because they lacked certain knowledge, or a freedom from prejudices, and the like; or from the other side, the way supporters of traditional ways may argue that in the contemporary condition of moral decay, when the most basic decencies are under attack, we cannot expect that young people will be able to see the value of what has been lost. <b>We describe backgrounds and perspectives, in other words, as epistemically privileged or deprived, as good or bad vantage points to discern some single truth.</b> (p. 752)</blockquote>
To greatly simplify, this perspective involves the kind of thinking that says, "I'm right, you're wrong; here's why." There is a "single truth", and some parties are more "epistemically privileged", able to discern that truth, than others. Taylor goes on to describe the second perspective in which Péguy and Vatican II can be viewed:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The second framework in which we can understand this kind of study postulates that what is at stake is complementary insights. Neither is simply right or wrong about a single issue, but each bring a fresh perspective which augments and enriches our understanding. The issue is to see how these different insights fit together, and for this purpose filling out the background, the social/intellectual/spiritual context from which an insight comes can be very illuminating. (p. 752)</blockquote>
Taylor favors this second perspective, but in keeping with it, he argues that the first perspective is also necessary and can be the truer at times. There are some points at which "Péguy's views just contradict earlier established beliefs, and Vatican II changes the reigning ideas surrounding Vatican I; like the importance of freedom, the value of democracy, the centrality of human rights, the judgments made on other faith traditions, and so on." (p. 753) Pius IX's staunch opposition to democracy and human rights as incompatible with Christianity was "just wrong", yet nineteenth-century Catholics like Pius IX might have seen the dangers and weaknesses of democracy more clearly than we do today; we still have something to learn from them. Their insights and ours, in other words, are <i>complementary</i>. He gives a few other examples of how the views of nineteenth-century Catholics can complement those of twenty-first century Catholics, like the old principle that "error has no rights" and fasting guidelines. Of these he says,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
We have to grasp these historical differences bi-focally; <b>in one way, we are dealing with right/wrong issues, in which each change is a gain or loss of truth; in another with different avenues of approach to the faith from out of very different ways of life.</b> A total focus on the first can blind us to the second. And this would be a great loss. This is partly because understanding another approach can free us from the blindness that attends a total embedding in our own. (p. 753) </blockquote>
What Taylor is recommending is a way of conversing (or disagreeing) with historical or contemporary figures that attempts to view one's one perspective as complementary to the other's. In other words, you don't necessarily adopt another's view and may even say you disagree with it, but you seek to understand that view beneath the surface, discern the values and insights underlying it (which will often be more agreeable than their conclusion), and learn from them as far as is possible. Taylor further expands on this thought with another example, one likely more familiar to Protestants:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Christians today, for example, have to climb out of an age in which Hell and the wrath of God are often very faintly felt, if they are understood at all. But they live in a world where objectification and excarnation [a term Taylor defines as "the transfer of our religious life out of bodily forms of ritual, worship, practice, so that it comes more and more to reside 'in the head'."] reign, where death undermines meaning, and so on. We have to struggle to recover a sense of what the Incarnation can mean. But Jonathan Edwards, for instance, three centuries ago, lived in a world where the wrath of God was a powerful presence, and where thee difficulty was to come to an adequate sense of God's universal love. One can respond to this difference polemically, and judge that one or the other was bang-on right, and the other quite wrong. We condemn Edwards as caught in an old mode, or ourselves as having watered down the faith.</blockquote>
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But we can also see it in another light. Neither of us grasps the whole picture. None of us could ever grasp alone everything that is involved in our alienation from God and his action to bring us back. But there are a great many of us, scattered through history, who have had some powerful sense of some facet of this drama. Together we can live it more fully than any one of us could alone. Instead of reaching immediately for the weapons of polemic, we might better listen for a voice which we could never have assumed ourselves, whose tone might have been forever unknown to us if we hadn't strained to understand it. We will find that we have to extend this courtesy even to people who would never have extended it to us (like Jonathan Edwards)—in that respect, perhaps we have made some modest headway towards truth in the last couple of centuries, although we can certainly find precedents in the whole history of Christianity. Our faith is not the acme of Christianity, but nor is it a degenerate version; it should rather be open to a conversation that ranges over the whole of the last 20 centuries (and even in some ways before). (pp. 753-754)</blockquote>
It is hard for me to admit that I could have anything to learn about the Christian faith from one such as Jonathan Edwards, but Taylor makes a compelling case. That refusal to learn, to seek truth everywhere and from everyone, is just the flip side of my assurance that thanks to sound Orthodox teaching, I have finally "gotten it right" and can slip into something like Taylor's first perspective. It is sin. Taylor starts to put this composite perspective together:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This, of course, leaves us with an immense set of messy, hermeneutical issues: how the different approaches relate to each other; how they relate together to questions of over-arching truth. <b>We will never be without these issues; the belief that they can finally be set aside by some secure instance of authority, whether the Bible or the Pope, is a damaging and dangerous illusion.</b></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>What this fragmentary and difficult conversation points towards is the Communion of Saints.</b> I'm understanding this not just as a communion of perfected persons, who have left their imperfections behind them; but rather as a communion of whole lives, of whole itineraries towards God. ... Itineraries consist not only of sins. My itinerary crucially includes my existence embedded in a historic order, with its good and bad, in and out of which I must move toward God's order. The eschaton must bring together all these itineraries, with their very different landscapes and perils. (p. 754)</blockquote>
I agree with Taylor's identification of this conversation with the communion of saints; or perhaps equivalently, with Holy Tradition. Contrary to my first impressions of it, Tradition is not simply the collection of all the answers to theological questions that the Church has authoritatively settled upon over the millennia. Looking back at the definitions quoted in my <a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2014/11/my-journey-part-113-holy-tradition.html">post</a> on Holy Tradition, several of them define Tradition not merely as a body of doctrines or teachings, but as "the life of the Church in the Holy Spirit", or "the living memory of the Church", as an ongoing "activity or dynamism". Put another way, the fullness of the truth of the Christian faith is found in Holy Tradition, but it comes to us not in the form of a formula or formal body of teachings, but in the form of a conversation spanning time and space, across the communion of saints. The Orthodox Church, with its absence of a secure, singular, "final" authority apart from Christ himself, seems like a uniquely conducive place for this conversation, this light-giving meeting of persons. In other words, I think Taylor is really onto something here.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
And this gives us a second reason not to let the issue of final truth occlude the difference of itineraries. It is that the Church, as a communion of different peoples and ages, in mutual understanding and enrichment, is damaged, limited, and divided by an unfounded total belief in one's own truth, which really better deserves the name of heresy. (pp. 754-755)</blockquote>
Belief in the infallibility of the Church must not become this. I am not the Church. (The same is arguably true for the infallibility of the Scriptures) Taylor concludes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I have described two different meanings we can give to the sense the contemporary convert has that she must move outside the established order. <b>One sets us to look for the perfectly adequate historic order; the other invites us to a conversation which can reach beyond any one such order.</b> The goal in this case is not to return to an earlier formula, inspiring as many of these will undoubtedly be; there will always be an element of imitation of earlier models, but inevitably and rightly Christian life today will look for and discover new ways of moving beyond the present orders to God. One could say that we look for new and unprecedented itineraries. Understanding out time in Christian terms is partly to discern these new paths, opened by pioneers who have discovered a way through the particular labyrinthine landscape we live in, its thickets and trackless wastes, to God. (p. 755) </blockquote>
The Christian faith, I have heard it taught, is not a system of rules or teaching; it is in something like this sense that it is often said not to be merely a "religion". It is a journey towards and into the One who is Truth, and yet who transcends all that our minds can grasp. Charles Taylor grasps this reality and invites us to live accordingly.<br />
<h3>
(Dis)agreeing Constructively</h3>
The idea that Taylor's way of putting things helped me to articulate is that, as you might guess, theological discussion usually doesn't live up to the vision he lays out. Specifically, people tend to think from his first perspective—I'm right, you're wrong, here's why—and neglect the second—here is how our understandings complement and inform each other. The first perspective deals with rightness as a zero-sum game, like a military battle or, well, a game; the second handles it more like a cooperative venture, a group project. The danger of overapplying the second perspective is syncretism and
naive gullibility. The danger of overapplying the first is more common and evident all around us; polarization, polemic, endless bickering, intractable controversies and debates. Instead of thinking cooperatively and coming to a fuller understanding of the reality than they could arrive at separately, each party assumes their "side" has to be correct at the expense of another.<br />
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A simple example of this is an interaction my wife and I share almost daily: when she tells me she loves me, I jokingly respond, "No, I love you," as if correcting her. The idea of marital love being a zero-sum game so that one spouse's love comes at the expensive of the other's is silly, but this pattern occurs more seriously elsewhere. For example, a phrase often used to respond to calls for gun control measures is "guns don't kill people; people do." This slogan sets two (I would argue complementary) families of responses to gun violence, gun control and improved prevention/mental health care, against each other. A simple religious example which I have <a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2014/09/position-paper-bibliology.html">commented</a> on before is the controversy dating back to the nineteenth century over whether the Bible is "merely human" writing to be treated "like any other book", or if it is something more. In the course of opposing this conception as a denial of the Christian faith, theological conservatives came to adopt theories of Scripture that instead overemphasized its divine nature, such as biblical inerrancy.<br />
<br />
I also saw this pattern of escalating reaction repeatedly while studying the history of modern theology. Deists and Enlightenment thinkers reacted to the ugly clashes of Orthodoxy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and proposed a religion based on pure, natural reason. Schleiermacher, responding to the growing conflict between religion and reason, proposed a way of doing theology centering around human religious feeling and experience rather than dogma, which would become the school of liberal theology. Theological conservatives and fundamentalists, reacting in turn to theological liberalism, doubled down on the divine authority and traditional interpretation of Scripture. Modern theologians, dismayed at what they saw as conservatives' silo mentality, proposed to demythologize Christianity, or tried to fuse Christianity and existentialism, or something else. Liberal, fundamentalist, process, neo-orthodox, liberation, and existential all developed in reaction to real abuses of teaching, and may even have formed around a kernel of truth, but they remain only fragmentary, incomplete perspectives, in part because of their need to distinguish themselves from what they react against.<br />
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This outward spiral of reaction and counter-reaction, also described by Taylor in <i>A Secular Age</i>, is responsible for a good deal of the theological diversity of modern Protestantism and Catholicism. It demonstrates how both of his perspectives are necessary. Rare is the case when a teaching is <i>completely </i>false and is rightly met only with denial. Sin is not creative; it corrupts that which already is, and so most beliefs will have an underlying kernel of truth to them. Critiquing a reasoned approach to just about anything will usually involve a mix of affirmations and denials: some tenets may be correct, others wanting; and even then, they may involve correct premises worthy of affirmation while proceeding from them wrongly.<br />
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The conversation Taylor points towards involves both of his perspectives; looking for truth in the wisdom and witness of others as well as identifying where they genuinely (and not just seemingly) conflict; discerning where someone's view is wrong and how it is merely incomplete. Ecumenical dialogue between different religious traditions will not get far without such a spirit of humility. And within a religious tradition, this attitude helps prevent divisions from forming in the first place, reminding individuals that they can never contain the fullness of the truth with which the Church has been entrusted; we must constantly be open to receiving it from others. The Church is the fullness of the truth, Orthodox believe, but I am not the Church and am not fit to speak for her. At least on an individual level, orthodoxy is always freedom from error, never having nothing left to learn. As in Taylor's example of Trent and Vatican II, we can and should seek out and learn from diverse voices and sources within the breadth of Holy Tradition as complementary sources capable of shedding light on parts of the truth we may be inclined to neglect.<br />
<br />
It is a common Christian truism that we are not saved merely by having doctrinally correct theology. In the extreme case, reactionary, polemical thinking can lose sight of this reality as we become more concerned with refuting error than with loving the truth—when we make what we deny central to what we believe. Denial, in itself, is not redemptive, no matter how awful is the thing you are rejecting. Such adversarial thinking reinforces disagreement, even revels in it, rather than seeking to heal it. It is a form of the divisiveness I described <a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2016/09/about-all-those-denominations.html">last time</a>. Nurturing "seeds of the Word" is more important than rooting out every last "seed of the adversary". One will hopefully get you a blooming garden, the other a barren plot of dirt.</div>
Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08244026688548871531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4225502016359798858.post-65241420669678222672016-09-14T20:30:00.000-05:002016-09-14T20:30:06.380-05:00About all those denominations...A Bible study I participated in recently began with 1 Corinthians 1:10: "Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment." (NKJV) Responding to this, a friend remarked on the stark contrast between the vision of unity in this passage and the highly fragmented state of modern Christianity. Paul's words feel like a painful indictment of our disunity; how could we so completely fail to live up to them?<br />
<h4>
Pervasive interpretive pluralism</h4>
This question was very familiar to me, as I had just been rereading <i><a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-bible-made-impossible-also-possible.html">The Bible Made Impossible</a></i> by sociologist Christian Smith, a book that was greatly influential on my journey through religious doubt (so much so that I bought a case of copies to give away, wanting others to read it). Its first half is a vigorous critique of an approach to the Bible which Smith calls "biblicism", which he characterizes as "a theory about the Bible that emphasizes together its exclusive authority, infallibility, perspicuity, self-sufficiency, internal consistency, self-evident meaning, and universal applicability". (p. viii) In making his case, Smith draws attention to the widespread doctrinal diversity among Christians (particularly evangelical Protestants), a phenomenon he calls "pervasive interpretive pluralism", and which he argues renders biblicism impossible in practice if not in theory:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The very same Bible—which biblicists insist is perspicuous and harmonious—gives rise to divergent understandings among intelligent, sincere, committed readers about what it says about most topics of interest. Knowledge of “biblical” teachings, in short, is characterized by pervasive interpretive pluralism. What that means in consequence is this: in a crucial sense it simply does not matter whether the Bible is everything that biblicists claim theoretically concerning its authority, infallibility, inner consistency, perspicuity, and so on, since in actual functioning the Bible produces a pluralism of interpretations. (17)</blockquote>
The import of pervasive interpretive pluralism is that for virtually any Christian doctrine, from the major to the minor, there exists a range of teachings on it held by various churches and denominations, all claimed to be based on the Bible. Zondervan's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/listmania/fullview/R35XX9EIDYS2KO">Counterpoints</a></i> series of books walk the reader through the variance on many such doctrines. From Smith and other sources, I've compiled a fairly complete list of teachings for which there exists such pluralism:<br />
<br />
Theology proper:<br />
<ul>
<li>Christology (classical, kenotic, adoptionist...)</li>
<li>The Trinity (though modern Unitarians arguably base their theology more on "rational" thought than the Bible, other
groups like Christadelphians, Jehovah's Witnesses, The Way
International, and Oneness Pentecostals <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_Unitarianism">reject the trinity on biblical grounds</a>, as did the early unitarians)</li>
</ul>
The Church:<br />
<ul>
<li>Nature of the Church (not as much variance as between Protestantism and Catholicism/Orthodoxy, but there is still different weight placed on the institutional nature of the Church between, say, an Anglican and a Baptist)</li>
<li>Church polity (episcopal, presbyterian, congregational)</li>
<li>Legitimacy of ordained ministry (i.e. how the "priesthood of all believers" is understood)</li>
<li>Methods of church discipline</li>
</ul>
Worship: <br />
<ul>
<li>Legitimacy and value of creeds and confessions</li>
<li>Styles of worship (traditional, contemporary, blended, choral or congregational singing, Psalms-only, use of instruments, regulative principle...)</li>
<li>Use of images or sensory aids in worship</li>
<li>Christian relation to the Sabbath</li>
</ul>
Sacraments and spiritual gifts: <br />
<ul>
<li>Baptism (infant/adult, significance)</li>
<li>Real Presence in the Eucharist (the subject of the first division among the Protestant reformers)</li>
<li>Continuation of spiritual gifts in the present</li>
<li>Importance of the gift of tongues</li>
</ul>
Gender, marriage, and family: <br />
<ul>
<li>Women's roles in the church and the home (patriarchalism, evangelical feminism, complementarianism, egalitarianism...)</li>
<li>Divorce and remarriage</li>
<li>Birth control</li>
<li>Corporal punishment of children </li>
</ul>
Societal issues: <br />
<ul>
<li>Capital punishment</li>
<li>Slavery (there may be agreement today, but there was fierce
disagreement between competing "biblical" views less than 200 years ago)</li>
<li>Homosexuality</li>
<li>Church-state relations</li>
<li>War</li>
<li>Ethics and use of wealth (private property, meaning of material success, tithing...)</li>
<li>Celebration of [religious] holidays</li>
<li>Christians' relation to culture</li>
</ul>
Soteriology:<br />
<ul>
<li>The nature of salvation</li>
<li>Nature/reality of total depravity and original sin</li>
<li>Significance of a "conversion experience"</li>
<li>Atonement theology (PSA, governmental, moral example, Christus victor...)</li>
<li>Justification</li>
<li>Role of good works in the last judgment (and the nature and number of the last judgment(s))</li>
<li>Sanctification and its relation to salvation</li>
<li>Eternal destiny of the unevangelized (exclusivism, inclusivism, universalism), and infants</li>
</ul>
Personal morality<br />
<ul>
<li>Wearing of jewelry/makeup</li>
<li>Drinking</li>
<li>Gambling</li>
<li>Dancing</li>
<li>Swearing oaths</li>
<li>Asceticism and celibacy </li>
</ul>
Eschatology:<br />
<ul>
<li>Imminence of the Second Coming (putting a definite date to it, expecting and planning on it in the next few years/decades, or simply living in readiness)</li>
<li>Rapture and the Millennium (pre/post-tribulationist, premillennialist, postmillenialist, amillenialist)</li>
<li>Understanding of the "antichrist" (the papacy, a figure in current events, or yet to come?)</li>
<li>Role of the Jews in salvation history (a major distinctive of dispensationalism)</li>
<li>Understandings of apocalyptic prophecy (preterist, futurist, historical, idealist)</li>
<li>Nature of hell (eternal conscious torment, annihilationism, purgatorial universalism, C.S. Lewis' view...)</li>
</ul>
God's providence:<br />
<ul>
<li>Free will/determinism and predestination (Calvinism vs. Arminianism)</li>
<li>Eternal security</li>
<li>Nature of God's foreknowledge (unconditional or based on foreseen faith?)</li>
</ul>
The Bible:<br />
<ul>
<li>Bibliology; nature of the Bible itself </li>
<li>Perspectives on Paul</li>
<li>Relation between the Testaments</li>
<li>Biblical inerrancy/infallibility</li>
<li>Creation/Evolution</li>
<li>Nature of the divine image in humanity (and to what extent or in what way has it been lost?)</li>
<li>Historicity of Adam</li>
<li>Biblical literalism</li>
<li>Value of reason/rationality in faith </li>
</ul>
Pervasive interpretive pluralism is far from a recent problem. In a survey of other authors' takes on it, Smith quotes American theologian John Nevin, who lamented a similar situation in 1849:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It sounds well, to lay so much stress on the authority of the Bible, as the only text-book and guide of Christianity. But what are we to think of it, when we find such a motley mass of protesting systems, all laying claim so vigorously here to one and the same watchword? If the Bible be at once so clear and full as a formulary of Christian doctrine and practice, how does it come to pass that where men are left most free to use it in this way . . . they are flung asunder so perpetually in their religious faith, instead of being brought together? (19)</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
However they may differ among themselves as regard to what it teaches, sects all agree on proclaiming the Bible the only guide of their faith; and the more sectarian they are . . . the more loud and strong do they show themselves in reiteration of this profession . . . It will not do to reply . . . that the differences which divide the parties are small, while the things in which they are agreed are great, and such as to show a general unity after all in the main substance of the Christian life. Differences that lead to the breaking of church communion, and that bind man's consciences to go into sects, can never be small for the actual life of Christianity, however insignificant they may be to their own nature. . . . However plausible it may be in theory, to magnify in such style the unbound use solely of the Bible for the adjustment of Christian faith and practice, the simple truth is that the operation of it in fact is, not to unite the church into one, but to divide it always more and more into sects. (19-20)</blockquote>
Smith does not argue that biblicism creates pervasive interpretive
pluralism, but rather that it is unable to account for it, tends to exacerbate it, and is
ultimately rendered superfluous by it. How, then, are we to explain it?<br />
<h4>
The problem of authority</h4>
Here is where I must play my Orthodox card. Non-Protestant Christians, myself included, generally attribute the diversity of teaching Smith describes to the principle of <i>sola scriptura</i>, and the problem of authority inherent to it. I'll try to describe this problem differently and more clearly than I did in my <a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2014/10/my-journey-part-112-insufficiency-of.html">critique of <i>sola scriptura</i></a> in the Journey to Orthodoxy series, focusing not so much on the teaching <i>per se</i> as on how it is applied in practice.<br />
<br />
A common definition of <i>sola scriptura</i> goes something like this: the Bible alone is the highest and final authority in matters of Christian faith, teaching, and practice. More thoughtful definitions will be careful to note that it is not the <i>only</i> authority, ascribing some legitimacy, usefulness, and derived authority to traditional Christian teachings, hymns, or creeds—insofar as they are based on the Bible. Under <i>sola scriptura</i>, all such formulations are seen as fallible human creations with no authority of their own, no claim on my conscience, except what they gain by speaking truly with the backing of the authoritative teaching of Scripture.<br />
<br />
It seems like a modest and cogent enough proposal: try to peer behind, or beneath, all the layers of extra stuff that has been added onto the teaching of the Church over the centuries to glimpse the pure, undistorted Gospel in the pages of Scripture. But hidden inside it is a radically new stance toward human authority, which is placed decisively lower than the "authority of Scripture". No mere man has authority over my conscience; no earthly power can take the place of God's word and tell me what to believe. Human teachers and traditions may be helpful resources and aids, but the Bible always gets the final say. This rhetoric sounds well and good, seemingly recognizing our human fallibility, and I don't doubt that it is meant that way, but what gets forgotten is the need to <i>interpret</i> Scripture, and the inescapable subjectivity of this task.<br />
<br />
This became an especially serious issue as <i>sola scriptura</i> came to be applied less on the level of large, often national churches (as it was in the early days of the magisterial Reformation) and more on the individual level, spurred by developments like the Radical Reformation, Pietism, and the Great Awakenings. Seen in this light, what <i>sola scriptura</i> entails in practice is that the individual Christian's personal interpretation of Scripture becomes authoritative for that individual; no one else can tell him or her how to read or what to believe. "The teaching of Scripture" comes to be identified in practice with "my interpretation of Scripture". Obviously, this becomes a problem when two parties hold conflicting "biblical" views. As pervasive interpretive pluralism shows, the "plain meaning" of Scripture on a given matter is rarely plain to everyone. How to determine who (if anyone) is more correct?<br />
<br />
This new stance towards human tradition and authority makes resolving disagreements of interpretation nearly impossible. As interpretive authority is shifted from a common body or
tradition to Scripture itself and (in turn) the individual reader of Scripture, there is no longer any way to hold
together individuals or factions who are inclined to see things differently and
cannot come to agreement between themselves, or to determine who among them (if anyone) is in the right. There is then little recourse except schism. This is the problem of authority. In traditional Christianity such disputes are resolved by calling a council, as in Acts 15 or the succeeding centuries of Church history, but when Scripture alone is finally authoritative, councils are merely exercises of limited human authority and can again be rejected if they are thought contrary to Scripture. Each party may well start his own tradition, believing himself to be upholding the true teaching of Scripture and the other to be unwilling or unable to discern it. The classic example of this is Luther and Zwingli at the Marburg Colloquy, and such divisions have been continuing ever since.<br />
<br />
A disclaimer: obviously, not every Protestant embodies this kind of divisiveness and insistence on the authoritativeness of one's own interpretation. Thankfully, most do not—and, not coincidentally, most Protestants don't form their own churches or denominations. So please don't read the above as an attack on or attempt to describe everyone who affirms the principle of <i>sola scriptura</i>. To whatever degree you participate in and uphold your church's body of tradition and doctrine, however much you seek to live in harmony and unity with other Christians who may or may not agree with what you believe (and you may be better at this than I am!), that is a very good thing; it is commanded by the Scriptures and expected of the Church. But I argue that it does not come from the principle of authority implied by <i>sola scriptura</i>, which, at its worst, has legitimated doctrinal divisiveness like that of early Christian heretics.<br />
<br />
Orthodox Christianity holds a different attitude to authority and tradition, as I have <a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2014/11/my-journey-part-113-holy-tradition.html">written</a> in my Journey to Orthodoxy series. The word "tradition" and its Greek equivalent, <i>paradosis</i>, both connote receiving something passed on or handed off. Doctrine is received from one's spiritual parents or teachers (as in 1 Cor 11:2 or Gal 1:8-9), rather than derived for oneself by an independent reading of the Scriptures (though we are of course encouraged to read the Scriptures and glimpse the faith through and in them). Holy Tradition, the life of the Church in the Holy Spirit originating with the apostles' teaching (cf. Acts 2:42), is said to be authoritative (in response to which claim <i>sola scriptura</i> asserts that final authority belongs to Scripture alone), the continuation of the authority vested in the apostles by Christ. The teaching of an individual, even a bishop, no matter how "biblical" it seems, cannot overrule the consensus of the Church originally received from the apostles and kept by their successors. The communal, shared
nature of traditioned truth mirrors the communal nature of salvation as
spiritual, transformative union with Christ (and, transitively, with
each other). The human mediation involved is no cause for concern, and does not mean that Tradition is necessarily as fallible as you or I. God
came to earth as a man, sent his Spirit onto men, and is saving and
redeeming men. By his grace, we can become conduits of his truth, not
obstacles to it that need to be cleared away.<br />
<h4>
The Church</h4>
The problem of authority is closely tied in with a distinctive ecclesiology—one of the areas in which, as noted above, there is
substantial pluralism among evangelicals. But generally in
Protestantism, an ecclesiology prevails in which the church is visibly divided but invisibly one, consisting of those God alone truly knows as his, in a way that is not essentially inhibited by the visible schisms among churches. Which institutional church you belong to is unimportant, it is thought, as long as you truly follow Jesus. The original, visible Church fell away in a "great apostasy", but in its invisible essence the Church continued through the centuries. Thus the phenomenon of pervasive interpretive pluralism, while unfortunate and confusing, does not mean the Church is divided into countless pieces; Christianity is just expressed in many different forms instead of one, and members of the <i>true</i> Church can be found in virtually any of them, believing and worshipping the same God earnestly and authentically according to their conscience, just as the more visibly united early Christians did.<br />
<br />
But this redefinition of "unity" in light of such glaring division tremendously cheapens the unity of the Church confessed in the Nicene Creed. This "Church" does not enjoy
anything like the unity Paul described in 1 Cor 1:10, and that the
Orthodox Church has enjoyed (though never perfectly or free from the
troubles of sin) since then. Even calling this state of
disconnection and pluralism "the one Church" does violence to the term. It
is unprecedented in Christian history to suppose that after a schism,
both parties can still somehow belong to the "body of Christ", or to suppose that members of churches holding distinctly different faiths can both be part of the one Church. Paul and the
other epistle authors have no such flattering or reassuring words for schismatics. Such sentiments are more Gnostic than Christian; when applied to the Church as body of Christ, they resemble the heresy of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docetism">Docetism</a>. As
Smith quoted
John Nevin earlier, "Differences that lead to the breaking of church
communion, and that bind man's consciences to go into sects, can never
be small for the actual life of Christianity, however insignificant they
may be to their own nature."<br />
<br />
The enabling effect of such an ecclesiology on schisms is this: if you or your church rejects/divides from someone you consider a false teacher, this individual is not obliged to repent and seek to be reunited to his old church, but can instead join (or start) a different church. His membership in the true Church, fully independent of his membership in a local church body, is never endangered by such interpersonal conflicts. In traditional Christianity, such a person would be told in no uncertain terms that he was no longer part of the body of Christ until he repented and returned to it. This, then, is why <i>sola scriptura</i> inevitably produces
divisions among Protestants: because it legitimates schism, makes it a
justifiable response in order to liberate oneself and one's conscience from what
one views as
false teaching, and, after doing away with any higher authority than
individuals' interpretations of Scripture, leaves no other way to
resolve doctrinal conflicts.<br />
<br />
Traditional Christians have always applied the biblical teachings of the Church as the "pillar and ground of the truth" (1
Tim 3:15), temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 3:16), the body of Christ (1
Cor 12:27), against whom the gates of Hades will not prevail (Mat
16:18), to the <i>visible</i> Church, the one founded by Christ. The Church is identified with a particular body, a particular tradition, a particular faith; it is not an intangible abstraction that assumes a multitude of forms. The Lord did not come to Earth as a phantasm, but as a man. This Church could no more cease to exist than Jesus could return
to earth as a mortal man to recreate it, contrary to his promises to return in glory (Mat 16:27). No one has the authority or the ability to divide the
body of Christ and start another church than the one the Lord
established. It would be unthinkable enough for the Church to vanish and then be recreated by mere men, even if they demonstrated the same unity of faith that the apostles did. But as seen above, modern claimants to represent "biblical Christianity" manifestly do not and have not. The blanket skepticism with which theories of the "great apostasy" treats all other prior and competing forms of Christianity makes it very hard to believe that your church has finally "gotten it right."<br />
<h4>
Tu quoque?</h4>
A possible objection to what I have been saying is that traditional Christianity is also divided. There are four main Christian communions all claiming apostolic succession and that they are the "one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church": the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox Chuch, and the Church of the East, as well as numerous smaller churches that have separated from them (such as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Believers">Old Believers</a> or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Old_Calendarists">Old Calendarists</a>). Traditional Christianity, it seems, fails to practice what it preaches. Doesn't this then show that the true origin of schism and division among Christians is simply sin, and is thus ever-present and not new to <i>sola scriptura</i>?<br />
<br />
This is a good question, and an important one to ask since Orthodox critiques of <i>sola scriptura</i> (mine included) can give the impression that rejecting it will result in perfect unity, which is of course not true. I would respond with two points. First, though traditional Christianity is not fully united, the difference in the number and depth of divisions between it and Protestantism is so great as to be qualitative. There is vastly more consensus and less disagreement; for instance, Oriental and Eastern Orthodoxy are still strikingly similar in belief and worship despite having been in schism for almost sixteen centuries. The last major schism between churches claiming apostolic succession was the Great Schism in 1054. There is also nothing like Smith's pervasive interpretive pluralism; most of the issues listed above on which Protestants differ have never been controversial, because there has either always been general agreement on them, they are acknowledged to be of secondary importance, or multiple perspectives are recognized as being jointly valid. As I explored Orthodoxy, I found that it actually realizes the Protestant ideal of "in essentials unity; in non-essentials liberty; in all things charity".<br />
<br />
And second, I would say that while sin is indeed the "cause" of schisms on a very high level, Tradition arguably helps to restrain and dampen the effects of sin on the unity of the Church, while <i>sola scriptura</i> fans the flames. Yes, the Orthodox Church has undergone schisms and some Protestants enjoy a great deal of unity and consensus within their church or denomination, but I don't think there is any systemic problem contributing to schisms in the Orthodox Church like the problem of authority I described above. Instead, I see Holy Tradition making it much <i>harder</i> to divide the Church, such that the three aforementioned major schisms were not instigated by individuals or congregations, but occurred between entire national churches with conceptions of the faith that had come to be irreconcilable, in part due to linguistic, cultural, political, and geographic disparities (rather than merely reading the same Bible in different ways). Even if one of the parties to these schisms continues to be the "one true Church" afterwards (as all agree to be the case), the sin that contributed to them is shared by all and mourned by all.<br />
<br />
In the case of schisms among Protestant denominations, if there is "sin" involved in such schisms, it tends to be the
other party's sin of denying the truth of God's Word and being led
