All the pre-festival rush is over and for now we can enjoy a time of quiet and thanksgiving. For the rest of the day we shall be caught up again in the family rituals and customs of the season, with meal preparations and dealing with over-excited children and grand-children
From Epiphany to December 25
The customs of this festival are many and different in different parts of the world. The history of the festival day is also interesting. The earliest church, before it left the confines of the Mediterranean, rejoiced to recall God’s wonderful gift to human kind on January 6th, the feast of the Epiphany. It is here that we find the beginning of the custom of giving gifts at Christmas. In later centuries, as the church expanded into the cold, dark Germanic north, new dates were given and new customs introduced.
The church from its very birth has never grown in a vacuum, but in a culture permeated with older religions. Spiritual forces and gods were everywhere as were the places and the rituals that attended them. Two strategies were used; one was opposition on an intellectual and legal level, the other, was to incorporate some of the less objectionable elements of the old religions. This happened in the case of Christmas. Some German bishops of the 8th century decided that the pagan rites of the winter solstice must stop. They were wily enough not to choose the exact date, December 21; any sensible Thor worshipper would see through that one. So for northern Christianity, December 25th became the time to recall that in the deepest gloom of the year the bright light of God shines forth; at a later time, but from the same provenance came the fir tree covered in lights to our ceremonies, a sight that would have astounded any Galilean peasant.
Persistence of Gift Giving
Whatever customs have been introduced to Christmas in various parts of the world, the custom of gift-giving has remained central, not surprisingly because the focus of any theological understanding of this day is the amazing gift of God to us in the birth of Jesus. The gospels try to give us a feeling of the magnitude of the gift in the stories of brightness in the dark, the shining Angels announcing a great gift to the shepherds and singing a chorus of praise. We also get the message of the amazing nature of this gift in Matthew’s story of the wise men of the East who bring gifts of magnificence and deep symbolism to a little shed.
We all love gifts: both to receive them, but also to give them. Receiving them has a certain ambiguity: do I really need another packet of handkerchiefs? I recall how I received with some reservations the “useful gifts” that came from a Godmother – a pair of gloves one year, handkerchiefs another (what eight year old looks kindly on crisp linen squares?) and a book of devotion on yet another. On the other hand, there was an uncle who knew just what I wanted. A chemistry set, guaranteed to wreak havoc at the kitchen sink, an addition to the mecano set or a magician’s kit.
As I grew older, a greater appreciation grew of gifts that were carefully selected to meet real needs as well as to give pleasure. I also began to learn the joy of giving gifts as well as receiving them.
I am sure we all share these personal experiences and they are all woven into the meaning of Christmas.
God's Gift
The center of the Christmas message is God’s unimaginably generous gift to us. What, precisely, is that gift that formal theological language calls the ‘incarnation’? It is a gift carefully chosen to meet the real and desperate needs of the human race, which has tried to leave out God, even to replace God, in our affairs. At first sight God’s gift at Christmas might seem odd. What can a small defenseless baby do for us? But this is a gift of a very special child, one destined to make clear the Divine presence in all human affairs in spite of the mess that human self-will and pride have created. God’s gift in the birth of this child, and in all that followed from it, is an offer to humanity of reconciliation with God, with one another and, finally, within each torn human psyche.
The story of Christmas, in Matthew’s telling of it, also speaks of gifts of gratitude that are brought to the manger. The gifts are, on the face of it, a strange mixture; the gold, certainly, would be welcomed by a poor peasant family; but a bunch of joss sticks and a pot of strange smelling ointment were hardly immediately useful. Commentators get us out of this awkward moment of unwrapping a gift that seems oddly inappropriate, by reminding us of the deep symbolism: gold for a king, incense for the worship of God and myrrh for funeral rites. Perhaps, though, Christina Rossetti gets it right in her poem, In the Bleak Mid-Winter:
What can I give him, / Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd / I would bring a lamb;
If I were a wise man / I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give him - / Give my heart.
A 14th Century Miracle Play
What, indeed, can we give as a gift to this God of immeasurable love, who, in spite of general human nastiness and individual sins of self- centeredness, gives us the assurance of the divine presence in our midst. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, a poet and an amazingly subtle theologian, addresses this very question in a collection of sermons entitled A Ray of Darkness.
He quotes from one of the 14th century Miracle plays that were performed in churches at the Christmas season. Three ordinary Yorkshire workmen bring gifts; they are the Shepherds not to be outdone by the high and mighty Lords of the East. The first one says, “Lo, he laughs, my sweeting! Ah! A well fair meeting! Have a bob of cherries”. The second one goes on, “Hail! I kneel and I cower. A bird have I brought to my bairn.” And the third one concludes:
“Hail! Put forth thy hand. I bring thee but a ball: Have and play thee withall, and go to the tennis.” (22-23).
What a wonderful collection of gifts for a little child: a bunch of cherries, a canary in a cage and a tennis ball. Could anything say more clearly that God has entered into human life, its joys as well as its woes, than that last line: take the ball and go to play a game of tennis; go and express that true humanity through which the light of God will shine.
Williams comments, “What can I give him, poor as I am? What indeed! For God today has recreated the world and refashioned you and me in his own image. God today has burst open the frontiers of all possible and imaginable experience and come among us”… The Child through whom and in whom God comes to us “reaches out his hand and touches the bob of cherries that a [Yorkshire] workman offers him. And for the reaching out there is no exchange, there is no fit return we can make. God’s pure causeless, gratuitous love can have no answer, except some faint fumbling echo of that very gratuity … itself: the gift too great to make sense of. All we can do, like the (workmen), is to offer our meaningless little presents. All we can give to God is the equivalent of what the (workmen) here give; a packet of sweets, a canary in a cage, a tennis ball.” (ibid. 23).
Our Fumbling Gifts
Those ‘fumbling’ gifts will include all that we can do for others, the care we give to children and older people, the patience with which we forbear those who irritate us, the joys we share with family and friends. They will include our often puny efforts at prayer and our taking part in worship, but all these little offerings are taken up in a Great Thanksgiving, an ongoing Eucharist, a great Eucharistoumen, Thank You, which is, in the last analysis, the only return we can give for so immense a gift as we celebrate today.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Knowledge, Experience & Wisdom
Expressions of disbelief, expert & experienced economists reduced to ‘speechlessness’, and a significant consensus of experienced experts confessing “we didn’t see this coming” have dominated the news of the last ten days.
I am only a dumb theologian, and wonder why it is that I am not in the least surprised?
Haves & Have Nots
This Web page is explicitly focused on contemporary theological issues, biblical studies and current ecclesiastical affairs. This does not, I feel, exclude comment on the current political scene though theologians need to tread warily here.
So here goes!
When I first came to live in the USA in 1971, I remember the Real Estate page (note the singular) in the New York Times Magazine section; there were usually about a dozen ‘superior’ properties listed, ranging in price from about $250, 000 to (very occasionally) $1m. At the time, since we were working in a boarding school that provided excellent accommodation, we began to think about where we would live when we retired. We agonized over the price of $68,000 with a loan rate of 12.85% for a house that was for sale.
It was this contrast that first began my musing about the structure of American society, wondering how anyone could afford what seemed to me the astronomical prices of the NYT advertisements; with my wife and I both working, our combined income was around $ 28,000 (including housing costs), and I was speechless that people could be making enough to pay a million or more for a house. Did this mean that they had an annual income approaching a million dollars?
We all know that in the last three decades the gap between the haves and the have-nots has become a canyon whose floor is almost out of sight, the result of unbridled capitalism that has made the river run uphill. The most recent edition of the NYT Magazine section has about a dozen real estate pages introduced by the title: Best of Luxury Homes & Estates. I did not have the time (4 or 5 hours?) to go though the whole collection carefully, but my quick check found just two properties, if that is the correct designation, for somewhat less than a million dollars. Each had one bedroom and a “spacious” additional living area, and one of them came with a $600 monthly fee for maintenance and security. The most expensive pied-à-terre I came across was an estate selling for $59, 000,000.
In another section of the NYT, I saw an advertisement for a Gucci handbag for the bargain price of $3,290.00. I almost feel like saying: “The case rests”; that would be so if the case were that vast economic inequalities have historically led to severe social and political instability: qu’ils mangent de la brioche (Let them eat cake).
But the case I want to make is, I realize after all, theological and not primarily about politics or economics.
Monumental Commandments
I have noted in several previous essays the striking difference between the USA and most of the rest of the industrialized world when religious statistics are compared. The overwhelming percentage of Americans who profess belief in God is remarkable; even more striking, (though not so striking as it once was) is that what is being referred to is the Christian God: sometimes just a ‘generic’ [g]God, but often Jesus, where Christos is not understood as a title – ‘the Anointed of Yahweh’, but as a kind of divine name. How much does his vast following really know about the New Testament, about the Jesus of history presented as the Christ of faith?
One test that suggests itself is the publishing of the Ten Commandments in the public domain, often in stone. The ensuing uproar suggests a profound commitment to Yahweh and to some pre-Israelite laws that treat wives as personal property. This is probably not the position of the generic god theists, but has more than enough adherents to create the uproar when the legality of the action is questioned.
In contrast, I do not know of any attempt to set up a monument inscribed, for example, with Luke’s version of the Beatitudes, or any other version for that matter. It is not clear to me what the reaction to such an attempt would be. Perhaps some, reading the Beatitudes for the first time, might find them interesting; right wing Republicans would probably accuse the author of being a Marxist, and very Conservative Evangelicals might mildly approve, while insisting that it was quite in order to own and drive several SUVs: fundamentalists, after all, do not insist on a literal reading of the text – a day can = a year, a century, a millennium – but on its inerrancy. Doubtless, the 10% who do not register belief in God would actively raise the Church and State issue.