astray into error; thus, one feels right to reject and separate from them as false teachers worthy of condemnation, such as the Bible warns about (cf. Gal 1:6-9, Col 2:18-19, Jude 1:3-4)—in other words, to actually initiate the schism. The large number of Christian churches and denominations, it is thought, is due to existing churches falling into error, and authentic believers coming out from them and becoming separate. This inverts the old pattern: the schismatic party, rather than being the one condemned as in traditional Christianity, is instead said to be justified and a force for doctrinal restoration. Schism ceases to be violence against the body of Christ and becomes a mechanism for maintaining true doctrine, which is in turn an unrealized ideal the Church must journey towards rather than a treasure she was entrusted with by Christ and has held since the beginning. <i>Sola scriptura</i>, especially as it has been applied in the wake of the Radical Reformation, extends to all Christians the responsibility and authority to "rightly divide the word of truth" traditionally held by the bishops, the successors of the apostles. With such a multitude of little bishops, is it any wonder that there exists such a plurality of Protestant teachings?<br />
<h4>
</h4>
<h4>
The sea of relativism</h4>
In my own experience, Orthodox (or Catholic) claims to be the "one true Church" tend to be viewed by Protestants as deeply, problematically arrogant. But such a skeptical attitude toward any church claiming authenticity merely leaves one with the pervasive interpretive pluralism Smith describes, with multiple competing "biblical" truth claims on virtually any teaching or practice and no authoritative answers as to who may be right. The baseline of skepticism enabled by <i>sola scriptura</i> towards claims of absolute doctrinal truth actually bears much resemblance to the attitude of secular skeptics towards absolute truth claims in general. Absolute truth exists, evangelicals like to argue in a number of ways, yet while living with an unprecedented state of doctrinal pluralism and rejecting truth claims more absolute than their own.<br />
<br />
There are several ways that Protestants manage this, and I don't claim to list them all here. For those who are content to accept and uphold the teachings of their particular church tradition, the reality of pervasive interpretive pluralism feels remote, and may not be noticed at all. The existence of other Christians who hold an irreconcilably different faith based on the same scriptural foundation need not bother someone who is able to receive and live in his or her own church's teaching with simple faith.<br />
<br />
Many evangelicals take something of an <i>a la carte</i> approach to doctrine, not feeling strongly bound to any particular tradition, selecting beliefs from various traditions on the basis of their interpretation of Scripture and the Christian faith. The way I used to do this, at least, resembled deciding your positions on the "issues" at stake in a presidential election: this is what I believe on predestination, this is what I believe on women's ordination, this is what I believe about the nature of the Bible, and so on. This approach goes hand-in-hand with an ecclesiology that locates the one, invisible Church among true "followers of Jesus" across hundreds of different traditions. The subtext of such a theory is that maintaining an authentic, life-giving relationship with God through Jesus is of primary importance and what makes you part of "the Church", while what you believe is secondary and may well conflict with what others in "the Church" believe; what matters is how it bears on the relationship. Believers following the <i>a la carte</i> approach are well aware of the conflicting voices on a wide array of topics, but rather than a confused cacophony they merely see a variety of paths and options for arriving at a faith in accord with one's conscience.<br />
<br />
At one time this individualistic approach, exemplifying the freedom to believe according to one's conscience guided by Scripture and unfettered by any human power, felt liberating to me, but in my doubt I realized this liberty was actually confining and profoundly relativistic. If my beliefs simply arose from my own scripturally-informed convictions, I had no confidence that they were true, especially if the scripturally-informed convictions of others led them to different conclusions. Even if I instead aligned myself to a church and accepted its faith tradition as my own, this merely pushed the problem of pluralism up to a higher level; did I prefer this church because it had most faithfully preserved the truth out of the wide plurality of denominations, or simply because it teaching was agreeable to me?<br />
<br />
Despite its original intention of rescuing the truth of the Christian faith from its captivity under tradition, the attitude toward authority of <i>sola scriptura</i> ultimately made this truth even more unreachable and intangible. And for me, this was not a merely intellectual search; I found that I couldn't force myself to keep living a faith that seemed riddled with contradictions however I looked at it. This seemingly inescapable confusion about what is true, combined with an inability to trust any of the answers I found as anything more than my own preferences, is what I came to think of as the "sea of relativism".<br />
<br />
In the midst of this confusion, Holy Tradition came not as an oppressive "teaching of man", or even primarily as a body of doctrinal truths more coherent and plausible than the one I had been attempting to construct, but as the soothing presence of Christ in the storm of my confusion. The Church established by Christ had not become diffused into this dreadful, unknowable pluralism, like a gas or an abstraction, revealed truth intermingled with human error. The gates of Hades will not prevail over this Church; how much less the arguments of men! Through the prayers and worship of the Church, through the sacraments, through the writings of the Fathers, and (of course) through the inspired words of Scripture, I can have an encounter with the living Christ not mediated by my own subjective interpretation of things (or by cumbersome human institutions and traditions). The only obstacle left after my confusion and doubt dissipated is my own stubborn, apathetic heart, in need of the Healer.<br />
<h4>
In conclusion</h4>
Even after months(!) of polishing, this post still ended up more polemical than I had hoped. Following the example of countless Orthodox teachers I've read, I am trying to rid myself of that habit; I don't need any other Christian tradition to be wrong to accept Orthodoxy as the truth. In this spirit, I'll try to bring this post full circle, back to the question my friend raised (or at least how I've kept it in mind): how do evangelical Christians concerned about the current state of Christianity as divided among hundreds or thousands of traditions (as I once was) respond to Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 1:10? The answer I've been pushing for through most of this post is simply "become Orthodox." But I don't presume to have convinced everyone or anyone, so in order not to leave you empty-handed, I will offer a few other thoughts.<br />
<br />
The most basic thing, applicable to Protestants and Orthodox alike, is to avoid adding to the division and instead seek to embody the unity and agreeability Paul prescribes for the church in Corinth. Pray that God by his Spirit would fulfill these words of Paul in you: "I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." (Eph 4:1-3) Seek out and affirm points of truth (what St. Justin Martyr would call "seeds of the Word") in others' Christian traditions; this is the basic method of Orthodox ecumenical dialogue. When you do come to disagree on something, try to do so constructively, and to understand the reasons others believe as they do.<br />
<br />
But this still does little to address the fragmented state in which evangelicals find their churches—the problem of pervasive interpretive pluralism again. Perhaps the first step to applying Paul's words to this divided state is simply to recognize it. Even though you (hopefully) aren't personally responsible for it, you have inherited a form of Christianity that, more than any other, has failed to abide by Paul's words in 1 Cor 1:10, to preserve the unity of the early Church. So please, acknowledge this, and stop pretending it doesn't really matter in the name of humility or ecumenical goodwill. I have come to prefer the Roman Catholic Church's claims to be the original Church, even if I disagree with them, than the prevailing evangelical attitude that such claims are not necessary, or even possible. As I explained above, this attitude reeks of a relativism which evangelicals are right to reject in other contexts.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
And finally, whether or not it leads you across the Bosphorus like it did me, I cannot recommend familiarizing yourself with Christian history highly enough. Some starter ideas from my own shelf: Justo Gonzalez has written an excellent, accessible, and fairly comprehensive <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Story-Christianity-Vol-Church-Reformation/dp/006185588X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473817449&sr=8-1&keywords=Gonzales+story+of+Christianity">history of Christianity</a> from an evangelical perspective, as has <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Story-Christian-Theology-Centuries-Tradition/dp/0830815058/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473817511&sr=8-1&keywords=olson+the+story+of+christian+theology">Roger Olson</a>. The late Jaroslav Pelikan's <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Christian-Tradition-Development-Doctrine-Emergence/dp/0226653714/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1473817543&sr=1-1&keywords=pelikan">five-part series</a> on the history of doctrine is a longer, denser read, but is magisterial in its treatment of the development of all three major streams of Christianity; in particular, I thank Pelikan for deepening my understanding of early Christian heresies and the legitimate theological concerns behind them, especially mono/miaphysitism and Nestorianism. And, if you're curious about my chosen church tradition, unfamiliar to western Christians as it so often is, you could always check out the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Orthodox-Church-Introduction-Eastern-Christianity/dp/014198063X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1473817718&sr=1-1&keywords=Ware+orthodox+Church">book that led to my conversion</a>. I have also written about <a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2015/01/paleo-orthodoxy-moving-on-from.html">paleo-orthodoxy</a>, a movement within Protestant led by Thomas Oden (author of <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Classic-Christianity-Systematic-Thomas-Oden/dp/0061449717/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473818770&sr=8-1&keywords=Thomas+Oden">Classic Christianity</a></i>) that seeks to rediscover the classical, ecumenical Christian faith through patristic study, to which I am grateful both for the translations of classic texts it has produced and for sparking interest in patristics among people whose familiarity with the subject often doesn't extend past St. Augustine.<br />
<div>
<br />
Even if you don't think the early Church has continued to today or that Holy Tradition is anything more than the fallible attempts of of godly men and women to understand the Unknowable, studying church history can still give you a more historically founded perspective on your beliefs and show just what it meant for the Nicene Creed to affirm "one holy catholic and apostolic Church". You can study for yourself how we got from the church of the apostles to the vast multitude of churches we have today, and perhaps come to a diagnosis of your own as I did in this post. Connecting with the historical Christian tradition(s) is an important part of the spirit of unity I described above; it is unity across time rather than space. As G.K. Chesterton <a href="http://www.chesterton.org/democracy-of-the-dead/">wrote</a>, "Tradition means giving a vote to most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead."<br />
<br />
Though I have not done a good job of representing it here, the unity the Church ideally enjoys is far more than doctrinal. The Christian faith has always, asymptotically, extended beyond human understanding, to the heights of heaven. The Church is the "passage" to heaven, as Fr. Alexander Schmemann wrote, and the "vehicle" that takes us there is communion—the creed's "communion of saints", which is understood as a life-giving unity with and under Christ the head, transcending time and space as he does. This is the unity that St. Paul calls us to. Don't settle for less.</div>
Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08244026688548871531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4225502016359798858.post-42978735358109833632016-08-04T22:28:00.000-05:002016-09-17T09:23:11.385-05:00A Roundup of Evangelical Responses to Wayne Grudem<div class="tr_bq">
Evangelical theologian Wayne Grudem raised quite a clamor this week with his inflammatorily titled article, <a href="http://townhall.com/columnists/waynegrudem/2016/07/28/why-voting-for-donald-trump-is-a-morally-good-choice-n2199564">Why Voting for Donald Trump is a Morally Good Choice</a>. In it, Grudem argues that Christians should vote for him, despite his obvious flaws, because not doing so would be helping Hillary win and bring about disastrous consequences for our nation, whereas Trump promises to help fight abortion, protect religious liberty, and produce positive results for a number of other issues Grudem holds dear. I disagree with him, vehemently. I haven't been keeping up with the evangel-o-sphere much since my conversion to Orthodoxy, but I felt called back to at least dip my feet in by the audacity of the very existence of a Christian case for voting for Trump. There is no need for me to comment personally, though, since numerous and better-informed evangelical teachers and thinkers have already written some excellent responses to Grudem's essay from a number of different angles. I will link to and summarize them here.</div>
<h3>
Character matters</h3>
<a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/eidos/2016/07/a-good-man-justifies-a-wicked-deed-grudem-on-trump/?ref_widget=popular&ref_blog=warrenthrockmorton&ref_post=an-answer-to-wayne-grudem-about-what-is-best-for-the-nation">John Mark M. Reynolds</a> delivers a scathing rebuttal to Grudem's character assessment of Trump as a "good candidate with flaws". Reynolds argues that Grudem attempts to brush aside Trump's flaws, which so overwhelmingly awful as to render him unfit for the presidency.<br />
<blockquote>
Donald J. Trump is uniquely unsuited for the most powerful job on the planet. He is morally unfit, unqualified, and advocating for him stains any person who does so. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Just as saying a kind word for Mussolini is a perpetual shame to GK Chesterton, so in the same way, advocating for Trump will tar Grudem. I beg him to retract it or he will lose the moral authority to comment on politics for the rest of his life. Trump is that bad.</blockquote>
Of course supporting a <i>flawed</i> candidate is acceptable in principle; even Lincoln had his flaws. But Trump is much words. "We must vote for flawed men, but not for men who glory in their flaws," Reynolds reminds us. "Donald J. Trump is the least qualified, least fit nominee of a major party in the history of the Republic." Reynolds spends the rest of his time expanding and supporting this assertion; I will summarize his points.<br />
<ul>
<li>Trump continues to endorse many hoaxes and conspiracy theories: that Obama is not a natural-born American citizen, that vaccines cause autism, that climate change is a hoax engineered by China, that Ted Cruz's father had a hand in the JFK assassination. "It is ignorance combined with pride that does not care about the ignorance."</li>
<li>Trump has not abandoned his support for torture.</li>
<li>Trump makes openly racist and sexist statements, and refuses to apologize for them. he has called Mexican immigrants "racists" and called for a ban on all Muslims in the US. (Despite employing numerous illegal immigrants)</li>
<li>Trump owns a strip club.</li>
<li>Trump has done nothing to rebuke or distance himself from the support he has received from white supremacists and members of other hate groups. He repeatedly re-tweets anti-semites and racists. "To call such hideous evil “angry fringe supporters” is to look at the worst evil in the face and blink."</li>
<li>"Trump has repeatedly had kind words to say for dictators including the butcher of Ankara and KGB Colonel Putin."</li>
<li>Trump is in legal trouble in New York for calling his unaccredited school a "university". (A federal judge recently <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/03/us/politics/trump-university-case.html?_r=1">allowed</a> a suit against Trump by former students to go to trial, after the election)</li>
<li>"Trump lies like most of us breath[e]. ... This is not normal political behavior, but continuous lying so grand that Professor Grudem seems to forget one lie for the next."</li>
<li>Trump was uninvolved in the rearing of his children, contrary to a point Grudem makes.</li>
<li>Trump is indisputably a lover of money.</li>
<li>Trump has promised to release his taxes, and has not.</li>
<li>Trump has brashly asserted that he, and he alone, can save America. (And, more recently, that Clinton is the devil)</li>
<li>Trump has induced a minor international crisis by stating, without precedent, that he would make America's defense of other NATO countries conditional on their putting in their fair share of military expenditures.</li>
<li>Trump is the first presidential candidate to brag about his "manhood" in a debate.</li>
<li>Trump "confuses Clinton’s Vice-Presidential nominee with a Republican governor of New Jersey. The man is ignorant of even the most basic facts about government and has no interest in learning."</li>
</ul>
<a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2016/07/31/compare-what-christian-leaders-said-about-bill-clinton-in-1998-to-trump-endorsements-now/?ref_widget=popular&ref_blog=warrenthrockmorton&ref_post=an-answer-to-wayne-grudem-about-what-is-best-for-the-nation">Warren Throckmorton</a> recalls a statement signed by 150 Christian leaders—including Wayne Grudem—in 1998, in the wake of the Monica Lewinski scandal. Part of the statement says:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
We are aware that certain moral qualities are central to the survival of our political system, among which are truthfulness, integrity, respect for the law, respect for the dignity of others, adherence to the constitutional process, and a willingness to avoid the abuse of power. We reject the premise that violations of these ethical standards should be excused so long as a leader remains loyal to a particular political agenda and the nation is blessed by a strong economy. Elected leaders are accountable to the Constitution and to the people who elected them. By his own admission the President has departed from ethical standards by abusing his presidential office, by his ill use of women, and by his knowing manipulation of truth for indefensible ends. We are particularly troubled about the debasing of the language of public discourse with the aim of avoiding responsibility for one’s actions.</blockquote>
"To my eye," Throckmorton continues, "a vote for Trump contradicts every paragraph in this statement." The statement continues:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
But we maintain that in general there is a reasonable threshold of behavior beneath which our public leaders should not fall, because the moral character of a people is more important than the tenure of a particular politician or the protection of a particular political agenda. Political and religious history indicate that violations and misunderstandings of such moral issues may have grave consequences.</blockquote>
I would agree with this statement's sentiment. Throckmorton does as well, and says, "I see a shift from then to now in the willingness to tolerate character problems for political expediency. ... People like James Dobson, Eric Metaxas and now Wayne Grudem are telling
us that it is our duty to throw this reasoning aside and lower or
abandon the threshold." Jonathan Merritt offers another <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/evangelical-christians-trump-bill-clinton-apology/495224/?utm_source=atlfb">commentary</a> on this flip from Clinton to Trump, concluding that "Conservative Christians were unwilling to extend mercy to a Democrat who asked for it but have offered it freely to a Republican who doesn’t want it. ... Trump-loving evangelical leaders should either apologize to Bill Clinton or admit, after all these years, that they, too, have a character issue."<br />
<h3>
On the issues</h3>
Another <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2016/08/01/an-answer-to-wayne-grudem-about-what-is-best-for-the-nation/">post</a> by Throckmorton reiterates this contrast to the statement Grudem signed in 1998 and his support for Trump based solely on the political consequences, agreeing with the former against the latter. He argues Grudem's critique of Trumps character doesn't go far enough, making several of the same points Reynolds did, then moves to examine Grudem's overriding question: "Which vote is most likely to bring the best results for the nation?" Throckmorton examines Trumps's policy plans, issue-by-issue, to show that Grudem's assessment is highly optimistic. I will briefly list his conclusions on these (all of which cite at least some research):<br />
<ul>
<li>Immigration: Trump's promised deportation of 11 million(!) illegal immigrants is expected to cost the economy $400 billion, and lower the GDP by at least $1 trillion. Trump's promised wall is expected to cost at least $25 billion (unless, of course, Mexico pays for it).</li>
<li>Taxes: Trump's promise to cut taxes with no real plan for lowering costs (except the standard promise to "cut waste, fraud and abuse") will massively increase the national debt.</li>
<li>Trade, Jobs, and the Poor: Trump's proposed tariffs would greatly increase the cost of imported goods. The conservative National Chamber of Commerce believes his economic policies would lead to a recession, with millions of lost jobs. Trump himself dismissed the risk of a trade war, but it would be a great hardship for the poor.</li>
<li>Healthcare: The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget believes Trump's proposed healthcare solution would cost more and lead to more uninsured. Strangely, he has also expressed support for a single-payer system, which Grudem probably doesn't want.</li>
<li>Debt: Trump is expected to add $11.5 trillion to the national debt. Clinton is only expected to add $250 billion.</li>
<li>Foreign Policy: Trump's stance toward Russia is highly ambiguous; he has both praised Putin and claimed not to know him. It's hard to believe he would be tougher on the threat posed by Russia than Clinton. He has also said he might not intervene if Russia invaded a NATO ally and might recognize Russia's invasion of the Crimea.</li>
<li>Supreme Court and Religious Liberty: Supreme court justices are unelected and subject to checks and balances regardless of who is president. Few conservative legal scholars think the possibility of conservative justices outweighs Trump's numerous flaws; Roger Pilion states that "Hillary Clinton is a deeply flawed candidate, to be sure, but the
election of Donald Trump would so defile the party of Lincoln and
America itself that it must be resisted. He is an aberration that we
must get past, and quickly."</li>
</ul>
Throckmorton concludes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If a vote for Trump is a moral choice, then I can’t see how a vote for
Clinton is not one also. It probably comes down to which vision of the
future each individual believes to be accurate. As I look at the
evidence, I think Grudem sugar coated Trump and cast Clinton in the
worst possible light. In any case, given how inadequate his analysis of
Trump’s positions and character is, I think it is an abuse of his
position as an evangelical leader to imply that there is a choice that
good Christians should choose. If his standard no longer elevates moral
qualities, then he needs to do a better job researching Trump’s
proposals and what they portend.</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2016/07/30/the-rhetorical-maneuvers-of-wayne-grudem-a-guest-post-from-matthew-boedy/">Matthew Boedy</a> (guest-posting on Throckmorton's blog) argues that "Grudem’s essay fails to live up to his own positive qualities for Christian influence on government." He refers here to a <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Politics-According-Comprehensive-Understanding-Political/dp/0310330297/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1470334765&sr=8-1&keywords=grudem+politics+according+to+the+bible">book</a> Grudem wrote in 2010 arguing that Christians should have "significant influence" on government, namely "winsome, kind, thoughtful, loving, persuasive influence that is suitable
to each circumstance and that always protects the other person’s right
to disagree, but that is also uncompromising about the truthfulness and
moral goodness of the teachings of God’s Word." (55) As a preliminary note, Boedy suggests that Grudem does not attempt to persuade so much as he dictates, arguing that voting for Trump is a moral obligation for Christians.<br />
<br />
He then examines the core of Grudem's argument, the fact that Trump is more likely to nominate conservative Supreme Court justices than Clinton. His calling these justices "unelected" is highly misleading since, as Throckmorton also said, Supreme Court justices have always been unelected; they are selected by the executive and legislative branches, as part of the separation of powers. This fact will not change under Clinton or Trump. Obviously there is something in our system of government that can stop them: the election of a president who will appoint different justices (or the election of a senate that will refuse to confirm them). Grudem also follows a double standard in his description of the Supreme Court's activity: decisions he disagrees with are the work of "activist judges", but decisions he agrees with are perfectly fine. "He blatantly strips the court of any authority all the while saying his judges would rule in the opposite way but by the <em>same manner</em>." (Emphasis the author's)<br />
<br />
Grudem's warning that Clinton could criminalize dissent rings hollow as he endorses a candidate who has already cracked down on reporters at his rallies, cultivates a hostile relationship with the media, and belittles and insults those who disagree with him.<br />
<br />
Grudem argues that disqualifying Trump on the basis of his character constitutes reductionism, "the mistake of reducing every argument to only one factor, when the situation requires that multiple factors be considered." But Boedy responds that "to many in the church, character is not “an” element – it is the umbrella concern. It is not a “single issue” – it is <em>the</em> issue." This is why Grudem himself highlights character so much in his definition of "significant influence". It seems he is not holding Trump to the same standard to which he holds Christians seeking to participate in politics.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2016/07/why-voting-for-trump-is-not-a-morally-good-choice-for-christians-a-reply-to-wayne-grudem/">Kevin Vallier</a>, writing for <a href="http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/about-us/">Bleeding Heart Libertarians</a>, agrees with Grudem that Trump will probably be better than Hillary on the issues of abortion (by not being certain to appoint pro-<i>Roe </i>justices) and religious liberty, but argues that the latter is not as pressing or important as many other issues, and the former case is built not on certainty but on hope that Trump will follow through on his promises and keep moving "in a more conservative direction."<br />
<br />
He then examines the other issues Grudem comments on, one by one:<br />
<ul>
<li>Free Speech: There is little evidence that Hillary will criminalize dissent or free speech. Like Throckmorton, he points out that there seems to be much more risk of this with Trump, who has already threatened the free speech of those who criticize him.</li>
<li>Taxes: Trump wants to cut taxes without a real plan to reduce spending, which will just increase our deficit.</li>
<li>Education: Again, not as clear-cut as Grudem makes it sound; there is no indication Clinton is more hostile to school choice than Trump.</li>
<li>Military: Our armed forces are far from "depleted", as Grudem says; we have the strongest military in the world with bases all over the world.</li>
<li>Immigration: Obama has deported "huge numbers of illegal immigrants", and so it's misleading to talk about needing to "secure" our borders. Vallier also argues that Trump's attitude towards immigrants is deeply un-Christian; as Leviticus 19:34 commands, "The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God."</li>
<li>Terrorism: Trump is more non-interventionist, and Hillary is "a hawk"; it's hard to argue that Trump will deploy more force against ISIS or terrorists elsewhere. Also, Trump supports torture and Hillary doesn't.</li>
<li>China and Russia: They don't "push us around", as Grudem says. "We’re the ones with military bases near their countries, and we’re the
ones who have repeatedly interfered with Iran’s political institutions
over the last several decades."</li>
<li>Israel: Again, Hillary is, if anything, likely to be more pro-Israel than Trump, given his preference for non-interventionism. Trump has also shown no recognition of Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians; "Christians should care about the plight of the weak and the poor, and that includes Palestinians."</li>
<li>Energy: "If we want to be good stewards and to care for the global poor, we should be deeply concerned about our use of fossil fuels." Hillary is much better on this issue than Trump, who believes climate change is a Chinese hoax.</li>
<li>Healthcare: It is an exaggeration to say that the ACA is "ruining the nation’s healthcare system"; it has indeed helped people afford insurance and treatment who couldn't before. There is also no reason to believe Trump will give us more free market-based healthcare; he isn't very concerned with market freedom. </li>
</ul>
Vallier moves on to some other issues which Grudem doesn't mention, but which he considers important: anti-poverty policy, justice for women and minorities, criminal justice reform, trade, and the rule of law. He generally thinks Hillary is to be preferred on these points as well (especially rule of law, for which Trump seems to show no concern). Vallier concludes that for the Christian, both Hillary and Trump are unacceptable choices, and proceeds to make a pretty good case for voting for Johnson instead. Johnson is far from a pro-life crusader, but he supports appointing originalists to the Supreme Court and returning abortion law to the states, two of the main measures Grudem hopes Trump will take against abortion, without the glaring (and honestly terrifying) character flaws.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://mereorthodoxy.com/no-pro-life-case-donald-trump/">Matthew Lee Anderson</a> criticizes the pro-life case for Trump. He actually wrote this post before the RNC, but it is especially relevant now. After going over the reasons why he thinks Hillary is an unacceptable choices, Anderson says he remains convinced that "there are no grounds on which it is permissible or morally licit for a
conservative Christian to lend their support to Trump by voting for him." He goes on to examine one of Grudem's central points, the argument that Trump is more likely to appoint conservative, pro-life justices to the Supreme Court.<br />
<br />
This argument, he argues, is based on blind faith that there is a chance Trump will do as conservatives are hoping. Trump has consistently opposed himself to the Republican establishment, even after being nominated by them, and combined with his well-known tendency to <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/donald-trump-2016-contradictions-213869">contradict himself</a>, his appointing pro-life justices as president is hardly a sure thing.<br />
<br />
The argument also treats conservative justices as important enough to "trump" every other consideration. This attitude ironically plays into the trend toward judicial supremacy that gave us <i>Roe vs. Wade</i>, <i>Obergefell vs. Hodges</i>, and other such landmark cases. (This is similar to the point Boedy made) Supporting Trump solely for this reason will also tremendously devalue the pro-life vote; "every Republican candidate going forward need only offer the thinnest of
overtures to pro-lifers to win their support, and that there will be
nothing conservatives can do if such candidates do not deliver. ... By supporting Trump, pro-lifers make it astoundingly clear what kind of price the party has to pay to win their votes."<br />
<br />
Anderson goes on to argue that Trump "has not merely lived in, but <strong>reveled</strong> in the moral atmosphere and commitments that stand beneath our abortion culture." (emphasis the author's) As Reynolds mentioned, he owns a strip club. He is, at best, a serial monogamist. He has bragged about the number of his sexual partners. When <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/04/it-sure-sounds-donald-trump-has-paid-abortion-or-two-his-life">asked</a> in an interview whether he had paid for an abortion, he dodged the question. Of course, Trump has not apologized or repented of any of these things, as he has not done for anything else. And Grudem thinks this man is the best hope of the pro-life movement?<br />
<br />
Treating Trump's myriad flaws as the worthwhile cost of getting conservative justices, as Grudem does, degrades the pro-life movement. "It indicates that pro-lifers are willing to accept personal and cultural
decay of our leaders for the sake of conservative judges and legal
opinions. ... The pro-life movement can justify supporting Trump only by viewing his
character, his known sexual vices, his unrepentant history of supporting
abortion, etc. as acceptable side-effects that, in this case, are the
cost of their hope for conservative justices." It separates the legal goals of the movement from "the broader cultural conditions pro-lifers are trying to establish to end abortion." Simply striking down <i>Roe vs. Wade</i> in today's culture and political climate would engender a massive backlash, in many ways of the reverse of what <i>Roe</i> itself did when the decision was passed. "But," Anderson points out, "if the recent history of morals legislation in this country is any
indication, such a strategy does not work well over the long term.
Judicial myopia leads to, in this case, cutting off the pro-life
movements cultural nose on the slimmest of hopes of saving its political
face."<br />
<br />
He concludes his argument by saying, "as I see it, the choice pro-lifers face is whether they are willing to
sacrifice their political lives in order to save their cultural and
moral soul. I wish I had more confidence that they would choose wisely."<br />
<h3>
A more excellent way</h3>
<a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2016/08/01/what-wayne-grudem-should-have-said/">Scot McKnight</a> wrote my favorite response. He focuses not so much on examining Trump's character or taking Grudem's arguments to task, but rather on the significance of Grudem's endorsement (phrased as a moral obligation, as Boedy points out). He strongly warns against Christians aligning themselves (as Christians <i>per se</i>) with "the powers", or "the gods of this age", i.e. parts of the American political establishment. He continues with the wise and extremely quotable line:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The best way to seek the good of our nation is to be the church in the
nation, not confuse the church and the nation. Evangelical leaders would
be more evangelical if they refused to endorse political candidates.</blockquote>
In the rest of the short post, McKnight laments how strongly correlated conservative Christians have become with the Republican party. "What I care about is the dilution of the gospel and the alignment of Christians with a political party." His sentiments here are worth remembering for me, for Grudem, and probably for the other commentators I have linked to.<br />
<br />
Finally, <a href="http://amygannett.com/2016/07/29/why-evangelicals-are-losing-an-entire-generation/">Amy Gannett</a> describes the effect of Grudem's endorsement, and the aforementioned alignment of Christianity with Republican politics, on millennials. She again notes that Grudem does not give an endorsement so much as a moral imperative, and that he sets up a "hierarchy of morality" in which some moral values (such as religious liberty and the rights of the unborn) are to be valued and set above others (such as the equality of races and genders). By ordering his values thus and making this hierarchy so integral to his vision of Christian ethics, Gannett argues, he is "losing" millennials who feel strongly about social and racial justice and cannot simply weigh the scales and call Trump "good" as Grudem manages to.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
We cannot call a candidate “good,” as Grudem does with Trump, who has made racist remarks. We will not call a candidate “good” who has demoralized and dehumanized women on national television. We will not buy into the hierarchy of Grudem’s proposed morals over others. Because Grudem (and others) are making this hierarchy of morality intrinsically related to the Christian life and theology, we will not stand with them.</blockquote>
Gannett concludes by warning against equating evangelicalism and American nationalism, in the same vein as McKnight. By and large, millennials do not consider America a "Christian nation", and we aren't able to look back on the "good old days" Trump promises to restore. "We don’t have a lot of national pride because we are waking up to the immense on-going racism that exists in our nation’s systems, the horrors of early American history, and the tragedies around the world that happen because every country has nationalists. So when you equate nationalism with Christian virtue, we’re out." Gannett concludes by asking evangelical leaders to reflect on where they have drawn their lines in the sand, to speak out against the evils Trump proudly stands for and not accept them.Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08244026688548871531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4225502016359798858.post-14667928028855025342016-04-27T22:45:00.001-05:002016-04-28T15:15:54.637-05:00May the Force be with you (and with your spirit)Tonight I was reading Luke's genealogy of Jesus, trying to follow the Greek as much as I could (gripping stuff), and was richly rewarded by 3:26:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
the son of Maath, the son of Mattathias, the son of Semein, the son of Josech, the son of Joda,</blockquote>
Or, in the Greek:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
τοῦ Μάαθ τοῦ Ματταθίου τοῦ Σεμεῒν τοῦ Ἰωσὴχ τοῦ Ἰωδὰ</blockquote>
Notice that last name, the original spelling of "Joda". Its pronunciation should stand out to anyone familiar with the Greek alphabet...<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiWuXAujUObxnRKU99ZptbZ8oNiC8o3lIAzzkwONmNVL45LkLA8eEK6BRtvXZwC5KcBsXpx34ZoWwdB-nCLte_Mowoxge1Rz7Ds0muNvYLvrEde3g2q0pRpRrEi6Fwm8VwlL3k1gZy8Hs/s1600/Joda.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiWuXAujUObxnRKU99ZptbZ8oNiC8o3lIAzzkwONmNVL45LkLA8eEK6BRtvXZwC5KcBsXpx34ZoWwdB-nCLte_Mowoxge1Rz7Ds0muNvYLvrEde3g2q0pRpRrEi6Fwm8VwlL3k1gZy8Hs/s320/Joda.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"My beloved son you are; well pleased I am with you."</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
In addition to being the Lord, the Savior, the Son of God and the Son of Man, Jesus is also a Jedi.Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08244026688548871531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4225502016359798858.post-87674519173562547122016-04-14T21:38:00.001-05:002016-04-14T21:38:26.872-05:00To Know and Taste the Truth<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://images.oca.org/icons/lg/january/0128isaac-syria02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://images.oca.org/icons/lg/january/0128isaac-syria02.jpg" height="400" width="213" /></a>Someone who has actually tasted truth is not contentious for truth.