Theology & the Social Contract
The theological crux of the whole matter is that the Beatitudes lead to the Cross, and what has been lost in the frenzy of spending, increasing year by year ever since WW II, is any attention to the sacrifices needed in individuals, families, corporations and the world at large for the maintenance of a stable, productive society. The execution of Jesus clearly does not emerge in the story at the eleventh hour. As early as his third chapter, Luke notes that the authorities consulted on how to get rid of him. The Beatitudes sum up the pattern of behavior that Mark and the Evangelists who followed him, clearly laid out for us: rejection of legalism; cutting across deeply embedded social and ethnic frontiers; a very clear understanding that love in a clash with power (bottom line – gold/$$/££ etc.) will inevitably suffer. It is that suffering, willingly accepted that constitutes sacrifice. I am not suggesting that a society can flourish only if all members are theists of one kind or another, but that the principles of, say, the “Golden Rule” can be followed by anyone.
The Politically Unspeakable
It is abundantly clear that there are things that politicians not only do not ever say, but cannot ever say. They cannot say that democracy is endangered when far too big a segment of the population, while literate, has never been trained to do any analytic thinking. Above all, they cannot even hint that our present situation is not only the result of bad policies, greedy financiers and supine legislators, but also the behavior of a vast majority of the population: wastefulness on an unprecedented level in history; piling up personal debt on multiple credit cards at astronomical levels; an increasing disregard for the most vulnerable section of our fellow citizens.
Of course, we hear that “belt tightening” will be necessary, that we may have to forgo some of our comforts (a house heated to 74°, fewer Christmas decorations), but has anyone heard a speech like Churchill’s in mid-1940 when he told the British people he could offer them nothing but “blood, sweat and tears”? I wonder what would happen if all night-time sporting events were to be cancelled.
Sub specie aeternitatis, this might seem a relatively small sacrifice, but would the fact that it would save countless millions of kilowatt hours, stem the howl of rage? I rather doubt it. And such a policy would be only a miniscule first step in the implementation of the much more draconian measures that are really needed.
Too Much Religion
Perhaps what emerges is that the USA has far too much religion, religion of the smiley face, hand-clapping kind; religion that insists that getting filthy rich is what Jesus really wants for us; religion that harks back much more to the Old Testament than to the New; religion that fails to take into account the potentials of human sin (except for homosexuals and commies). Perhaps what we need is not only an economic rescue, but an evangelical rescue, where ‘evangelical’ does not mean far right fundamentalism, but an embracing of the Evangel so clearly set out in the New Testament.
We also need wise leaders, and that brings me at long last to the title of this essay.
In Canto I of Choruses from ‘The Rock', T.S. Eliot says:
Where is the life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
It might be the height of presumption, but I would like to add:
“Where is the the information we have lost in Campaign Ads?”
Validation by Experience
There has been a great deal of talk about the importance of experience for many months now, and as is most often the case in political discourse, the talk is full of hidden assumptions, suppressed protases (first part of an “if” clause) producing damning apodoses (the “then” part of a conditional clause):
if X is educated, then he/she is out of touch.
Or, if Y is a septuagenarian, then he/she ought to have retired.
In the case of ‘experience’, the argument seems to be: if you have travelled widely, then you know how to deal with other nations. Unhappily, I know people who have spent their life travelling, who take pride in not knowing a word of any European or Eastern language, who insist that there is nothing like a good old American hamburger and who keep track of their itinerary by noting that it is Wednesday today.
It really does not take a great deal of thought to work out that experience which is not subjected to critical thought and analysis is somewhat like a frozen bank account. Quite by accident, as I was writing this I came on a passage in an essay of Michel de Montaigne, On the Art of Conversation (Four Essays in the Penguin 60s series - 1995 Translated by M.A. Screech).
Montaigne notes that in a conversation people of rank often get away with arguments that “are vain and silly”, and then they “clobber you with the authority of their experience” (52). He next introduces the case of a surgeon (doctor) to whom he would like to say that a recital of all his experience with this or that illness & success with many surgical procedures is in itself beside the point. What matters is how he is able “to extract from [his experience] material for forming his judgment”. His experience is irrelevant “unless he knows how to convince us that he has been made wiser by the practice of his medical art”. (53).
Perhaps Eliot is saying something like this in the last line of section II of East Coker:
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.
Certainly the financial wizards with whom I began had a great deal of knowledge and immense experience, but they seemed signally to lack the wisdom that comes from humility.
I am only a dumb theologian, and wonder why it is that I am not in the least surprised?
Haves & Have Nots
This Web page is explicitly focused on contemporary theological issues, biblical studies and current ecclesiastical affairs. This does not, I feel, exclude comment on the current political scene though theologians need to tread warily here.
So here goes!
When I first came to live in the USA in 1971, I remember the Real Estate page (note the singular) in the New York Times Magazine section; there were usually about a dozen ‘superior’ properties listed, ranging in price from about $250, 000 to (very occasionally) $1m. At the time, since we were working in a boarding school that provided excellent accommodation, we began to think about where we would live when we retired. We agonized over the price of $68,000 with a loan rate of 12.85% for a house that was for sale.
It was this contrast that first began my musing about the structure of American society, wondering how anyone could afford what seemed to me the astronomical prices of the NYT advertisements; with my wife and I both working, our combined income was around $ 28,000 (including housing costs), and I was speechless that people could be making enough to pay a million or more for a house. Did this mean that they had an annual income approaching a million dollars?
We all know that in the last three decades the gap between the haves and the have-nots has become a canyon whose floor is almost out of sight, the result of unbridled capitalism that has made the river run uphill. The most recent edition of the NYT Magazine section has about a dozen real estate pages introduced by the title: Best of Luxury Homes & Estates. I did not have the time (4 or 5 hours?) to go though the whole collection carefully, but my quick check found just two properties, if that is the correct designation, for somewhat less than a million dollars. Each had one bedroom and a “spacious” additional living area, and one of them came with a $600 monthly fee for maintenance and security. The most expensive pied-à-terre I came across was an estate selling for $59, 000,000.
In another section of the NYT, I saw an advertisement for a Gucci handbag for the bargain price of $3,290.00. I almost feel like saying: “The case rests”; that would be so if the case were that vast economic inequalities have historically led to severe social and political instability: qu’ils mangent de la brioche (Let them eat cake).
But the case I want to make is, I realize after all, theological and not primarily about politics or economics.
Monumental Commandments
I have noted in several previous essays the striking difference between the USA and most of the rest of the industrialized world when religious statistics are compared. The overwhelming percentage of Americans who profess belief in God is remarkable; even more striking, (though not so striking as it once was) is that what is being referred to is the Christian God: sometimes just a ‘generic’ [g]God, but often Jesus, where Christos is not understood as a title – ‘the Anointed of Yahweh’, but as a kind of divine name. How much does his vast following really know about the New Testament, about the Jesus of history presented as the Christ of faith?
One test that suggests itself is the publishing of the Ten Commandments in the public domain, often in stone. The ensuing uproar suggests a profound commitment to Yahweh and to some pre-Israelite laws that treat wives as personal property. This is probably not the position of the generic god theists, but has more than enough adherents to create the uproar when the legality of the action is questioned.
In contrast, I do not know of any attempt to set up a monument inscribed, for example, with Luke’s version of the Beatitudes, or any other version for that matter. It is not clear to me what the reaction to such an attempt would be. Perhaps some, reading the Beatitudes for the first time, might find them interesting; right wing Republicans would probably accuse the author of being a Marxist, and very Conservative Evangelicals might mildly approve, while insisting that it was quite in order to own and drive several SUVs: fundamentalists, after all, do not insist on a literal reading of the text – a day can = a year, a century, a millennium – but on its inerrancy. Doubtless, the 10% who do not register belief in God would actively raise the Church and State issue.
Theology & the Social Contract
The theological crux of the whole matter is that the Beatitudes lead to the Cross, and what has been lost in the frenzy of spending, increasing year by year ever since WW II, is any attention to the sacrifices needed in individuals, families, corporations and the world at large for the maintenance of a stable, productive society. The execution of Jesus clearly does not emerge in the story at the eleventh hour. As early as his third chapter, Luke notes that the authorities consulted on how to get rid of him. The Beatitudes sum up the pattern of behavior that Mark and the Evangelists who followed him, clearly laid out for us: rejection of legalism; cutting across deeply embedded social and ethnic frontiers; a very clear understanding that love in a clash with power (bottom line – gold/$$/££ etc.) will inevitably suffer. It is that suffering, willingly accepted that constitutes sacrifice. I am not suggesting that a society can flourish only if all members are theists of one kind or another, but that the principles of, say, the “Golden Rule” can be followed by anyone.
The Politically Unspeakable
It is abundantly clear that there are things that politicians not only do not ever say, but cannot ever say. They cannot say that democracy is endangered when far too big a segment of the population, while literate, has never been trained to do any analytic thinking. Above all, they cannot even hint that our present situation is not only the result of bad policies, greedy financiers and supine legislators, but also the behavior of a vast majority of the population: wastefulness on an unprecedented level in history; piling up personal debt on multiple credit cards at astronomical levels; an increasing disregard for the most vulnerable section of our fellow citizens.
Of course, we hear that “belt tightening” will be necessary, that we may have to forgo some of our comforts (a house heated to 74°, fewer Christmas decorations), but has anyone heard a speech like Churchill’s in mid-1940 when he told the British people he could offer them nothing but “blood, sweat and tears”? I wonder what would happen if all night-time sporting events were to be cancelled.
Sub specie aeternitatis, this might seem a relatively small sacrifice, but would the fact that it would save countless millions of kilowatt hours, stem the howl of rage? I rather doubt it. And such a policy would be only a miniscule first step in the implementation of the much more draconian measures that are really needed.
Too Much Religion
Perhaps what emerges is that the USA has far too much religion, religion of the smiley face, hand-clapping kind; religion that insists that getting filthy rich is what Jesus really wants for us; religion that harks back much more to the Old Testament than to the New; religion that fails to take into account the potentials of human sin (except for homosexuals and commies). Perhaps what we need is not only an economic rescue, but an evangelical rescue, where ‘evangelical’ does not mean far right fundamentalism, but an embracing of the Evangel so clearly set out in the New Testament.
We also need wise leaders, and that brings me at long last to the title of this essay.
In Canto I of Choruses from ‘The Rock', T.S. Eliot says:
Where is the life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
It might be the height of presumption, but I would like to add:
“Where is the the information we have lost in Campaign Ads?”
Validation by Experience
There has been a great deal of talk about the importance of experience for many months now, and as is most often the case in political discourse, the talk is full of hidden assumptions, suppressed protases (first part of an “if” clause) producing damning apodoses (the “then” part of a conditional clause):
if X is educated, then he/she is out of touch.
Or, if Y is a septuagenarian, then he/she ought to have retired.
In the case of ‘experience’, the argument seems to be: if you have travelled widely, then you know how to deal with other nations. Unhappily, I know people who have spent their life travelling, who take pride in not knowing a word of any European or Eastern language, who insist that there is nothing like a good old American hamburger and who keep track of their itinerary by noting that it is Wednesday today.
It really does not take a great deal of thought to work out that experience which is not subjected to critical thought and analysis is somewhat like a frozen bank account. Quite by accident, as I was writing this I came on a passage in an essay of Michel de Montaigne, On the Art of Conversation (Four Essays in the Penguin 60s series - 1995 Translated by M.A. Screech).
Montaigne notes that in a conversation people of rank often get away with arguments that “are vain and silly”, and then they “clobber you with the authority of their experience” (52). He next introduces the case of a surgeon (doctor) to whom he would like to say that a recital of all his experience with this or that illness & success with many surgical procedures is in itself beside the point. What matters is how he is able “to extract from [his experience] material for forming his judgment”. His experience is irrelevant “unless he knows how to convince us that he has been made wiser by the practice of his medical art”. (53).
Perhaps Eliot is saying something like this in the last line of section II of East Coker:
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.
Certainly the financial wizards with whom I began had a great deal of knowledge and immense experience, but they seemed signally to lack the wisdom that comes from humility.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
The Book of Revelation: Study Outline Part 4
Part 1 of this Study outline was posted in August, 2007
Part 2 in Sept 2007
Part 3 on January 14 2008
Click on the appropriate month at left to find earlier sections
An Overview of 8.7 – 14.20
The section (8.7-11.19) is given its structure by the third seven marked by the blowing of seven trumpets, which again introduce a series of apocalyptic judgments, pointing to a final great catastrophe.
In his first attempt at the exegesis of this book (The Rebirth of Images) Austin Farrer tried to get seven sevens from the total text, seeing a series of seven sevens, though only four of them were clearly marked: the Messages, (2-3); the unsealings, (6-7); the trumpets, (8-14), and the bowls (15 ff.) The ‘unmarked ones were delineated by reference back to parallel themes and to a series of clues like a repeated “then I saw”.
In the later Commentary, he abandoned this (highly criticized) effort and, suggested the potentially more fruitful and much simpler structure of “the half week”, a variant of the common apocalyptic scheme of “a week of weeks” (cf. Dan 9 –“a time, times and half a time” and notes in Part One, published on 8/9/07)
Week Three - The Seven Trumpets
Ch 8, v.7 The series of seven begins almost at once and there is no opening Theophany as in the two previous weeks, but there is a very brief scene in the ‘heavenly throne room’. In v. 5, fire again shows its ambivalent nature - the fire that is a symbol of the glory of God becomes also the fire of judgment.
vv. 7 & 8 may reflect another of the sub-themes, the parallels that keep popping up with the Genesis creation story. God created the earth, sea, vegetation and trees on the third day; here at the first three trumpet blasts in the third "seven”, the earth, trees, vegetation and sea are one third destroyed.
v.10 the falling star is possibly a reference to the saying of Jesus in Lk.10.18, but this is not the final conquest of Satan which is reserved for 12.1-12, (typical; of the book's cyclical approach). cf. also Isa 14.12-14 which suggests the Satanic power operating through the secular state.
"Wormwood" is in Greek apsinthos. (artemisia absinthium) a bitter but not poisonous herb. In both OT and NT it is a metaphor for "bitterness" cf. Amos 5.6f; 6.12;Jer. 9.15.
vv.12-14 The fourth trumpet initiates destruction of the heavenly bodies. Is it a coincidence that the fourth day of creation in Genesis sees the placing of the “great lights" in the firmament?
Another obvious piece of O.T. background to this section is the story of the Egyptian plagues.
Chapter 9
The final verse of ch 8 introduces three woes, which are spelled out by the next three trumpet blasts, (cycles within cycles!). Again Farrer suggests this is the pervasive half-week pattern: 4+3.
The fallen star is another preview of Satan's fall (12.12).
The rest of ch. 9 is a picture of demonic forces let loose on the world. "The bottomless pit" of v. 1 is, in Greek, abysson, that is, in the mythology of the OT, the place of chaos overcome by God at creation. "This is spiritual geography, signifying the reservoir of evil, out of which the beast ascends (11.7, 17.8)". (John Sweet, Commentary, p. 167). For the description of the demonic monsters, see earlier note; here he is portraying the sins of imperialism, the fascination of sex and the ravages of sin.
v. 6 is a shattering picture of horror, much worse in its poetic brevity than the synthetic gore of a contemporary horror movie.
The sixth trumpet sounds marking the progress of this "week' of judgments, and the second woe gives its content.
v.14 seems to imply wicked angels, common dramatis personae in apocalyptic writing.
Sweet has a good note in this section. He writes, "We may find these plagues revolting, like pictures of the effects of nuclear war or ecological arrogance.... John is not threatening pagans but revealing to Christians the spiritual nature and destiny of the world to which they are tempted to conform. It is deeper diagnosis than that of many of our contemporary prophets of doom, and it is encapsulated within a more positive vision." (Commentary, p. 171).
v. 20 suggests much for us to apply to our own society, and the story of the plagues in Egypt suggests the pattern of stubborn refusal to turn to God that ends in a refusal to receive his grace.
Chapter 10 & Chapter 11.1-14
In the second week (seals), John makes a break between numbers six and seven, and so he does again here.
He inserts, two 'interludes', so to speak, ch 10, and 11.1-14 before the blowing of the seventh trumpet introduces yet another Sabbath liturgy.
v.2 the little scroll is linked to the sealed scroll of 5.2 ('mighty angel’, allusion to Ezek 2.8-3.3).
Sweet suggests that the little scroll is a suitably scaled down version of the great scroll now already opened in heaven (i.e., God's purpose is "in place"). It is given to John and his fellow Christians to "eat" = digest the message and, (v. 11), prophesy to many nations. Christ's victory is to be worked out by those who share his bitter cup (Mk 10.18) and his baptism of death (Lk 12.29ff).
Ch 11.1-14 is the second 'interlude'. It is a sort of parable of what John is doing by writing his book. A separation is made between those who will hear (v.1), and those who will not and remain outside the temple and the city (v.2).
This section weaves together material from Zech chs 2-4, Ezek 40.3 and Dan 7.25 & 12.7. Both the time references in vv. 2 & 3 = three and a half years, and this was a standard number (coming from Daniel) for the period of distress heralding the end (eschaton). It is also, in 13.5-7, the period of the "beast's" war against the saints, and, in 12.6, the time of nourishment for the woman who bears messiah,
The temple that is measured is not the one in Jerusalem; that had (a majority of scholars would concur) been destroyed almost two decades before John is writing. The temple is the Christian community (cf. 1 Cor 3.16; Eph 2.21; John 2.19ff) He seems to make a distinction between "the church in its inward being, measured as the 144,000 were sealed (7.1-8), and the church in its outward life, already the holy city (3,12), but not yet measured as it will be (21.15)". (Sweet, Commentary, p. 184)
vv. 2-14 give what can be seen as a "summary of the reign and fall of Antichrist, of the persecution and final redemption of the saints." (Farrer, Rebirth of Images, p. 44). The two witnesses may be Moses and Elijah, but probably represent the witness of the whole church, and the fire (v.5) is the word of God; like Elijah (I K 17.1) God empowers them. Note that when Jesus refers to the incident in Lk, 4.25, he says the "heavens were shut up for three and a half years".
v.7 the city is not a single geographical place. True, in Jerusalem the power of evil was most clearly seen in the execution of Jesus, but John says he is speaking "spiritually" (the literal Greek = allegorically); the death of Christ was at the hands of "the rulers of this age" (I Cor 2.6-8). Sweet writes: "The city is the social and political embodiment of human self-sufficiency and rebellion against God" (ibid. p.187). At various times, the center has been Sodom, Babylon and Egypt. As John writes, it is Rome, and later in his book, he will equate Babylon and Rome.
Chapter 11.15-19
At v. 15, John returns to the structured seven to close this third ‘week’. The reader is reminded that in spite of all the sin and rebellion, chaos and suffering caused by human obduracy, the glorious God reigns and His Christ shares that rule. The rule of God (‘Kingdom of Heaven’ in Matthew’s gospel) is ultimate, but not yet acknowledged by the rebellious creation.