Someone who is considered by people to be zealous for truth has not yet
learnt what truth is really like; once he has truly learnt it, he will
cease from zealousness on its behalf. (Kephalaia IV.77; <i>The Wisdom of Saint Isaac the Syrian</i>, translated by Sebastian Brock)</div>
</blockquote>
<hr />
<a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2016/04/zealously-contending-for-truth.html">Last time</a> I studied what St. Isaac was not saying in this passage, how he is not rejecting the positive biblical language about "zeal" for God or "contending" for the truth. This time I'll try to delve into the profundity of what he is saying as I have been exploring it for the last few weeks. Here is where some research into what more qualified writers have made of St. Isaac's words is in order.<br />
<h4>
Polemics and passions</h4>
Fr. Gregory Jensen, an Orthodox priest and chaplain, <a href="http://palamas.blogspot.com/2008/05/what-grace-doesnt-do-some-thoughts-on.html">wrote</a> in 2008 on Orthodox-Catholic relations and why they tend to degenerate into polemics, offering some helpful insights on healthy conversation that eventually intersect with St. Isaac's words. Using the example of how "Jesus increased in wisdom and stature" (Luke 2:52), he argues that mental health, "the integrity of the person's cognitive, emotional and social functions", is not something automatically conferred by an encounter with God, but something we must learn and grow in, a natural part of human development. Summarizing his professor, he explains, "to live a constant human life means that we remain open in awe, trust, and gratitude to the Mystery of Being (God) and becoming (human life as a life of dynamic openness)." He incisively applies this to Catholic/Orthodox conversations (and inter-traditional dialogue in general):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
We often talk as if the Catholic/Orthodox dialog is a conversation is between two different, even competing, traditions. In fact these conversations are always conversations between human beings who in their conversations with each other, make selective appeals to their own understanding of the past, both their own and the other's. Traditions, to state the painfully obvious, do not have conversations—only human beings can speak, can enter into a conversations. Tradition, as Metropolitan John (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Zizioulas">Zizioulas</a>) has pointed out in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Being-Communion-Personhood-Contemporary-Theologians/dp/0881410292/102-0493412-5476120?SubscriptionId=159DR8WAKFK5E4XCYYR2"><i>Being in Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church</i></a>, only exist <i>enhypostatically</i>, that is, by way of the person. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Too often conversations between Eastern and Western Christians are not understood as human encounters. In fact, I would suggest that the reason that our conversations are so often polemical, is because we imagine that there is nothing of ourselves in our talks with each other. Let me go even further, we are so often polemical because we are striving <b>not</b> to encounter one another. We do not wish to know the other, because not only do we do not wish to be know by the other, we do not know, or even wish to know, ourselves personally. Any human encounter is <b>necessarily</b> one that demands from me both self-knowledge and change. To refuse one or the other of these is to refuse the encounter, the gift of the other person and so to refuse to receive my own life as a gift from God. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
For too many of us, our attachment to our religious tradition is an escape, a refusal, of the dynamic and gratuitous quality of our own lives. We do not wish to grow, to change. Our conversations are polemical because more often than not, our thinking about ourselves is static and rigid. Catholic/Orthodox polemics—at least as we see them in contemporary practice—are only accidentally theological. In the main (and I will address this more in another post) our polemics reflect our own lack of wholeness, of balance, of our own lack of virtue. Or, to borrow from psychology, our encounters so often go wrong because of we are neurotic.</blockquote>
According to Fr. Gregory, our polemics, our defense of and contentions for "the truth" as we perceive it, are in fact a way of refusing authentic knowledge of ourselves and each other, of resisting needed change and growth by drawing doctrinal lines in the sand and refusing to see, much less step beyond them. But by shutting out others, by refusing to let ourselves encounter them as fellow humans (or even living icons of the Almighty) rather than just representatives of enemy traditions and threats to the "truth", we do the same to God. (cf. Matthew 25:31-46)<br />
<br />
I am reminded here of how Andrew Louth <a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2015/11/caught-up-in-mystery.html">wrote</a> that truth-as-mystery, the really vital, weighty truth we encounter in the humanities and especially in religion, is of a sort that makes personal demands of you, that cannot be engaged with in a merely "objective", detached sort of way. Theological conversations are not simply abstract debates between rival systems of truth to determine which has the epistemological upper hand; they are human encounters like any other, and to treat them as less than this does not do justice to God, our neighbor, or ourselves.<br />
<br />
Fr. Gregory continues in a <a href="http://palamas.blogspot.com/2008/06/tradition-and-passions.html">follow-up post</a> by applying John Zizioulas' description of tradition as existing "enhypostatically" to the subject of inter-traditional conversations:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Let me suggest that if the tradition only exists by way of the person, then tradition is not simply, or even primarily, an objective content. Rather tradition is a virtue and virtues wax and wane. In other words, a tradition is only more or less revealed by how I live my life. Complicating this further, is that I do not live or embody only <b>one </b>tradition. Rather each human life is lived as the intersection of multiple traditions.</blockquote>
Tradition is not merely a body or system of teachings; it is a <i>way</i>, a life, or (in the case of other "traditions", like where we live, where we go to school, or experiences that have shaped our lives) at least a part of how we live. All of these things contribute to how I, as an individual, come to experience and embody the Orthodox tradition. They also add considerable complexity, depth, and need for sensitivity to what we may be tempted to suppose is a simple, straightforward conversation between two rival forms of Christianity (or other traditions).<br />
<br />
Add to this the fact that none of us are flawless representatives of our tradition. All too easily we can end up representing instead our own egos, our insecurities, the desire for pleasure and avoidance of pain that Orthodox call the "passions". Fr. Gregory warns that "unless we are well formed in the spiritual life, and psychologically
sound, what we are mostly likely to give voice to is not the tradition
of the Orthodox Church or the tradition of the Catholic Church, but our
own passions. And this, I would suggest, is true regardless of the
objective validity of any given statement that we might make." Speaking truly requires more than getting the facts right—again echoing how Louth wrote that holistic truth is not merely objective. Gregory gives an illustration:<br />
<div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The example I use with my own spiritual children is this, it may in fact be objectively the case that I am stupid and my mother dresses me funny, but it is unlikely that telling me this truth is sufficient to change my life. Still less is telling me this likely to encourage me to trust you and give you a place of authority in my life. And let us make no mistake here, in any conversation I have, I only listen to the views of those who I see as authoritative—I might or might not trust [their] authority, but I still must see them as an authority for me.</blockquote>
The great danger of polemics, he warns, is that in our rush to defend "the truth" it is all too easy to become oppositional and hostile, to cease acting and treating others in accordance with that truth.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Whatever the reason, sharp disagreements are inevitable when we are looking together at what divides us. Polemics, however, seem to me to begin with that sharp disagreement. In so doing, they are intellectually unchaste embodying as they do an underlying lack of respect for the limitations of both self and others. In our polemical attitude we are freed from any consideration of our own passions in the pursuit of the Truth. The fact that we often say things which are true does not remove from us the burden of intellectual dishonesty.</blockquote>
<h4>
Truth as appetite </h4>
If we treat dialogue as merely an exchange and weighing of "objective" truths for which the persons involved are merely vehicles, we leave the personal dimension (which is closer to the level on which Truth actually exists) of the "rational" conversation to be governed by our sinful passions. University of Alberta professor David Goa, beginning with the quote by St. Isaac, <a href="http://incommunion.org/2007/05/09/zealous-for-truth/">describes</a> more precisely how this happens. He sums up relativism and zealousness for the truth as two sides of the same coin, two related ways of "misunderstanding our deep desire for a firm truth. ... In both we see this human desire [for truth] turned into an appetite." What follows is a deep diagnosis of the polemical attitude:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Whatever we come to look at and care about is then forced into conformity with the idea, image, or ritual that we have erected as absolute. We begin to hang all our hopes and dreams on the truth of our chosen framework, our precious absolutes (including the relativists’ precious absolute that there is nothing of ultimate value). Our longing is captured by an absolute of our own making. It follows, almost without saying, that once we hang all our hopes and dreams on something that we claim as absolute, it is a short step to hanging all our fears on it as well. In this moment the holy longing of the human heart and mind that lies behind the search for absolutes becomes polluted. Zealousness for the truth frames how we see and understand and reshapes our response to the fragility of the life of the world.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It is this passion, this disease, that St. Isaac says we are freed from
when we learn what truth is really like. But we are only open to learn
what truth is like when our understanding of truth itself is
transformed. </blockquote>
</div>
<div>
For the relativist, this transformation involves letting go of the rejection of absolutes. But his description of the one who is zealous for truth sounds uncomfortably like me:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The zealous, often religious men and women, have yet to walk through the valley of shattered absolutes. They erect elaborate temples of truth, statement-by-statement, fact-by-fact, temples that have turrets strategically located, each well armed and poised to fire at a moment’s notice. Both the relativist and the zealous are spiritual adolescents at best, and in our fragile world, where the news media often shape the public discourse, they have bonded with each other to divert attention away from serious encounter with “what truth is really like.”</blockquote>
Using public discourse about Islam as an example, Goa goes on to describe how parties (for example, political parties) that are diametrically at odds with one another can unwittingly work together to "contribute with equal passion to the emotional landscape that traps the human spirit somewhere between indignation, despair and cynicism." Both parties antagonistically use the pressure and the perceived threat posed by each other "to reduce complex issues and themes to what they have come to understand in their zeal." For the positions of the religious right and secular left, "truth has become coterminous with a selected set of facts, real or imagined." He then seeks to apply the line of thought offered by St. Isaac to this standoff:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
For St. Isaac, zeal for truth is itself a symptom of a spiritual disease. Or, perhaps, it is a condition that tends to develop at a certain stage in the spiritual life and is itself simply a marker of that stage. It is the spiritual equivalent of adolescence where the young try out all sorts of ideas and actions with the conviction that no one else has ever had these thoughts or feelings and they are exploring them for the first time. How can it be that no one else has ever seen just how important and ultimate these thoughts and feelings are?</blockquote>
<div>
Recall what Fr. Gregory wrote about "mental health" as the the integrity and functioning of our natural faculties, something in which we should develop over the course of our lives. Zealousness for truth occurs when this growth is arrested by our stubbornly clinging to a certain set of facts as "the truth". And so, "one is stuck in the adolescent stage of the spiritual life."<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Better than most wings of the Christian tradition, Orthodoxy has understood that the concern for truth and the question of truth are not anchored or bounded either by philosophical concepts or principles or by historical fact. <b>Fact is not truth nor is truth merely fact. Truth is far beyond the reach of fact.</b> That either philosophical ideas or historical facts are cast in the language of the Christian teaching does not make them any more a matter of truth. You can dress them up all you like, but they remain exposed for what they are, simulacrums for truth. They all indicate that one has not “tasted of truth.”</blockquote>
Goa is exploring the implications of what I <a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2014/11/my-journey-part-12-bridging-cracks.html">glimpsed</a> as I was investigating Orthodoxy, that Truth is not merely "that which corresponds to reality", but reality itself—the supreme Reality, God in three Persons. Statements of fact, while they may soundly describe this Reality, are not the Reality Himself. When we make something less than this Reality the "absolute truth" around which we orient ourselves, no matter how correctly it describes reality, we have replaced the Truth with something less than ultimately true. And this substitution, this idolatry, is the basis for "zealousness for truth".<br />
<div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
We want the comfort of our truth statements, of our elevated theologically clothed philosophical doctrines. And we want them because we are addicted to the spiritual adrenalin we feel at the sudden rush of winning, at least in our own minds and hearts, the argument for truth. We want to be defender of the faith, the kind of person who knows he is right and takes pride in staking a claim to what is true no matter what the cost.</blockquote>
Orthodox are no strangers to this phenomenon, especially converts to the faith, who go through what is known as "conversion sickness" (as useful a reference as my lengthy series on becoming Orthodox is, I was probably in the throes of conversion sickness when I wrote it). Calvinists apparently go through it as well, calling it the <a href="http://www.ligonier.org/blog/cage-stage-calvinism">"cage stage"</a> (the word-picture implying that these zealous new converts need to be temporarily locked in a cage until they calm down to avoid hurting themselves or others). The remedy St. Isaac offers for this zealousness is to "taste the truth". Goa concludes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
We are called to better. We are called to better precisely because in Him who is “the truth and the life” we are freed from the habit of taking refuge in abstract notions of truth. If we taste of truth at every Eucharist we know better. If we taste of truth every time we, like the disciples, find ourselves in Emmaus breaking bread with someone we didn’t know we knew, we know better. We know better every time our hearts are moved with compassion.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
No wonder St. Isaac says that when we learn what truth really is we will cease being zealous for truth, cease responding as if it were our place to defend and protect truth. If the history of religions teaches us anything, and I think it teaches us much, it teaches us that one of the most serious religious diseases is zealousness. It was a deep concern to Jesus as he walked the valley of the Galilee and the streets of Jerusalem. And he finally healed us of its bondage when he spoke from the throne of the cross to those who were contentious for truth, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”</blockquote>
Fr. Gregory, in his <a href="http://palamas.blogspot.com/2008/06/polemics-zeal-and-st-isaac-syrian.html">last post</a> on the subject, finally cites both St. Isaac and Goa. After summarizing Goa, he concludes with his earlier point that</div>
<blockquote>
polemics, a zealous approach to the truth has a strangle hold on us because we do not wish to grow, to change. Our conversations are polemical because more often than not, our thinking about ourselves is static and rigid. Catholic/Orthodox polemics—at least as we see them in contemporary practice—are only accidentally theological. In the main (and I will address this more in another post) our polemics reflect our own lack of wholeness, of balance, of our own lack of virtue. We are, as I said earlier, neurotic.</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<h4>
To know the Truth </h4>
Drawing from multiple commentators, I hope I've painted a fairly clear picture of what he meant by "zealous" or "contentious" for truth. In contrast to the good, more metaphorical uses of these terms in the Bible to denote religious fervor and discipline, "zealousness for the truth" is, as Goa says, an appetite for certainty, our disordered passions—pride, insecurity, fear—hijacking our natural will's desire to know the Truth. We erect the system of our own perception of "truth" like a fortress, pledging to defend it against any and all threats, satisfying our appetite by zealously vindicating "the truth" as we see it over against the falsehoods that others have come to stand for in our eyes. In 1 Corinthians 11:16 the word translated into "contentious" is is <i>philoneikos</i>, literally "victory-loving"—a telling construction. Safe and secure in our fortress of facts, we don't authentically encounter God, ourselves, or others, but only the thrill and agony projected by our passions onto the contentious interplay of "truths" being lobbed across the great divide.<br />
<br />
Implicit in Isaac's statement is that the truth we are zealous for is something less than the real Truth, which the "zealous" have not yet tasted. Zealousness for truth, as I have been describing it, entails the substitution of a rigid, constructed system of "truth" for openness to encountering and being changed by the Truth that exceeds all of our attempts to define and circumscribe it. When we move from reality to statements corresponding to reality, however correct the correspondence may be, we are removed a step from tasting the truth. This step back is the basis of the "human tradition" that Jesus (Mark 7:8) and the Reformers rightly deplored. Holy Tradition, if it is to be any different, must be the Church's Spirit-guided ascent towards, and life within, the divine Reality, never stopping to accept any lesser construction as ultimate. (Apophatic theology, "theology of negation", is one way of realizing this)<br />
<br />
Our need to always be open to and growing is why an inherently parsimonious of minimal approach to truth, such as the Enlightenment ideal of questioning everything and basing one's beliefs only on what can be demonstrated by reason, is inappropriate for us. For if we refuse to accept anything that we cannot fit into our established system of truth, that cannot pass by the gatekeeper of our judgment, we make it impossible to grow in the truth, to be changed by it. We become "closed-minded". There is a similar danger to insisting on only "objectively knowing" the truth at the expense of subjectively engaging with it.<br />
<br />
In the Orthodox tradition Truth is, most "truly", the person of Christ (Jhn 14:6), the "one who is", the ultimate Reality and the ground of all being. To know this Truth is to participate in him, to be known by him. Christ is the reality towards which all of our statements and doctrines are directed; they call us forward, to actually taste the Truth, to push past all lesser substitutes. (This is why no one is simply argued into believing, because belief is so much more than the acceptance of certain facts) Thus truth does exist "out there", independently of ourselves, as apologists for "absolute truth" are so quick to assert, but it does not exist independently of persons; rather, the Truth is a Person. The Truth objectively exists (in fact, he exists much more objectively than we do), but cannot be truly known objectively. To know God is to love God. (1 John 4:7-8) Relationships, intercommunion or sharing of life between persons, are much closer to the "natural language" of the Truth than mere words or propositions.<br />
<br />
If this really is the case, then it is obvious that the Truth does not need our help, in contrast to systems of truth constructed by us. We need the Truth, he does not need us. And so it is that "tasting the truth" frees us from needing to be zealous on its behalf. Once we have actually tasted truth, our assurance and experience of truth is no longer based on a system that we construct in our minds and need to defend, but on reality, on living experience which is not in any way endangered by what others are saying; we know better. In Orthodox thought, knowledge is indistinguishable from participation. Tasting the truth, partaking in the truth, frees us from the neurotic doubt that drives us to zealously defend truth. The real problem is not the truth itself being somehow threatened, but simply people refusing it, preferring darkness to light, and we respond not by treating them as enemies to be polemically defeated, but by inviting them in.<br />
<h4>
Tasting the Truth</h4>
</div>
<div>
St. Isaac's words come as an answer to the intense concern I felt for the "unity of the church" and divisions among Christians during my period of doubt. I was grieved by the polemics, the doctrinal disagreements, and the schisms I saw among Christians, and not just because they made it impossible for me to find "true" teaching concerning my doubts without arbitrarily choosing the version I wanted to accept. I sensed that the state of division I felt immersed in was not the way things were supposed to be. While I no longer believe that the mystical body of Christ is divided in this way (praise God for this), this study of polemics has allowed me to see more clearly what was going on, and why theological debates are so intractable: one or more parties have made truth into a sinful appetite, substituted their own perception for reality, and dug into polemical trenches, ready to defend "the truth" against all threats.<br />
<br />
The real kicker is that this can happen regardless of the "truth" of the position being defended, how well it expresses reality. <b>Belief that you are in the right, no matter how well-substantiated, does not justify "zealousness for the truth", but rather is undermined by it.</b> Humility, admission of our own weakness, removal of the plank in our eye are just as essential in discussions of traditions and truth as everywhere else. Faith in the Truth can invisibly slip into faith in ourselves as its designated defenders. Zeal for a "false" belief isn't just a matter of ignorance, illogic, bias, or faulty reasoning; it is a symptom of sin, a sickness of the soul. Proving a zealous person wrong, even if you somehow manage to do it, won't cure them of their zeal. Instead we must confront zealousness with patience, grace, and compassion, not contentiousness in kind, like any other sin.<br />
<br />
Zealousness for the truth, the mirror image of postmodern pluralism and relativism, pervades our society (especially in election years). It characterizes a fair amount of the dialogue between Christians, especially those belonging to disparate traditions, as well as the constant skirmishes of the "culture wars". But reflecting on St. Isaac's words, I see the pattern he describes nowhere so clearly as in myself—as I feel threatened and angered by opposing viewpoints, build "temples [of truth] that have turrets strategically located, each well armed and poised to fire at a moment’s notice", or leap at opportunities to represent and defend all the treasure I have found in the Orthodox tradition.<br />
<br />
Especially now, I am glad that St. Isaac did not speak of "tasting" the truth merely metaphorically, but concretely and intentionally. For in just three days, I will be received into the Orthodox Church by the sacrament of chrismation and finally, after a year and a half of visiting, partake in the mysteries of the body and blood of Christ. On that day, I pray that St. Isaac's words will be fulfilled in me as I taste the Word who gave himself for my sake.</div>
Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08244026688548871531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4225502016359798858.post-87410981490615660252016-04-11T16:19:00.000-05:002016-04-11T16:19:32.925-05:00Zealously Contending for Truth?<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://images.oca.org/icons/lg/january/0128isaac-syria02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://images.oca.org/icons/lg/january/0128isaac-syria02.jpg" height="400" width="213" /></a>Someone who has actually tasted truth is not contentious for truth.
Someone who is considered by people to be zealous for truth has not yet
learnt what truth is really like; once he has truly learnt it, he will
cease from zealousness on its behalf. (Kephalaia IV.77; <i>The Wisdom of Saint Isaac the Syrian</i>, translated by Sebastian Brock)</div>
</blockquote>
<hr />
When I first came across this passage of St. Isaac a few months ago, it grabbed my attention forcefully because I recognized its truth in myself (and not because I'm "someone who has actually tasted truth"). As I've listened to the reflections of wiser men than myself, I've began to glimpse its profundity, far greater than I first imagined. In just a few words, this bishop who lived in the seventh century on the other side of the world diagnosed a spiritual sickness that is running rampant to this day.<br />
<br />
Before I can begin to explore more of what St. Isaac meant, a bit of ground-clearing is in order. He wrote against being "zealous" or "contentious" for truth, but aren't we supposed to have zeal for God (Rom 10:2, 2 Cor 7:11), and "to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 1:3 ESV)? How can Isaac proscribe what God commands?<br />
<br />
The first thing to note is that as his title implies, St. Isaac the Syrian was not writing in Greek, but in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syriac_language">Syriac</a>, so of course the words he used for "zealousness" or "contentious" are not exactly the same ones used in the New Testament. This makes possible the same kind of semantic slippage that we see in the denigration of the "passions" (<i>epithymia</i>) as dangerous and needing to be subdued both in the New Testament (Rom 6:12, Gal 5:24, Tit 2:12) and in the Orthodox tradition, whereas today the word "passion" is used much more positively, especially in Evangelical Christianity, to mean a God-given affinity or calling to something that is generally worth following.<br />
<br />
I don't know a word of Syriac, but I can at least investigate how the New Testament speaks of "zeal" or "contending". The <a href="https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G1864&t=NKJV">word</a> used in Jude 1:3 is unique in the NT, but it is constructed from the more common root <a href="https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?strongs=G75&t=NKJV"><i>agonizomai</i></a>, "I struggle/fight", used by Paul to refer to "fighting the good fight" (1 Tim 6:12, 2 Tim 4:7), as well as striving in the work of God (Col 1:29) or to lay hold of salvation (Luke 13:24). Paul uses it to metaphorically describe the way of Christ as a foot race in which we compete for the prize, salvation (1 Cor 9:25). Just once is it used negatively, to refer to physically fighting in John 18:36.<br />
<br />
The Greek word for "zeal", in both its <a href="https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G2205&t=NKJV">noun</a> and <a href="https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G2206&t=NKJV">verb</a> forms, is more mixed. It frequently denotes envy, jealousy, or coveting (Acts 7:9, 13:45 17:5, Rom 13:13, 1 Cor 13:4, 2 Cor 12:20, Gal 5:20, Jas 3:14,16, 4:2) and can also mean indignation (Acts 5:17, Heb 10:27). But it can also be rendered as earnest desire (1 Cor 12:31, 14:1,39) or simply "zeal" (John 2:17, Rom 10:2, 2 Cor 7:7, 11, 9:2, Phil 3:6, Col 4:13, Rev 4:19). Paul writes that "it is good to be zealous in a good thing always" (Gal 4:18 NKJV). Paul is "jealous for you [the Corinthians] with godly jealousy" (2 Cor 11:2), and in the Septuagint God himself teaches that he is a "jealous God" (Exo 20:5, 34:14, Deu 4:24, 5:9, 6:15, Jos 24:19).<br />
<br />
What it seems to me is happening with these usages is that zeal/jealousy and contending/fighting/struggling, while <i>literally</i> denoting undesirable qualities, are being used <i>metaphorically</i> to mean something good. I don't know what else to make of "godly jealousy". It's somewhat like how Jesus commands us to hate our parents (Luk 14:26)—obviously he is not commanding us to break the fifth commandment, but calling us to love God so surpassingly above any other attachment that it seems like hatred in comparison.<br />
<br />
Most people are already aware of this example; I think something similar is going on with the usage of <i>epagonizomai</i> and <i>zelos/zeloo</i>. Physical altercations and quarrels have no place among God's people, but there is a "good fight" to fight (1 Tim 6:12), and we are to "contend" for the faith (Jude 1:3)—describing how we are to strive for the life and salvation of ourselves and others with the vigor and discipline of an athlete or a soldier. God's concern for the good of his people, that they worship and serve only him, is so strong and stringent that it is described as jealousy (Exo 20:5), as is Paul's (2 Cor 11:2). God wants us to belong to him and not to any idol or lesser thing. When applied to us (Gal 4:18), <i>zeloo</i> probably likewise refers to the fervor, exclusivity, and purity of our devotion to "a good thing", and not anything else. Likewise, the "zeal" for which the Levite Phinehas is commended in Numbers 25:11 (same Greek root) is his concern for the purity of Israel's worship, mirroring God's zeal/jealousy for his people.<br />
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Presumably, St. Isaac did not have these positive meanings of "zealous" and "contentious" in mind, but was writing more literally, with the negative connotations not elided through metaphor. I also think he was speaking more with respect to the inner life, whereas the NT authors are metaphorically describing external actions and disciplines by drawing parallels between them and combativeness or jealousy. (This is especially evident in descriptions of God as jealous, which are certainly anthropomorphisms) The Reformed theologian R.C. Sproul <a href="http://www.ligonier.org/blog/cage-stage-calvinism/">paraphrases</a> his peer John Piper as aptly saying "that we not only have to believe the
truth, that it’s not enough even to defend the truth, but we must also
contend for the truth. That does not mean, however, that we are to be
contentious people by nature." I think St. Isaac is highlighting this same distinction, between contending for the truth and becoming contentious.<br />
<br />
That wraps up the ground-clearing. The next post will be longer and delve as deeply as I can manage into what St. Isaac <i>did</i> mean.Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08244026688548871531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4225502016359798858.post-8439523460063486732016-03-08T09:59:00.000-06:002016-11-01T14:36:55.777-05:00Freedom and Free Choice<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container tr_bq" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6e/EdwardMoran-UnveilingTheStatueofLiberty1886Large.jpg/800px-EdwardMoran-UnveilingTheStatueofLiberty1886Large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6e/EdwardMoran-UnveilingTheStatueofLiberty1886Large.jpg/800px-EdwardMoran-UnveilingTheStatueofLiberty1886Large.jpg" width="314" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Unveiling of the Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World</i><br />
(1886), by Edward Moran</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In terms of importance to the western cultural <i>ethos</i>, freedom or liberty is up there in the company of such ideological priorities as life and equality. The story of modernity is easily conceptualized as a progression from less freedom to more freedom, from bondage to despots, superstition, and the shackles of nature to the freedom offered by liberal democracy. More "freedom", whatever form it may take, is a Good Thing; it is thus common for debates on social issues to be framed in terms of promoting freedom.<br />
<br />
Just what kind of "freedom" is being assumed here? Arguably, it is the freedom of choice, of self-determination, the freedom to chart one's own course in life by acting on one's free will, and the corresponding freedom from any oppressive constraints that prevent one from doing so. (This is the distinction between <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_liberty">positive</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_liberty">negative liberty</a>) On a societal level, in modern liberal democracies this freedom is seen as a goal in itself; it serves to support and ensure the capacity of the individual to formulate and live out his or her own goals in life, whatever they may be, and it is the duty of the state to protect it.<br />
<br />
But, however praiseworthy the power of choice may be, does "freedom" truly consist in it? I would disagree. Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart (in a <i>First Things </i><a href="http://www.firstthings.com/article/2004/06/freedom-and-decency">article</a> about, of all things, Janet Jackson's accidental exposure at the Super Bowl) considers the consequence of equating freedom with choice to be "that we tend to elevate what should at best be regarded as the moral life’s minimal condition to the status of its highest expression, and in the process reduce the very concept of freedom to one of purely libertarian or voluntarist spontaneity." For Hart, and for many others in the eastern Christian tradition, "freedom" includes, but is much more than, the freedom of choice. "True freedom," he says, drawing on the definition inherited by classical Christianity from Platonic philosophy, "is the realization of a complex nature in its proper good (that is, in both its natural and supernatural ends); it is the freedom of a thing to flourish, to become ever more fully what it is."<br />
<br />
In light of this definition, choice is not automatically an expression of freedom, but can actually impair it. In fact, as Hart says in his book <i>The Doors of the Sea</i>, "the will that chooses poorly, then—through ignorance, maleficence, or corrupt desire—has not thereby become freer, but has further enslaved itself to those forces that prevent it from achieving its full expression." (71) Freedom is not simply the ability to choose between ends arbitrarily; it
is directed towards a particular end, the realization of what we are, what we are created to be (not simply what we choose or wish to be via self-determination), and freedom is truly suppressed when this realization is hindered—even by our "free" choice. The particularity, the directionality toward which our nature is oriented, far from a constraint which much be cast off to maximize freedom, is rather the mode in which we are most truly free. In the words of my high school economics teacher, true freedom is freedom <i>for</i> (the full realization of our nature), not merely freedom <i>from</i> (oppression and constraint).<br />
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In Orthodox theology, this dynamic is applied in the distinction between two kinds of "will", the natural will and the gnomic will, developed especially by the 7th-century church father Maximos, as Fr. Stephen Freeman <a href="http://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2015/06/23/the-right-choice/">explains</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
St. Maximos the Confessor, in writings that have become the teaching of the Church following the 5th Ecumenical Council, held that there is such a thing as the “natural will.” This is the will of our human nature. The natural will always wills the good and right thing. It wills the proper end and direction for a human being. This is an inherent part of every nature. It “wants to be” what it is, so to speak. But we do not directly experience our nature for the most part. What we experience as “choice” is a brokenness that St. Maximos called the “gnomic will.” It does its best (as we do when we’re at our best) but is frequently torn between things.</blockquote>
The innate desire of the natural will is the "true freedom" described above by Hart. It is an inalienable part of who we are, namely beings created good by a loving and all-powerful God for union with him (cf. John 17:21-22), and through it we innately, <i>naturally</i> desire to be more what we really are. Our created freedom to realize this highest end is a consequence of our creation in the image of God (Gen 1:20-21), who is perfectly and completely free to be who he is, as the second-century church father St. Irenaeus writes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If then it were not in our power to do or not to do these things, what reason had the apostle, and much more the Lord Himself, to give us counsel to do some things, and to abstain from others? But because man is possessed of free will from the beginning, and God is
possessed of free will, in whose likeness man was created, advice is
always given to him to keep fast the good, which thing is done by means
of obedience to God. (Irenaeus, <i>Against Heresies</i> IV.37.4)</blockquote>
Throughout this section, Irenaeus presupposes that the created nature of man and the biblical admonishments to obey and choose the good which he is given entail the power of choice, "so that those who had yielded obedience might justly possess what is good, given indeed by God, but preserved by themselves." (IV.37.1) Our active, free participation in the good is what makes it so precious and worthwhile. In the same vein, St. Gregory of Nyssa later wrote in the fourth century:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
He who created human beings in order to make them share in his own
fullness so disposed their nature that it contains the principle of all
that is good, and each of these dispositions draws them to desire the
corresponding divine attribute. So God could not have deprived them of
the best and most precious of his attributes, his freedom. (Gregory of
Nyssa, <i>Catechetical Oration</i> 5)</blockquote>
But obviously we do not always realize the desire of this natural will. We <i>sin</i>, we miss the mark, we fall short of attaining to the likeness of God (Rom 3:23) as our natural will desires. And so, because of sin, our will experiences fragmentation, debilitation, corruption, inner division. We become double-minded, as James describes in chapter 1 of his epistle. Our nature itself does not change (for this is a misunderstanding of the concept of "nature", and otherwise no one could "by nature do" the things of the law, as Paul describes in Rom 2:14, followed by a description of the double-mindedness involved). As Freeman writes, if our nature had actually changed from good to evil, "we could never be nor become what we truly are", because we would <i>truly be </i>evil, and any change from this natural state would be a delusion. Nor is our freedom of choice totally abolished, for then we could not be held responsible for sin (a common intuition among the Fathers, especially Irenaeus and Chrysostom), but the faculties of our nature, the will and the passions, are blinded and corrupted. The image of God is still very much present in us, and our nature remains good just as God created it, but the expressions of these things become distorted and confused.<br />
<br />
And so choice, intended to be the manifestation of our natural will's freedom, always freely choosing God, instead becomes its own kind of bondage. Choice is no longer simply the singular voice of the natural will calling out to God and freely moving towards him, but an often agonizing and unclear deliberation of one course of action among numerous alternatives. We have to choose because we are torn between the still, small voice of the natural will and the corruption of sin, and so situations that are transparent to the natural will seem opaque to us. For to one who knows the way perfectly, there is no real "choice" to make between possible routes; there is only freedom to walk the Way. Similarly, I normally don't have to "choose" to be faithful to my wife, but only in times of extreme temptation and weakness do any alternatives to faithfulness begin to seem like possibilities. This imprisoning necessity of choice which the world considers true freedom is what Maximos calls the "gnomic will". Hart writes that "this is the minimum that liberty must assume; but it is also, just as obviously, a form of subordination and confinement." (<i>The Doors of the Sea</i>, 70-71) Freeman further <a href="http://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2015/07/10/the-voice-of-the-natural-will/">describes</a> our situation:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
We may choose countless numbers of ways to remain in bondage. But unless and until we can see the proper goal of our life and existence, we cannot freely choose it. We live our lives in an illusion created by free-choice, but always with a vague, haunting sense that something is missing – this is the echo of the natural will.</blockquote>
This is something like how Orthodox believe that we have the freedom of choice, so that we can actually be expected to obey the commands of God and held responsible for disobedience, while remaining enslaved to sin and unable to free ourselves. For we are not saved simply by making the right choices, even if salvation necessarily involves our active "yes". Christ promises to set us <i>free</i>, as in John 8:32-36—what kind of freedom is this? Not the voluntaristic freedom of choice idealized by modern western culture (which, as we have seen, is really the expression of our captivity), but the kind that makes us "slaves" to God and to righteousness (Rom 6:18-22). This is no paradox or contradiction, but the heart of Christian soteriology.<br />
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In my opinion it is characteristic of the western controversies about justification and the "order of salvation", especially following the Reformation, to conflate and confuse these two kinds of freedom or willing. Pelagius, against whose teaching much of the debate was reacting in one way or another, arguably did so. Jaroslav Pelikan describes Pelagius' view:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[To Pelagius, t]he doctrine of original sin was self-contradictory. 'If sin is natural, it is not voluntary; if it is voluntary, it is not inborn. These two definitions are as mutually contradictory as a necessity and [free] will.' Even after sin the will remained as free as it had before sin was committed, for man continued to have 'the possibility of committing sin or of refraining from sin.' (<i>The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition</i>, 315)</blockquote>
Pelagius' heresy, in one sense, was the denial that we are any less free after sinning than we are before, because sin remains voluntary; we can seemingly choose to sin or not. Yet as we have seen, according to the Orthodox tradition choosing not to do any particular sin does not make us any freer; we remain trapped in the necessity and blindness of choice itself. In a very real sense, all of our choices not made by faith, even our "good" ones, are sinful (that is, they miss the mark of union with God); see Rom 14:23. Despite having the "freedom" to choose, we remain in bondage to sin. Pelagius' error was supposing that because the gnomic will remains "free", the natural will must be free as well.<br />
<br />
The Protestant response to Pelagianism tends to continue his conflation of the natural and gnomic wills and argues the contrapositive—that because our natural will is bound, our gnomic will must be bound as well and our "freedom of choice" abolished. Instead of the minimal, sorry condition of our fallen nature, free choice is seen as somehow exceptional, a power that has been lost to the Fall, the power to "save oneself" in a Pelagian sense. Conversely, when we are made "free" in Christ, this refers to the restoration of choice; as one saying puts it, after redemption in Christ, we become free to sin or not to sin, whereas before, we could only choose to sin. The role of choice in salvation, somewhat paradoxically, thus tends to be exaggerated, especially in traditions placing great emphasis on the "decision for Christ" as the decisive crux when someone "gets saved".<br />