For this section, and in many places later, John is using yet another O.T. source; this time Psalm 2. A quick scan of that Psalm will suggest why he found it so appropriate. (see also Rev 12.5; 14.1;16.14;17.18;19.5 7 19).
Echoes of the Jewish New Year Festival also can be heard.
v.17 note that John does not use the usual future reference in God's triple title; he is emphasizing that the end is not yet.
v. 18 (cf. 19.2) "Destroying the destroyers is the key to the destructiveness of Revelation" (Sweet p.192). The destruction is, in fact, brought about by the forces of evil both within and beyond human kind which are essentially (self)destructive - the disordered will, in the end, leads to the tearing up of the fabric of creation, so that God may remake it.
v. 19 the ark is the symbol of the presence of God, here revealed, presumably to the elect. The passage looks back to Mark 15.38.
Chapter 12.1 to Chapter 15.8
In his earlier exposition Farrer tried to show that the “gap” between the end of the trumpets and the casting of the contents of the first bowl could be a series of seven (marked by ‘and I saw’ or ‘was seen’), as follows:
(i) And a great sign was seen in heaven, a woman...and there was seen another sign in heaven, and behold a dragon..(12.1-3).
(ii) And I saw a beast coming up out of the sea (13.1).
(iii) And I saw another beast coming up out of the earth (13.11).
(iv) And I saw, and behold, the Lamb standing upon the Mount Zion (14.1).
(v) And I saw another angel flying in mid-heaven (14.6).
(vi) And I saw, and behold a white cloud, and on the cloud sitting as a
Son of Man (14.14).
(vii) And I saw another sign in heaven great and marvelous, seven angels having seven
plagues (15.1).
In the later Commentary he sees it as a recapitulation of the major apocalyptic themes of the battle between good and evil, the action of God in sending a Messiah who gathers to him the Holy Community, the inevitability of judgment (built into their situation, so to speak) for those who reject God and persecute his chosen and the hope of ultimate peace, "All nations will come and worship before you" (15.4).
Chapter 12
vv.1-6 John's book abounds in 'images' (= more or less "metaphors"), but in this section they are so thick on the ground that they jostle one another to be seen.
Psalm 2 is here, but also parallels from Persian, Greek and Egyptian mythology (e.g. goddess Roma, the great earth mother Cybele) (so Sweet). The dominant imagery is OT. The serpent's defeat of the woman is reversed (Gen 3.15ff). The chaos monster is overcome (Gen 1) see also the Exodus tradition (Isa 51.9-11 where the overcoming of "Rahab" (cf. Leviahan in Pss) is connected with Yahweh's bringing the Israelites out of Egypt).
The proliferation continues with the image of the woman. Her seed bruises the dragon's head (v.17 - Gen 3.15ff). She is the bride of Yahweh (S. of Sol 6.4 7 10);
"She is Mary, but only in so far as Mary embodies faithful Israel, and mothers the Messiah and his community (John 19.26f). She is the church, but only in so far as the church is continuous with God's people from the beginning and with Eve, 'the mother of all living' (Gen 3.20)" (Sweet, p. 195).
Note the "unholy" trinity of the Dragon, the Beast and the Second "Beast" who is a kind of False Prophet and is called thus at 16.13,19.20 and 20.10) - a parody of Elijah?
v. 7 The victory is Christ's; Michael (= 'who is like God?’) 13.4 is a parody of this.
v.12 the third woe is completed (11.14f).
For the earth swallowing God's enemies, see Ex 15.12; Num 16.32-34)
Chapter 13
The powers of evil continue their attack. The details refer to historical sequences of kings and the passage relies on Dan 7.3ff.
The notes of the HarperCollins Study bible are excellent for this section.
v.17 Greek, Latin and Hebrew letters had numerical values; thus a number could be turned into a name (or hide a name). For example, Iësous = 10+8+200+70+400+200 = 888.
(According to Farrer 888 is the number for the resurrection Sunday, for it is the final Sunday, the octave of the first day of creation and the inauguration of the New Ctreation. Similarly 666, whatever else is hidden there is Friday, the day of crucifixion. The device is called gematria, and many efforts have been made to find a name that fits 666. Caesar Nero, written in Hebrew letters turned into their numerical values is a possibility, but a bit of fudging has to be done. Farrer suggests that 666 is a parody of 888 (Jesus). This points to Friday as the day (6) of the Crucifixion, and to day eight as Easter Sunday; 666 is also two thirds of a thousand (the time Antichrist has left to reign, one third having been destroyed already).
The problem of course with a Gematria is that with sufficient ingenuity almost any name can emerge from almost any number; 666 has given us Nero, any number of Popes of various names, Hitler, Stalin and a variety of one’s most hated politician!
Chapter 14
While the "nations rage" (Ps 2.1; 46.6), the steadfast love of God continues. See Ps 2 again, "I have set my king on my holy hill". Those marked with the name of Christ hold out against those who are marked with the mark of the beast (13.16f). At least two of the Letters to the churches suggest some Christians had fallen away. At times, John seems to imply a narrow view of those who will be saved (as here), but overall he is a universalist (see 5.9f; 7.9ff; 21.24ff).
v. 4 has been called "a monkish interpolation". Sweet argues that this is not the case. "Unchastity is a regular biblical metaphor for religious infidelity" (p. 222). In addition the need for abstinence when on priestly or military duty is an accepted norm of Judaism. There are, however, passages like I Cor 7.32-35 and Mt 19.10-12 to consider and it is possible that the Jewish view of sex as good, is already being overlaid with Hellenistic influences where matter is seen as inferior to spirit.
vv. 6-19 give us two days of judgment which is now imminent.
Chapter 15. 1-8
closes the section with a Sabbath liturgy in which celebration of the original Exodus is joined to a celebration of the Victory of Christ.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
The status of homosexual persons *Some Theological Perspectives
Although it is almost ten years since I wrote this paper, I feel that it is still relevant to our current situation. Indeed during that time, instead of the question being reasonably and calmly debated, new levels of polemic and rhetoric have dominated the discussion.
Because of the length of the piece, I am putting it out in three parts:
A) A consideration of the nature of religion and its relationship to Christian practice and theology. (See Blog, August 1, 2008)
B) The nature of doctrine and an examination of how (if so be the case) it develops and changes. (See Blog, August 7, 2008)
C) Theology and the Bible in changing world-views, with special reference to the Anglican Communion’s record in this matter.
In one or two places I have edited my original text; any substantial changes are marked by […]
Bible, Doctrine and Practice in the Anglican Tradition
The Church of England as it emerged at the Elizabethan Settlement had a distinctive polity, but one very different from continental (and Scottish) Protestantism on the on hand and from the Counter Reformation Roman Catholic church on the other. There was, and is, no powerful central authority, let alone an absolutist one like the Papacy since the First Vatican Council.
Church of England (Anglican?) Polity
Timothy F. Sedgwick writes (Our Selves, 38), “Anglican churches reflect the English tradition of common law. In this tradition the rule of law is not, as in Roman law, a matter of principles that are understood to be based on the nature of things, and are applied to individual cases. Instead, the law arises from individual cases themselves and as such represents the accumulation of a people’s practical wisdom ... Authority - the legitimate voice to speak and decide upon an issue - is in this sense borne by the community and dispersed through its life”.
In practice, this means that a great deal has been left to conscience.
Untidy System
This polity, that recognizes the Ecumenical Councils, that works with collegiality rather than papacy, that allows for the exercise of reason, individual conscience, and for flexibility in biblical interpretation, has always seemed incoherent to Confessional churches and particularly to Roman Catholics. It was, for example, a constant source of ridicule from Roman Catholic writers like Belloc, Chesterton, Graham Greene and their successors as the 20th century progressed. It seems messy, but it has enabled the Anglican Communion (as it emerged from the Mother Church of England from the middle to the 19th century) in some measure and in a very halting way to come to grips with the upheavals in world-view of the last 150 years.
This kind of polity has worked where there has been a measure of cultural uniformity, but, as Sedgwick points out, as the Anglican Communion has embraced more and more cultures it is losing its stability. Sedgwick’s conclusion is, I think, somewhat pessimistic. He notes an increasing tendency to put more weight on conscience than on Canon Law: the ordination of the Eleven in Philadelphia in 1974, the continuing refusal to some congregations to use the 1979 Prayer Book, the “ordination of homosexual persons living in sexually active relationships” (Selves 39), and the refusal of some dioceses to allow women to exercise their ministry.
Comment
[It is important to note that Sedgwick wrote this over twelve years ago; his examples focus on ECUSA, not the Anglican Communion. At this stage, he did not, apparently, consider the issues that have arisen when a diocese acts entirely within the Canons, and within the majority consent of a General Convention, and is yet seen as a spoiler and de-stabilizer. The focus has moved from an inerrant view of scripture as mandatory, the impossibility of ordaining women, and even the broader discussion of homosexuality to center on a demand for a central authority for the collection of regional churches (wrongly called “Provinces”) that make up the somewhat ramshackle confederation called the Anglican Communion.
What has emerged is a resurgent militant Puritanism, which seeks to dominate Anglicanism in a way rejected in the 17th century. Clearly, the actions of regional churches such as ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada are from this point of view seen as destabilizing.]
Yet, the C. of E. ( –> Anglican Communion) has come through some similar problems with a majority consensus. The number who have actually separated from the church is sad, but, so far, much smaller than both wings - Anglo Catholics and Evangelicals - have repeatedly prophesied, and the breadth of Anglican polity may even yet enable us to work through the current issues. Furthermore, this polity has enabled Anglicans to recognize that new knowledge has mandatory implications for the doing of theology and for the understanding of doctrinal formulations. It has enabled Anglicans to take account of new knowledge, but also to regard it as one of the ways in which God leads us.