<br />
This way of thinking presupposes a radical view of the Fall as abolishing or destroying the image of God in man, or actually changing our nature to be evil instead of good as originally created (which, again, is a contradiction of the classical definition of "nature"). As the commonly used term "sinful nature" suggests, in this view sin is taken to have become the "natural" or baseline condition of our existence as human. Such an intensive view of the Fall is unknown in the Fathers, and is considered by Orthodox to be incompatible with the doctrine of creation, and of evil as a privation of the good. For in this view, sin cannot exist on its own, as a discrete <i>thing</i> occupying the place formerly held by the love for God in our natural will, but only as a parasite, alongside and beneath a good will. If there were no prior desire for God in our hearts, there would be nothing for sin to corrupt. If the image of God were not only tarnished and damaged, but actually destroyed, along with our free will, we would be little different from the animals, unable to be held responsible for our sins (St. Irenaeus expresses this idea in <i>Against Heresies</i> IV.37.2), and there would be no one to save. St. John of Damascus wrote that "God made [man] by nature sinless, and endowed him with free will. By sinless, I mean not that sin could find no place in him (for that is the case with Deity alone), but that sin is the result of the free volition he enjoys rather than an integral part of his nature." (<i>The Orthodox Faith</i> II.12) Our freedom of choice is not removed by sin; it is what <i>makes it possible </i>for us to sin (and to be saved).<br />
<br />
All of this speaks to my prior confusion about how the Fall could have actually changed our nature; how did Adam have such power to do so? Why can I not change my nature back through my own choice, as he apparently did? Or did God inflict the "sinful nature" on him as a punishment, thus creating the problem he would later solve through the gospel? As I came to understand and accept the Orthodox teaching on the matter, it became much clearer.<br />
<br />
So for the Orthodox, "free" choice is not as a casualty of sin, but a symptom of it: it entails not that we have the power to save ourselves in a Pelagian sense, but that we are "rational" (not mere animals), able to be held responsible for our deeds. It is not really "free", not in the sense of being somehow prevented from choosing good, but because it testifies to our weakness, our frailty, our inability to see and know the good and our resulting vacillation between good and evil, or (as we all too often perceive them) pleasure and pain. Our rejecting the evil and choosing the good does not, in itself, make us any freer; against Pelagianism, Orthodoxy rejects the notion that we can be saved simply by the exercise of the will, without the intervention of divine grace received through faith. In other words, our "free will" (as choice) is not constrained; it is itself the constraint on the innate desire of our deeper, still-good natural will, as Hart summarizes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The natural will must return to God, no matter what, but if the freedom of the gnomic will refuses to open itself to the mercy and glory of God, the wrathful soul experiences the transfiguring and deifying fire of love not as bliss but as chastisement and despair. The highest freedom and happiness of the creature ... is the perfection of the creature's nature in union with God. And the highest work of providential grace is to set our deepest, 'natural' will free from everything (even the abuse of our freedom) that would separate us from that end, all the time preserving the dignity of the divine image within us. (<i>The Doors of the Sea</i>, 85)</blockquote>
The <a href="http://www.crivoice.org/creeddositheus.html"><i>Confession of Dositheos</i></a>, an Orthodox confession promulgated by the Synod of Jerusalem in 1672 largely in response to the claims of Calvinism, expresses how the human will can naturally choose what is good (explaining how, in the language of total depravity, man is not as evil as he could be), but cannot do any "spiritual good" (leading to real salvation) without grace working through faith.<br />
<blockquote>
We believe man in falling by the [original] transgression to have become comparable and similar to the beasts; that is, to have been utterly undone, and to have fallen from his perfection and impassibility, yet not to have lost the nature and power which he had received from the supremely good God. For otherwise he would not be rational, and consequently not a human. So [he still has] the same nature in which he was created, and the same power of his nature, that is free-will, living and operating, so that he is by nature able to choose and do what is good, and to avoid and hate what is evil. For it is absurd to say that the nature which was created good by Him who is supremely good lacks the power of doing good. For this would be to make that nature evil — what could be more impious than that? For the power of working depends upon nature, and nature upon its author, although in a different manner. And that a man is able by nature to do what is good, even our Lord Himself intimates saying, even the Gentiles love those that love them. {Matthew 5:46; Luke 6:32} But this is taught most plainly by Paul also, in Romans 1:19, [actually Rom 2:14] and elsewhere expressly, saying in so many words, “The Gentiles which have no law do by nature the things of the law.” From which it is also apparent that the good which a man may do cannot truly be sin. For it is impossible for that what is good to be evil. Although, being done by nature only and tending to form the natural character of the doer but not the spiritual, it does not itself contribute to salvation without faith Nor does it lead to condemnation, for it is not possible that good, as such, can be the cause of evil. But in the regenerated, what is wrought by grace, and with grace, makes the doer perfect, and renders him worthy of salvation. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
A man, therefore, before he is regenerated, is able by nature to incline to what is good, and to choose and work moral good. But for the regenerated to do spiritual good — for the works of the believer being contributory to salvation and wrought by supernatural grace are properly called spiritual — it is necessary that he be guided and prevented [preceded] by grace, as has been said in treating of predestination. Consequently, he is not able of himself to do any work worthy of a Christian life, although he has it in his own power to will, or not to will, to co-operate with grace.</blockquote>
Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08244026688548871531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4225502016359798858.post-24568547416040164442016-01-26T17:19:00.006-06:002017-04-11T12:37:37.160-05:00Why I Am (Becoming) OrthodoxAlmost since I started becoming interested in Orthodoxy, a recurring theme in my journal entries has been my attempts to write an "elevator pitch" for it, not as if I were trying to sell something but a concise summary of why I find it convincing and why I am in the midst of a long transition from evangelical to Orthodox Christianity. If my 23-post <a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2015/04/my-journey-part-16-looking-back-coming.html">series</a> is any indication, I haven't come very close to "concise" yet. After a lot of reflection and brainstorming, I'm giving it a try now. Here are ten reasons why I am (becoming) Orthodox, hopefully kept to a short enough length that you won't have to schedule a time to read them in your calendar. (Optionally, compare my list with <a href="http://blogs.ancientfaith.com/roadsfromemmaus/2014/02/10/12-reasons-why-i-became-andor-remain-an-orthodox-christian/">that of Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick</a>, in which I see some similarities with my reasons)<br />
<ol>
<li><b>The Incarnation.</b> Perhaps the most fundamental reason I am drawn to Orthodoxy is how totally the Incarnation pervades everything the Church believes, prays, and does—what Fr. Alexander Schmemann calls the "sacramental worldview". This manifests in at least five areas (although the -logy terms I use for them are not used very commonly in Orthodoxy, nor are they treated as much like distinct fields of study as they are in Protestant theology):<ul>
<li>Epistemology: Reflects the reality that Jesus is "the Truth" (John 14:6), i.e. that the Truth is a human person, and deeply explores and applies the implications of this. The result is that the faith is never remotely reducible to a body of doctrines to be believed; knowing God or having right theology is irreducibly relational as it is also propositional. Both the head and the heart are involved in really doing theology (in Greek usage the human capacity to know God is thought to be centered in the heart).</li>
<li>Bibliology: Similarly applies the reality that Jesus is the Word (John 1:1); Scripture is read as a fully divine and fully human book whose purpose is to witness to Christ and express the faith he embodies. The "Word of God" is usually understood to refer to Christ, not the Scriptures. The human and divine aspects of Scripture, as well as of the Holy Tradition of which it is the center and within which it is rightly read, are seen as complementary rather than conflicting.</li>
<li>Ecclesiology: The Church is viewed as the body of Christ, an incarnational (not just a sociological) reality, defined as much by its unique and salvific relationship by God as by its members. In Orthodoxy the Church is seen as truly one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.</li>
<li>Soteriology: Unabashedly synergistic; with the Incarnation as an example, there is again harmony rather than tension or competition between our will and God's, just as is embodied in Christ. (The doctrine of dyothelitism, "two wills")</li>
<li>Doxology (that is, worship): Holistic, utilizing all the senses, reflecting the fact that God became matter and saves us through matter. Thus the form worship takes is viewed as just as significant and meaningful as the "message" it carries. It is centered around the Eucharist, which is in a sense a weekly celebration of the Incarnation.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><b>Orthodoxy's unbroken continuity with the early Church.</b> Amid a sea of Protestant denominations, churches, movements, theologies, and groups making conflicting claims to represent "original Christianity" and the resultant skeptical attitude that no one can claim to be the "one true Church", Orthodoxy's apostolic succession and Holy Tradition which seeks to receive, treasure, and preserve the Truth rather than modify it made its claims stand out as uniquely believable. I truly believe is it is the unbroken continuation of the apostolic faith into the present day. The relative similarity of Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy, despite the fact that they split off from each other long before the Catholics or Protestants went their separate ways, is striking and compelling evidence of the historical continuity of both.</li>
<li><b>Its clear, wholehearted, unqualified affirmation of God's goodness.</b> Uncertainty about God's goodness was the center of the struggles with doubt that led me to question everything I believed. Is God somehow complicit in the problem that "the gospel" solves? Is he the one from whom we are saved? Is sin willed by God, another means he uses to show forth his glory? Is death a punishment for sin created by God? Does God need to punish our sin before he is able to forgive us? Is his "justice" in tension or opposed to his "mercy"? Does God will to save only some and not all? Orthodoxy's answer to all these questions is a resounding and decisive "No", and I am incredibly grateful for it. Of particular note is its teaching that hell is not a cruel and endless torture chamber, the damned soul's experience of God's anger and vengeance, but of his love, which to them is torment but which to the saints is unutterable bliss. The message is that the difference between heaven and hell is not simply in how God treats us (for God never changes, and his love towards sinners never wavers), but in how we are able (or not) to receive his presence. It is still a terrible teaching, but it is <i>fair</i> or <i>fitting</i> in a way Eternal Conscious Torment never was.</li>
<li><b>The indivisible unity of worship, prayer, theology, and life.</b> The theology of the Orthodox Church is not best expressed in a statement of faith or systematic theology (John of Damascus' <i>The Orthodox Faith</i> is the closest I know of to one), but in its worship, creeds, practices, and prayers. "Theology" is truly knowledge <i>of</i> God, not just knowledge <i>about</i> God; as Evagrius of Pontus put it, "if you are a theologian, you pray truly, and if you pray truly, you are a theologian." Orthodoxy is seen not merely as a <i>faith</i> but as a <i>way</i> (leading to salvation), a <i>life</i>, namely the common life of the Church in union with the life of Christ. Knowing the truth and practicing it are two sides of the same coin. As a corollary, there is not much of a gap between the Church and the academy; the Church's best theology is not done in isolation from its worship. Much more often, it is expressed in its worship.</li>
<li><b>Its beautiful, compelling, and perfectly-balanced vision of the gospel.</b> To name just a few of the things I appreciate:<ul>
<li>The theological focus on what we are saved <i>to</i>, namely the lofty (but attainable by the Spirit) goal of <i>theosis</i>, holistic, mystical, transformative union with God. What we celebrate in church each week, what I find constantly throughout Orthodox writings ancient and contemporary, is a joyful exploration of the riches we have in Christ, that is, what we receive and become through our salvation. A quote by St. Athanasius that is very frequently thrown around exemplifies this: "God became man that man might become god." Orthodoxy sets the bar for salvation very, very high and is itself the Way to reach it.</li>
<li>The gospel is cosmic as well as individual; objective as well as subjective. The constant focus in worship is on praising and making present objective spiritual realities, not just their subjective effects on and in me.</li>
<li>Salvation is physical as well as spiritual (the incarnational soteriology again); there is no popular misconception that Christianity is about "going to heaven when you die". Death in all its senses is the enemy just as much as sin is. The veneration of relics, far from idolatry, is a reflection of God's power to redeem even our physical bodies. Nothing God has made is outside the scope of the gospel.</li>
<li>Salvation is therapeutic rather than legalistic: we are saved not by meeting the right requirements in an impersonal system or being declared "not guilty" in a heavenly courtroom; though these metaphors can be applied, God does not need to do any such thing in order to forgive us, and they certainly do not describe the primary meaning of salvation. Rather, it is is viewed as healing, and sin, death, and the devil as oppressors from which Christ rescues us. What changes, what needs to change, is ourselves, not God's disposition towards us, which is in fact unchanging.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><b>Putting Christ and the cross front and center, in their fuller context.</b> The divine victory was won just as much at Christmas and Easter as on Good Friday. Salvation is equally the work of the Father, Son, and Spirit, not the Son in isolation. Orthodoxy proclaims this reality clearly.</li>
<li><b>Its wise wariness of the power of human reason,</b> as well as its detachment from modernity and related tendencies like rationalism and individualism. In fairness, this may be in part a historical accident reflecting Orthodoxy's isolation from Scholasticism and the Enlightenment, but I see a somewhat similar trend of cautious, thoughtful engagement in its relations with classical philosophers. I sometimes hear talk of the "noetic effects of sin" in Protestant circles, but Orthodoxy is much more methodologically thorough in its distrust of human reason, not least in its sensitivity to the role of mystery in theology and the necessity to read the Scriptures with the mind of the Church instead of one's own judgment. Rational thought is considered a useful tool to support our knowledge of the truth, but is not a necessary or absolute criterion for believing it.</li>
<li><b>No age discrimination in worship.</b> In an Orthodox Church, there is no Sunday school, at least not during the liturgy; children and infants are baptized and chrismated and thereafter fully participate in worship alongside their parents, up to and including the Eucharist. I didn't realize how significant this is until I had experienced it for a while, but now I think it's quite beautiful (many Orthodox cite it as an advantage over Roman Catholicism as well). This reflects quite visibly Orthodoxy's lessened focus on reason and head-level understanding, as well as its understanding of salvation as healing and sacrament as mystery. You don't need to rationally understand grace in order to partake in it; in fact, the ways in which we receive grace are at bottom not rationally understandable. It strikes me as the fulfillment of Jesus' words in Matthew 19:14: "Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Fr. Josiah Trenham comments on this: "It is not the children who must grow up and become like adults in order for them to be baptized and saved as the Baptists would have us believe, but, on the contrary, it is the adults who must be converted and become like children if they hope to be saved."</li>
<li><b>Its realization of things that feel like unreachable ideals in Protestantism.</b> Orthodoxy has great unity and clarity on "essentials of the faith", which is nominally the goal for Protestant unity but only rarely and incompletely achieved. Any Orthodox can tell you just what "praying continually" (1 Thessalonians 5:17) looks like in life, even if the saint who fully <i>becomes </i>prayer is a rare and precious sight indeed. There is no sense of a need to recover, rehabilitate, reclaim, or move towards important but missing parts of the faith; there is instead an almost tangible "fullness of the faith", which I heard mentioned by many others in my catechism class as a reason for their interest in Orthodoxy. This reflects the Church's unbroken continuity with the apostles, its preservation of the faith entrusted to them by Jesus, leaving nothing out.</li>
<li><b>A consistent stance toward all of these things</b>, rather than a confused or conflicted one. They are applied, not merely talked about or paid lip service. I found many of Orthodoxy's truths at least hinted at in the books I read while searching for the truth on my own, but too often they were just academic ideas, applied on a small or individual level if at all. But in Orthodoxy they are much more.</li>
</ol>
These reasons aren't meant as a decisive "proof" of the Orthodox faith (the concept of a "proof" connotes a kind of objectivity which I don't think is attainable at all in religious truth), or even as an argument for it; again, refer to my 23-post series if that's what you're looking for. They are rather a quick outline of why I find Orthodoxy convincing, and why I am joining it. Do any of them resonate with you as well?Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08244026688548871531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4225502016359798858.post-34713158303284755162015-11-30T17:50:00.001-06:002015-11-30T17:50:45.281-06:00The Culture of Martyrdom<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It feels like every few weeks that American Christians find something new to get angry over. Some examples from this year: the <a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2015/10/abortion-love-for-enemies-and-sins-of.html">false allegations</a> against Planned Parenthood that it sells aborted fetal tissue for profit, Kim Davis, the <i>Obergefell vs. Hodges</i> ruling legalizing same-sex marriage, the recent absurdity over Starbucks changing their cup design to not include generic symbols of winter, the more general perception of a "war on Christmas", and the perennial controversies over states/cities/schools not supporting public prayer or public endorsements of Christianity (as distinct from cracking down on the private practice of religion).<br />
<br />
Why is this Christian outrage so common? Some degree of pharisaic self-righteousness, of wanting to be (or feel) vindicated over against the sinful "world" probably has something to do with it. It is always far easier to identify and deplore error than it is to repair it, to proclaim the truth and embody the love with which we have been loved. There is also (as I pointed out in the context of the allegations against Planned Parenthood) a failure to love those one considers one's enemies, and an eagerness to believe the worst about them—and then get outraged over it. The capability of modern media, news and social, to spread a source of outrage like an epidemic well beyond its original scope to infect people who have nothing to do with it also has something to do with it. (Conversely, the media's role in amplifying and making visible the resulting outrage should not be underestimated) But I'm going to focus on and try to correct a reason for Christian outrage that arises from being aligned with the world, instead of overly hostile or self-righteous towards it.<br />
<br />
I'm referring to what social psychologist Jonathan Haidt (author of <i>The Righteous Mind</i> and co-author of the influential article <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/">The Coddling of the American Mind</a>) calls the <a href="http://righteousmind.com/where-microaggressions-really-come-from/">"moral culture of victimhood"</a>. That post on Haidt's blog is his summary of a paper by sociologists Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning, which posits the culture of victimhood as a new "moral culture" that influences how conflicts are handled, after the cultures of honor and dignity well-known to sociologists. In a culture of victimhood, individuals or groups respond to relatively minor slights not on their own but by calling for the intervention of an influential third party (in America, collegiate or governmental authorities). This requires the collecting of evidence or campaigning to convince the third party that they are being oppressed, denied equality, "victimized", or socially marginalized, and that this party's help is needed to end the injustice. This culture carries with it an elevation of victimhood as something desirable and virtuous; the authors wrote, "Thus we might call this moral culture a culture of victimhood because the moral status of the victim, at its nadir in honor cultures, has risen to new heights."<br />
<br />
This culture, as Campbell and Manning write, is most entrenched in college campuses where it encourages people belonging to groups seen as underprivileged to be hypersensitive to "microaggressions" directed against them, but a version of it has become influential in American Christianity. It is often referred to (by non-Christians) as the "persecution complex". As they point out in a <a href="http://righteousmind.com/campbell-and-manning-respond-to-readers-comments/">response</a> to comments on Haidt's blog:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
But we certainly see manifestations of [victimhood culture] elsewhere, and many of our readers have, in person or online, pointed to various examples of conservatives, evangelical Christians, or others complaining about minor slights, portraying themselves as oppressed, or in some other way claiming victim status. This is something we point out in our article – that if victimhood confers status, then all sorts of people will want to claim it.</blockquote>
In a Christian context, then, victimhood culture means calling out a perceived slight, injustice, or instance of oppression for one's faith as "religious persecution" or a step away from it and campaigning (the louder the better) for a powerful third party (often the government, or maybe sometimes the general public?) to step in and protect one's civil liberties. Feeding into this is a narrative of Christians as a socially marginalized and disadvantaged group in America, reinforced by all the ways in which our society is "rejecting God": acceptance of abortion and gay marriage, declining church attendance and increasing nonbelief, the secularization and pluralization of culture, and incidents like the ones I listed above. Every instance of "persecution" strengthens this narrative, and with it the influence of victimhood (or perhaps martyrdom) culture in American Christianity.<br />
<br />
As you may have guessed, I do not think victimhood culture is compatible with the Christian faith. Most of the time the persecution being experienced and causing the outrage is totally imaginary, as non-Christians can usually see pretty clearly. This wolf-crying has cost Christianity a lot of credibility in the outside world's eyes. America may not be a <a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2014/05/was-america-christian-nation.html">"Christian nation"</a>, but Christianity has long been woven deeply into its moral framework, and still occupies a relatively privileged cultural position. Considering Christians a persecuted minority because of a loss of cultural clout is doubly wrong and shows callous ignorance of what real religious persecution is (as any older Russian Orthodox could remind you). But <i>even if the persecution is real</i>, buying into the culture of victimhood is not an authentically Christian way to respond to it.<br />
<br />
The elevation of "victimhood" as a desirable (and yet negative) status strikes me as an inverted parody of the Lord's teaching: "But many who are first will be last, and the last first." (Matthew 19:30) In a moral culture of victimhood people compete to be seen as "last" or "least"—last in the social pecking order, least privileged, most defenseless and victimized—because "last" is the new "first". It is exactly the same worldly, self-seeking logic, only turned on its head. There is the same kind of competition, striving against one another to get yours (in this case, the power of being seen as a victim), because as Campbell and Manning explain, "while everyone can have dignity, not everyone can be a victim", just as not everyone can be the most powerful, the most influential, the richest. But this is not at all what Jesus meant. Victimhood culture encourages a show of false humility painted over deeper anger, fear, and self-centeredness, but the Lord commands <i>true </i>humility. "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves" (Philippians 2:3), not in order that you might be vindicated against them through the exercise of this-worldly justice, but to love and serve them.<br />
<br />
St. Paul more fully defines this love in his famous chapter in 1 Corinthians: "Love suffers long [and] is kind; ... is not provoked, ... does not rejoice in iniquity,
but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes
all things, endures all things." (13:4-7) The contrasts with the pattern of fear, outrage, and offendedness we see in victimhood culture are obvious. Being thick-skinned is a Christian virtue, not at all meaning insensitivity or callousness, but patience and resistance to being angered, able to overlook offenses except for how they harm the offender, just as God is always willing to do for our sins. Elsewhere he puts it in the form of two baffling questions: "Why do you not rather accept wrong? Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated?" (1 Corinthians 6:7) The Lord teaches us to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44), to be as patient and compassionate toward their wrongs as we are towards those of our friends and loved ones. I know from abundant experience that it is a virtue and a sign of Christlikeness not to be offended easily, and that this virtue is not developed without a godly, uphill struggle. Let us reject every human philosophy that tries to dissuade us from fighting to become more like Christ.<br />
<br />
St. Peter writes words that speak very relevantly to Christian outrage at modern-day "persecution".<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to
try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to
the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings, that when His glory
is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. If you are
reproached for the name of Christ, blessed [are you], for the Spirit of
glory and of God rests upon you. On their part He is blasphemed, but on
your part He is glorified. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a
thief, an evildoer, or as a busybody in other people's matters. Yet if
[anyone suffers] as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him
glorify God in this matter.(1 Peter 4:12-16)</blockquote>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The caption reads "Martyrdom of the holy hieromartyr<br />
Polycarp of Smyrna"</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Remember that the pre-Constantine Church faced persecution far worse than anything faced by most American Christians even on our worst days. Yet Peter counsels the churches not to be surprised or shocked at this persecution when it comes but to "rejoice to
the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings". We are to <i>rejoice</i> when we are persecuted. Could anything be more counterintuitive? Yet it is just what we see in the early Church, for example in <i><a href="http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0102.htm">The Martyrdom of Polycarp</a>.</i> This echoes what Jesus himself taught in the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount: "Blessed [are] those who are
persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds
of evil against you falsely for My sake." (Assuming it <i>is </i>said falsely, and for Jesus' sake!) "Rejoice and be exceedingly
glad, for great [is] your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the
prophets who were before you." (Matthew 5:10-12) St. Paul describes the Christian's response to his persecutors, namely to return love for hatred: "Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure; being defamed, we
entreat." (1 Corinthians 4:12-13)<br />
<br />
The modern elevation of the status of "victim" (in desirability, and yet not necessarily positivity) does seem similar to how the early Church held its martyrs in high honor and even desired to imitate them. How are they different? For one thing, the early Christians honored their martyrs without expecting or demanding that the world (or any institution within it) also do so. Why would it? The way of Christ was clearly seen as contrary, diametrically different from and opposed to the way of the world. Martyrdom does not convey "dignity", prestige, or a privileged status in some objective, universal sense that we can appeal to and expect the world to recognize, but the crown of life in the kingdom of God (cf. 1 Corinthians 9:25, James 1:12, Revelation 2:10), which is foolishness to the world. (1 Corinthians 3:19) Martyrs look for justice not from civil authorities here and now, but from God, the true judge who is above every created power. Martyrdom is not the key to justifying your selfish demands for protection and status, but the ultimate renunciation of self as a witness to Christ. Christians buying into victimhood culture in response to real or perceived persecution are not witnessing to Christ, but to their own worldliness.<br />
<br />
When persecution comes (and the fact that most "persecution" in America is in the eye of the beholder does not make real persecution impossible), let us face it as martyrs, not "victims".<br />
<br />
<b>Postscript.</b> Fr. Stephen Freeman, who has a seriously uncanny knack for writing eloquently and insightfully on whatever I am trying to think on at the moment, has recently written two posts related to this subject. <a href="https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2015/11/22/do-you-care-too-much/">Do You Care Too Much?</a> critiques our tendency to get pointlessly outraged via the media over situations that don't touch on us at all, for the sake of "caring". Such "caring", or having sufficiently strong sentiments about various "issues" (as a normative sentiment, apart from actually doing anything) is, he argues, one of the "passions" that try to master us and keep us from properly ordering our feelings in the Christian life. <a href="https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2015/11/24/living-in-the-real-world/">Living in the Real World</a> focuses on the power of media to distract us from the real, particular world at hand, in which we actually engage and interact, in favor of "things in general": a passive response to vague sentiments over things that have nothing to do with us and which we can't do anything about. Both are far more worth reading than anything I could write (which is why I waited until the end to direct you to them).Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08244026688548871531noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4225502016359798858.post-33493613999536625942015-11-16T21:46:00.000-06:002015-11-16T22:13:43.923-06:00Living the Mystery<div class="separator tr_bq" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This is my final post on the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0971748365" style="font-style: italic;">Discerning the Mystery</a>, by Andrew Louth. The first post can be found <a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-dissociation-of-sensibility.html">here</a>.<i><br /></i><br />
<hr />
In the previous five chapters Louth has attempted to trace the division between "head" and "heart", or between two different kinds of knowing truth, that characterizes much of our contemporary awareness. Now, in closing, he turns to look for a way to transcend this division and find unity.<br />
<br />
The first possible solution he brings up is that of Baron von Hügel von Hügel traces this divide as being between reason, which is universal and sharable but merely explains and does not "move" us, and intuition, instinct, or feeling, which does "move" us but seems to be individual, evanescent, and not transferable. His answer to this dilemma is not a theory, but a life, "a life sufficiently large and alive to take up and retain, within its own experimental range, at least some of the poignant question and conflict, as well as of the peace-bringing solution and calm" (134)—or as Louth puts it, "the life of saint". As von Hügel says, not simply believing in God but feeling <i>bound</i> to believe<i> </i>as from God himself is what is important: "Not simply that I think it, but that I feel bound to think it, transforms thought about God into a religious act." (135) The saint is one for whom this religious act has become constant and basic to one's being, something made one's own, not merely thought about. Interpretation, understanding, and application are inseparable.<br />
<br />
J.H. Newman wrote of a similar union between understanding and action. He seeks to free the concept or mind or intellect from its modern reduction to "mere ratiocination" (138) and to remind us of the classical concept of "mind", <i>nous</i>, as the faculty which enables us to know and commune with God and which is intuitive, moral, and active as well as analytical and contemplative. Faith understood in this light, Newman says, is a deeply intellectual act, but this does not manifest in a concern for proofs, arguments, and evidence. This is partly because our real reasons for believing things lie deeper and are more implicit; "The desire to make all reasoning explicit manifests 'a dislike of an evidence, varied, minute, complicated, and a desire or something producible, striking, and decisive.: such a desire is really irrational, as it fails to understand the realities of human behavior and action." (139) Faith is not merely passive engagement with the truth of the kind we see in the sciences, but active, whole-hearted engagement with it, a "reaching forward of the mind". It is more a skill than a method, a skill acquired by practice—the practice of love, humility, and trust in God. What is most important in knowing the Truth is not evidence but one's moral state.<br />
<br />
Newman's striking doctrine of faith comes as a response to the objections raised by the Enlightenment against tradition. Against the scientific attempt to reject traditional ways of knowing, start from scratch, and build up a body of knowledge for oneself from the evidence, Newman defends tradition, the idea of the past as a bearer of the presumptions that allow us to attain to understanding. It is not a matter of applying the right method or technique, but something harder to define, a skill or insight developed by example, "something whose archetype is not the clever arguing of a debater, but the humble understanding of the saint, whose faith is tested and proven in a life." (141)<br />
<br />
Louth next turns to a few briefer examples of attempts to transcend the Enlightenment divide. The atheist philosopher Iris Murdoch argues for something resembling traditional virtue ethics over against Kant's strong focus on ethics as a series of conscious moral choices. It is not a matter of consciously applying a rational moral law to choose the right action from a number of possibilities; rather, she says, a man acts because of the kind of person he is, and a truly good person will only see one possibility, the right one. Thus her holding-together of will and reason somewhat echoes von Hügel. Josef Pieper calls attention to the importance of <i>wonder</i>, "that purely receptive attitude to reality, undisturbed and unsullied by the interjection of the will" (142-143), to the contemplation of God. This wonder can be dulled, requiring the sensational rather than "everyday being" to be awakened, or reduced to doubt, a problem to overcome in the quest for knowledge. Yet wonder is not supposed to be temporary, but the lasting origin of philosophy.<br />
<br />
The permanence of wonder, Louth says, corresponds closely to the irreducible nature of mystery. And it is a mystery that lies at the center of the Christian faith—and not just a philosophical mystery, but a mystery has been disclosed in the life of a historical person. The ultimate mystery of God is met in the particular, not merely for us to seek out but as the One who came to seek and save the lost. Here we see clearly how mystery is not just the focus of our questioning, but as that which questions us, calls us to account.<br />
<br />
It is the centrality of mystery to human knowledge that is questioned by claims of the scientific way of knowing to be the only way to truth. For this way of knowing is blind to mysteries; it knows only solved problems and unsolved problems. But mystery is irreducible to the humanities, including theology, because they are concerned with what man has done as a free, personal being, not as constrained by rational natural laws.<br />
<br />
In conclusion, Louth offers his thoughts on the value of theology for human understanding: "theology holds before us, and holds us before, the ultimate mystery of God, and suggests that it is because man is made by God in his image and likeness that he is ultimately mysterious and can never be understood as he really is in terms that prescind from the mystery of his personhood." (145-146) Its fundamental contribution to the pursuit of knowledge is, as Pieper puts it, "that it should hinder and resist the natural craving of the human spirit for a clear, transparent, and definite system", by keeping open access to the tradition in which we can behold the mystery of God in Christ. Theology is not only a matter of learning, though this remains important to its vitality, but is in Newman's terms "the apprehension of the believing mind combined with a right state of the heart" (147). Its fullest expression is a life, a life which testifies to the mystery of Christ and makes his light, his awe-fullness, his love manifest to others.<br />
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One more implication of Louth's description of the kind of truth present in the Christian tradition: not being able to justify or "prove" our beliefs of practices in a way that is convincing to an arbitrary, "reasonable" person (assumed not to share our convictions) need not cast doubt on them. It's a consequence of truth in theology not being purely "objective" (that is, dependent on the knower), and the role of tradition in helping us to rightly perceive truth. I was reminded of it again by Newman's point in this chapter that the real reasons (as opposed to the justifications) for what we believe and do tend to be deep and implicit, and "must be attenuated or mutilated" (139) to be turned into a logical argument. This helps explain why in discussing theology I focus not on whether a teaching is derivable from Scripture using sound hermeneutics and rational arguments, but more on its implications (does it contradict or sit in tension with what I know of the "mind of the Church", or fit with it?), or on its origin: is it received as part of the apostolic tradition, or was it added later?<br />
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Louth and the authors he draws from (Newman in particular) lay out clearly ideas I was reaching towards as I was rethinking my faith in 2013, ideas which show the radical break I was going through from the quasi-scientific way I approached the Bible and Christian truth previously. I brought up the fact that Truth is something personal, namely Christ himself, in my <a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2014/09/my-journey-part-6-better-hermeneutic.html">search</a> for a better way of reading Scripture, but I didn't have the skill to explore the implications nearly as fully as this book does. (Itself an illustration of our interdependence in the search for truth) My dissatisfaction with the scientific definition of truth in theology and idea of a more personal, experiential dimension of truth as something you participate in rather than just perceived are echoed and greatly developed on in <i>Discerning the Mystery</i>. In the <a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2014/09/my-journey-part-7-explorations-in.html">next post</a> I hinted at something like Hort's idea of truth as multifaceted and beyond-"rational", Marcel's concept of mystery, and Louth's recurring statement that truth and Christian faith are not merely a matter of ideas, but of reality and our active engagement with it. Of course I saw none of these things clearly at the time, but I anticipated them in some way—much like how Newman describes faith as concerned with anticipations and presumptions, an active "reaching forward of the mind." This pattern of movement from dim apprehension (as faith is tested and built up) to clear fulfillment (as faith is rewarded) is important in the Christian tradition, and I can see something like it at work even in my journey to Orthodoxy, which is a major reason why I find it so convincing.<br />
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I decided to blog through <i>Discerning the Mystery</i> because I could tell the truths it witnesses to, things I had already sensed elsewhere in Orthodox teaching but nowhere as clearly, bear huge implications my faith, in particular for overcoming the head-heart divide, the "dissociation of sensibility" that I have long been aware of in myself. Yet this divide is so entrenched that even trying to get rid of it can end up perpetuating it, if I simply try to think myself out of it as I tend to do. The full answer, as Louth says, is not a theory or truth I need to understand analytically, but something I do and live. This is part of the broad and deep understanding of tradition he has been explaining throughout the book, and it is the beating heart of the Orthodox Church, inviting me to take part. Yesterday I began the 40-day <a href="https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2015/11/12/why-we-fast-4/">fast</a> leading up to the Nativity of Christ—which, as I have already reminded myself, is not simply the Christian version of kosher, but is meant to help us participate in the mysteries of God, to engage with the Truth of our faith, to grow in Christ-likeness. Practices like this, part of a tradition that is not just doctrines but a common life rooted in the everlasting life of Christ, offer someone like me real hope for uniting thought and feeling, belief and experience.Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08244026688548871531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4225502016359798858.post-4723160147315090892015-11-15T16:43:00.004-06:002015-11-15T16:44:35.084-06:00Rehabilitating Allegory<div class="separator tr_bq" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This is my fifth post on the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0971748365" style="font-style: italic;">Discerning the Mystery</a>, by Andrew Louth. The first post can be found <a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-dissociation-of-sensibility.html">here</a>.<i><br /></i><br />
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Allegorical interpretation has a poor (to say the least) reputation in modern theology. And not just a specific, distinctly modern theology, but very nearly all kinds of theology done in the present time. Louth thinks this is primarily because allegory is seen as fundamentally dishonest, or arbitrary—it seems to interpret a text to make it say something it manifestly does not say, something that you instead want it to say. It seems to not only flirt with, but embrace subjectivity in terrible excess, taking the interpreter away from the actual meaning of the text into the realm of arbitrary fancy. The author's intent in writing a text may not be easy to discern, but we are charged to seek after it, not abandon it as allegory seems to do.<br />
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Louth has already explained the reasons he finds this kind of reaction to allegory less than convincing. It assumes that the meaning of a text is objective or "unproblematic": whatever the author meant to say when writing it. Within Protestantism, this assumption is strongly correlated with the principle of <i>sola scriptura</i>, which tends to see Scripture as the objective truth of God's revelation to man, who is charged with discerning this truth from it by right interpretation. From this point of view allegory seems to be a way of avoiding this revelation and replacing it with human opinions. More recently added to this is historical criticism in some form as an apparently promising method for the extraction of this objective truth of revelation from the pages of Scripture, a way of "right interpretation" allowing us to carry out the task laid before us by <i>sola scriptura</i>.<br />
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Louth considers this approach to Scripture to be contrary to the one found in the Fathers and not "traditional" in any sense. The truth of Christianity is not basically biblical; "the heart of Christianity is the mystery of Christ, and the Scriptures are important as they unfold to us that mystery, not in and for themselves." (102) Likewise historical criticism's quest for the objective "original meaning" in the biblical text is based on false assumptions about what is involved in interpretation and the role of tradition in general, as well as the significance of the divine inspiration of Scripture in particular. It is a transfer into the humanities of a methodology appropriate to the sciences, which Louth considers to be invalid since "the natural order of physical objects and the moral order of intelligent beings are not at all the same. ... The moral order is transparent to us in a way that the natural order is not ... and the medium of that transparency is tradition, tradition formed by language and custom." (105-106)<br />
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With all that said, we are ready to understand how the Fathers handled Scripture. The primary modern complaint with allegory, that the text has a single "original meaning" which allegory deftly sidesteps, is undermined; they saw not one by multiple senses of Scripture, a rich depth of meaning, which is explored through the use of allegory. Interpreting is not a matter of reconstructing the original context of the author and placing ourselves in it, but of listening across a historical gulf that is not empty and in need of a bridge, but filled with the tradition which brings the text to me along with the prejudices that help me understand it. "What unites us with the writers of the Scriptures is the life of the Church from their day to ours." (107) The relationship between Church and Scripture is reciprocal; the Bible emerged from the life of the Church, was recognized as Scripture within it, and is read as life-giving Scripture within it.<br />
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As an example of how tradition "echoes" Scripture, Louth gives the example of attending a high mass in a medieval French cathedral. (A divine liturgy in an old Orthodox cathedral would arguably work as well) A lot is going on; gestures and movements of the celebrants, chanting and singing of the liturgy, the so-called "smells and bells". There is detail in our surroundings: the architecture, the art (statues in Catholic churches, icons in Orthodox churches, stained glass in both). These different ways of conveying meaning to us can interact in almost an infinity of ways, calling each other to our attention, inviting analogies between each other, interpreting each other. All of this is drawn from the mystery of the Eucharist, and draws us back to it. This, Louth believes, is a sort of image of the way Scripture is revealed to possess a bottomless depth, a <i>miras profunditas</i>, of richness in the Church's tradition. This richness is the unfolding of or introduction to the great mysteries at its heart. It is this richness, this depth, which makes allegory with its recognition of inexhaustibly multiple senses and meanings of Scripture appropriate.<br />
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Louth pauses to ask: does not this focus on depth or complexity make the Scripture and its message too difficult, like a puzzle, into something like the hidden knowledge of the gnostics? Drawing from George Steiner, he considers how there are different kinds of difficulty. The two most relevant ones are "contingent" difficulty arising from lack of knowledge, and "ontological" difficulty, which is not easily resolved (if at all) demands the questioning and reorientation of our priorities and assumptions. This corresponds closely with Marcel's distinction between problem and mystery.<br />
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Seen this way, allegory is not a method for obfuscation since it is not meant to solve contingent difficulties (historical criticism has plenty to offer here); rather, it is a way of holding before us the mystery which constitutes the ontological difficulty of the Scriptures—"a difficulty, a mystery, which challenges us to revise our understanding of what might be meant by meaning ... which calls on us for a response of <i>metanoia</i>, change of mental perspective, repentance." (111) The difficulty in Scripture arises from its depth, not from any mistake or lack of clarity, from "not being sufficiently at home in the tradition, not having an unerring instinct as to what resonates and what merely makes a noise." (112) Thus the traditional recognition of the multiple senses of scripture and the use of allegory is a response to the <i>miras profunditas</i> of Scripture seen as witness of the mystery of Christ. Louth denies, as others have claimed, that allegory is a way of solving contingent interpretive problems or glossing over difficult parts of the biblical text. Origen in particular was accused of doing this, but Louth believes that he was really looking for beauty and harmony behind apparently disjointed and disorderly (yet inspired) texts.<br />
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He moves on to how allegory actually operates. When we think of the doctrine that Scripture has multiple senses (often three or four: literal, moral, allegorical, and maybe anagogical), it's easy to think that the nonliteral senses are alternate ways of using Scripture that ignore the literal sense, and therefore seem arbitrary and frivolous. Against this, Louth says we should think of it not just as a list of senses, but as an order or movement, a recurring pattern: from history to allegory, old to new, shadow to reality, letter to spirit, fact to significance, promise to fulfillment in Christ. The literal sense helps us discern the mysteries at work in the text; the allegorical sense attempts to understand them. This pattern is still somewhat extant in some parts of Protestantism, though it is more commonly called typology. Ironically, typological interpretation was one of the things in the evangelical tradition that used to cause me doubt and confusion; this was probably because its ancient grounding in patristic theology clashed with the much more modern way in which I was used to reading Scripture.<br />
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To warn against the excesses of allegory (which are rightly deplored), Louth notes the distinction between <i>allegoria facti</i> and <i>allegoria verbi</i>. The latter, he argues, is concerned purely with the words of the text rather than the reality they speak of and "is only justified as a kind of embroidery of allegory of fact, not as a freely created, merely literary conceit." (119) As an example of bad allegorical wordplay he refers to the interpretation of the "two swords" in Luke 22:38 (which Jesus says are "enough") as justifying the division of ecclesiastical power wielded by the Pope and temporal power wielded by kings and rulers (or, as in <i>Unam Sanctum</i>, the subordination of all earthly authorities to the spiritual authority of the bishop of Rome). "This word-play", he says, "has no basis in any <i>allegoria facti</i>," in other words is not in any way a movement from the literal meaning of the text, and "is in no way an attempt to penetrate more deeply into the mystery of Christ." A better example of the two kinds of allegory working together positively is the parallels frequently drawn between the <i>xylon</i> or <i>lignum</i> (both words referring to wood in general, a tree, or something made out of wood) by which Adam and Eve fell and that by which Christ, the second Adam, redeemed their fall. (I wish this wordplay transferred better to English; I still don't appreciate hymns calling the cross a "tree")<br />
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This movement from fact to significance, faith to understanding, is not merely intellectual, but of realizing our participation in the mystery of Christ with our whole selves. Tradition does not merely disclose to us a normative way of interpreting Scripture; the dogmatic fruits of interpreting reveal to us the mystery of Christ, a mystery which is not merely timeless but eternally present, a mystery which draws us into itself, invites our response that it might be fulfilled in us. Thus, Louth argues, allegory is hardly arbitrary because it is "firmly related to the mystery of Christ." (121) It is a way of relating the whole of Scripture to that mystery, of glimpsing a single vision out of all the images and events in the Bible.<br />
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The allegorical way of understanding especially comes into its own in the liturgy. For it is in the liturgy first and foremost that the central mystery of Christ is celebrated and displayed. The readings from Scripture and the rhythm of the liturgical year are meant to draw out different aspects of this mystery for us to perceive. As an example, Louth describes how the liturgy celebrates the baptism of the Lord. This event is considered to be a revelation of the Trinity (the Father as a voice from heaven, the Son being baptized, and the Spirit descending from heaven as a dove). The imagery of the Spirit as a dove is expounded on, and applied to how we should be: innocent, gentle, and responding with a soaring desire to see God. As the heavens were opened at the baptism, so through Christ the heavens are opened to us. All of these themes are picked up not just at the festal liturgy for the baptism of Christ (Theophany), but also in the baptismal liturgy, in which we are considered to reenact the events of Christ's. The allegorical interpretation of the scriptural text and the liturgy both serve as "echo chambers" that help us to see the resonances of the significance of this event in the life of Christ.<br />
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In closing, Louth explains that the apparent complexity of allegorical interpretation is meant to lead us to a simple message: love. Just as "the Scriptures tell the story of God's way of leading men back into unity, and the way <i>has</i> to be from the fragment to the unified" (130), so allegory helps us to see Scripture as a kaleidoscope, fragmented but looking forward to the unity and simplicity of the One who restores all things. Allegory not only helps us discern this pattern, but also to restore within ourselves this lost unity and simplicity, coming once again to love. "The heart of Scripture is the end"—that is, the goal—"of Scripture: the love of God in Christ calling us to respond to that love." (131)<br />
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This chapter was a really helpful explanation of allegorical interpretation: the rationale behind it, dispelling many myths I've grown up with, and how it functions. Louth's idea of a movement from history to significance, from literal to allegorical sense, echoes the intuition I had already been developing about allegory: allegorical interpretation must grow out of the literal sense, be rooted in it, not ignore it to make some other point reflecting extraneous biases (like the "two swords" theory). Thus there is a place in Orthodox hermeneutics for Bible/historical scholarship; for all the value of the allegorical interpretation of the Fathers, there is still plenty to learn about the literal, historical meaning of the text.<br />
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Louth's reflections on <i>sola scriptura</i> and the need to allow Scripture to bring us to the mystery of Christ, within tradition, put a damper on the idea of simply expecting people to encounter Christ in the pages of Scripture with no context. Of course this does happen, and God can work this way, but Louth helps explain why plenty of people find nothing in the Bible except things to deride or scorn. The context in which the Bible is read is important—modern western culture, at least, is deeply at odds with the mind of the Church, and people formed by it (unless they are already influenced by Christianity somehow) will more than likely misunderstand Scripture when reading on their own. It may even do more harm than good. People may build up a deep resistance to Christian claims because of their perception that their God is a violent tyrant, or that Jesus was merely a moral teacher worthy of respect but not worship. Such misconceptions, which keep people from discerning the mystery to which the Bible witnesses, are inevitable if we claim that our faith is defined by the biblical text and that this text is clear enough that anyone can understand (it also doesn't help that some who call themselves Christians actively teach these things, and tend to get significant media exposure). It is much more accurate to say Orthodox believe that the Bible is the "book of the Church" than that they are "people of the book".Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08244026688548871531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4225502016359798858.post-23123343341206981662015-11-13T16:39:00.000-06:002015-11-13T18:49:55.303-06:00Tradition in the Church<div class="separator tr_bq" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This is my fourth post on the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0971748365" style="font-style: italic;">Discerning the Mystery</a>, by Andrew Louth. The first post can be found <a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-dissociation-of-sensibility.html">here</a>.<i><br /></i><br />
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In this chapter Louth goes into much more depth on what tradition is and how it works in the Church. In introduction, he first comments on the conflict over tradition that has existed between Catholics and Protestants since the Reformation. Louth argues that in this dispute both parties misunderstand the nature of tradition: namely, both seem to view it as something comparable with Scripture, either a complement or a rival to it. They are both objectified, as sources of truth we are seeking to understand. This tends to assume that what is being revealed or understood is a collection of objective, independent truths, so that tradition is seen as revealing additional truths not written down in Scripture. Of this, Louth comments, "The problem of how we know at all, what it is that is taken for granted when we seek to understand God's revelation, has not been broached with any very searching intensity." (73) This understanding of tradition as parallel to Scripture was not held by the early Church Fathers.<br />
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The central truth or mystery of the Christian faith, he says, is not a matter of words, ideas, or concepts, but of deeds, of <i>reality</i>. The words of revelation, even the words of Jesus the Word, are secondary in the Christian faith to the ultimate reality of who he is and what he accomplished. "To be a Christian is not simply to believe something, to learn something, but to <i>be</i> something, to experience something." (74) The Church is the place in which this being, this experience, can take place. He correlates this with 1 John 1:1-3:<br />
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That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life-- the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us-- that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship [is] with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.</blockquote>
What John proclaims is not only a message, but a physical (and metaphysical) reality; what he asks from his readers is not simply belief, but fellowship. "Joining a fellowship, commitment to a community, involves more than assent to its beliefs, but rather a sharing in its way of life, in its ceremonies, and customs and practices." (75) Presumably these things are not seen as simply derived from more basic beliefs. This understanding of engagement with the truth calls to mind Polanyi's idea of community and tradition as the context for our knowing, and Gadamer's idea of <i>bildung</i> or <i>paideia </i>as the initiation into the preconceptions that allow us to know rightly. Indeed the early Christians adopted the concept of <i>paideia</i> from Greek philosophy, seeing in it an affirmation of the nature of man as a social being and the inherent goodness of creation, over against the Gnostics with their secret, individualistic knowledge.<br />
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In his treatise <i>On Christian Doctrine</i>, Augustine does not limit his use of the word <i>doctrina</i> to simply mean "teaching", but appears to mean something similar to <i>paideia</i>, or even what we might think of as "culture" in the broadest sense—a deeply Christian culture learned within the community of the Church, which is seen as the Spirit-enabled fulfillment of human societies. The goal (or at least a major goal) of the Scriptures, Augustine writes, is to teach us to love God and neighbor rightly (both to truly love them, and to order these loves properly), and it teaches us this using signs, namely the words of human language. Augustine points out that since words and language are, in a sense, arbitrary (the signs are not intrinsically related to the things they signify), they depend for their efficacy on consent between human beings. So the whole enterprise of human understanding, and human society in general, is dependent on and grows outward from a shared tradition of sorts, a "common sense". This is not even a tradition of the Church, but a common <i>human</i> tradition. Augustine's understanding of the importance of tradition in Christian formation is visibly a Christian development of the classical Greek idea of <i>paideia</i>.<br />
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Other Church Fathers depict how the Church deepened and developed this idea. Clement of Rome highlights the continuity of the <i>sending</i> as described by Christ in John 17:18 or 20:21: "As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you." Christian tradition is not simply the continuity of the human search for truth, but of the divine sending, the divine mission, passed from Christ to the apostles to their successors and so on, the mission of the Church which she pursues in the world. This sending is in the power of the Spirit (John 20:22), who gives the Church the power to be a witness for Christ in the world. (15:26-27) In this sense, the heart of the tradition of the Church is the life of the Holy Spirit in her, her fellowship with the Trinity.<br />
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Louth turns to a well-known passage from Irenaeus next: <br />
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True knowledge is the doctrine of the apostles, and the ancient constitution of the Church throughout all the world, and the distinctive manifestation of the body of Christ according to the successions of the bishops, by which they have handed down that Church which exists in every place, and has come even unto us, being guarded and preserved without any forging of Scriptures, by a very complete system of doctrine, and neither receiving addition nor curtailment; and reading [the word of God] without falsification, and a lawful and diligent exposition in harmony with the Scriptures, both without danger and without blasphemy; and the pre-eminent gift of love, (2 Corinthians 8:1; 1 Corinthians 13) which is more precious than knowledge, more glorious than prophecy, and which excels all the other gifts. (<i>Against Heresies</i> IV.33.8)</blockquote>
Here Irenaeus describes the process of apostolic succession, by which not just doctrines or teachings but the "distinctive manifestation of the body of Christ", or what Louth calls "the whole character of the Christian community, its rites, its ceremonies, its practices, and its life." (84) This tradition manifests pre-eminently in the gift of love; it is not simply a message, but a life. Irenaeus often spoke of a "rule of truth" (called a rule of faith by others), the fundamentals of Christian belief and their significance, handed down from the apostles and received in baptism. And "the fact that it is <i>received</i> is almost as important as what is received—tradition is not something we make up, but something we accept." (85) Tradition is a shining example of our interdependence and commonality, of humanity in general and of the Church much more so<br />
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Basil the Great, in his work <i>On the Holy Spirit</i>, makes a distinction between the public proclamation of the Church and its dogmas, "which we have received from the tradition of the apostles and given to us in secret." (XXVII.66) Basil is not speaking of a secret unwritten body of teaching in parallel to the written Scriptures; this is the kind of thing whose existence Irenaeus vehemently denied against the Gnostics. From the examples he gives—the sign of the cross, prayer to the East, and other elements of the liturgy—we see that he is not speaking of teachings, but practices as the "secret tradition". These things are not publicly proclaimed or taught, but are nonetheless a subtle part of tradition, part of the 'tacit dimension' of the life of the Christian. "Christianity is not a body of doctrine that can be specified in advance, but a way of life and all that this implies." (86)<br />
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This is illustrated in Basil's "proof" of the divinity of the Holy Spirit, which is based not on explicit scriptural evidence but on the Spirit's indispensable role in uniting us to God, enabling us to participate in his life—in other words, on the inward experience of Christian spirituality. This is the context in which this and other "secret" teachings of the Church can be proclaimed and understood. In other words, much of Christian tradition does not consist of "objective" truths that can be proclaimed and understood by anyone regardless of context. "They are not 'objective' truths which could be appraised and understood outside the bosom of the Church: rather, they are part of the Church's reflection on the mystery of her life with God."<br />
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So tradition is not really another source of teaching parallel to Scripture; it is the inner life of the Church, "that life in which the individual Christian is perfected in the image of God in which he was created." (88) It is not believed in itself, but received, participated in. It is not individual, but communal; not only active in the mind but in the heart, the way by which we are perfected in the image of Christ and enabled to know, to receive God more truly.<br />
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We can now see how central liturgy is for the enactment of tradition, for the liturgy is the Church's practice and tangible expression of that inner life. It is most fundamentally in the liturgy that we celebrate and share in the mysteries at the heart of the Christian tradition. "For the heart of the Christian faith is not merely something conceptual: it is a fact, or even better, an action—the action, the movement, of the Son sent into the world for our sakes to draw us back to the Father." (89) The liturgy echoes and repeats this movement; heaven and earth become intermingled, God comes down to us and we ascend to him.<br />
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Louth emphasizes that can simply "understand", much less make up; it must be participated in, with all that we are. The givenness of liturgy, the fact that we are receiving and joining in words and practices that we can't always readily make sense of ("the secret tradition" described by Basil),is important because it is in this way that the liturgy involves us in the "tacit dimension" of Christian tradition, the depths of the mysteries in which the liturgy makes us partakers. "What can be articulated, what can be understood, is only a part, if an important part. The life in which we share as we commit ourselves to the tradition of the Church goes much deeper." (90) This is why it is so dangerous to try to reduce worship to what can be understood conceptually, as is so often the case in modern liturgical reform; to do so is to cut ourselves off from this depth. The fact that liturgy goes beyond speech "impresses on us the importance of the inarticulate" (91)—this inarticulateness about what is most important, not coincidentally, is characteristic of the child we have to become like to enter the kingdom of heaven.<br />
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Vladimir Lossky puts forward the idea of tradition as silence or stillness (in Greek, <i>hesychia</i>), the stillness and receptiveness in which we hear the Word of the Scriptures. It is the light that reveals the content of revelation, or the breath which makes the words heard. In Ignatius, whom Lossky refers to, this stillness also connotes a sense of presence: the personal presence of Jesus (which marked out the apostles, rather than simply having heard his words); it is this sense of stillness and presence that tradition conveys. "For the truth that lies at the heart of theology is not something there to be discovered, but something, or rather someone, to whom we must surrender." (95)<br />
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Louth's discussion of Basil's "proof" of the divinity of the Holy Spirit is, I think, highly illustrative of this chapter's message. By arguing for the divinity of the Spirit from the Christian experience of life in the Spirit, Basil seems to assume that not only certain beliefs, but certain experiences, a certain way of being, can be normative or even definitive for the Christian faith. This was a striking realization for me, as I used to assume pretty strongly that Christianity was defined by and shaped around certain fundamental, deeply held beliefs (i.e. God as Trinity and creator, the Incarnation, the atonement, the resurrection...) from which everything else arises. This is implicit in the teaching of <i>sola scriptura</i> that the highest authority for Christian belief and practice, that which shapes and guides everything else in the Christian faith, is basically conceptual: the words of Scripture. But Louth argues that "the central truth, or mystery, of the Christian faith is primarily not a matter of words, and therefore ultimately of ideas or concepts, but a matter of fact, or reality." (74) That is, Christianity is not just a system of belief or a "religion" in the modern sense of the word; it is a way of life, a way of being, with all that that implies, a <i>world</i>-view in the fullest sense of the word.<br />
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In discussing the "rule of faith" as the basis of tradition, Louth stresses that the fact that this rule, this tradition is received is almost as important as what is received, for "tradition is not something we make up, but something we accept." (85) Later he adds, "we become Christians by becoming members of the Church, by <i>trusting </i>our forefathers in the faith. If we cannot trust the Church to have understood Jesus, then we have lost Jesus: and the resources of modern scholarship will not help us to find him." (93) This trust in our spiritual ancestors, this childlike attitude of receptiveness, is part of what it means to be part of a tradition, to live <i>within</i> a tradition. A baseline attitude of skepticism, of needing to have things justified or proved to us before we will believe anything, is innately contrary to this receptiveness; it does not place us within tradition but over it, as arbiters. (Expecting teachings to be shown to be <i>objectively</i> true goes even further, denying the particular role of tradition in shaping us to recognize and contemplate the truth.) As I <a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2014/10/my-journey-part-112-insufficiency-of.html">realized</a> while wrestling with the place of tradition in my faith, we cannot pick and choose the parts of tradition we follow; this goes against what tradition basically is. Of course the risk of false teaching is real, as the history of the Church shows, but we can't let this overcome our need to be receivers and participants of tradition; we do not treat everything we receive as false or only provisionally true until shown otherwise.<br />
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I can still see why not wanting worship to "make sense" or be "understandable" to a visitor seems like a terrible idea to many. Don't we want our worship to be welcoming and appealing to inquirers, rather than confusing or off-putting? This is the impetus for reforming the "peripheral" parts of worship to make it "relevant" or perhaps "seeker-sensitive", appealing to modern aesthetics while still conveying the important truth. (I have previously <a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2014/09/cool-christianity-and-formcontent.html">examined</a> the assumptions behind this form-content division) The difference between modern and liturgical worship in the kind of understanding being sought is summed up by the distinction between problem and mystery in the previous chapter. If the alternative to worship (or Scripture, for that matter) being clear or perspicuous is its instead being confused or muddled, then of course we will want Scripture and our worship to be clear. But if liturgical worship is unclear or does not "make sense" to the layman, it is because it partakes in the hidden depths of the Christian tradition, hopefully bringing us into contact with the great mysteries which we cannot hope to "understand" as we do a simple, rational message. Again, limiting ourselves to what we (still more the inquirer) can rationally understand is contrary to the receiving attitude tradition means to teach us. Expecting the Christian faith to readily "make sense" amounts to a denial of the treasured depth therein. Any unclarity here is not a confusion in the message itself, but the result of the observer's not being "sufficiently at home in the tradition" (112), as Louth will say next time in the discussion on allegory.Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08244026688548871531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4225502016359798858.post-10751631590974338292015-11-11T22:47:00.000-06:002015-11-11T22:47:53.162-06:00Caught Up in the Mystery<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This is my third post on the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0971748365" style="font-style: italic;">Discerning the Mystery</a>, by Andrew Louth. The first post can be found <a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-dissociation-of-sensibility.html">here</a>.<i><br /></i><br />
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After establishing that theology is much closer to the humanities than the sciences, arguing that the subjectivity this implies is not necessarily a bad thing, and introducing the elements of tradition and <i>bildung</i> (or <i>paideia</i>) in the place of a sought-after theological method (the application of which is an example of Steiner's "fallacy of imitative form"), Louth tries to describe more positively the relationship he sees between theology and the sciences. He briefly reminisces on the drift in the meaning of the word "science" that has taken place since theology was considered the "queen of the sciences" in the Middle Ages.<br />
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<i>Scientia</i>, in this usage, simply meant "knowledge" with few of its modern connotations. Following Aristotle, theoretical or speculative sciences (what we might think of as philosophy) was considered higher than practical sciences, since they dealt with necessary rather than incidental realities; of these, theology was considered the highest since it studied the highest reality of all, the source of all the other sciences. The humanities, ironically, were barely considered sciences at all in this scheme. Two things have conspired to remove theology from this position. First is the obvious shift in the meaning of "science" to its present meaning, brought about by the rise of the experimental sciences. Science was realigned in a new hierarchy according to "hardness", the degree to which the scientific method is strictly applicable, and theology was banished from this ordering. But besides this, Louth argues there has always been a tension between Aristotle's dualism, which sought knowledge of God through ascent in the scale of being away from temporal reality, and the Judeo-Christian belief in a God who reveals himself and acts within history, in particular ways.<br />
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However it came about, in the modern usage we see that theology is something much closer to the humanities than to science. Louth next asks: do we lose something through this distinction? Does abandoning the concept of theology as science perpetuate the "dissociation of sensibility" in our modern culture and the privileged epistemological position held by science within it? Theology and the humanities have a radically different <i>modus operandi</i> than the sciences, one characterized (as he explained last chapter) by tradition and the concept of <i>bildung</i> rather than method and technique, but simply leaving it at that would be settling for a "fundamental divide in our way of apprehending the truth" (54) He wonders if, in rehabilitating the humanities and their place in human knowing, we may be settling for a caricature of the scientific method that perpetuates the "dissociation of sensibility".<br />
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The scientific method, we remember, seeks truth by breaking with tradition and prejudice, starting from ignorance, and building up a body of objective knowledge through observation, experiment, and reason. It is "a confessedly iconoclastic method", he says; we pull down the edifice of knowledge we have received from tradition and replace it with what we have learned for ourselves. We avoid the possibility of subjectivity in this by insisting that our way of gathering knowledge is independently repeatable, independent of the one observing it; that is, that it is objective. This methodology has undeniably been successful in many areas, but it is a <i>complete </i>way of developing knowledge? In particular, does this success mean that "tradition" in its many forms has no place in our knowing? <br />
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New Testament scholar and church historian F.J.A. Hort would say no. Beginning from the assumption that truth is one, not two, he warns that rejecting tradition in favor of only what we can establish for ourselves is not only impossible; the attitude behind this impulse is self-defeating. "In knowledge," Hort say, "as in all else he labours in vain to be independent; he is most himself when he receives most, and most freely acknowledges that he receives." (56) Indeed, he argues that it is tradition that frees us to know in a rightly ordered way, and the rejection of tradition (which is really opening oneself to "bastard traditions" which take us captive unawares) that is confining and stultifying. The goal is not freedom <i>from</i> tradition, but freedom <i>within</i> and by way of tradition. Echoing Gadamer, he describes the increase in knowledge as a process of undeception and highlights the importance of virtuous discipline and learning, previously summarized using the concept of <i>bildung</i>.<br />
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This is important because the right perception of truth, nowhere more than in theology, does not simply depend on the application of the right method, but on the state of the perceiver. "The more we know of truth, the more we come to see how manifold is the operation by which we come to take hold of it," says Hort. (57) We do not perceive rightly if one of our faculties dominates and shuts out others (as can happen when we try to do theology "scientifically"), or if we are disordered on the whole by moral corruption. For "the stedfast [sic] and prescient pursuit of truth is therefore a moral and spiritual discipline." In tradition there is no method to lead one to the truth that makes no demands or claims on the one being led.<br />
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Thus in Hort we see a positive attitude towards the sciences, as engaged in the same pursuit of truth as the humanities, albeit by different means that are appropriate in its field, but should not be applied universally. Building on this, Louth next brings up Michael Polanyi, who has a similarly positive outlook on science but again opposes attempts to make the scientific method a "privileged way of knowing, utterly different from and more reliable than other human ways of understanding." (59)<br />
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Louth focuses on an element of Polanyi's thought that he calls the "tacit dimension". This refers to the fact that much of how we perceive the external world, though it seems clear and not mysterious to us, is "often unspecifiable in detail". For example we easily recognize one anothers' faces, yet are often unable to specify exact what it is in the face that we are recognizing. (We are even worse at describing smells, yet have little trouble perceiving them, sometimes strongly) All of our perception happens within one interpretive framework or another, and most of the time this framework is <i>tacit</i>, not consciously though of or experienced. Generalizing, Polanyi believes all knowledge is either tacit or rooted in tacit knowledge; "it is not simply objective, but knowledge which has been grasped and understood by a person." (62) This acknowledges man's ability to gain knowledge without necessarily being able to specify the grounds of his knowing; this knowing is exercised within a received framework which is usually unspecifiable. Knowledge, Polanyi argues, must become tacit to be truly fruitful; the goal is not simply an objective description of reality but a "personal orientation towards reality", toward which objective knowledge is merely a means to an end.<br />
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Polanyi's understanding of knowledge allows us to see how all knowledge and truth can be one, as Hort assumed. Tacit knowledge can also be thought of as the "indwelling" that Dilthey described, as both internalizing the object of knowing and making ourselves dwell in it, in some capacity. The kind of knowing we see in the sciences is only different from that of the humanities in degree, not in kind; the indwelling is less deep when studying social phenomena than when seeking to understand particular people or works of art; shallower still when studying a star. If this understanding is accurate, then we see that it is needless for theology to look to the methodology of the sciences for inspiration; they both use the same kind of understanding, theology arguably more deeply even if the sciences have had more overt success in recent centuries.<br />
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Louth also observes, strikingly, that this pattern of knowing is the one we find at work in the theological writings of classical Christianity, in the period of the ecumenical councils and Church Fathers. "For the Fathers knowledge of God, and of his love for us in Jesus Christ, could only be found within the Tradition of the Church." (64) Participation in the Church and Holy Tradition came hand-in-hand with the "rule of faith", the framework of presuppositions (or worldview) within which Scripture and one's own Christian experience could be rightly interpreted. This tradition is "non-specifiable" as a series of doctrines, only only as a bond of love and unity that must be partaken in to be understood. "The Patristic doctrine of tradition might well be paraphrased in the language of Polanyi by saying that all knowledge of God in Christ is either the tacit knowledge of tradition"—meaning something like the "mind of the Church"—"or rooted in such tacit knowledge." (65) The Fathers understood clearly the importance of what we have been calling <i>bildung</i> or <i>paideia</i> in shaping us into people capable of knowing God rightly, in making us properly receptive to him.<br />
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Finally, Louth turns to the namesake of the book: the role of mystery in theology. The progress of science is marked by the isolation and solving of problems that are reachable with current knowledge, in order to advance that knowledge and tackle more problems. Once a problem has been solved, it is of no further interest except perhaps for inspiration in solving future problems. But the humanities (including theology) are not like that, at all, as shown by the fact that there is little to no notion of "progress" there. It is much rarer to "solve" a author or work and be able to "move on" from it (as shown by how we still seem to be stuck on Plato, among others), and while there is a place for systematic problem-solving, this is not the real challenge but more a work of ground-clearing preceding it. The real work of the humanities is not a restless march around or through numerous obstacles, but more like a conversation, an engagement with past minds. Understanding is more elusive and less decisive; what is understood, precisely, is sometimes hard to define. "It is not a matter of facts, but a matter of reality: the reality of human life, its engagement with others, its engagement with God." (68)<br />
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Louth summarizes the approach of the humanities and its differences from that of the sciences using Gabriel Marcel's distinction between <i>mystery</i> and <i>problem</i>. This can be stated in a variety of ways. A problem is like an obstacle before me, barring my passage which I must try to remove or get around; a mystery is something I am <i>caught up in</i>, which is not just before me but in me; with a mystery the difference between the two begins to lose its meaning. A mystery is not a temporary barrier, but a more of less permanent focus of attention. Problems can be solved in a detached way, by applying the proper technique; a mystery, by definition, transcends every technique and demands our personal engagement. A problem can conceal or lead us into a mystery, and it is possible to short-circuit our engagement with a mystery by degrading it into a problem, which Marcel calls a "fundamentally vicious proceeding" and which Louth equates with Steiner's "fallacy of imitative form". Because science is primarily concerned with problems and the humanities with mysteries, we should not be surprised or made jealous by the humanities' lack of visible progress compared to the sciences.<br />
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Louth names a few twentieth-century theologians who have sought to relocate mystery at the heart of Christian theology. Karl Barth wrote of a God who "reveals himself as mystery, who makes himself known as the One who is Unknowable" (70), yet unveils himself to us by veiling himself in flesh in the Incarnation. Karl Rahner stated that "Theology is not concerned with the elucidation of mysteries which will eventually be revealed in the beatific vision—mysteries reduced to what one might call eschatological problems", but with three more fundamental mysteries: the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the divinization of man in grace and glory. Louth agrees that Christian theology should concern itself with the mystery of God, not least in these three forms, and supposes that its purpose is not so much to explain anything as it is to prevent us from dissolving the mystery at its heart or missing it altogether, as historical heresies both ancient and modern have been seen to do. "The heart of the matter is sharing in the mystery of love which God is." (71)<br />