Changing attitudes to Formularies - The Gorham Case
Two examples might illustrate these generalizations. The first is the way in which the emergence of new historical knowledge in the 19th century first caused the most immense uproar, but ultimately came to be accepted by a broad spectrum of Anglicans, though, it must be said, not by all. Extreme Evangelicals on one wing and ultramontane Anglo Catholics on the other, in general, stood aside from the central consensus. Much of contemporary minority dissent (and it is important to recall the size of the minority we are talking about in the face of continual propaganda) has its roots, I believe, in these 19th century "wings" of the Church of England.
A survey of the scene in the C. of E. in the mid 19th century is instructive. After the upheavals of the Tractarian movement in the thirties and forties, the church was convulsed by controversy just as bitter as anything we are experiencing today.
Baptismal Regeneration
I will return to the issues of science and historical criticism next, but turn now to the second example: the Gorham case, which hinged on the Evangelical reluctance to ascribe certain "regeneration" to Baptism administered to infants. Beginning around 1847 the case dragged on for years, and, as is often the case, the original dispute over doctrine was submerged in contentions about the authority of Parliament in church affairs, the authority of bishops and the status of canon law. In the varying court decisions that emerged, at one stage the threat of a great exodus of the Evangelicals seemed imminent; at a later date, it was the turn of the High Church party to organize petitions and talk about a mass secession to Rome.
One of the central issues that emerged was whether the XXXIX Articles 'over-rode' the Prayer Book concerning Baptismal regeneration since there was a clear (some said, “apparent”) discrepancy between the two. What is important for our purposes is to note that the doctrinal issue of baptismal regeneration has been resolved in typically Anglican comprehensiveness. That there are different shades of the doctrine is very clear, and that they can be held within a spectrum of belief is also clear.
XXXIX Articles
Even more telling is the status of Articles of Religion. In the mid 19th century they were a continual source of controversy, for both the Tractarians and the Evangelicals. In the ECUSA they are discreetly given an honorable retirement and reside in "Historical Documents". (For an excellent account of the details of the Gorham case, see Owen Chadwick, The Victorian Church, Part 1, pp 250-271)
Geology, Historical Criticism and Essays & Reviews
Perhaps a clearer example of the way in which Anglicanism has coped with new knowledge is in the areas of scientific discovery and historical criticism.
Species not Immutable
The scientific revolution of the 19th century left all the churches in disarray, but by the turn of the century, it seems that the Anglican church as a whole was coming to some kind of rapprochement and, indeed, using new insights for a reappraisal of theological dogmas.
In the 1830s "books by Sir Charles Lyell and Dean Buckland established the geological succession of rocks and fossils, and showed the world to be much older than the accepted date for the Garden of Eden." (Alec Vidler, The Church in an Age of Revolution, p114; Penguin).
In spite of the troubling of the waters, at this stage, not only theologians but scientists managed to accommodate the new views (e.g. "days" in Genesis meant eons of time, and the geological evidence in no way suggested that God was not entirely behind creation). Biological science, however, was another matter; Vidler notes that "[a]round 1850 few scientists of any note had a good word to say for the idea of evolution" (p. 116). Moreover, we need to recall that the idea of evolution did not burst on the world for the very first time with the publication of The Origin of the Species in 1859. As early as 1801, Jean Baptiste de Lamarck had published Système des animaux sans vertèbres. The introductory essay seems to be the first statement of Lamarck's later widely discussed theory of evolution which suggested that the species are not (as had been believed from antiquity) immutable but had changed and, indeed, improved over geological time. These changes, Lamarck surmised, had been caused by the presence within organisms of 'an innate tendency to perfection'. As John Bowlby remarks, in the first half of the century, these views were "usually dismissed as either heretical or absurd". (Charles Darwin, NY & London, 1990, pg. 88).
Looking at fossil evidence, Lyell disturbingly pointed out that whole species had perished, and this was almost 30 years before Darwin's book. Yet Lyell and many other scientists were not all that shaken in their theistic faith. Basil Willey writes, "Lyell himself was quite willing to profess belief in the fact of divine activity, provided that science were left free to investigate and demonstrate the mode of it. This was the formula adopted (quite rightly) by the nineteenth century of reconcilers of science and religion in general". (More Nineteenth Century Studies, New York, 1956, p. 85).
Biblical Criticism
Intellectual developments in Europe in the 18th century had laid the ground work for the seismic shifts of the 19th. The period of the Enlightenment had produced philosophical systems that were not all that friendly to the rigid framework of traditional Christian metaphysics, and work had begun on the biblical text as early as Jean Astruc (1684-1766) who was the first to suggest that the book of Genesis was, in fact, the product of two traditions with different emphases; though, at this stage he merely suggested that Moses put the two together: nevertheless, the genie was out of the bottle.
Quite early in the 19th century, some scholars, especially some German ones, began to subject the bible to the kind of criticism that had recently been applied to other ancient texts like Homer. A succession of scholars at the University of Tübingen became known as a "school". First among them was David Friedrich Strauss whose the Life of Jesus (published 1834), ended by implying that no biography of Jesus could ever be written because of the impossibility of separating the nucleus of reality from the accretions of myth. This was a book that changed the theological landscape for ever.
Not many English scholars and churchmen read German, but the few who did were either very excited by the German work or thrown into paroxysms of rage. In any case, it was not too long before a translation became available; it was published in 1834 by "Marian Evans, the ex-evangelical Warwickshire girl of 27 years who is better known to posterity as the novelist George Eliot". (Chadwick, Part 1, 532). This translation was soon followed by translations of other German works, and these, in Chadwick's graphic phase, began to "rock the boat of faith at its moorings". What were some of the conclusions that critical study was suggesting?
The Old Testament Criticism Absorbed
It was study of the Old Testament that had begun the process. It became clear that the work was not a unity, that Moses did not write the Law books nor David the Psalms. Moreover, there were clearly errors of fact as well as statements that conflicted entirely with the findings of geology (not biology at this stage). And it is, perhaps, here that the real source of the panic can be found. For almost two millennia the inerrancy of the bible had been taken for granted as part of the belief that it was divinely inspired. Quite apart from the issue of accuracy, for a long time sensitive souls had been less than happy with the overall moral level of the O.T. Chadwick writes, "Thackeray, who once was intimate with the best of the Cambridge evangelicals, privately raged at what God was supposed to have done in the Old Testament. He refused to believe that God commanded Israel to slaughter the Canaanites or Abraham to kill his son". (Part 1 p. 529).
The Threat of New Testament Studies
More liberal thinkers had come to terms somewhat with these with Old Testament problems, but criticism of the New Testament raised anxiety levels to new heights. That is why Strauss's book and George Eliot's translation were regarded as little short of diabolical by the conservative elements of the church (that is to say the vast majority).
The critics were saying that Mark, not Matthew was the first gospel, that the other two used Mark. That the 4th Gospel was a different kettle of fish altogether; that by no means all the letters attributed to Paul were in fact by Paul; that we cannot be certain that the authors of the gospel were actually the people to whom they were attributed; that the actual text of the Greek bible was not as fixed as the "authorized" version would suggest. All this raised difficulties about the person of Jesus. The orthodox view is that Jesus was completely human, but his divinity had been so emphasized in both the mediaeval and Protestant epochs, that any suggestion he could be wrong (e.g. in predicting an imminent end of the world) was met with horror.
Christology
Within the C. of E. the major impact of historical criticism was Christological; if, for example, David did not write (compose) Psalm 110, what does Jesus' remark in Mark 12 imply about the limitations of his knowledge? Perhaps this is still an issue for extreme conservatives, but it hardly seems something that sets the ECUSA in a turmoil.
Indeed, it could be argued that the criticism of the bible has enabled us to have a much more "orthodox" view of Christology than was the 19th century norm. A view that Jesus, even in his earthly ministry had divine knowledge had become widespread; it was a kind of back-door monophysitism. Chalcedon had tried to exclude such views, but their popular power remained as the rising cult of Mary suggests, for she became the true human intercessor. Though the Protestant tradition departed decisively from the Roman church, this crypto-Monophysite Christology persisted. That is why so much ink was spilt over verses like Mark 9.1 and its parallels in a determined effort to show that Jesus could not have meant what the text says he said. Taking the historicity of the biblical text seriously encountered these older and more "orthodox" dogmatic assumptions.
Retreating Tide of Faith
By the mid century we find poets, philosophers and novelists bemoaning the "sea of faith" retreating like the tide going out. Within a year of each other two publications set the almost boiling pot to run over. The kind of invective, the hurled insults and lengthy magazine articles of the next two decades make the religious controversies of the late 20th century look like a genteel tea party.
The two publications were Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species over which he had been laboring for many years, appearing in 1859, and a relatively brief book containing seven essays, six of them written by clergymen and one by a layman, Essays & Reviews.
In the Press, in everyday social circles and particularly within the churches (which we have to recall embraced almost all the middle and upper classes), uproar ensued that for a while muted the response to Origins. Basil Willey describes this so well that it is worth quoting at length.
The book (Essays & Reviews) "slipped unobtrusively from the press, yet within a year of its publication the orthodox English world was convulsed with indignation and panic. The Protestant religion, as by law established, had weathered the Gunpowder Plot and the Popish Plot; it had survived the Reform Bill, the Tracts for Times, the Hampden case ... (Regius professor, attacked by Newman and other ultra conservatives; censured, but later made Bishop of Hereford whereat the whole clamor began again) ... and the Gorham controversy; but here was something still more alarming - a conspiracy of clergymen to blow up the church from within. [This sounds so like the strident cries of +Rochester, and certain African Prelates].