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There is a lot that is really good and interesting in this chapter. Louth's distinction between problem and mystery is one of the most helpful parts of the book for me so far; it seems intuitively obvious that theology should concern itself with mystery, and as Louth will later write, one role of theology is to hold before us (or hold us before) the mysteries at the center of the faith. Polanyi's understanding of the "tacit dimension" is also enlightening, both for closing the gap between head and heart and for relating the spoken and unspoken parts of faith.<br />
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The discussion of the awkward fit between Aristotelian dualism in the sciences and Christian theology reminds me of myself, especially when Louth writes, "Certainly this challenge to the Aristotelian idea of theology as the highest science could be disguised by those who saw revelation in history as the revelation of absolutely certain propositions, which are gathered together in the Scriptures and provide the axiomatic basis for the science of Christian theology, the study of the Christian revelation." This describes my old default attitude towards Christian belief; when I was fighting against doubt, it was a system of truth, explanations, and answers that I was trying to preserve. I had little comprehension of the concept of "mystery"; all these apparent contradictions in the Bible and theology were nothing but problems to be overcome via a suitable explanation. Giving up my expectation of being able to rationally understand everything I believed (as we expect in the sciences) was essential both for dealing with my doubt and for opening me up to the kind of theology Louth describes.<br />
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Marcel's concept of mystery is very reminiscent of the Patristic tradition of apophatic theology, the "way of negation" which radically acknowledges the incomprehensibility of God in his essence, denying the sufficiency of all our attempts to describe him in order to guard against overconfidence in our positive statements of theology. Yet there is a positive purpose to this denial: the freedom to know God as deeply as is possible for created beings, in a way that transcends anything we can say or conceptualize about him. As Vladimir Lossky writes in <i>The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church</i>, sounding very much like Louth:<br />
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As we have seen, the negations which draw attention to the divine incomprehensibility are not prohibitions upon knowledge: apophaticism, so far from being a limitation, enables us to transcend all concepts, every sphere of philosophical speculation. It is a tendency towards an ever-greater plenitude, in which knowledge is transformed into ignorance, the theology of concepts into contemplation, dogmas into experience of ineffable mysteries. It is, moreover, an existential theology involving man's entire being, which sets him upon the way of union, to transform his nature that he may attain to the true <i>gnosis</i> which is the contemplation of the Holy Trinity. Now, this 'change of heart', this <i>metanoia</i>, means repentance. The apophatic way of Eastern theology is the repentance of the human person before the face of the living God. (238)</blockquote>
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The apophatic way is the way of contemplation of the mysteries which Louth has described in this chapter. The highest purpose of theology is to guide us on this way as much as is possible, to lead us to the mysteries and to shape us to see in them the God whose face cannot be seen.<br />
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This idea of mystery is very helpful in light of the ways in which others (myself included) can misunderstand it. I used to think "mystery" denoted some kind of unresolvable tension in Scripture, or more crudely, an apparently contradictory or impossible teaching you must accept as true anyway—the three-in-oneness of the Trinity, Christ's full humanity and divinity, the coexistence of human free will and divine sovereignty (these correspond to the three central mysteries listed by Rahner), or perhaps more recently God's immanence and transcendence. The problem with defining mystery in such a way is that, at least for me, it made immensely tempting to try to do what Marcel says you absolutely must not do: try and "solve" (or dissolve) the mystery, reconcile the conflicting polarities. I attempted this repeatedly, even earlier in this blog's existence, thinking I was promoting the "unity of the church" in doing so. Such a definition of mystery makes mysteries look dangerously like problems, unfinished theological quests, standing to be improved if we can figure out a way to reconcile these two seemingly conflicting sets of passages.</div>
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But it isn't like this at all. Yes, theological mysteries can manifest in apparent biblical tensions, but this is not what they really are. Marcel gives a far better definition, making clear that mysteries are realities we cannot comprehend not because they are simply obscure and logically contradictory on their face, but because they are simply too big, too far beyond our capacity to comprehend—so big that, like four-dimensional objects, they show up in strange ways in our scope of perception. The point, as Louth argues, is not to "explain" or "solve" the mystery, but to participate in it, contemplate it, be confronted by it. A bad analogy from physics: if the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RF_resonant_cavity_thruster">"EmDrive"</a> is eventually shown to work beyond reasonable doubt, this would not do away with the conservation of momentum altogether but relativize it, contextualize it within a larger, seemingly contradictory reality—a scientific mystery of sorts (albeit a finite one, which might eventually dissolve into a problem). The apparent contradiction is only the outward effects of a reality too big to see, at least right now. Much the same thing has already happened with Newtonian mechanics, once seen as the very thoughts of God governing the cosmos, with the advent of relativity and quantum mechanics.</div>
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Louth's idea (following Polanyi) that the tradition of the early Church was "essentially non-specifiable", or if specifiable only as "the bond of unity, the bond of love, which established the Church as the body of Christ" (64-65) is also insightful. I think it is why evangelism in Orthodoxy never takes place outside of or alongside the Church, but within it. The best way to understand is to follow Philip's invitation: "come and see" (Jhn 1:46). As they say, no one is argued into believing; our knowing is not merely a matter of discerning "objective truth", but personal engagement with that truth, into which tradition (not least the tradition of the Church) is meant to initiate and form us. If, as Hort says, the perception of truth depends as much on the (moral) state of the perceiver as much as the object of perception, then very little in the truth of the Christian faith is truly "objective", i.e. equally true for all observers, equally visible from everywhere. Tradition, rather, is meant to lead us to the place from which our knowledge of truth comes alive.</div>
Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08244026688548871531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4225502016359798858.post-46079073871632852882015-11-10T18:30:00.001-06:002017-01-10T14:05:17.369-06:00The Objective Truth<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This is my second post on the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0971748365" style="font-style: italic;">Discerning the Mystery</a>, by Andrew Louth. The first post can be found <a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-dissociation-of-sensibility.html">here</a>.<i><br /></i><br />
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In his second chapter Louth investigates further the difference between science and the humanities, and how the Enlightenment has affected relations between them. This difference can be observed, among other ways, by the fact that there is a clear sense of progress in the sciences, while progress is much harder to define in the humanities. This perceived lack of progress has come to be seen as a failure, a challenge for the humanities to somehow achieve successes similar to those of the sciences by becoming more like them—the "fallacy of imitative form" mentioned in the last chapter. However, there has long been another current of thought that has resisted any assimilation of the humanities to the sciences, and it is to several representative voices of this resistance that Louth turns.<br />
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The first such voice he describes is that of Giambattista Vico, who highlighted the difference to protest the attempts of Enlightenment thinkers to make the character of the sciences paradigmatic for all knowledge—the sentiment that in order to be true, knowledge must be "scientific". He brings in the idea that one can only understand fully what one has made. In his view, mathematics is not something discovered so much as invented, hence why we are able to understand it so clearly and precisely. Yet nature is not manmade, and so mathematics is not always a good fit to it; the spectrum of "hardness" in the sciences can be seen as a scale of how well different fields of study can be described by mathematics. Yet human history, human deeds are obviously also manmade; they can be known from within, not simply as external objects of study like the natural world. How strange it is, then, to try to apply the methods of science to understand human history! Instead Vico points to the importance of metaphor and imagination in helping us to understand history; metaphors are seen as windows to the thought world or "common sense" of not just individuals but past communities.<br />
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Wilhelm Dilthey later elaborated on this distinction between science and the humanities. He calls attention to their difference in subject matter: the natural sciences study physical objects which can be analyzed and experimented on in detail, while the humanities are concerned with human minds which do not submit to this kind of study. Yet they are accessible to us in a more fundamental way, because they are not other but "connatural" to us. Dilthey describes the understanding of minds (ours or others') as the sympathetic understanding of their "expressions" of experiences. Our capacity to in some sense share in the experiences of others is what gives us access to other minds, guided by our shared understanding of human nature. Interpretation, according to Dilthey, is an attempt to reflect in the mind the experiences of another, which he calls "indwelling" (23). It is a movement back and forth between text and context, from parts to whole; "This circle is logically unbreakable, but we break it in practice every time we understand." (24) This way of interpretation is not purely or even primarily a logical process; it is more guided by sympathy and intuition; it is an attempt to (in Schleiermacher's words, "[understand] the author better than he understands himself."<br />
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Similarities between Vico and Dilthey readily become apparent. Both emphasize our ability to understand other minds "from the inside" via sympathetic imagining, made possible by our common human nature, as opposed to the purely external, more logical study of the natural world. Yet this difference in the kinds of knowledge dealt with by the sciences and humanities still seems to concede "truth" to science, and claims something else for the humanities. Is this an inevitable side-effect of seeking to understand the humanities as radically different than science? Louth thinks not. He points to some presuppositions: the very notion of "objective" and "subjective" kinds of truth, and the attitude of the sciences toward the present.<br />
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As regards objective and subjective truth, the common definition is that objective truth is detached from the subjectivity of the observer (i.e. equally true for everyone, in all contexts), while subjective truth cannot be detached from the observer, and is "true for me", for a particular subject in a particular situation; it cannot be expressed in such a way that it is true for everyone. Expressed this way, Louth argues, it seems obvious that objective truth is "real" truth and subjective truth is somehow lesser. Against this, he describes objectivity and subjectivity as a spectrum, not a dichotomy. On one side is purely objective truth, but between it and purely subjective truth (which would simply be a collection of personal impressions lacking any engagement with the external world) lies truth that is objective in that it engages with truths that are "real", but<i> </i>does not do so in a detached, purely observational way. As Kierkegaard put it, "real" truth is that which a man would lay down his life for; purely objective truth is mere information that concerns "everyone and no one." (27) "What is important is engagement with reality, not simply the discerning of reality: and if it <i>is</i> reality, then it has a certain objectivity, it cannot simply be a reflection of my subjective apprehensions." Louth here introduces an idea which will continue to bear fruit for the rest of the book.<br />
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He also questions the "canonization of the present" as a way to measure the past. This approach tends to treat the understanding of the present (or rather, the recent past) as unproblematic, as a way to understand the (more distant) past, yet this seems hard to believe. By ignoring the problem of the present, which contains the subject seeking to understand, it becomes easier to imagine that our knowledge of the past can be "objective". What can we make of the past if that subjectivity is not removable?<br />
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Louth next turns to the approach of Hans-Georg Gadamer toward the difference between the sciences and the humanities, a self-confessing effort to show "how little the traditions in which we stand are weakened by modern historical consciousness". Gadamer calls out the influence of Steiner's "fallacy of imitative form" on the humanities, considering it mistaken for two reasons. First is the search for a single, objective, "original meaning" to a text by seeking to situate ourselves in the author's context until we understand him, maybe even better than he understands himself. Gadamer considers this an unrealistic expectation because it ignores the context of the interpreter; it is an impossible quest to understand not just what is written but the author himself. Even were it possible, such an understanding would be a "dead meaning" (30) for the reasons just raised by Kierkegaard; real meaning emerges in the <i>engagement</i> between author and reader, and so is not limited by either.<br />
<br />
The second error Gadamer points out is the corresponding attempt to eliminate the subjectivity of the interpreter, the ideal of "presuppositionless understanding" which removes the reader from the equation to allow the "original meaning" of the author to shine through. As in science the ideal is "objectivity", the elimination of "prejudice". In response Gadamer asks: does being situated in various traditions limit one's freedom and make one subject to prejudices? Or is such limitation simply a part of being human, the particular space in which we find our freedom? A truer theory of interpretation sets the interpreter himself and his engagement with the past within tradition. The hermeneutical circle does not vanish when we attain to perfect understanding it is itself understanding. The discovery of the "true meaning" of a text is never finished; "it is rather an infinite process whereby tradition is handed on." (33) This does not mean that understanding is impossible, but rather than it is never exhausted or completed.<br />
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Thus Gadamer rejects any antithesis between tradition and reason or knowledge. Tradition is not what keeps us from true understanding, but (at least in the humanities) that by which, through which, and within which we can truly understand. "Tradition is the context in which one can be free, it is not something that constrains us and prevents us from being free." (35) Growth and understanding within tradition is likened to a process of "undeception", in which we do not grow in knowledge so much as we are freed from that which keeps us from being open to new experience, to understanding. We do not simply question such-and-such text; we understand the questions it is answering and allow them to question us.<br />
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Gadamer draws an analogy between ways of engagement with an author and forms of conversation. The first kind of engagement does not really allow a conversation to develop at all; it is simply the observation of an object, and the "conversation" is the context within which we observe him and try to draw conclusions; this is analogous to trying to apply a rigorously scientific methodology to the humanities which treats people as objects of study, subject to laws to be discovered. Another kind is a real conversation, but one in which I am not interested in <i>what</i> someone is saying as in how he "really" thinks and feels—trying to peer beneath the surface understand him better than he understands himself. This is similar to the relationship between a psychiatrist and a client, but without the therapeutic motive. Finally, I can engage in a conversation where I not only recognize the other's personhood, but also his "claim over me" and what he has to say to me. I am not trying to gain an "objective" understanding of him, but only of what he has to say; I am open to learning from him, not merely about him.<br />
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Finally Gadamer proposes, as an alternative to the Enlightenment goal of seeking a method which will lead to truth if applied properly, the German concept of <i>bildung</i>, or the Greek word <i>paideia</i>—which roughly translates to "childhood", "formation", or "growing up" (reminiscent of James K.A. Smith's proposal in <i>Desiring the Kingdom</i>). In his understanding, initiation into the humanities is not initiation into any technique so much as it is an initiation into the tradition with which we are concerned. The goal is not objectivity, but the right kind of subjectivity, a "sensitivity to our historical situation and all that has contributed to it," the experience and wisdom that allows us to benefit as fully as possible from our situation instead of transcending it. Rather than denying our prejudices, <i>bildung</i> initiates us into them—or more sympathetically, into a perspective by which we can truly know the moral world.<br />
<hr />
This chapter is where Louth really starts to unpack the big ideas of the book. His critique of the simple dichotomy between "objective" and "subjective", and suggestion of a spectrum from detached, universal truth to purely subjective impression immediately struck me as insightful, a way of thinking I hadn't encountered before that makes a lot of sense and explains much. I expressed something remotely like this in my own search for answers.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I believe truth is intrinsically bound up in reality itself, not something separate and neutral we use to describe it. If truth is a body of rational statements, we have privileged access to it as rational beings. But it truth is tied into reality, then we have access to it inasmuch as we are 'native'/at home in the world. (2013-7-12)</blockquote>
What I was missing when I wrote this is that the ultimate truth we seek to know is the Word himself, and we know him not just through the quasi-abstraction of "reality" but through the particularity of tradition, as Louth explains. I was also using the newer, more narrow meaning of "rational" as meaning something like "propositional and logic-based", when in its original meaning it denoted the human ability and calling to know God, as Fr. Stephen Freeman <a href="https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2015/10/19/excuse-me-you-are-not-rational/">explains</a>. But I was dead-on right that authentically knowing truth is not a detached affair of "objective" perception, but active engagement with the object of our knowing. There is no distance between our knowing and its object.<br />
<br />
Thus the goal of theology is <i>not</i> to seek "objective" truth or knowledge. The word "objective", as it is commonly used, denotes not so much a positive quality as the lack of something: personal, subjective engagement with the reality known (pure subjectivity also denotes a lack of something: an external reality to know and engage with). In the sciences this lack of subjectivity denotes repeatability and universality and is arguably a good thing; not so in the humanities, Louth argues, least of all theology.<br />
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In lay-level Bible study, it is common to designate interpretation and application as the two major steps in biblical interpretation. This division of labor assumes that interpretation is separable, both logically and chronologically, from application, from engagement with the truth glimpsed through interpretation. We first figure out "what it meant then", then turn to "what it means now". We expect to somehow interpret in detachment, as objectively as possible, and then reattach ourselves to apply what we have learned to our own lives. Gadamer would disagree; he instead wrote that such "objective" detachment is unrealistic and undesirable.<br />
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Louth argues that interpretation and engagement are inseparable, cyclically linked in the "hermeneutical circle", from text to context and back in perpetuity. I still feel a residual tinge of unease over the suggestion that interpretation could be a never-ending process insofar as it seems to set the meaning of Scripture outside our grasp. Louth is not claiming this, but that we can never exhaust the meaning of Spirit-breathed Scripture, to the point where we have nothing left to learn from it, no further way to grow in it. In this never-completed cycle of interpretation, we find that tradition is not a barrier to true understanding, but the medium in which we are able to come by it. What we need to interpret rightly is not subjectless objectivity, the freedom from presuppositions and traditions, but the <i>right</i> tradition. This is what I always try to emphasize to Christians who claim to have found (or at least to be seeking) the "objective" or "original" meaning of Scripture, apart from "human tradition". As Louth will argue in the next chapter, tradition is inescapable, a part of our human condition; if you think that you are free from tradition and prejudices, it simply means you are unaware of their influence on you.<br />
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A common argument I hear fielded in support of the need to read (or at least attempt to read) a text like the Bible "objectively" is to imagine that you wrote something that someone else is reading (a letter, book, blog post, or whatever). Wouldn't you want them to read it in search of what you actually meant in your act of communication, and not to simply subjectively insert their own meaning, making your writing say whatever they want? Should we not extend this same respect, of actually caring what people mean when they communicate, to others? Yet this argument assumes the false dichotomy between objectivity and subjectivity Louth points out, where anything other than seeking the original meaning is thought to be pure invention on our part. I would argue we also do a text a disservice if we approach it with the detachment of a scientist in the laboratory, if we simply treat it like a puzzle to be solved where the only solution is to figure out exactly what the writer was thinking and meaning, with everything else extraneous. Imagine if you wrote a letter to someone else and they read it in this way, seeking to ground it in a reconstruction of your socio-historical background, worldview, cultural assumptions, etc., instead of simply reading it in the shared context of your friendship and knowledge of each other! In biblical interpretation, tradition occupies the role of that friendship; it is our living link with the individuals and the community from whom we have received the very text we are trying to interpret. And, as Christian tradition lives within the body of Christ indwelt by the Spirit, it makes possible something more important: subjective engagement with the ultimate objective, personal reality witnessed to by the text—not the Bible itself, but its Author.<br />
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From time to time I read pieces about the kind of legacy we are leaving behind as a civilization—what future generations will think when examining our artifacts, reading our writings, looking at our consumer goods and technology. This kind of thinking has always struck me as strange because for some reason it always assumes these these future humans remember absolutely nothing of our time, not even in a distorted fashion, so that they are only able to know our culture through archaeological guesswork, not simply as our descendants. This seems hard to believe when we think about all the ways, both obvious and invisible, that classical Greek culture continues to influence modern western society more than two millennia later. Such imaginings seem to bleakly assume that civilization will have collapsed and been forgotten in the interim, with no living memory passed on. By taking a scientific, "objective" approach to theology or the humanities in general, by seeking to escape from the traditions that have been passed down and then reconstruct them using historical criticism, we are being similarly forgetful.Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08244026688548871531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4225502016359798858.post-58263888862839113922015-11-09T18:10:00.003-06:002017-01-10T13:50:25.390-06:00The Dissociation of Sensibility<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I recently finished one of those books that is so thought-provoking and engrossing that you feel compelled to reread it again immediately after finishing. The book is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0971748365" style="font-style: italic;">Discerning the Mystery</a>, by Andrew Louth; if I had to summarize it briefly, I would describe it as an assessment of the effects (particularly on theology) of the Enlightenment on how we "modern" people define, think about and look for truth, and a philosophical defense of the importance and role of tradition in Christian theology and the humanities in general. In other words, it's a book that makes extremely explicit the reasons why tradition is such a central and valuable part of the Orthodox Christian faith, the kinds of reasons that many Orthodox hold implicitly or only describe less discursively, which makes it extremely helpful to me as a curious convert-in-the-making. So as I read through it again, I'll be blogging through it, both to create a handy reference to Louth's main points both for myself and others and to help myself remember and meditate on his thoughts, which I think have far-reaching implications for how I approach my faith.
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<hr />
Our modern culture and society, Louth begins, are deeply affected by what he (quoting T.S. Eliot) calls a "dissociation of sensibility": a division between thought and feeling, or between mind and heart. He doesn't give specific examples, but I am sure you can supply your own; the only reason this divide may be hard to notice is precisely because it is so ingrained in our way of being-in-the-world that we may not notice how it affects us. It has undeniably been characteristic of my own life for as long as I can remember.<br />
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Being so pervasive in our culture, the dissociation has affected theology as much as anything else. It manifests in the degree of separation of theologians both from the churches they purportedly serve (the church-academia, or pastor-theologian, divide) as well as from each other (you have your specialized field of study, I have mine, we hardly interact except maybe in special collaborations). It manifests in the division between theology and spirituality, between "thought about God and movement of the heart towards God." (2) Such a division, Louth says, is contrary to the spirit of patristic theology, which would consider the limits of rationality to which much modern theology confines itself to be undue restraints placed on the heart's innate longing for God. To the church father Evagrius of Pontus, "if you are a theologian, you pray truly, and if you pray truly, you are a theologian." (4) Then there was no division between theology and spirituality; now it seems inescapable, the climate we find ourselves brought up into; if we feel that they belong together, we now have to consciously relate them to one another.<br />
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Whence this division? Louth lists a few possibilities. A common view among eastern Christians is that it is simply evidence of a growing faithlessness in theology, first seen among the early heretics and continued especially in the post-schism west. More common among western Christians is that this division happened during the development of western theology, a product of Scholasticisim and the growing distinction between monasteries and universities, but that it is not a bad thing in itself; it represents the beginning of modern, rational theology and freedom from the irrational allegorization and suffocating tradition of the earlier middle ages. A third view, to which Louth seems to be most sympathetic, is that early Scholasticism was not the demise of the patristic unity, but its final expression; the division came with later Scholastic philosophers like Scotus and Occam, who opened the door wide to purely theoretical speculation about God.<br />
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Whatever its origins, it is easier to see how this division became what we now think of as modern thought. The Renaissance (with its call to rediscover and study classic texts anew) opened the door to questioning traditional ways of doing or believing things, learning things oneself through investigation, and—crucially for what would come next—the idea of a <i>method </i>for finding truth. In this case it was a return to the sources, but the Enlightenment would generalize this into the concept, the hope, of a general method by which any subject must be a approached, a method which, if applied correctly, would reliably lead one from prejudice (often implanted by outmoded traditions) to ignorance to knowledge. Such an idea was hostile to tradition insofar as it supplanted it as a way to know the truth; truth is no longer simply known from tradition, but must be tested, subjected to the method, to be considered justified.<br />
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There is no doubt that the discovery of truth through the application of a method has undoubtedly met with resounding success in the natural sciences, where the scientific method is justly seen as responsible for the advances in science and technology that have shaped the face of the modern world as we know it. Knowledge is acquired through experiments, which are repeatable, which in turn makes this knowledge <i>objective</i>, that is, true independently of the one perceiving it (since anyone can, in theory, repeat the experiment and confirm it). Mathematics has supplanted natural speech as the language in which this objective truth is to grasped and expressed. Again, the successes of this project and manifold and undeniable, which in turn makes the value of a method for finding truth seem all the greater.<br />
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In the humanities, this has given rise to what George Steiner calls "a fallacy of imitative form" (10), in which academics in fields traditionally dominated by "word-language" attempt to infuse them with mathematical rigor and scientific objectivity. This carries the assumption that for a field of study to be "true" is for it to be "scientific" or "objective". Louth calls it a relinquishment to the "scientific method, dependent upon the non-verbal, non-human language of mathematics, concern for what is true." Of course, finding a "scientific method" for the humanities to call their own is not easy, but perhaps we have found on in the method of "historical consciousness" (13), i.e. historical criticism. By placing past thinkers, authors, and their texts in their proper historical context, it is thought, we can approach these texts "scientifically", with a sufficient degree of objectivity to understand them in a subject-independent way analogous to how scientists conduct experiments.<br />
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Yet Louth believes this approach has numerous problems. In effect, it treats the entire past as false or provisional, and past authors and texts as reflections of their historical context rather than true in the same way as the present, which becomes a privileged yardstick by which to evaluate them. It also opens a division between the study of a subject itself and the study of its history. This division makes sense for the sciences, but not the humanities; there, it frees, say, philosophers from having to pay attention to the history of their subject, and historians of philosophers from having to actually be philosophers. If we are more confident in our subject, this can lead to treating past sources as a sort of rough, unfinished version of what we now know; it becomes hard to see what we can learn from the past if we are effectively sitting in judgment over it. If confidence is lacking, we can become more aware that we ourselves are always on the verge of passing into history, that we are just as much a product of the flow of history as the past authors we study.<br />
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This, Louth argues, is the "crisis of confidence" in which modern theology finds itself. He quotes the late Professor Lampe to describe it:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
No one can entirely extricate himself from the complex tradition to which he belongs. He cannot clear the ground and build a new system of belief, using the primary data of revelation as its sole foundation. The believer's exploration into truth cannot set out into uncharted territory. It consists not so much in pioneering as in attempting to analyse, criticize, and evaluate a set of beliefs and attitudes toward belief, which he has derived from a long stream of tradition, and, where they seem inadequate or misleading as expressions of the faith to which he finds himself committed, to restate, modify, or replace them. (15-16)</blockquote>
Louth describes this as a kind of historical fatalism: tradition, the weight of our past, has become a chain which binds us to subjectivism, from which we long to escape but cannot. He calls this a legacy of theology which follows the path laid by the Enlightenment, "a path which leads theology away from the heart of the subject, and is <i>meant to</i>." Traditional Christianity, founded as it is on specific events it teaches took place in the past, cannot survive in such an environment. If its past is rendered inaccessible to historical criticism, Christianity "will have to change pretty radically in order to survive."
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<hr />
Already in his first chapter, Louth makes one of the main themes of the essay clear. He is resisting the colonization of the humanities by the epistemology and methodology of science—the "fallacy of imitative form", driven by the assumption that knowledge, insofar as it is true or "real", must conform to the epistemology and methodology of the sciences, must be "scientific" and "objective" rather than "subjective" or "relative". I think this idea is very much present in modern theology; for example Millard Erickson, the author of the systematic theology text I studied for my Master's, writes (stating an opinion that I do not think is at all uncommon) that for theology to surrender its claim to being a science of some kind is also to "virtually surrender the claim to being knowledge in the sense of involving true propositions about objective realities (i.e. realities existing independently of the knower)." (<i>Systematic Theology</i> 19-20) Louth addresses the assumptions behind this claim (I wonder what Erickson meant by his word "virtually") in the next chapter.<br />
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I have studied the question, "Is theology a science?" approach in one of my <a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2014/12/is-theology-science.html">papers</a>. As a correlating example, I have <a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2014/10/my-journey-part-112-insufficiency-of.html">written</a> how of the more common responses among Protestants to overcome the confessional divisions brought about by divergent interpretations of Scripture has been the search for a correct hermeneutical method of interpreting Scripture that everyone can agree on, and that will in turn produce greater doctrinal agreement.<br />
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I resonate with Louth's idea of a "crisis of confidence" in modern theology brought about by this fallacy. I was struggling against the kind of fatalism expressed by Lampe before making my peace with theological tradition via Orthodoxy. I didn't at all like feeling as though I was striking out on my own in a search for truth independently of any established tradition, and it did seem kind of like a hopeless venture, but I felt I had no choice, that no tradition had all the answers I sought. This was partly due to ignorance on my part, and partly to arrogance (i.e. my strong instinct to seek answers in myself first of all). I never linked my unrest with the "dissociation of sensibility" Louth describes; in hindsight I see how I stopped living my faith (or trying to) the more I stepped outside to critique and correct it. I was very much aware of this division, but didn't realize how interlinked the two problems—wrong/confused teaching and the split between theology and spirituality—were. The negation of both is summed up in the word "Orthodox", which means both "right belief" and "right worship".<br />
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I admit that the Orthodox faith hasn't provided answers to all the questions I wrestled with. And yet I am at peace, free from the doubt that I almost thought would come to define me. It is more true to say that the Church itself came as the answer—still more to say it showed me, provided the context in which I could see, how Christ himself is the answer. Through a process Louth describes later in the book, it helped me to stop asking (i.e. feeling I need to ask) my questions.Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08244026688548871531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4225502016359798858.post-80151121719554957532015-11-07T19:35:00.001-06:002015-11-07T19:35:18.807-06:00The First-Person SingularIn the <a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2015/03/my-journey-part-14-worshipping-with.html">post</a> in my Journey to Orthodoxy series on worship, I mentioned briefly that contemporary worship often bears a resemblance to prayer or devotion. I feel ready to say at least a bit more about this observation now. What I meant by it can be summed up by the fact that a good deal of contemporary worship songs (I would guess a large majority of them, as well as some older hymns) are written from a first-person singular perspective.<br />
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This is not just a grammatical quirk. If we grant that contemporary worship is as intentionally designed as older forms of worship, then this trend indicates that some kind of blending of individual and corporate worship is taking place. Christians gather to worship God, ostensibly together, yet do so in words that belie their corporate setting. Is this not strange?<br />
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It is such individualized worship that I would argue resembles personal prayer more than corporate worship. In such worship people praise God, give thanksgiving and glory and honor to him, ask for his Spirit—but more as a multitude of individuals gathered together than as the one Church, one body. This gives rise to some other emphases that fit more naturally into an individual approach to worship than a corporate one, like the importance of making (or having made) a personal <a href="http://www.worshiptogether.com/songs/christ-is-enough">decision</a> to follow Jesus or a concern for <a href="http://www.songlyrics.com/citizens/in-tenderness-lyrics/">personal apprehension</a> of the truths sung about: what has happened to/been done for me (in particular), what it means to me, how I feel about it, how I will respond to it.<br />
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These things are of course good and important. Faith has to be personal in order to change anything. But to me this focus on one's place before God, on looking to the purity of one's own faith and how the gospel can be further applied to it, is found more naturally in personal prayer and piety than in corporate worship. This is why I think such individualized expressions of worship more resemble the role private prayer plays in the Orthodox Church. (How ironic that many Protestants reject the kinds of prewritten prayers ubiquitous in Orthodoxy, but regularly sing worship songs that are nearly the same thing) I don't know enough to evaluate this difference; I'm just trying to point it out.<br />
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The late Fr. Thomas Hopko has recorded a helpful <a href="http://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/spiritandtruth/the_divine_liturgy_and_personal_prayer">talk</a> on the relationship between the Divine Liturgy (i.e. Orthodox worship) and personal prayer explaining how Orthodox differentiate between prayer and worship. I'll quote parts of it at length, as I think he clarifies the way Orthodox distinguish (and yet connect) the two much better than I could in my own inexperience.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The Divine <i>Leitourgia</i> is the action of the Church. It’s [an]
ecclesial action; it’s a corporate, common action. That word “corporate”
is very good, because “<i>corpus</i>” in Latin is “body.” It’s an action of the <i>body</i>
of Christ. It is not an individual, personal activity of a bunch of
people simply being gathered together. It is the realization and the
actualization of the kingdom of God on earth in the Church which is
also, then, an actualization or a realization of creation itself as
God’s kingdom.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Then in the Church you have everything participating. You have light, you have smell, you have incense, you have all these physical properties [which] are there in this particular gathering. It’s very important to realize that when we’re speaking about worship in spirit and in truth, this is the total worship of all of creation in the Church of Christ, anticipating the coming kingdom of God, where everything will simply be worship. Everything will be holy Communion. In the age to come, everything will be worship, everything will be praise, everything will be thanksgiving, everything will be filled with truth and wisdom, knowledge, understanding, insight, and everything will be holy Communion. The very existence—life itself, existence as life—will be communion with the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit, communion with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, glorifying and worshiping God through the Son in the Spirit, and worshiping and glorifying God and the Son and the Holy Spirit. This is what is the Church, the Qahal, the Liturgy.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
And then people will say, “Well, can’t you just go out into a field
and pray, you know, pray where the sun is shining and the birds are
singing and the flowers are blooming and the trees are shading and it’s
just so gorgeous. You’d be alone there and you’d say your prayer. Can’t
you just let God know what you want at any time? And didn’t the apostles
say you have to pray without ceasing and be constant in prayer, pray
literally without ever stopping? And don’t you pray in your heart? Isn’t
it a personal matter when you pray? Isn’t it a kind of very intimate
relation with God?” and so on.<br />
The answer is: Sure, yeah, that’s right. That’s perfect, that’s true.
And every Christian and every human being has to do that. Our life has
to become prayer. The holy Fathers will say prayer is not just something
that you do; prayer is something that you become.<br />
However—and here’s the point for today—the Divine Liturgy is not a
prayer service. And the Divine Liturgy is not a service where people
come together to express their own personal private petitions together
in a group. We’ll see that that’s part of it, but that’s not the essence
of it at all. In fact, even in language, if you take ancient Christian
writings—let’s say the writings for the first, I don’t know, millennium
of the Christian history—the Liturgy was never even called prayer.
Prayer <i>was</i> something you did in your cell, it was something you
did in your room, it was something that you did in your heart, it was
something that you did constantly, and everybody had to do it. It wasn’t
that you simply went to church, which of course is a modern expression,
“go to church.”</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
When we go to church, we do pray. We say prayers, we say litanies, we
say, “Let us pray to the Lord.” We pay attention to the prayers; we say <i>Amen</i>
to the prayers. Sure, there are prayers there, because the whole life
of a creature has to be prayer. In the Liturgy, we have the various
kinds of prayers. We have the prayer of asking, we have the prayer of
praising, we have the prayer of thanking, we have the prayers of
interceding and praying for one another, we have the prayers of letting
known our needs to God—but that is one aspect of the gathering. It does
not exhaust the whole meaning of the gathering at all, not at all.<br />
Those are things that can be done alone, and should be done alone in one’s room, and they are things that even families or groups of Christians can do together when they meet. You could have a prayer group come together and say some prayers, intercede for each other. That’s not very traditional in Eastern Orthodox history, but there’s probably nothing wrong with it, as long as you’re not simply gathering together to inform God what he already knows and then to tell God what God ought to do about it. Fr. Alexander Schmemann used to quote his spiritual father,
Archimandrite Cyprian Kern, who used to say, “Many people think that
prayer is informing God what he already knows and then telling God what
he ought to do about it.”<br />
Well, that’s not prayer. Prayer is not naming it and claiming it,
either. Prayer, in fact, does not even begin in one’s own words. If you
follow the Scriptures, you <i>learn</i> to pray and you begin to say,
as St. Anthony the Great said in the desert, using the words that God
provided for his own glorification. And that means, fundamentally, the
psalms, and then it means the Lord’s prayer, it means the doxology, it
means the trisagion—the “holy, holy, holy.” These are prayers that are
given to us that we repeat, by the Scriptures, by the Holy Spirit, by
God’s will put into our mouth.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
A person can definitely share with God what’s on their mind. We can tell
God what we think. We can tell God what we want. We can make known our
needs and our anxieties and so on to God. But <i>we do not go to the Divine Liturgy</i> for that purpose. In fact, we go to the Divine Liturgy to learn what we, not only ought to <i>say</i>
to God when we talk to him, but we go to the Divine Liturgy and the
Church’s liturgy generally to learn how we ought to think, to learn what
our mind should be really on, what our heart should really desire. In
that sense, the Church’s liturgy and the Divine Liturgy <i>par excellence</i> is a <i>school</i>
of prayer. It’s a communal act in which we go to be shaped and to be
formed as human beings and as Christians in that community where God
himself is acting, teaching, preaching, offering, consecrating,
blessing, and giving himself to us for holy Communion <i>as</i> we give ourselves to him for the sake of that very same holy Communion. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
However, [a private prayer rule is] prayer, that’s <i>evchē</i>, that’s <i>prosevchē</i>; that’s not <i>leitourgia</i>. That’s not <i>leitourgia</i>. You could say it’s our personal <i>leitourgia </i>as what we do as members of the community in our lives with every breath every day of our life as we try to actualize in our everyday life what is given to our experience in the liturgical life, particularly when we gather and participate in the Divine Liturgy. You could even say that the personal pietistic prayer life of a Christian is the actualization individually in what is given in the Liturgy; it’s the actualization all the time in one’s own person to what is given to the entire community when it gathers at the church for the Lord to act at the Divine Liturgy of the Church.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The Divine Liturgy has all of the aspects brought together in perfection in the context of worship that simply constitute our human life generally at every moment of our life. That’s why I said earlier we could actually say that human life, according to Christianity, is to actualize every moment of every day with every breath that which we experience and actualize in the Church’s Divine Liturgy. That’s the connection between everyday life and the Church’s liturgy. We need the Divine Liturgy of the Church, behind closed doors, to have the experience of life and truth and reality in God, so we know how to live the rest of the time. And the rest of the time, we try to actualize it, we try to realize it, we try to put it into practice, from Liturgy to Liturgy.</blockquote>
According to Hopko, prayer is possible and good either individually or in a corporate setting, but worship (which includes and transcends prayer) is at its core corporate, the <i>leitourgia</i> (literally, "work of the people") of the body of Christ which permeates and transforms our individual lives, but does not originate there. Both are good and important, but there is a definite difference between them.Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08244026688548871531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4225502016359798858.post-16585483962258482492015-10-29T20:36:00.001-05:002016-04-09T07:48:45.570-05:00Abortion, love for enemies, and the sins of all<blockquote class="tr_bq">
You have heard that it was said, "you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5:43-48 NKJV)</blockquote>
<hr />
If, like many of the people I know, you consider yourself "pro-life", know first of all that I share your basic conviction on the immorality of abortion. I believe the ethics of the killing of an unborn child do not simply come down to a woman's right to do as she likes with her body. Though I don't know how to "prove" it and am somewhat weary of attempts to do so, I believe abortion is the destruction of a bearer of God's image, the waste of a human life created to be a partaker in the life of the divine (cf. 2 Peter 1:4), and a terrible tragedy whenever and wherever it takes place.<br />
<br />
Yet I hesitate to identify myself with the pro-life movement. This is because while I share its basic convictions on abortion, I feel that it doesn't act on them in a way that is consistent with its substantially Christian identity. (The inescapability of billboards with Bible verses and gestation
milestones on any drive through the rural Midwest is a testament to this identity) In large part, I think this can be described as a failure to heed the Lord's command to love even our enemies—a radical teaching from the "sermon on the mount" which I often find myself coming back to precisely because its implications are so profound and far-reaching that we can always readily think of another way we are failing to live up to them. There are at least three such implications that I think are relevant for the pro-life movement. (And please bear in mind that I am attempting to speak corporately of the movement as a whole, not every single person who identifies with it)<br />
<br />
The first is the simplest and most immediate: <b>love your enemies enough to stop slandering them</b>. By "slander" I am referring to the false accusation against Planned Parenthood that it has been selling aborted fetal tissue
for profit based on the misleading editing of a video interview with PP
officials promulgated by the Center for Medical Progress, used as justification for the recently-fervent calls to defund it. The unedited video is fairly long, which is probably why most people don't pay attention to it, but it <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2015/jul/17/planned-parenthood-video-context/">makes clear</a> that the payment PP accepts payment for fetal tissue strictly to cover the costs of preparation, handling, and transportation, not to make a profit. The ethics of using this tissue for research, legal as it is, are certainly worth
further conversation, but no such conversation is happening, only cries of outrage over a demonstrable falsehood.<br />
<br />
So far investigations by <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/09/state-has-found-proof-of-fetal-tissue-sales.html#">seven states</a>, the <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/08/17/hhs-and-state-investigations-find-no-violations/204961">Department of Health and Human Services</a>, and the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jason-chaffetz-planned-parenthood-funding_5616ed01e4b0dbb8000de134?l4bo6r">GOP</a> itself have all failed to find any evidence of illegality in PP's handling of aborted fetal tissue. Yet despite all of this, anti-abortionists are not calling each other out on this myth, but perpetuating it, to the point where PP has <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/63b645f843614e0da49d9c8184359e92/planned-parenthood-forgo-payment-fetal-tissue-programs">stopped accepting</a> even legal reimbursement in order to quell the rumors. So I simply have to ask: if you are one of those railing against PP for profiting off abortions, how much more proof will it take to convince you that these accusations are baseless? Will any amount be sufficient? Or have you simply determined that this will be its hill to die upon, regardless of the facts?<br />
<br />
Underlying the endurance of the false claims made by the CMP's video among pro-lifers is an attitude towards truth that I find deeply disturbing for a Christian movement. Of course they are not making claims that they know to be false; I believe they are simply ignorant of how thoroughly the claims have been refuted. But this raises a new problem; it speaks to a failure to "do one's homework", so to speak, an eagerness to believe negative claims about PP without bothering to see if they are really substantiated. This is not just irresponsible; it is a failure to love those we consider our enemies. If you are reluctant to believe bad things said about your friends, then you should be just as reluctant (<i>not</i> eager) to believe them about your enemies, and should require the same amount of convincing. My attempt here to debunk the slander being spread about PP is an effort to obey this teaching, even if it means defending those with whom I strongly disagree from those I would consider my friends. The love of God does not conform to the divisions we create between ourselves.<br />
<br />
As well, PP has made no secret at all of the fact that it has been performing abortions for decades. So why has the CMP's video ignited such ferocious calls to defund PP? How has the basic ethical situation changed? What it does with fetal tissue has no bearing on the morality of abortion. If abortion is just another medical procedure that women have the inalienable right to choose for themselves, as abortion supporters believe, then whatever is done with the fetal tissue afterwards is of little further ethical concern; it is just like disposing of, say, an amputated limb or removed appendix. If it is the killing of a person, as pro-lifers argue, then it is a monstrous evil whether the aborted tissue is given a reverent funeral or cut into pieces and sold at a profit. So why does this "revelation" even make any difference to their struggle to protect the unborn? The answer is obvious: because selling fetal tissue for a profit is illegal; if it is really what PP is doing, then it becomes possible to legally prosecute it and (hopefully) shut it down. Because the goal is to stop as many abortions as possible, right?<br />
<br />
The second implication: <b>love your enemies enough to talk to them, not past them, to listen to what they have to say, and maybe even (gasp!) to learn from them.</b> Again, just as you would respect a friend in conversation, so you should do with your enemies. Too often it seems to me like pro-lifers are so focused on abortion itself—restricting it, controlling it, defunding it, or condemning it—that they forget what their would-be conversation partners are constantly trying to draw their attention to: the context of abortion. Abortion, like Scripture, has a context: the socioeconomic factors that drive women to end their pregnancies, the things leading up to the decision to terminate a life. <a href="http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html">This fact sheet</a> describes those factors:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The reasons women give for having an abortion underscore their understanding of the responsibilities of parenthood and family life. Three-fourths of women cite concern for or responsibility to other individuals; three-fourths say they cannot afford a child; three-fourths say that having a baby would interfere with work, school or the ability to care for dependents; and half say they do not want to be a single parent or are having problems with their husband or partner.</blockquote>
As should be obvious, having an abortion is not a decision made lightly or easily. It is not the first wish that comes to anyone's mind in the event of an unplanned pregnancy; it is a last resort, undertaken when carrying a child to term is simply unimaginable for one reason or another. Yes, some abortions may happen because a woman simply doesn't want to care for a child with a disability or wants an "easy" way out of an pregnancy that would be more inconvenient than impossible to carry to term, but looking at the numbers we can't assume these cases are more than a minority. My friend Joe explains in his own words:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[Women who have abortions are] making a hard choice about their ability to provide for all of the people they need to. Sixty percent of women who have abortions in the US already have children; forty percent of women who have abortions in the US are below the official poverty line, and more than seventy percent are below what actually constitutes seriously poor. The choice that's being made isn't between a child and a Maserati or a child and a vacation to the Riviera; it's between having three children or having two children and enough money to give them food, shelter, and medical care.</blockquote>
Abortion is not so much a problem in itself as it is a symptom of deeper, interconnected problems: poverty first and foremost, our flawed health care system, lack of support for new mothers, abusive relationships, single parenthood, and everything else that undermines a woman's ability to care for her children. If it is to be consistent, the fight for "life" cannot be confined merely to unborn life; a fight against abortion must also address these factors.<br />
<br />
I think much of the rhetoric leveled against abortion fails to take this context into account. Simply pointing to it as a monstrous evil, a testament to our nation's hardness of heart and full-speed trajectory away from God, a glaring sin which must be repented—these things might all be true, and they might make a single mother struggling to take care of her two children feel guilty about aborting her third, but they do nothing to help her situation or offer hope, and will thus ring hollow. I'm reminded of the Lord's words against the teachers of the Torah: "Woe to you also, lawyers! For you load men
with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens
with one of your fingers." (Luke 11:46) Arguments from Scripture about the dignity or personhood of a fetus, while true, are not much better. Another statistic from that fact sheet that shocked me was that over 60% of women obtaining abortions identify as Christians (37% Protestant, 28% Catholic). No doubt many of these would agree, at least in theory, with pro-life rhetoric about the "sanctity of life" and the personhood of the unborn. Yet they still seek abortions, probably for the kinds of reasons described above, in spite of those beliefs. (The failure of their churches to offer them much-needed support in carrying their children to term is, to say the least, sobering) <br />
<br />
This context also means that the kind of restrictions conservatives seek to place on abortion are not likely to be as effective as they hope, and will also ring insensitive at best, anti-woman at worst. A woman who wants to have an abortion probably feels that the alternative of not having one will be even worse, and so she may go to great (even illegal and dangerous) lengths to avoid that alternative. In all likelihood, she feels she has no other choice—can you imagine why trying to take
away the one choice she feels she has left might seem callous and
backward? In my <a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2013/07/before-roe-v-wade.html">other post</a> on abortion, a doctor writes of his experience before <i>Roe vs. Wade</i> treating a women who had had a then-illegal abortion: "Her desperate need to terminate a pregnancy was the driving force behind the selection of any method available." We can expect such cases to become increasingly, tragically common if we take away womens' access to legal abortions without concerning ourselves with the context. <br />
<br />
The very dichotomy between "pro-life" and "pro-choice" ideologies is also emblematic of a failure to listen, on the part of both self-identified camps. When did valuing life and respecting peoples' freedom to make their own healthcare decisions become necessarily conflicting goals? Who decided that you have to choose between them? Unfortunately, I think a good deal of the blame falls on the pro-life movement. While the legal measures it pursues against abortion and its providers do protect unborn life (at least in intention), they tend to do so by...constraining choice. Restricting when, where, and how abortions can be obtained, forcing doctors to attempt to dissuade women seeking abortions, or trying to defund organizations that provide them all have the effect of undermining and reducing a woman' choice of the medical treatment she desires and feels (however wrongly) that she needs. The pro-choice agenda is not so much an intentional campaign against life as it is a fight for womens' welfare and their ability to make their own medical choices—as just about any pro-choice supporter will tell you, if you listen. These things are not bad in themselves; why do we act as though we are opposed to them?<br />
<br />
<a href="https://medium.com/the-coffeelicious/if-you-want-to-end-abortion-here-s-how-to-do-it-97882445ef86#.qmjcceis9">This article</a> asks much the same questions. The author remarks on how "it has become a bad thing to be against ending preborn human life." Trying to stop abortions with legal force, as pro-lifers do, is "like trying to put out a fire with gasoline". It has led to defending unborn life becoming correlated with being against womens' health and their right to make medical choices for themselves, and with undermining their welfare. For example, opposition to an <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/2015/08/cnn-host-to-anti-abortion-goper-where-does-it-stop-if-you-can-force-us-to-carry-down-syndrome-fetuses/comments/#disqus">Ohio bill</a> that would ban abortions when the sole reason is that the fetus has Down Syndrome is based on the impression that lawmakers are "controlling women and denying them the ability to make the most important choice that they will ever face". It's not unlike the fear among supporters of gun rights that any restriction on gun ownership is a prelude to the government coming and taking all their guns away—except that in this case, the total prohibition of abortion is the explicit goal of most pro-lifers, not just a feverish projection of one's own fears. The author writes about the pro-life legal struggle:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
As long as the battle for preborn life takes place in capital buildings and courtrooms, pro-choice advocates will continue to believe that pro-life advocates are backwards and anti-women, that Planned Parenthood fights for the rights of women; and as the quote at the top of the piece argues, that rallies such as the one in St. Paul are held to prevent basic health care.</blockquote>
My friend Joe adds that the legal battle here is not just over the recognition of the personhood of a fetus or the moral status of abortion: pro-life supporters are also seen (rightly?) as promoting sex education that does not help prevent unplanned pregnancy, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_pro-life_movement#Abortion_health_risk_claims">spreading misinformation</a> about abortion and women's health, doing little to support (or even opposing) health care that promotes the welfare of women considering if they can support a child, and showing comparatively scarce concern for the welfare of children that have already been born. It bears repeating that not everyone who identifies as pro-life is involved in all or any of these things, but rare indeed is the voice of loyal dissent raised within the pro-life movement against them. Pro-choice supporters show a strong awareness of the deeper problems of which abortion is a symptom, problems that too often get ignored in pro-life rhetoric, and it is on this neglect that they base much of their own arguments. In a way, the pro-life cause is self-defeating precisely because the measures it takes to advance its agenda also strengthen its opposition.<br />
<br />
I hope I have shown sufficiently how the effort to protect the unborn can benefit from talking <i>to</i> those it disagrees with rather than past them. This means not ignoring them or giving a dismissive response, but listening well enough to hear when they may be reminding us of what we have forgotten. It means addressing our rhetoric to what they are actually saying, not simply to ourselves. It means making their accusations our self-critique: <i>do</i> we, in our actions as well as in our words, care more about unborn life than life in other stages and forms? It should lead us beyond "pro-life" as a mere political cause to the more fundamental <i>why</i>: the recognition, preservation, and cherishing of the image of God and we whom God has granted to bear it. And the truth is, the most ardent pro-choice activist is just as much a bearer of the
image of God as an unborn child, worthy of just as much of honor and compassion. If we confine our struggle for the sanctity of life merely to abortion, it becomes contradictory and self-defeating. Listening to the truths spoken by both sides offers hope for a stance toward abortion that combines the best (i.e. true) parts of both ideologies and none of their faults.<br />
<br />
Once you stop believing that the two are opposites, it is possible to be both pro-life <i>and</i> pro-choice. If abortion is the result of women feeling like they have no choice, no other way of dealing with a pregnancy, then perhaps the best solution to the problem it poses is not to take away what little choice they have left, but to give them more freedom, more choices, better choices—alternatives to the taking of a life. Instead of condemning those who seek and provide abortions, highlight and celebrate the beauty of choosing life—and, inasmuch as you continue to work on a political level, offer the support needed to help more women make that choice. On a rhetorical level, zoom out from the impasse over abortion itself and turn to the distortions in our culture that give rise to both the justification and permissibility of abortion. As the article author puts it, "offer a hand, not handcuffs ... highlight the beauty of choosing life and offer support to help it come into the world." Not only will this undermine the basis for much of the ideological conflict over abortion and promote reconciliation; I think it will also truly undo the evil represented by abortion instead of just diverting it.<br />
<br />
But this attitude of openness, of willingness to listen and seek reconciliation, is tragically rare in the pro-life movement, as far as I have seen. Far more common is the mindset of warfare: we must rally the troops and fight to defend the sanctity of life from all who would devalue and destroy it, from the horrific evil of abortion, no matter what it takes, even slander and bitter condemnation of the "other side". Instead of compassion and a helping hand, women seeking abortions are denounced as murderers and participants in a horrific national evil. The picketing and harassment of abortion providers is a highly visible example of this; according to the fact sheet, "Eighty-four percent of clinics experienced at least one form of antiabortion harassment in 2011. Picketing is the most common form of harassment clinics are exposed to (80%) followed by phone calls (47%). Fifty-three percent of clinics were picketed 20 times or more."<br />
<br />
I don't think such an attitude of judgment and condemnation is fitting for fellow sinners such as us—especially not if there is anything to my previous two points and this condemnation is accompanied by corporate sin that is visible to no one more than the very people we condemn. Should immorality among those making a Christian profession of faith (claiming to be a member of "a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people" [1 Peter 2:9]) not concern us more than that of the world, where it is to be expected? Are we not first to judge among ourselves, and leave it to God to judge the world? As St. Paul writes: "For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? But those who are outside God judges. Therefore 'put away from yourselves the evil person.'" (1 Cor 5:12-13) Going deeper into the sermon on the mount, the final implication of enemy love I want to discuss is this: <b>love your enemies enough to see your own sin as worse than theirs.</b><br />
<br />
This is one of the teachings of the Orthodox Church that I have found especially humbling, though it is by no means unique to it. It is obedience to the Lord's later teaching in Matthew 7:1-5: "Judge not, that you be not judged. ... And why do you look at the speck in your brother's
eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? ... Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your
own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your
brother's eye." It is to adopt as our own the sober self-understanding expressed by St. Paul when he writes, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am first" (1 Timothy 1:15), as Orthodox pray before receiving communion. It is to feel the weight of our own guilt upon ourselves as heavier than a mountain, and cry out in repentance and prayer for the pardon and remission of our sins; meanwhile, we view the sins of others charitably, as lighter than a feather, pointing them out not simply to condemn but in loving admonishment, to speed them along the path of salvation. Loading others up with guilt over their own sins without giving priority to your own is the opposite of Christlike—it is pharisaic.<br />
<br />
This focus on the seriousness of one's own sin and the importance of pursuing one's own salvation, the discouragement of dwelling on the sins of others, is amazingly pervasive in Orthodox theology and devotion. It is basic to the character of one being conformed to the image and likeness of Christ. But there is also a rarer, more profound and radical dimension of the teaching: the idea that we are each responsible, in some way, for the sins of everyone. Obviously this does not imply a confusion of persons or a contradiction of the biblical idea that each one is responsible for his own sin; it is something you have to "put on", a different and counterintuitive perspective you have to shift into seeing, not something innate. We don't just see ourselves as involved in the same kinds of sins as others; we actually see ourselves as somehow <i>responsible</i> for the sins of others—and repent for all! As the book I am currently reading for my catechism class puts it, "a saint is one who sees himself in the sins of others." <br />
<br />
This idea is presented memorably by the saintly Elder Zossima in Dostoevsky's classical novel <i>The Brothers Karamazov</i>. Fr. Stephen Freeman <a href="http://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2015/06/27/dostoevsky-and-the-sins-of-the-nation/">shares</a> this quote from the book:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Love one another, fathers,” the elder taught (as far as Alyosha
could recall afterwards). “Love God’s people. For we are not holier than
those in the world because we have come here and shut ourselves within
these walls, but, on the contrary, anyone who comes here, by the very
fact that he has come, already knows himself to be worse than all those
who are in the world, worse than all on earth … And the longer a monk
lives within his walls, the more keenly he must be aware of it. For
otherwise he had no reason to come here. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“But when he
knows that he is not only worse than all those in the world, but is also
guilty before all people, on behalf of all and for all, for all human
sins, the world’s and each person’s, only then will the goal of our
unity be achieved. For you must know, my dear ones, that each of us is
undoubtedly guilty on behalf of all and for all on earth, not only
because of the common guilt of the world, but personally, each one of
us, for all people and for each person on this earth.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“This
knowledge is the crown of the monk’s path, and of every man’s path on
earth. For monks are not a different sort of men, but only such as all
men on earth ought also to be. Only then will our hearts be moved to a
love that is infinite, universal, and that knows no satiety. Then each
of us will be able to gain the whole world by love and wash away the
world’s sins with his tears …</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Let each of you keep
close company with his heart, let each of you confess to himself
untiringly. Do not be afraid of your sin, even when you perceive it,
provided you are repentant, but do not place conditions on God.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Again
I say, do not be proud. Do not be proud before the lowly, do not be
proud before the great either. And do not hate those who reject you,
disgrace you, revile you, and slander you. Do not hate atheists,
teachers of evil, materialists, not even those among them who are
wicked, nor those who are good, for many of them are good, especially in
our time.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Remember them thus in your prayers: ‘Save,
Lord, those whom there is no one to pray for, save also those who do not
want to pray to you.’ And add at once: ‘It is not in my pride that I
pray for it, Lord, for I myself am more vile than all …’</blockquote>
Later, on his deathbed Zossima similarly teaches:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Remember particularly that you cannot be a judge of any one. For no one can judge a criminal, until he recognizes that he is just such a criminal as the man standing before him, and that he perhaps more than all men to blame for that crime. When he understands that, he will be able to be a judge. Though that sounds absurd, it is true. If I had been righteous myself, perhaps there would have been no criminal standing before me. If you can take upon yourself the crime of the criminal your heart is judging, take it at once, suffer for him yourself, and let him go without reproach. And even if the law itself makes you his judge, act in the same spirit as far as possible, for he will go away and condemn himself more bitterly than you have done. If, after your kiss, he goes away untouched, mocking at you, do not let that be a stumbling-block to you. It shows his time has no yet come, but it will come in due course. And if it come not, no matter; if not he, then another in his place will understand and suffer, and judge and condemn himself, and the truth will be fulfilled. Believe that, believe it without doubt; for in that lies the hope and faith of the saints. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“If the evil doing of men moves you to indignation and overwhelming distress, even to a desire for vengeance on the evil-doers, shun above all things that feeling. Go at once and seek suffering for yourself, as if you were guilty of that wrong. Accept that suffering and bear it and your heart will find comfort, and you will understand that you too are guilty, for you might have been a light to the evil-doers, even as the one man sinless, and you were not a light to them. If you had been a light, you would have lightened the path for others too, and the evil-doer might perhaps have been saved by your light from his sin. (6.3.h)</blockquote>
Through his memorable depiction of Zossima, Dostoevsky shows the kind of humility, repentance, and love we are called to in Christ—a love that, like our Lord's, bears the guilt of the sins of others. At first I struggled to apply this attitude to the sin of abortion. How am I responsible for it? Not in any immediately obvious way; I don't know anyone who had one (that I know of), and I have never been supportive of it. But I have definitely not done much (if anything) to help address the problems I discussed earlier as the "context" of abortion. In that sense, I am a hypocrite. On further reflection, I realized that despite my words, in how I actually live I worship the same idol of self-governance as do those who convince themselves that there can be such a thing as a "right" to abortion. Most days I pray more as a quick distraction than a vocation, and the great majority of my time is divided up according to whatever I "feel like" doing: a subtle form of hedonism. So in some sense I am able to see myself as responsible for the sin that underlies abortion. The evil that it represents is not just something "out there" to war against; it is alive and at work in my own heart, and I am told to condemn it first of all. When I judge this evil, I judge myself first, and if I seek to heal it, I must be continually repenting of my participation in it.<br />
<br />
I am the first among sinners. Paradoxically, so are you. Only when we truly believe this are we ready to pass judgment on the sins of others.Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08244026688548871531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4225502016359798858.post-51505586263550494522015-10-07T21:40:00.000-05:002017-01-21T09:57:31.243-06:00The Incarnational Unity of the ChurchI, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you
to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all
lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another
in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of
peace. [There is] one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in
one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and
Father of all, who [is] above all, and through all, and in you all. (Eph
4:1-6 NKJV)<br />
<br />
And He put all [things] under His feet,
and gave Him [to be] head over all [things] to the church, which is His
body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. (Eph 1:22-23 NKJV)<br />
<hr />
This post is something of a sequel to the one in my Journey to Orthodoxy series <a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2014/10/my-journey-part-10-ecclesiological.html">on ecclesiology</a>, the nature of the Church. In it, I compared and contrasted the prevailing Protestant and Orthodox views on the Church. I gave some reasons for my finding the Orthodox telling more convincing, but also laid out two of my lingering doubts about it. This time around, I hope to go somewhat deeper, spending some time on the history of the Protestant visible/invisible Church distinction itself, and to offer some better conclusions from what I have learned of Orthodoxy in the past year.<br />
<h4>
Tracing the dichotomy back to Augustine</h4>
First, the history of the distinction made by Protestants between the invisible Church (the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic body of Christ, the company of the predestined or the justified known only to God) and the visible Church (the local gatherings or manifestations of the true Church, always intermingled with hypocrites and the reprobate in this life). I will refer to this distinction as the "invisible-church theory", keeping in mind that those who hold to it do not deny that there can be and are authentic visible manifestations of it. The Reformation teachers of this distinction traced it back to proto-reformers like Hus and Wycliffe, and before them to Augustine and his interpretation of Scripture. Millard Erickson summarizes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This distinction [the relationship between the visible church and the
invisible church], which first appeared as early as Augustine, was first
enunciated clearly by Martin Luther and then incorporated by John
Calvin into his theology as well. It was Luther's way of dealing with
the apparent discrepancies between the qualities of the church as we
find them laid out in Scripture and the characteristics of the empirical
church, as it actually exists on earth. He suggested that the true
church consists only of the justified, those savingly related to God. (<i>Christian Theology</i>, 966)</blockquote>
Thus, when Luther described the Church as the congregation of the justified and Calvin as the sum total of God's elect throughout time, known only to God (2 Tim 2:19) and marked by the true preaching of the Word and the administration of the sacraments, they did so with reference to Augustine as the patristic foundation and chief proponent of this teaching and the interpretation of Scripture on which it is based. This claim is more striking than it might seem at first. Did Augustine really espouse a prototypical form of the invisible-visible church distinction which would only be taken up and given its proper place a thousand years later by the reformers?<br />
<br />
The father of the west states something like this idea in his work <a href="http://newadvent.org/fathers/12023.htm"><i>On Christian Doctrine</i></a> 3.32 (actually in the context of describing the seven "rules" or teachings of the heretic Tichonius, but he seems to be in agreement about the rules themselves). He writes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The second rule is about the twofold division of the body of the Lord; but this indeed is not a suitable name, <i>for that is really no part of the body of Christ which will not be with Him in eternity. </i>We ought, therefore, to say that the rule is about the true and the mixed body of the Lord, or the true and the counterfeit, or some such name; because, not to speak of eternity, hypocrites cannot even now be said to be in Him, although they seem to be in His Church. And hence this rule might be designated thus: Concerning the mixed Church. Now this rule requires the reader to be on his guard when Scripture, although it has now come to address or speak of a different set of persons, seems to be addressing or speaking of the same persons as before, just as if both sets constituted one body in consequence of their being for the time united in a common participation of the sacraments. An example of this is that passage in the Song of Solomon, I am black, but comely, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. (Song of Songs 1:5) For it is not said, I was black as the tents of Kedar, but am now comely as the curtains of Solomon. The Church declares itself to be at present both; and this because the good fish and the bad are for the time mixed up in the one net. (Matthew 13:47-48) For the tents of Kedar pertain to Ishmael, who shall not be heir with the son of the free woman. (Galatians 4:30) And in the same way, when God says of the good part of the Church, I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known; I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight: these things will I do unto them, and not forsake them; (Isaiah 42:16) He immediately adds in regard to the other part, the bad that is mixed with the good, They shall be turned back. Now these words refer to a set of persons altogether different from the former; but as the two sets are for the present united in one body, He speaks as if there were no change in the subject of the sentence. They will not, however, always be in one body; for one of them is that wicked servant of whom we are told in the gospel, whose lord, when he comes, shall cut him asunder and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. (Matthew 24:50-51)</blockquote>
Elsewhere, in <i><a href="http://newadvent.org/fathers/14085.htm">On Baptism</a></i> 5.27, he writes that the presence of both the godly and the ungodly in the Church at the present time does not falsify Scriptures testifying to the purity and holiness of the Church, as they are speaking of the predestined, those whom God knows are his:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
And in that the Church is thus described in the Song of Songs, "A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed, a well of living water; your plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits;" (Song of Songs 4:12-13) I dare not understand this save of the holy and just,— not of the covetous, and defrauders, and robbers, and usurers, and drunkards, and the envious, of whom we yet both learn most fully from Cyprian's letters, as I have often shown, and teach ourselves, that they had baptism in common with the just, in common with whom they certainly had not Christian charity. For I would that some one would tell me how they "crept into the garden enclosed and the fountain sealed," of whom Cyprian bears witness that they renounced the world in word and not in deed, and that yet they were within the Church. For if they both are themselves there, and are themselves the bride of Christ, can she then be as she is described "without spot or wrinkle," (Ephesians 5:27) and is the fair dove defiled with such a portion of her members? Are these the thorns among which she is a lily, as it is said in the same Song? (Song of Songs 2:2) ... The number, therefore, of the just persons, "who are the called according to His purpose," (Romans 8:28) of whom it is said, "The Lord knows them that are His," (2 Timothy 2:19) is itself "the garden enclosed, the fountain sealed, a well of living water, the orchard of pomegranates with pleasant fruits." ... <i>For, in that unspeakable foreknowledge of God, many who seem to be without are in reality within, and many who seem to be within yet really are without. </i>Of all those, therefore, who, if I may so say, are inwardly and secretly within, is that "enclosed garden" composed, "the fountain sealed, a well of living water, the orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits."</blockquote>
Augustine seems to be making exactly the same distinction that the reformers did, between a visible Church composed of a mixture of true and false believers, of the predestined and the reprobate (it bears reminding that predestination was one of the areas in which Augustine departed from the consensus of the rest of the patristic fathers) and the true Church composed of those whom God knows are his. Like Calvin, he cites 2 Timothy 2:19 in support of this idea; he also draws from the imagery of the parables of the wheat and the weeds (Matthew 13:24-30) and the dragnet (Matthew 13:47-50) to describe the present Church as a mixture of those who will be welcomed into the Kingdom and those who will be turned away at the last judgment.<br />
<br />
Yet if you look at the context in which Augustine utilized this picture of the Church, you see that he did so in a way that differs sharply from the reformers. Augustine was responding to the claims of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donatism">Donatists</a>, a schismatic, rigorist Christian sect (to which Tichonius somewhat inconsistently belonged) that held that the Church had to be holy, composed of saints rather than sinners, and that its very unity and catholicity depended on its holiness. They believed that the Church at-large had fallen into corruption and
abandoned the true faith, except of course for the Donatist churches, by receiving and restoring <i>traditores</i>, Christians who had handed over copies of the Scriptures to escape persecution. They believed that this and other serious sins disqualified a Christian from roles of leadership, even after penance; any sacraments administered by a<i> </i><i>traditor</i> bishop were invalid, and churches under the authority of <i>traditores</i> were not part of the one Church. The Church, to be holy, had to be led, and the grace mediated through the sacraments administered, by those who were still capable of doing so, who were not put themselves out of the Church by such sin.<br />
<br />
In response to this, the Catholic/Orthodox (Catholodox?) Church taught that the grace mediated through the sacraments works <i>ex opere operato</i>, "from the work having been done"; that is, it is dependent only on the holiness of God in which the Church shares, not on the holiness of the officiant. Rather than the holiness of the Church depending on the holiness of its earthly members, Christians are made holy through their sharing in the holiness of God and his bride, the Church.<br />
<br />
This is the context in which Augustine wrote against the Donatists. He sought to account for the apostasy and unholiness of many of the Church's members while undercutting the heretics' call to separate from the visible Church by upholding the continuing holiness of the one Church herself. In the present age, the Church is like the field in which both wheat and weeds have been sown, or the net in which both good and bad fish are caught. At the end of the age, God will separate the two, but until then, we should not be shocked that they are mixed together in one Church, and we certainly shouldn't go into schism over it! (For we will very quickly find that the new, schismatic "church" is little better) We Christians are charged with sharing in God's holiness, a project that will not be perfected in this life, yet our failures and faults do not endanger the holiness of the Church, which comes from Christ rather than her earthly members.<br />
<h4>
...and through to the Reformation</h4>
How does this bear on the reformers' use of Augustine? When he says things like "for that is really no part of the body of Christ which will not be with Him in eternity" (<i>On Christian Doctrine </i>3.32), or "For in the ineffable foreknowledge of God, many who seem to be
outside are actually within, just as many who seem to be within are in
reality outside" (<i>On Baptism</i> 5.27), he certainly sounds a lot like them. Yet at the same time he vigorously opposed the possibility of schism from the visible Church, which he certainly still considered to be essentially one. His description of the Church as the collection of the predestined was not used to justify the division of the visible Church while affirming its continuing, invisible unity, but to affirm its visible and invisible unity in spite of the unholiness of its members. The Church may be a mixture of light and dark in its worldly existence, yet it remains one. Jaroslav Pelikan writes in his history of Christian doctrine:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[Augustine's] definition of the church as the "number of the predestined" was to figure prominently in the polemics of the late Middle Ages and the Reformation against the institutional church, but in Augustine's theology it has precisely the opposite function. It enabled him to accept a distinction between the members of the empirical catholic church and the company of those who would be saved, while at the same time he insisted that the empirical catholic church was the only one in which salvation was dispensed; 'for it is the church that gives birth to all.' Although God predestined, 'we, on the basis of what each man is right now, inquire whether today they are to be counted as members of the church.' It was to the church as now constituted that one was to look for grace, for guidance, and for authority. Those who accepted 'the authority of the Scriptures as preeminent' should also acknowledge 'that authority which from the time of the [earthly] presence of Christ, through the dispensation of the apostles and through a regular succession of bishops in their seats, has been preserved to our own day throughout the world.' (1.303)</blockquote>
Briefly applying this to the parables of Christ that Augustine draws from, we note that in both parables, the ones who draw the distinction between good seed and bad, or between good fish and bad, and who carry out the work of separating between the two, are God and his angels (13:37,39,49)—and this separation happens at the end of the age. (vv. 40,49) In the parable of the wheat, the sower (God) warns his harvesters (the angels) against gathering up the weeds prematurely, because they might uproot some of the wheat with them. (That is, seeking to weed out false Christians at the present might bring about the loss of some who would otherwise have found salvation)<br />
<br />
Thus the end of the age, the final harvest, is when the present impurity of the earthly Church, the presence of hypocrites and the unholy within and of the righteous without, will be fully resolved, and the Church as a whole will at last be "on earth as it is in heaven". Those who, like the Donatists, attempt to purify the Church through schism are attempting to carry out the judgment God will perform at the end of the age, before the appointed time and with their own limited human knowledge and wisdom. Thus Augustine's distinction between true and false members of the body of Christ, far from justifying any attempt to separate out the two through schism, would instead condemn such efforts as a betrayal of the unity of the Church and a usurpation of God's role as judge.<br />
<br />
Thus I think that Augustine's argument, when read in its context, argues against his later use by the reformers rather than supporting it. In fact, the interpretation used by the early Protestants, that the true Church is the number of God's elect <i>regardless of visible church affiliation</i>, would have played right into the Donatists' hands, justifying their split from the catholic Church to escape what they saw as its apostasy (while maintaining their membership in the invisible Church) rather than militating against it. Fr. Stephen Freeman, who has lately been blogging on ecumenism and the unity of the Church, <a href="https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2015/10/02/unecumenism-and-the-sins-of-all/">writes</a>
that although the idea of a "hidden Church" consisting only of the
truly faithful known only to God dates at least
back to Augustine as we have just seen, the novelty introduced by the Reformation is that
"for the first
time, this collection is abstracted from the actual, historical
manifestation of the Church." The adjective "faithful", in Protestant
usage, loses its specific foundation in the apostolic faith of the one historic
Church and takes on a much more nebulous, generalized meaning (that
still somehow excludes Catholics).<br />
<br />
In significant ways, then, the early reformers resembled their chosen church father Augustine less than they did the Donatists that he rebuked. Yet they also differed in other ways, which would prove to be problematic as well. Chief among these is the fact that the Donatists still considered the Church to be visible and one; they simply considered themselves to be the last faithful remnant of it. In the later Chalcedonian and Great Schisms as well, both parties considered themselves to be the continuation of the one indivisible Church—in accordance with their common ecclesiology, albeit in contradiction to each others' claims. But with the Reformation (and the figures preceding it, like Wycliffe and Hus) we see something new. Though the unity of the Church is still seen as essential to its nature in some way, this apparently no longer prevents it from being disrupted or broken.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
At the dawning of the sixteenth century, in spite of the corruption
that prevailed in many quarters, and of the many voices clamoring for
reformation, there was general agreement among Christians that the
church was in essence one, and that its unity must be seen in its
structure and hierarchy. ... Most of the major Protestant leaders did
believe that the unity of the Church was essential to its nature, and
that therefore, although it was temporarily necessary to break that
unity in order to be faithful to the Word of God, that their very
faithfulness demanded that all possible efforts be made to regain their
lost unity. (Justo Gonzalez, <i>The Story of Christianity</i> 1.163)</blockquote>
To a classical Christian, the possibility of breaking the unity of the one body of Christ would have been unthinkable, impossible, precisely because that unity is essential to what the Church is. But not so anymore. Instead of one of its basic, defining traits, after the Reformation the unity of the Church becomes an ideal to strive for, desirable but not currently realized. Later movements like the Disciples of Christ and the modern ecumenical movement would do just that. Pelikan contrastingly describes Augustine's theology thus:<br />