Cries of horror, grief and pain rang from the press and the pulpit; the Bishops protested; the Court of Arches and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council came into action. The authors of the book were denounced as 'Septem Contra Christum', the seven extinguishers of the seven lamps of the Apocalypse'". (Studies , 137).
The amazing thing is, that everything the essayists said is more or less accepted today, and indeed sounds somewhat conservative (except, of course to the spiritual successors of the proponents of scripture without any error, and a slavish insistence on a literal reading of the text). The very laudable aim of the essayists was, in Basil Willey's words, "To reconcile Christianity with criticism, to show its compatibility with the intellectual tendencies of the age, and thus to reconcile 'intellectual' persons with Christianity". (Studies, 141).
John Barton (Biblical Interpretation ) points out that with in a few years, Frederick Temple, one of the contributors to Essays and Reviews, had been made Archbishop of Canterbury, and that within the C. of E. a cautious biblical criticism was coming to be accepted as compatible with a doctrine of the Incarnation. It was this, he says that "interested Anglicans. The doctrine of scripture, which seemed so important to Continental Protestants, was not even in the creed. The Bible was used in liturgy, and that was not the context in which to press awkward questions. When controversy broke out it was usually because the doctrine of the Incarnation seemed threatened, or because clergy were not expected to question doctrine". (p. 59)
Anglican positions on Divorce and Contraception
Divorce
At the beginning of the 20th century, divorce in most western countries was not easy. The R.C. church practiced (and still does) the dubious method of nullity, on which even its own canon law was not as clear as it might be. A common nullity verdict has often been based on the "Pauline Privilege" applied to a "mixed marriage", but canonists are not unanimous that this is a valid procedure.
If divorce was not easy in secular circles, it was impossible for clerics, and for lay people carried with it excommunication. Until quite recently any member of the clergy getting a divorce was inhibited for a significant period, and if he (there were only males then) remarried, he would be suspended from the ministry sine die. It was, moreover, impossible for a divorced person to be remarried “in church”.
In most Protestant branches of the church, a more permissive attitude to divorce, even among clergy, developed in the second half of the 20th century. This relaxation has also happened in the Episcopal Church.
The change has not been merely a slipping of standards, and yet another example of a "sliding away from classic Anglican theology and morals" (John Rodgers in The Living Church, Feb. 27, 2000, p.8). On the contrary, it has been the application of classic Anglican principles. The change in policy (which departs radically from scriptural prescription, see above) is the result of prayerful consideration of the realities of marriage breakdown. Such psychological, social, and personal realities, (like the realities of scientific revelation) have been taken seriously.
This position is not that of the R.C. church. The classic catholic position since the 13th century is that since marriage is a sacrament, "the marital bond between husband and wife is an, objective, ontological reality that cannot be dissolved". (Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Thought, 179b). That means that divorce is not only wrong, it is impossible. (Compare the analogous argument about the ordination of women - an ontological impossibility). Conservative Evangelicals who, in spite of deep distrust of Rome and a rejection of many of its theological positions, agree on some moral issues like abortion and homosexuality; they also share a generally fundamentalist approach to scripture, but interestingly, Evangelicals do not share the R.C. view of marriage and divorce, (nor its stringent and continuing rejection of contraception).
An alternative view of marriage, which is common in Eastern Orthodox thought, is to regard it not as an ontological bond, but as a moral one, which depends for its stability on a high level of mutual trust. Thus, though ideally a marriage should not break down, the realities of human sin mean that if trust is irretrievably broken, the marriage is "morally dead".
The Episcopal church has made the change in typically Anglican fashion, piecemeal, with local arrangements first and changes in the National Canons much later. This same process may be seen in the wider communion. The C. of E. Synod is now [i.e. in 1998] considering a measure to allow the remarriage of divorced clergy under certain circumstances. The process is not tidy and it can be read as "sliding away" from some imagined neatly formulated position. But is not a sliding away from classical Anglicanism.
Finally, the analogies between policies for divorced people and those for homosexual people need to be stressed. There is as much (if not more) explicit biblical warrant for forbidding divorce (and remarriage) as there is for excluding homosexuals. There is also quite as strong a tradition in the matter in the sense that the church has always ordained homosexual people; (I am fully aware of this as a one-time Theological College Principal). If the Church cannot bring itself fully to incorporate homosexual persons into its life and structure, those branches of the Church which have liberal divorce policies ought, perhaps, in all justice and consistency seriously to consider the status of divorced persons in their communion. If we in the ECUSA cannot include homosexual persons, would it not be just to inhibit all divorced clergy, discontinue the practice of marrying divorced persons in church, and seriously consider their status as communicants?
[As I have said, I believe the change in practice concerning divorce was a good, pastorally sound development and therefore a change of policy for homosexuals is a just and reasonable corollary].
Contraception
The issue hinges mainly on how the "ends" of marriage are understood. The classic catholic position has been and still is, that procreation is the primary end of marriage, and that, therefore, coitus is to be engaged in for the sole purpose of procreation. In this view, a secondary end is the care and mutual support the partners give each other, but it is subordinated to the primary purpose of marriage and sexual intercourse within marriage. The shift from this position was clearly enunciated in a resolution of the ninth Lambeth Conference in 1958. The resolution notes that sex in marriage has a "relational" as well as procreative significance. "It is not by any means the only language of earthly love, but it is, in its full and right use, the most revealing....it is a giving and receiving in the unity of two free spirits which is in itself good.....There for it is utterly wrong to say that...intercourse ought not to be engaged in except with the willing intention of children" (quoted in Selves, 170).
This was a significant departure from traditional teaching about practice required of by a believer, and it is a departure that the R.C. church has still failed to make. Pius XI in Casti Connubi (1930) said the use of contraceptive methods was "intrinsically immoral". After Vatican II, the Commission that Paul VI set up, with married lay people among its members, advised by a considerable majority that in some instances the practice be allowed. Nothing was heard for two years when, in 1968, Humanae Vitae was promulgated, totally affirming the traditional position. It emerged that a secret committee made up of Curia members and conservative clergy, chaired by Cardinal Ottaviani, had been meeting and strongly advised the Pope to ignore the findings of the Commission.
In Closing
(a) The bombshell of Humanae Vitae is as clear and startling a contrast to Anglican polity as one could hope to find. [Though, perhaps not such a contrast to the sort of procedures some are bent on establishing. In what follows, I was referring to how things, ideally, have been within Anglicanism].
In contrast to the "process" leading up to, and the promulgation of Huamnae Vitae , the Anglican approach is open, not subject to secret committees of a particular bias; it is not centralized but allows for local movement; it allows for God's continuing revealing and guiding; it depends not on a central absolute authority which gives final and binding definitions and rulings, but on shared authority (collegiality of Bishops, participation of clergy and lay people in decision making). This does not lead to a tidy picture and does require high levels of trust within the autonomous churches of the Anglican Communion and between those churches.
(b) What has been said in this paper, shows, I think, that teaching about the faith and teaching about the practice of Christians who embrace that faith can change, and clearly have changed in the last two millennia. It also suggests that when change happens it often begins at the local level and may be almost imperceptible to the participants. To show that teaching about faith and practice can change is not necessarily to say that, in any given instance they it ought to. Yet, we must read the signs and we must take account of new knowledge. It is not enough to retreat to a fortress, hurling biblical quotations as though they settled the issue, and allowing tradition to become a bastion for bias.
Bibliography
Bowlby, John Charles Darwin, NY & London, 1990
Brown, Peter The Rise of Western Christendom, Oxford: Blackwell, 1996
Chadwick, Owen The Victorian Church Part I 1829-1859, London 1966
Part II 1860-1901, London 1970
Hefling Charles, Ed. Our Selves, Our Souls & Bodies, Cambridge. Mass, 1996
Lindbeck, George A. The Nature of Doctrine, Philadelphia, 1984
McGrath, Alister, Ed. The Christian Theology Reader, Oxford: Blackwell, 1995
McGrath, Alister, Ed. Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Thought,
Oxford: Blackwell l993
Morgan Robert with Barton, John Biblical Interpretation, Oxford, 1988s
Vidler, Alec The Church in an Age of Revolution, Pelican 1961
Willey, Basil Nineteenth Century Studies, New York 1961
More Nineteenth Century Studies, New York 1956
Because of the length of the piece, I am putting it out in three parts:
A) A consideration of the nature of religion and its relationship to Christian practice and theology. (See Blog, August 1, 2008)
B) The nature of doctrine and an examination of how (if so be the case) it develops and changes. (See Blog, August 7, 2008)
C) Theology and the Bible in changing world-views, with special reference to the Anglican Communion’s record in this matter.
In one or two places I have edited my original text; any substantial changes are marked by […]
Bible, Doctrine and Practice in the Anglican Tradition
The Church of England as it emerged at the Elizabethan Settlement had a distinctive polity, but one very different from continental (and Scottish) Protestantism on the on hand and from the Counter Reformation Roman Catholic church on the other. There was, and is, no powerful central authority, let alone an absolutist one like the Papacy since the First Vatican Council.
Church of England (Anglican?) Polity
Timothy F. Sedgwick writes (Our Selves, 38), “Anglican churches reflect the English tradition of common law. In this tradition the rule of law is not, as in Roman law, a matter of principles that are understood to be based on the nature of things, and are applied to individual cases. Instead, the law arises from individual cases themselves and as such represents the accumulation of a people’s practical wisdom ... Authority - the legitimate voice to speak and decide upon an issue - is in this sense borne by the community and dispersed through its life”.
In practice, this means that a great deal has been left to conscience.
Untidy System
This polity, that recognizes the Ecumenical Councils, that works with collegiality rather than papacy, that allows for the exercise of reason, individual conscience, and for flexibility in biblical interpretation, has always seemed incoherent to Confessional churches and particularly to Roman Catholics. It was, for example, a constant source of ridicule from Roman Catholic writers like Belloc, Chesterton, Graham Greene and their successors as the 20th century progressed. It seems messy, but it has enabled the Anglican Communion (as it emerged from the Mother Church of England from the middle to the 19th century) in some measure and in a very halting way to come to grips with the upheavals in world-view of the last 150 years.
This kind of polity has worked where there has been a measure of cultural uniformity, but, as Sedgwick points out, as the Anglican Communion has embraced more and more cultures it is losing its stability. Sedgwick’s conclusion is, I think, somewhat pessimistic. He notes an increasing tendency to put more weight on conscience than on Canon Law: the ordination of the Eleven in Philadelphia in 1974, the continuing refusal to some congregations to use the 1979 Prayer Book, the “ordination of homosexual persons living in sexually active relationships” (Selves 39), and the refusal of some dioceses to allow women to exercise their ministry.
Comment
[It is important to note that Sedgwick wrote this over twelve years ago; his examples focus on ECUSA, not the Anglican Communion. At this stage, he did not, apparently, consider the issues that have arisen when a diocese acts entirely within the Canons, and within the majority consent of a General Convention, and is yet seen as a spoiler and de-stabilizer. The focus has moved from an inerrant view of scripture as mandatory, the impossibility of ordaining women, and even the broader discussion of homosexuality to center on a demand for a central authority for the collection of regional churches (wrongly called “Provinces”) that make up the somewhat ramshackle confederation called the Anglican Communion.
What has emerged is a resurgent militant Puritanism, which seeks to dominate Anglicanism in a way rejected in the 17th century. Clearly, the actions of regional churches such as ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada are from this point of view seen as destabilizing.]
Yet, the C. of E. ( –> Anglican Communion) has come through some similar problems with a majority consensus. The number who have actually separated from the church is sad, but, so far, much smaller than both wings - Anglo Catholics and Evangelicals - have repeatedly prophesied, and the breadth of Anglican polity may even yet enable us to work through the current issues. Furthermore, this polity has enabled Anglicans to recognize that new knowledge has mandatory implications for the doing of theology and for the understanding of doctrinal formulations. It has enabled Anglicans to take account of new knowledge, but also to regard it as one of the ways in which God leads us.
Changing attitudes to Formularies - The Gorham Case
Two examples might illustrate these generalizations. The first is the way in which the emergence of new historical knowledge in the 19th century first caused the most immense uproar, but ultimately came to be accepted by a broad spectrum of Anglicans, though, it must be said, not by all. Extreme Evangelicals on one wing and ultramontane Anglo Catholics on the other, in general, stood aside from the central consensus. Much of contemporary minority dissent (and it is important to recall the size of the minority we are talking about in the face of continual propaganda) has its roots, I believe, in these 19th century "wings" of the Church of England.
A survey of the scene in the C. of E. in the mid 19th century is instructive. After the upheavals of the Tractarian movement in the thirties and forties, the church was convulsed by controversy just as bitter as anything we are experiencing today.
Baptismal Regeneration
I will return to the issues of science and historical criticism next, but turn now to the second example: the Gorham case, which hinged on the Evangelical reluctance to ascribe certain "regeneration" to Baptism administered to infants. Beginning around 1847 the case dragged on for years, and, as is often the case, the original dispute over doctrine was submerged in contentions about the authority of Parliament in church affairs, the authority of bishops and the status of canon law. In the varying court decisions that emerged, at one stage the threat of a great exodus of the Evangelicals seemed imminent; at a later date, it was the turn of the High Church party to organize petitions and talk about a mass secession to Rome.
One of the central issues that emerged was whether the XXXIX Articles 'over-rode' the Prayer Book concerning Baptismal regeneration since there was a clear (some said, “apparent”) discrepancy between the two. What is important for our purposes is to note that the doctrinal issue of baptismal regeneration has been resolved in typically Anglican comprehensiveness. That there are different shades of the doctrine is very clear, and that they can be held within a spectrum of belief is also clear.
XXXIX Articles
Even more telling is the status of Articles of Religion. In the mid 19th century they were a continual source of controversy, for both the Tractarians and the Evangelicals. In the ECUSA they are discreetly given an honorable retirement and reside in "Historical Documents". (For an excellent account of the details of the Gorham case, see Owen Chadwick, The Victorian Church, Part 1, pp 250-271)
Geology, Historical Criticism and Essays & Reviews
Perhaps a clearer example of the way in which Anglicanism has coped with new knowledge is in the areas of scientific discovery and historical criticism.
Species not Immutable
The scientific revolution of the 19th century left all the churches in disarray, but by the turn of the century, it seems that the Anglican church as a whole was coming to some kind of rapprochement and, indeed, using new insights for a reappraisal of theological dogmas.
In the 1830s "books by Sir Charles Lyell and Dean Buckland established the geological succession of rocks and fossils, and showed the world to be much older than the accepted date for the Garden of Eden." (Alec Vidler, The Church in an Age of Revolution, p114; Penguin).
In spite of the troubling of the waters, at this stage, not only theologians but scientists managed to accommodate the new views (e.g. "days" in Genesis meant eons of time, and the geological evidence in no way suggested that God was not entirely behind creation). Biological science, however, was another matter; Vidler notes that "[a]round 1850 few scientists of any note had a good word to say for the idea of evolution" (p. 116). Moreover, we need to recall that the idea of evolution did not burst on the world for the very first time with the publication of The Origin of the Species in 1859. As early as 1801, Jean Baptiste de Lamarck had published Système des animaux sans vertèbres. The introductory essay seems to be the first statement of Lamarck's later widely discussed theory of evolution which suggested that the species are not (as had been believed from antiquity) immutable but had changed and, indeed, improved over geological time. These changes, Lamarck surmised, had been caused by the presence within organisms of 'an innate tendency to perfection'. As John Bowlby remarks, in the first half of the century, these views were "usually dismissed as either heretical or absurd". (Charles Darwin, NY & London, 1990, pg. 88).
Looking at fossil evidence, Lyell disturbingly pointed out that whole species had perished, and this was almost 30 years before Darwin's book. Yet Lyell and many other scientists were not all that shaken in their theistic faith. Basil Willey writes, "Lyell himself was quite willing to profess belief in the fact of divine activity, provided that science were left free to investigate and demonstrate the mode of it. This was the formula adopted (quite rightly) by the nineteenth century of reconcilers of science and religion in general". (More Nineteenth Century Studies, New York, 1956, p. 85).
Biblical Criticism
Intellectual developments in Europe in the 18th century had laid the ground work for the seismic shifts of the 19th. The period of the Enlightenment had produced philosophical systems that were not all that friendly to the rigid framework of traditional Christian metaphysics, and work had begun on the biblical text as early as Jean Astruc (1684-1766) who was the first to suggest that the book of Genesis was, in fact, the product of two traditions with different emphases; though, at this stage he merely suggested that Moses put the two together: nevertheless, the genie was out of the bottle.
Quite early in the 19th century, some scholars, especially some German ones, began to subject the bible to the kind of criticism that had recently been applied to other ancient texts like Homer. A succession of scholars at the University of Tübingen became known as a "school". First among them was David Friedrich Strauss whose the Life of Jesus (published 1834), ended by implying that no biography of Jesus could ever be written because of the impossibility of separating the nucleus of reality from the accretions of myth. This was a book that changed the theological landscape for ever.
Not many English scholars and churchmen read German, but the few who did were either very excited by the German work or thrown into paroxysms of rage. In any case, it was not too long before a translation became available; it was published in 1834 by "Marian Evans, the ex-evangelical Warwickshire girl of 27 years who is better known to posterity as the novelist George Eliot". (Chadwick, Part 1, 532). This translation was soon followed by translations of other German works, and these, in Chadwick's graphic phase, began to "rock the boat of faith at its moorings". What were some of the conclusions that critical study was suggesting?
The Old Testament Criticism Absorbed
It was study of the Old Testament that had begun the process. It became clear that the work was not a unity, that Moses did not write the Law books nor David the Psalms. Moreover, there were clearly errors of fact as well as statements that conflicted entirely with the findings of geology (not biology at this stage). And it is, perhaps, here that the real source of the panic can be found. For almost two millennia the inerrancy of the bible had been taken for granted as part of the belief that it was divinely inspired. Quite apart from the issue of accuracy, for a long time sensitive souls had been less than happy with the overall moral level of the O.T. Chadwick writes, "Thackeray, who once was intimate with the best of the Cambridge evangelicals, privately raged at what God was supposed to have done in the Old Testament. He refused to believe that God commanded Israel to slaughter the Canaanites or Abraham to kill his son". (Part 1 p. 529).
The Threat of New Testament Studies
More liberal thinkers had come to terms somewhat with these with Old Testament problems, but criticism of the New Testament raised anxiety levels to new heights. That is why Strauss's book and George Eliot's translation were regarded as little short of diabolical by the conservative elements of the church (that is to say the vast majority).