<div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Unity,
on the other hand, was not the final result of a long process of
growth, but the immediate and necessary corollary of grace. 'If baptism
is the sacrament of grace while the grace itself is the abolition of
sins, then the grace of baptism is not presence among heretics (although
baptism is). Thus there is one baptism and one church, just as there is
one faith.' The one sin that threatened the church [during the Donatist crisis] was not the adultery
or even the private apostasy of a bishop, but schism. (Pelikan 1.311)</blockquote>
If I had to briefly summarize the difference between Augustine's ecclesiology and its later use by the reformers, I would put it this way: Augustine drew his distinction between the visible, mixed Church and the invisible, true Church in the context of a strong affirmation of the essential unity of the Church in order to oppose a schism. The reformers picked it up in the context of at least a practical denial of the essential unity of the Church in order to justify many schisms.<br />
<h4>
Consequences of an essentially invisible Church</h4>
This shift in ecclesiology had the effect of relativizing (or outright ignoring) the promises of classical ecclesiology as they pertained to the visible Church: it was no longer essentially, indivisibly one, only the invisible, "true" Church was. This invisible Church was also no longer related in any definite way to the visible one. There was not even one particular visible church body; any body meeting certain criteria or possessing certain "marks" was believed to be a manifestation of the invisible, true Church. In this way, it was believed, the Church remained one, holy, catholic, and apostolic, despite the increasing divisions being wrought in its visible outworking.</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
For although the sad devastation which everywhere meets our view may proclaim that no Church remains, let us know that the death of Christ produces fruit, and that God wondrously preserves his Church, while placing it as it were in concealment. (Calvin, <i>Institutes</i> IV.1.2)</blockquote>
<div style="text-indent: 0px;">
In concealment, but also in abstraction. Freeman <a href="https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2015/09/28/un-ecumenism/">comments</a>: "For the modern world has completely re-thought the matter of the
Christian Church, and the state of things today is the result. In
particular, modern Christians have largely lost the ability to think of
the Church as “One,” in any way that is not a vague, nebulous unity of
abstraction." Insisting that the Church is one in some invisible, abstract way cannot but alter our working definition of "unity", generalizing it until it means little more than a sentiment of warm-heartedness, mutual appreciation, or willingness to cooperate, expressed by gestures of hospitality like joint prayer, the sharing of preachers, and open communion. Just as I was composing this, <a href="http://www.peteenns.com/christian-unity-the-problem-with-being-specific/">Peter Enns</a> articulated the same sort of difference between unity in general and unity in particular: "When we are talking 'general' unity, it’s all good. But when we get to specifics, things get awkward." No amount of wordplay can change the fact that the invisible Church of the modern world is not "One" or "united" in any way remotely resembling how the ancient Church was. Freeman <a href="https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2015/09/30/consequences-of-the-one-church-unecumenism/">continues</a> in a follow-up post:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
My
writing painfully about the meaning of union and the One Church, is not
to argue about the status of various Christian “Churches.” ... Rather,
it is first to return the meaning of “One Church” to its proper place,
with all of the pain and scandal that attends it. The One Church is
ultimately found in One Cup, and there, only through true repentance and
acceptance of the fullness of the faith. And if we are not there, then
at least we must say so and cry out to God. He gives grace to the humble
and resists the proud. It is beyond arrogance to say we are one when we
are not. There can be no communion in a lie, or only a communion of
death.</blockquote>
Another effect of this new ecclesiology is that it subjectivizes membership in the Church. The marks used to identify the presence of this Church, like sincere and true preaching of the Scriptures, the right administration of the sacraments, belief in some "essential" Christian doctrines, or simply an authentic, heart-felt inner faith are all just that—subjectively discerned. They cannot simply be seen; they have to be evaluated. Different groups will evaluate them differently. The turmoil and conflicts of the early Reformation make this abundantly clear; Calvin would not have included Catholic churches as manifestations of the true Church, and were they following his criteria Catholics would likely not have said the same of Reformed churches either. Membership in the true Church (or equivalently, being "saved" or simply being a "true Christian") all become subjectively defined, invisible even to the individual in question, a matter of opinion, a value judgment. It becomes impossible to speak of the extent of the Church without making at least an implicit pronouncement on the state of the faith of others.</div>
<br />
One last consequence is the multiplication of visible divisions in the church(es). In his extensive analysis, <a href="http://dpitch40.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-unintended-reformation.html"><i>The Unintended Reformation</i></a>, Brad S. Gregory writes that "having rejected the authority of the Roman church, Protestants shared
no institutions or authorities in common to which they could turn to
resolve disputes among themselves." (369) In the case of a disagreement on doctrine or practice, the easiest and most natural course of action was no longer to have a council or bishop adjudicate and expect both parties to abide by their decision, but simply to let them go their separate ways, believing and worshipping according to their consciences while still remaining somehow "one". So with Luther and Zwingli, so with the magisterial reformers and the early Anabaptists, so with the colonists who fled to American to practice their religion in peace. As I said in my last post on the subject, the Donatist controversy (and every other controversy in the early Church) would have ended very differently if this approach had been the prevalent one; there would probably still be a Donatist church (or churches) to this day. In such a system heresies can no longer be silenced; instead they simply continue coexisting separately alongside the parent church that turned them out, claiming to still be part of the same invisible Church. And who can tell them differently? Pelikan, describing the Catholic Church's rebuttal to Jan Hus' view of the Church, writes: "For while it was true that the
predestinate were the ones who made the church 'the true body of
Christ,' the Hussite definition would destroy all certainty about the
church and with it all ability to function in the church." (4.75-76) There is certainly truth to such concerns.<br />
<br />
On a more personal level, the subjectivism and fissiparousness of invisible-church ecclesiology gave rise to the "sea of relativism" I felt trapped in while seeking answers to my questions about the Bible—how to read and apply it, its place in the Christian faith, its relation to Jesus as the Word of God—and the gospel—atonement, the relationship between faith and works, Paul's view on the law, and the basic nature of salvation. I was confused and questioning all of these things, and there were no definite answers that I could see, only a multiplicity of possibilities and Christian traditions I could turn to in order to validate them. Which one represented the truth? I couldn't see any way to tell, and they couldn't all be right. I saw no choice but to search for the truth on my own, independently of any church tradition, acutely aware of the implicit individualism of this quest. All I had to show for it were possibilities and theories, ideals that were much better represented in Christian academia than any church I knew of. Any faith I constructed from my readings and theologizings would be little more than a cognitive web of ideas more of my own creation than God's, a far cry from the all-embracing life that the Christian faith is supposed to be.<br />
<h4>
<b>Excursus: The branch theory</b></h4>
I only briefly touched on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branch_theory">branch theory</a> in my last post. Basically, it is a theory within Anglican theology that the three major Christian communions claiming apostolic succession (Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and the Anglican Communion) do not truly represent schisms in the Church, but rather are "branches" of the one holy catholic and apostolic Church. This theory is a non-starter for Orthodox theology for several reasons.<br />
<ol>
<li>It is even more innovative than the invisible-church theory; I have never heard anyone claim it dates back to before the nineteenth century, let alone that it was taught in the early Church. This inspires little confidence that it is not also an attempt to explain the visible division of the Christian churches and avoid the need to rejoin the Catholics (or Orthodox).</li>
<li>It also strains and abstractifies the definition of "unity" just as much as the invisible-church theory. In what meaningful, concrete sense can church bodies that deny each other communion and teach radically different faiths (in the case of Anglicanism, there are radical <i>internal</i> differences between the evangelical and Anglo-catholic wings, precipitating the archbishop's recent <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/09/the-end-of-the-worldwide-anglican-communion/405736/">decision</a> to reorganize the Communion into a looser affiliation) constitute one Church? The Catholic author Adrian Fortescue rightly <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=UPr1ZCxPW6QC&pg=PA366#v=onepage&q&f=false">writes</a> of the Eastern Orthodox: "The idea of a church made up of mutually excommunicate bodies that teach different articles of faith and yet altogether form one Church is as inconceivable to them as it is to us [Catholics]." To both of these churches, "faith" does not describe a sentiment or general conviction; it is specific and content-laden. Fr. Freeman explains: "the One Church had always known what 'faithful' meant. It meant to accept without reservation the one faith of the one Church and to live in conformity with her canons and teachings. This was the ship of salvation established by Christ."</li>
<li>Its opening admission that the Church has fallen into schism within itself amounts to an outright denial of its unity.</li>
</ol>
<h4>
<b>The fullness of him who fills all in all</b></h4>
To (re)introduce the Orthodox perspective on the nature of the Church, I'll quote Bishop Kallistos Ware at length, who says it much better than I can (with my own comments interspersed).<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The Church—the icon of the Trinity, the Body of Christ, the fullness of the Spirit—is both visible and invisible, divine and human. It is visible, for it is composed for specific congregations, worshipping here on earth; it is invisible, for it also includes the saints and the angels. It is human, for its earthly members are sinners; it is divine, for it is the Body of Christ. There is no separation between the visible and the invisible, between (to use western terminology) the Church militant and the Church triumphant, for the two make up a single and continuous reality. "The Church visible, or upon earth, lives in complete communion and unity with the whole body of the Church, of which Christ is the Head.' it stands at a point of intersection between the Present Age and the Age to Come, and it lives in both Ages at once.</blockquote>
Ware recognizes Augustine's distinction between the visible and invisible dimensions of the one Church while expanding them both. The Church is visible, earthly, human, and mixed, but it is also invisible, heavenly, divine, and pure. Before it was ever used to argue against the invisible-church theory, the dogma of the unity of the Church was an affirmation of the indivisibility of these two realities of the Church. The key to this unity, as Ware argues at the end of this paragraph, is eschatology: at present, the Church is still a work in progress, but viewed through the lens of eschatology the Church is glorified and perfect. But that contrast isn't the end of it: Orthodox believe that through the incarnation, through the cross and the resurrection in particular, the eschaton, the age to come, the End (see Rev 21:6) has broken into the present, and that in the Church these two realities exist on top of one another. Fr. Freeman puts it this way: "[Christ's prayer 'that they may all be one'] is a prayer that will
indeed have an eschatological fulfillment: 'All things will be gathered
together in one…' But in Christ, the Eschaton has already come. We may
eat and drink of that One and become the life of the One fulfilled in
this world."<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Orthodoxy, therefore, while using the phrase 'the Church visible and invisible', insists always that there are not two Churches, but one. As Khomiakov said:</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"It is only in relation to man that it is possible to recognize a division of the Church into visible and invisible; its unity is, in reality, true and absolute. Those who are alive on earth, those who have fulfilled their earthly course, those who, like the angels, were not created for a life on earth, those in future generations who have not yet begun their earthly course, are all united together in one Church, in one and the same grace of God ... The Church, the Body of Christ, manifests forth and fulfils itself in time, without changing its essential unity or inward life of grace. And therefore, when we speak of 'the Church visible and invisible', we so speak only in relation to man."</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The Church, according to Khomiakov, is <i>accomplished on earth without losing its essential characteristics</i>. This is a cardinal point in Orthodox teaching. Orthodoxy does not believe merely in an ideal Church, invisible and heavenly. This 'ideal Church' exists visible on earth as a concrete reality.</blockquote>
This is, roughly, how Orthodox account for the present discrepancy
between the visible imperfection of the Church and the language of
perfection applied to her in the Scriptures. It is not that only the
invisible Church is the true one, and visible gatherings of truly faithful Christians, regardless of church affiliation,
are manifestations of it (this explanation reeks of
Platonic dualism). Because the end of the ages has come upon us (1 Cor 10:11) in the form of the resurrected Lord, it is possible to affirm that the visible, human, concrete Church is, by the sacramental grace of God, already the eschatological, purified bride of Christ. Through our present, visible participation in the concrete Church we are blessed to be able to join in the heavenly worship offered to God by the angels in the heavenly Church, for these two Churches are one. To separate them because of that which is passing away is to redefine the Church on our own, human terms.<br />
<br />
How can this mysterious union of this age and the age to come be? The Incarnation shows how: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Yet Orthodoxy tries not to forget that there is a human element in the Church as well as a divine. The dogma of Chalcedon must be applied to the Church as well as to Christ, Just as Christ the God-man has two natures, divine and human, so in the Church there is a synergy or co-operation between the divine and the human.</blockquote>
Here Ware describes the analogy between the incarnate Christ and the Church, his body. The Church is both fully divine and fully human in something like the way that Jesus is (and the Scriptures as well). There is thus a congruency between ecclesiology and Christology. Vladimir Lossky fleshes this out further, describing the invisible-church theory as the ecclesiological analogue of the Nestorian heresy:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The Church, in its Christological aspect, appears as an organism having two natures, two operations and two wills. In the history of Christian dogma all the Christological heresies come to life anew and reappear with reference to the Church. Thus, there arises a Nestorian ecclesiology, the error of those who would divide the Church into distinct beings: on the one hand the heavenly and invisible Church, alone true and absolute; on the other, the earthly Church (or rather 'the churches') imperfect and relative, wandering in the shadows, human societies seeking to draw near, so far as is possible for them, to that transcendent perspective. (<i>The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church</i>, 186)</blockquote>
He goes on to describe a monophysite
ecclesiology as the divinization of every detail of the Church and
resultant inflexibility (as seen in the old believer schism), a monothelite ecclesiology ("a negation of
the economy of the Church in regard to the external world"), and its
opposite, an over-readiness to compromise and sacrifice the truth in order to adapt to the external world. But just as Christ is fully God and fully man "unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably" and without denigrating either nature, so the one Church is both visible and invisible, earthly and heavenly, of this age and the age to come.<br />
<br />
Ware continues to describe the mystery:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Yet between Christ's humanity and that of the Church there is this obvious difference, that the one is perfect and sinless, while the other is not yet fully so. Only a part of the humanity of the Church—the saints in heaven—has attained perfection, while here on earth the Church's members often misuse their human freedom. The Church on earth exists in a state of tension: it is already the body of Christ, and thus perfect and sinless, and yet, since its members are imperfect and sinful, it must continually become what it is. [Footnote: 'This idea of "becoming what you are" is the key to the whole eschatological teaching of the New Testament']</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
But human sin cannot affect the essential nature of the Church. We must not say that because Christians on earth sin and are imperfect, therefore the Church sins and is imperfect, for the Church, even on earth, is a thing of heaven and cannot sin. How is it that the members of the Church are sinners, and yet they belong in the communion of saints? 'The mystery of the Church consists in the very fact that <i>together</i> sinners become <i>something different</i> from what they are as individuals; this "something different" is the Body of Christ. </blockquote>
So I was wrong last time when I said that the Church does not basically consist of people. It does, yet because of its incarnational, eschatological nature, its essential nature as the one holy catholic and apostolic body of Christ is not damaged or destroyed by the impurity of its earthly members.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Such is the way in which Orthodoxy approaches the mystery of the Church. The Church is integrally linked with God. It is a new life according to the image of the Holy Trinity, a life in Christ and in the Holy Spirit, a life realized by participation in the sacraments. The Church is a single reality, earthly and heavenly, visible and invisible, human and divine.</blockquote>
This paragraph beautifully summarizes the reality of the Church and how its unity fits seamlessly into this. The late Fr. Thomas Hopko similarly <a href="http://oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/doctrine/the-symbol-of-faith/church">writes</a>: "Within the unity of the Church man is what he is created to be and can grow for eternity in divine life in communion with God through Christ in the Holy Spirit. The unity of the Church is not broken by time or space and is not limited merely to those alive upon the earth. The unity of the Church is the unity of the Blessed Trinity and of all of those who live with God: the holy angels, the righteous dead, and those who live upon the earth according to the commandments of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit."<br />
<br />
To finish the Ware quote:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
'The Church is one. Its unity follows of necessity from the unity of God.' So wrote Khomiakov in the opening words of his famous essay. If we take seriously the bond between God and His Church, then we must inevitably think of the Church as one, even as God is one: there is only one Christ, and so there can be only one Body of Christ. Nor is this unity merely ideal and invisible; Orthodox theology refuses to separate the 'invisible' and the 'visible Church', and therefore it refuses to say that the Church is invisibly one but visibly divided. No: the Church is one, in the sense that here on earth there is a single, visible community which alone can claim to be the true Church. The 'undivided Church' is not merely something that existed in the past, and which we hope will exist again in the future; it is something that exists here and now. Unity is one of the essential characteristics of the Church, and since the Church on earth, despite the sinfulness of its members, retains its essential characteristics, it remains and always will remain visibly one. There can be schisms <i>from</i> the Church, but no schisms <i>within</i> the Church. And while it is undeniably true that, on a purely human level, the Church's life is grievously impoverished as a result of schisms, yet such schisms cannot affect the essential nature of the Church.</blockquote>
Hopefully this sets Ware's closing affirmation, that there can be schisms from the Church but not within it, in its proper context. The unity of the body of Christ precludes not only the possibility of it being divided into pieces (or branches), but also the separation of its visible and invisible (or present and eschatological, or divine and human, or earthly and heavenly) dimensions. It is this very unity that assures its holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity; when we worship with the Church, we can be confident that we worship in the fullness of the faith once delivered, not merely in an imperfect human attempt to reconstruct it. The Church and membership in it are objectively, visibly defined; there is no room for ambiguity or controversy about what and where the Church is. This averts the consequences of the invisible-church theory I have described.<br />
<br />
I would argue that this perspective on the Church resembles that of Augustine much more than the invisible-church theory. It does not legitimate schism; it denies the possibility of it, just as he did. It distinguishes between the visible and invisible dimensions of the Church as he did, while denying that they should or can be separated. It does not call for speculation into the state of other believers in order to trace the extent of the Church, but arises from the humility that views oneself as the worst all sinners. As Augustine said, "we, on the basis of what each man is right now, inquire whether today they are to be counted as members of the church." And if I, the first of the sinners, am counted worthy to be a member of the Church, how can I judge anyone else who has not put himself out of the body as unworthy? Of course, Augustine's perspective differs from that of the rest of the fathers in his one-sided approach to predestination and particular use of it when describing the invisible Church, as is well-known, but this does not invalidate his point.<br />
<h4>
Some closing questions</h4>
<i>Why is all this important?</i><br />
Why am I spilling all this virtual ink on a subject that I've already covered? In part, to show how it is possible to have very diverse views on something while affirming the same foundational statement ("one holy catholic and apostolic Church") about it. Though its adherents might claim to affirm the Creed, the invisible-church theory is an innovation; it is not how Christians have viewed the Church from the beginning, but rather uses familiar language to say something new. I have tried to express this as clearly as possible. This difference is not trivial; if one theory is true, the other cannot be.<br />
<br />
With that said, perhaps the biggest reason I find the Orthodox teaching on the unity of the Church compelling is that it makes that unity so much more meaningful and coherent. It is no longer an abstraction, and neither is the Church. It now means something concrete to say that the Church is one: it is one body, praying and teaching one faith, united to God and the whole communion of saints through its eucharistic union with Christ by means of the One Cup, as Fr. Freeman was quoted as saying earlier. As well, this unity harmonizes perfectly, dare I say beautifully, with the unity of God, of Christ (whose body it is), of his humanity and divinity, of the Holy Spirit indwelling it.<br />
<br />
Compared to this, the invisible-church theory feels like a compromise, a consolation, a quasi-Platonic denial of the reality of the visible disunity in favor of an intangible "spiritual" unity. Yet at the same time, no one would have adopted it without first concluding that the Church <i>is</i> visibly divided (else there would be nothing to explain)—the result of a judgment based too much on external impressions rather than faith in the unity of God. Yet Paul writes, "From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh." (2 Cor 5:16) This interpretation places strain on the very concepts of "one" or "unity". It does not integrate seamlessly with the unity of God and the incarnation. How can the body of Christ be spiritually one yet visibly divided? No, there is not one invisible, spiritual Church that we must find and convince ourselves has remained whole through all the denominational divisions; there is one particular, visible, incarnational Church, and so there has been from the beginning.<br />
<br />
<i>Isn't it arrogant to claim that your church is the One True Church?</i><br />
Something I should have made clear to my Protestant friends a long time ago: My claim to be joining the "one holy catholic and apostolic Church" (which does implicitly exclude your church) is not a claim about the authenticity of your personal faith or salvation in any way, though I think it is often taken that way. Again, Orthodoxy strongly discourages speculation about the authenticity of the faith of others; first remove the plank from your own eye. Nor is it a claim that the Orthodox Church is somehow "better" or "truer" than the visible church body you are a part of. (Though I have definitely been guilty of this in the past) A few months ago Fr. Freeman <a href="https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2015/08/03/churchly-humility/">wrote</a> strikingly about Orthodox triumphalism:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
the Orthodox Church is not better than some other Church. If you declare
such a thing to be true, then you have actually denied the truth of
Orthodoxy. We believe the Church to be One. We believe the Church is One
because God is One. And, as in the case of God, it is One of which
there is not two. If Orthodoxy is The Church, then it’s not the <i>better</i>
Church. It is not something that can be compared to anything else. ...
As soon as comparisons are made, the Church is reduced to one among the
many and the concept of “many churches” is granted, denying the
declaration of the Creed. The Orthodox Church is not <i>better</i> – it simply is what it is.</blockquote>
In other words, the Orthodox Church does not somehow gain the "right" to call itself the one Church through any sort of comparison process with any other Church, like you might apply when selecting a church. It confesses that there <i>is</i> no other Church, nor can there be. It does not become the one Church by qualifying for the honor, nor by meeting any sort of criteria or by the possession of particular "marks". It simply is what it is, and it always has been. Ware fleshes this claim out more:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div>
Orthodoxy, believing that the Church on earth has remained and must remain visibly one, naturally also believes itself to be that one visible Church. This is a bold claim, and to many it will seem an arrogant one; but this is to misunderstand the spirit in which it is made. Orthodox believe that they are the true Church, not on account of any personal merit, but by the grace of God. They say with St. Paul, 'We are no better than pots of earthenware to contain this treasure; the sovereign power comes from God and not from us' (2 Corinthians iv, 7). But while claiming no credit for themselves, Orthodox are in all humility convinced that they have received a precious and unique gift from God; and if they pretended to others that they did not possess this gift, they would be guilty of an act of betrayal in the sight of heaven. (<i>The Orthodox Church</i> 246)</div>
</blockquote>
It actually feels liberating not to have to argue that the status of the Orthodox Church makes it "better" or "truer" than all other churches. There is plenty that is regrettable in the Church's history, and plenty that is praiseworthy in other communions, but this is because of the liberality and uncontainability of grace, not because of any abstraction of the Church. Orthodox are primarily interested in defining where the Church <i>is</i>, not identifying places where it isn't. Orthodoxy prefers to pay focus on the center of the Church (that is, Christ) rather than nail down its precise boundaries.<br />
<br />
<div>
<i>How do I view concerns for the unity of the Church as a questioning Protestant?</i><br />
I still remember how ardently concerned I used to be for this thing call "church unity". I was deeply concerned with all the ugly conflicts, the misunderstandings, not to mention the differences in teaching and practice among those calling themselves Christians. I believed, as I still do, that it harms and hinders the witness of all Christians to the world. I dreamed of the healing of these divisions and how I could possibly be a part of it. Yet my concern sprang from my trusting my own impressions of disunity and division rather than the promises of God and the biblical account of the nature of the Church. Like so many others, I believed that the promised original unity of the Church was merely incidental, something that human error had since broken and that needed to be put back together again.<br />
<br />
I am relieved that I was mistaken. There's no doubt that the urgency of my earlier ecumenical concerns has lessened as a result, but I still identify with Paul's wish "that there be no divisions among you, but that you be joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment" (1 Cor 1:10)—though in my actions I feel like I work to subvert that harmony as often as I build it up. There is a certainly nothing wrong with the measures I used to have in mind for healing divisions among the churches, like increased cooperation and more-aligned teaching between denominations and communions, but these advances cannot create the organic, one-body unity that Orthodox see in the Church. Again, the unity of the Church is not a project or an ideal, something future that one day may be accomplished. It is an eternal reality, a consequence of the oneness of God. The most "ecumenical" gesture I or any Christian can make is to simply join it, not to try to recreate it.<br />
<br />
<i>How would I answer my lingering doubts on the unity of the Church from last time?</i><br />
The Chalcedonian and Great Schisms certainly stand as the most convincing counterexamples to the teaching I have presented. All of the parties involved agree that these schisms weren't qualitatively different than others, they didn't actually break the Church in two; they only differ in scale, and the fact that both sides of the schisms have continued existing as separate churches into the present. This continuation of both sides of a schism raises the natural question: how do Orthodox, or Catholics, or the Oriental Orthodox, or any church with apostolic succession know that theirs is the true Church and not the schismatic one? Don't their symmetrical claims cancel or disprove each other?<br />
<br />
I don't think it's possible to "prove" which church is in the right, or these schisms would not have lasted so long. Does this mean these churches are stuck in the same sea of relativism that Protestants are? I don't think so. All of them still believe in the essential, incarnational unity of the Church. Their competing claims by no means entail that they are all wrong and that Protestant ecclesiology is right; their continuing agreement on the visible unity of the Church only strengthens the case for the truth of the teaching. In his latest post on unity and "un-ecumenism", Fr. Freeman <a href="https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2015/10/07/unecumenism-the-saving-union/">writes</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Those who stand outside of Orthodoxy and point to the schisms between the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, or the schism with the Roman Catholics, fail to understand what they see. Those schisms are real and they are indeed problems. But in each case, those involved have not renounced the reality of the One Church, nor the sacramental life of the One Cup. The schisms are something to be healed and are treated with great seriousness. But there can only be a true restoration of communion and union in the One Church. It is the very nature of that one life [that] is being preserved and proclaimed, even in the face of schism. If you will, the language and grammar of the One Church is spoken fluently in those ancient groups. Conversations are therefore possible. If, for example, a path of union were found between the Oriental and Orthodox Christians, it would not involve re-teaching the entire nature of what it means to be a Christian and what the character of that life looks like. Both speak the language of union.</blockquote>
There is no (or at least less) subjectivity in choosing between these churches because they all continue to believe that your choice between them matters. It matters <i>immensely</i>. You aren't simply choosing a visible church body that fits your convictions, conscience, and preferences while participating in the invisible Church through your authentic individual faith the whole time. You are searching for the one holy catholic and apostolic (and visible) Church. Catholics and both kinds of Orthodox all agree that only one of them can be it. Choose wisely.<br />
<br />
With that said, I can at least give my reasons for choosing as I have. As a result of better communication, the growing consensus among Orthodox (confirmed by several meetings in the second half of the twentieth century) is that the schism with the Oriental Orthodox has been a 1500-year misunderstanding. There is no real disagreement between the churches, only the use of different words to express the same reality regarding Christ's humanity and divinity. They hold the same faith as the Orthodox Church, which would make a reunion a mere formality. And hopes for reunion are high, especially with the upcoming council next year. So it is actually possible (and hopefully the case) that the choice between Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy (yes, the names mean the same thing) really doesn't matter, not any more than the choice between (say) the Greek or Russian Orthodox Churches matters. Perhaps if I'd read a book by an Oriental Orthodox first, I would be joining them instead. As it is, I look forward with hope to seeing the schism closed.<br />
<br />
The Orthodox Church's differences with Rome are much better established and unlikely to be downgraded to a misunderstanding anytime soon. I believe the Orthodox Church has preserved the apostolic faith free from western distortions like the papacy and the Filioque; it is much easier for me to believe that these things are later additions to the faith (no one disputes the dating of the Filioque) than parts of the apostolic deposit. I don't think I should have to argue this point very rigorously to my predominantly Protestant audience. As well, the Orthodox Church has been preserved from the overriding rationalism and widespread corruption that gave birth to the Reformation, and through it modernity.<br />
<br />
This post has gone on more than long enough. I'll close with one last extended quote by Cyprian of Carthage, a third-century bishop who wrote regarding a schism that broke out in his own diocese. As usual for the fathers, there is no hint that the unity of the Church only applies to its invisible dimension, or that the visible and invisible dimensions can be held apart at all. Rather, he presses hard for the essential unity of the Church with a variety of analogies, some of them quite beautiful—the marriage analogy, which I didn't have time to get into at present, is especially worth considering. More recent Orthodox don't share his hardliner attitude toward schismatics (it is directed at those who actually incite schisms, and tends to have the opposite of the intended effect on non-Orthodox Christians today), but his theological points stand.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Does he who does not hold this unity of the Church think that he holds the faith? Does he who strives against and resists the Church trust that he is in the Church, when moreover the blessed Apostle Paul teaches the same thing, and sets forth the sacrament of unity, saying, “There is one body and one spirit, one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God?” (Eph 4:4) </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
And this unity we ought firmly to hold and assert, especially those of us that are bishops who preside in the Church, that we may also prove the episcopate itself to be one and undivided. Let no one deceive the brotherhood by a falsehood: let no one corrupt the truth of the faith by perfidious prevarication. The episcopate is one, each part of which is held by each one for the whole. The Church also is one, which is spread abroad far and wide into a multitude by an increase of fruitfulness. As there are many rays of the sun, but one light; and many branches of a tree, but one strength based in its tenacious root; and since from one spring flow many streams, although the multiplicity seems diffused in the liberality of an overflowing abundance, yet the unity is still preserved in the source. Separate a ray of the sun from its body of light, its unity does not allow a division of light; break a branch from a tree,—when broken, it will not be able to bud; cut off the stream from its fountain, and that which is cut off dries up. Thus also the Church, shone over with the light of the Lord, sheds forth her rays over the whole world, yet it is one light which is everywhere diffused, nor is the unity of the body separated. Her fruitful abundance spreads her branches over the whole world. She broadly expands her rivers, liberally flowing, yet her head is one, her source one; and she is one mother, plentiful in the results of fruitfulness: from her womb we are born, by her milk we are nourished, by her spirit we are animated. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The spouse of Christ cannot be adulterous; she is uncorrupted and pure. She knows one home; she guards with chaste modesty the sanctity of one couch. She keeps us for God. She appoints the sons whom she has born for the kingdom. Whoever is separated from the Church and is joined to an adulteress, is separated from the promises of the Church; nor can he who forsakes the Church of Christ attain to the rewards of Christ. He is a stranger; he is profane; he is an enemy. He can no longer have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother. If any one could escape who was outside the ark of Noah, then he also may escape who shall be outside of the Church. The Lord warns, saying, “He who is not with me is against me, and he who gathereth not with me scattereth.” (Mat 12:30) He who breaks the peace and the concord of Christ, does so in opposition to Christ; he who gathereth elsewhere than in the Church, scatters the Church of Christ. The Lord says, “I and the Father are one;” (Jhn 10:30) and again it is written of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, “And these three are one.” (1 Jhn 5:7) And does any one believe that this unity which thus comes from the divine strength and coheres in celestial sacraments, can be divided in the Church, and can be separated by the parting asunder of opposing wills? He who does not hold this unity does not hold God’s law, does not hold the faith of the Father and the Son, does not hold life and salvation.<br />
...<br />
Who, then, is so wicked and faithless, who is so insane with the madness of discord, that either he should believe that the unity of God can be divided, or should dare to rend it—the garment of the Lord—the Church of Christ? He Himself in His Gospel warns us, and teaches, saying, “And there shall be one flock and one shepherd.” (Jhn 10:16) And does any one believe that in one place there can be either many shepherds or many flocks? The Apostle Paul, moreover, urging upon us this same unity, beseeches and exhorts, saying, “I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms among you; but that ye be joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” (1 Cor 1:10) And again, he says, “Forbearing one another in love, endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” (Eph 4:3)</blockquote>
Cyprian of Carthage, <a href="http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf05.iv.v.i.html"><i>On the Unity of the Church</i></a>, 4-6,8 </div>
Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08244026688548871531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4225502016359798858.post-26708453553084747862015-10-05T21:16:00.001-05:002015-10-23T08:39:14.335-05:00Prayer of Reception into the CatechumenateYesterday at the divine liturgy, I went and stood in the front of the name while the priest officiating (Father Andrew) laid his hand on my head and prayed this prayer:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In thy Name, O Lord God of truth, and in the Name of thine Only-begotten Son,
and of thy Holy Spirit, I lay my hand upon thy servant, David, who hath been found
worthy to flee unto thy Holy Name, and to take refuge under the shelter of the
thy wings. Remove far from him his former delusion and fill him with the faith,
hope and love which are in thee; that he may know that thou art the only true
God with thine Only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and thy Holy Spirit.
Enable him to walk in all thy commandments, and to fulfill those things which
are well pleasing unto thee; for if a man do those things, he shall find life in
them. Inscribe him in thy Book of Life, and unite him to the flock of thine
inheritance. And may thy Holy Name be glorified in him, together with that of
thy beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and of thy life-giving Spirit. Let thine
eyes ever regard him with mercy, and let thine ears attend unto the voice of his
supplication. Make him to rejoice in the works of his hands, and in all his
generation; that he may render praise unto thee, may sing worship and glorify thy
great and exalted Name always, all the days of his life. For all the Powers of
Heaven sing praises unto thee, and thine is the Glory; of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Spirit; now and ever, and unto ages of ages.</blockquote>
I'm officially a catechumen (one preparing for memebrship) in the Orthodox Church!<br />
<br />
<b>Update</b>: I was not at church the Sunday after this, but apparently my priest also put an explanation of the prayer into the bulletin that week. Here it is:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
Last Sunday we 'made' a <span>catechumen</span> during the Divine Liturgy. A <i><span>catechumen</span> </i>is
someone who is undergoing a program of instruction in the Orthodox
faith with the intention of being received into the Orthodox Church. The
prayer is called the <b>Prayer of Reception into the <span>Catechumenate</span></b>. We do this at St Mary's from time to time, especially if the <span>catechumen</span>
is taking a course, and if he or she does not mind standing up in front
of all the congregation! Not everyone who converts to Orthodoxy is
formally and publicly enrolled in this manner, although they will be in any
event as part of the rite of reception, but when
we do it in this public way it serves as a good reminder of important
aspects of what we are about in the Church: dedication to study,
spiritual growth, and evangelisation. </div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
The
prayer begins with an affirmation of the truth and power of the Most
Holy Trinity. It states that having a right relationship with God, in
Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit, is the sure foundation and
shelter for our lives. We ask for the <span>catechumen</span>
that all things that ought to be set aside from his or her past - sins,
failings, errors and mistakes, sorrows, delusions - be set aside, and
in their place that the <span>catechumen</span> be filled with authentic Christian faith, hope, and love. It is the moral transformation of the <span>catechumen</span>
that is critically important, certainly more important that any
detailed 'head' knowledge of the faith, which - after all - we all have a
lifetime to study. The call is to a living faith, that is to live in
light of the mortal vision of the Church. Therefore we pray: <i>Enable him to walk in all thy commandments, and to fulfill those things which
are well pleasing unto thee; for if a man do those things, he shall find life in
them.</i> Although obviously deeply and profoundly personal, the life
of faith is not something solitary and private. We are members of the
Body of Christ, members of one another, a community, a family, the
household of God. We pray that the <span>catechumen</span>
will be united to 'the flock of thine inheritance', to live in and to be
upheld and nurtured by the community of faith, and ultimately to share
in the mutual responsibility and accountability that is part of our
vision of the life of the Church. God is to be glorified in the way we
live and through the example we offer. This is a struggle, of course
(and as we all know), the struggle for Christian virtue, and therefore
we ask: <i>Let thine eyes ever regard him with mercy, and let thine ears attend unto the voice of his supplication.</i></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
What is perhaps most wonderful is the way in which the Orthodox Christian life into which the <span>catechumen</span>
is entering is meant to be joyful and full of glory and praise. Just as
the Divine Liturgy is understood to be a participation in heavenly
worship, so too more generally a life ordered toward God unites us to
the mystical doxology that lies at the heart of all things and is
revealed in the biblical visions of heavenly worship. There is an end or
goal for which we strive, and that end is glorification in the
Kingdom: <i>Make him to rejoice in the works of his hands, and in all his
generation; that he may render praise unto thee, may sing worship and glorify thy
great and exalted Name always, all the days of his life. For all the Powers of
Heaven sing praises unto thee, and thine is the Glory; of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Spirit; now and ever, and unto ages of ages.</i> </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
- Fr Andrew </div>
</div>
</blockquote>
Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08244026688548871531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4225502016359798858.post-10966889364516907352015-08-14T18:07:00.001-05:002017-02-07T22:04:40.021-06:00The All-Embracing EucharistAfter hearing some more recommendations of it, I recently (finally) started reading Alexander Schmemann's book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Life-World-Sacraments-Orthodoxy/dp/0913836087/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1439561593&sr=8-1&keywords=Schmemann"><i>For the Life of the World</i></a>. I'm deliberately going through it slowly to absorb as much of its depth as I can in my spiritual immaturity, but already in this first chapter these paragraphs jumped out at me. The context is Schemann's rejection of the "sacred-secular" divide that has become so ingrained in the modern world and his invitation to abide by the sacramental worldview held by the Orthodox Church.<br />
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To name a thing...is to bless God for it and in it. And in the Bible to bless God is not a "religious" or a "cultic" act, but the very <i>way of life</i>. God blessed the world, blessed man, blessed the seventh day (that is, time), and this mans that he filled all that exists with His love and goodness, made all this "very good." So the only <i>natural</i> (and not "supernatural") reaction of man, to whom God gave this blessed and sanctified world, is to bless God in return, to thank Him, to <i>see</i> the world as God sees it and—in this act of gratitude and adoration—to know, name, and possess the world. All rational, spiritual, and other qualities of man, distinguishing him from other creatures, have their focus and ultimate fulfillment in this capacity to bless God, to know, to speak, the meaning of the thirst and hunger that constitutes his life. ... The first, the basic definition of man is that he is <i>the priest</i>. He stands in the center of the world and unifies it in his act of blessing God, of both receiving the world from God and offering it to God—and by filling the world with his eucharist, he transforms his life, the one he receives from the world, into life with God, into communion with Him. The world was created as the "matter," the material of one all-embracing eucharist, and man was created as the priest of this cosmic sacrament. </blockquote>
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Men understand all this instinctively if not rationally. Centuries of secularism have failed to transform eating into something strictly utilitarian. Food is still treated with reverence. A meal is still a rite—the last "natural sacrament" of family and friendship, of life that is more than "eating" and "drinking." To eat is still something more than to maintain bodily functions. People may not understand what that "something more" is, but they nonetheless desire to celebrate it. They are still hungry and thirsty for sacramental life.</blockquote>
Man was created from the start to serve as priest, as mediator between God and creation, experiencing all as sacrament, taking the things of this world and lifting them up to God in a perpetual eucharist. This does not preclude the existence of an ordained priesthood, but they serve as examples and symbols for us, not simply as surrogates; what they do in the liturgy, man was made to do in all of life in this world. This is just one of the ways in which the church, and the liturgy that takes place within it, is meant to be a microcosm of all creation, or at least of the way it was made to be, the way it will be.<br />
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Obviously this invites parallels with the Reformation doctrine of the "priesthood of all believers", which, as this interesting <a href="http://www.valpo.edu/ils/assets/pdfs/05_wengert.pdf">paper</a> argues, was not originally about giving all Christians the right to do anything a priest could do, but about pulling down the rigid wall of class-like separation between the two <i>stands</i> (standings or walks of life) within the church, namely clergy and laity. Luther rightly attacked the Catholic distinction which arguably did compromise the unity of the church, but by confining his point to matters of church governance and focusing on the role and meaning of the priesthood within the church, he played right into the the divide between "sacred" and "secular", church and world, which Schmemann opposes.<br />
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I think Schmemann would say that the basic duty of a priest, then, is not to lead or to hold authority, but to give thanks, to celebrate the eucharist by taking all that we have been given by God and raising it up to him in blessing and thanksgiving, as the host is during each liturgy. It is to this task that we are being built up a holy priesthood (1 Pet 2:5). It is not much of a stretch to say that we are saved in order to serve as priests. I look forward to absorbing more of Schmemann's wisdom.Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08244026688548871531noreply@blogger.com0