The critics were saying that Mark, not Matthew was the first gospel, that the other two used Mark. That the 4th Gospel was a different kettle of fish altogether; that by no means all the letters attributed to Paul were in fact by Paul; that we cannot be certain that the authors of the gospel were actually the people to whom they were attributed; that the actual text of the Greek bible was not as fixed as the "authorized" version would suggest. All this raised difficulties about the person of Jesus. The orthodox view is that Jesus was completely human, but his divinity had been so emphasized in both the mediaeval and Protestant epochs, that any suggestion he could be wrong (e.g. in predicting an imminent end of the world) was met with horror.
Christology
Within the C. of E. the major impact of historical criticism was Christological; if, for example, David did not write (compose) Psalm 110, what does Jesus' remark in Mark 12 imply about the limitations of his knowledge? Perhaps this is still an issue for extreme conservatives, but it hardly seems something that sets the ECUSA in a turmoil.
Indeed, it could be argued that the criticism of the bible has enabled us to have a much more "orthodox" view of Christology than was the 19th century norm. A view that Jesus, even in his earthly ministry had divine knowledge had become widespread; it was a kind of back-door monophysitism. Chalcedon had tried to exclude such views, but their popular power remained as the rising cult of Mary suggests, for she became the true human intercessor. Though the Protestant tradition departed decisively from the Roman church, this crypto-Monophysite Christology persisted. That is why so much ink was spilt over verses like Mark 9.1 and its parallels in a determined effort to show that Jesus could not have meant what the text says he said. Taking the historicity of the biblical text seriously encountered these older and more "orthodox" dogmatic assumptions.
Retreating Tide of Faith
By the mid century we find poets, philosophers and novelists bemoaning the "sea of faith" retreating like the tide going out. Within a year of each other two publications set the almost boiling pot to run over. The kind of invective, the hurled insults and lengthy magazine articles of the next two decades make the religious controversies of the late 20th century look like a genteel tea party.
The two publications were Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species over which he had been laboring for many years, appearing in 1859, and a relatively brief book containing seven essays, six of them written by clergymen and one by a layman, Essays & Reviews.
In the Press, in everyday social circles and particularly within the churches (which we have to recall embraced almost all the middle and upper classes), uproar ensued that for a while muted the response to Origins. Basil Willey describes this so well that it is worth quoting at length.
The book (Essays & Reviews) "slipped unobtrusively from the press, yet within a year of its publication the orthodox English world was convulsed with indignation and panic. The Protestant religion, as by law established, had weathered the Gunpowder Plot and the Popish Plot; it had survived the Reform Bill, the Tracts for Times, the Hampden case ... (Regius professor, attacked by Newman and other ultra conservatives; censured, but later made Bishop of Hereford whereat the whole clamor began again) ... and the Gorham controversy; but here was something still more alarming - a conspiracy of clergymen to blow up the church from within. [This sounds so like the strident cries of +Rochester, and certain African Prelates].
Cries of horror, grief and pain rang from the press and the pulpit; the Bishops protested; the Court of Arches and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council came into action. The authors of the book were denounced as 'Septem Contra Christum', the seven extinguishers of the seven lamps of the Apocalypse'". (Studies , 137).
The amazing thing is, that everything the essayists said is more or less accepted today, and indeed sounds somewhat conservative (except, of course to the spiritual successors of the proponents of scripture without any error, and a slavish insistence on a literal reading of the text). The very laudable aim of the essayists was, in Basil Willey's words, "To reconcile Christianity with criticism, to show its compatibility with the intellectual tendencies of the age, and thus to reconcile 'intellectual' persons with Christianity". (Studies, 141).
John Barton (Biblical Interpretation ) points out that with in a few years, Frederick Temple, one of the contributors to Essays and Reviews, had been made Archbishop of Canterbury, and that within the C. of E. a cautious biblical criticism was coming to be accepted as compatible with a doctrine of the Incarnation. It was this, he says that "interested Anglicans. The doctrine of scripture, which seemed so important to Continental Protestants, was not even in the creed. The Bible was used in liturgy, and that was not the context in which to press awkward questions. When controversy broke out it was usually because the doctrine of the Incarnation seemed threatened, or because clergy were not expected to question doctrine". (p. 59)
Anglican positions on Divorce and Contraception
Divorce
At the beginning of the 20th century, divorce in most western countries was not easy. The R.C. church practiced (and still does) the dubious method of nullity, on which even its own canon law was not as clear as it might be. A common nullity verdict has often been based on the "Pauline Privilege" applied to a "mixed marriage", but canonists are not unanimous that this is a valid procedure.
If divorce was not easy in secular circles, it was impossible for clerics, and for lay people carried with it excommunication. Until quite recently any member of the clergy getting a divorce was inhibited for a significant period, and if he (there were only males then) remarried, he would be suspended from the ministry sine die. It was, moreover, impossible for a divorced person to be remarried “in church”.
In most Protestant branches of the church, a more permissive attitude to divorce, even among clergy, developed in the second half of the 20th century. This relaxation has also happened in the Episcopal Church.
The change has not been merely a slipping of standards, and yet another example of a "sliding away from classic Anglican theology and morals" (John Rodgers in The Living Church, Feb. 27, 2000, p.8). On the contrary, it has been the application of classic Anglican principles. The change in policy (which departs radically from scriptural prescription, see above) is the result of prayerful consideration of the realities of marriage breakdown. Such psychological, social, and personal realities, (like the realities of scientific revelation) have been taken seriously.
This position is not that of the R.C. church. The classic catholic position since the 13th century is that since marriage is a sacrament, "the marital bond between husband and wife is an, objective, ontological reality that cannot be dissolved". (Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Thought, 179b). That means that divorce is not only wrong, it is impossible. (Compare the analogous argument about the ordination of women - an ontological impossibility). Conservative Evangelicals who, in spite of deep distrust of Rome and a rejection of many of its theological positions, agree on some moral issues like abortion and homosexuality; they also share a generally fundamentalist approach to scripture, but interestingly, Evangelicals do not share the R.C. view of marriage and divorce, (nor its stringent and continuing rejection of contraception).
An alternative view of marriage, which is common in Eastern Orthodox thought, is to regard it not as an ontological bond, but as a moral one, which depends for its stability on a high level of mutual trust. Thus, though ideally a marriage should not break down, the realities of human sin mean that if trust is irretrievably broken, the marriage is "morally dead".
The Episcopal church has made the change in typically Anglican fashion, piecemeal, with local arrangements first and changes in the National Canons much later. This same process may be seen in the wider communion. The C. of E. Synod is now [i.e. in 1998] considering a measure to allow the remarriage of divorced clergy under certain circumstances. The process is not tidy and it can be read as "sliding away" from some imagined neatly formulated position. But is not a sliding away from classical Anglicanism.
Finally, the analogies between policies for divorced people and those for homosexual people need to be stressed. There is as much (if not more) explicit biblical warrant for forbidding divorce (and remarriage) as there is for excluding homosexuals. There is also quite as strong a tradition in the matter in the sense that the church has always ordained homosexual people; (I am fully aware of this as a one-time Theological College Principal). If the Church cannot bring itself fully to incorporate homosexual persons into its life and structure, those branches of the Church which have liberal divorce policies ought, perhaps, in all justice and consistency seriously to consider the status of divorced persons in their communion. If we in the ECUSA cannot include homosexual persons, would it not be just to inhibit all divorced clergy, discontinue the practice of marrying divorced persons in church, and seriously consider their status as communicants?
[As I have said, I believe the change in practice concerning divorce was a good, pastorally sound development and therefore a change of policy for homosexuals is a just and reasonable corollary].
Contraception
The issue hinges mainly on how the "ends" of marriage are understood. The classic catholic position has been and still is, that procreation is the primary end of marriage, and that, therefore, coitus is to be engaged in for the sole purpose of procreation. In this view, a secondary end is the care and mutual support the partners give each other, but it is subordinated to the primary purpose of marriage and sexual intercourse within marriage. The shift from this position was clearly enunciated in a resolution of the ninth Lambeth Conference in 1958. The resolution notes that sex in marriage has a "relational" as well as procreative significance. "It is not by any means the only language of earthly love, but it is, in its full and right use, the most revealing....it is a giving and receiving in the unity of two free spirits which is in itself good.....There for it is utterly wrong to say that...intercourse ought not to be engaged in except with the willing intention of children" (quoted in Selves, 170).
This was a significant departure from traditional teaching about practice required of by a believer, and it is a departure that the R.C. church has still failed to make. Pius XI in Casti Connubi (1930) said the use of contraceptive methods was "intrinsically immoral". After Vatican II, the Commission that Paul VI set up, with married lay people among its members, advised by a considerable majority that in some instances the practice be allowed. Nothing was heard for two years when, in 1968, Humanae Vitae was promulgated, totally affirming the traditional position. It emerged that a secret committee made up of Curia members and conservative clergy, chaired by Cardinal Ottaviani, had been meeting and strongly advised the Pope to ignore the findings of the Commission.
In Closing
(a) The bombshell of Humanae Vitae is as clear and startling a contrast to Anglican polity as one could hope to find. [Though, perhaps not such a contrast to the sort of procedures some are bent on establishing. In what follows, I was referring to how things, ideally, have been within Anglicanism].
In contrast to the "process" leading up to, and the promulgation of Huamnae Vitae , the Anglican approach is open, not subject to secret committees of a particular bias; it is not centralized but allows for local movement; it allows for God's continuing revealing and guiding; it depends not on a central absolute authority which gives final and binding definitions and rulings, but on shared authority (collegiality of Bishops, participation of clergy and lay people in decision making). This does not lead to a tidy picture and does require high levels of trust within the autonomous churches of the Anglican Communion and between those churches.
(b) What has been said in this paper, shows, I think, that teaching about the faith and teaching about the practice of Christians who embrace that faith can change, and clearly have changed in the last two millennia. It also suggests that when change happens it often begins at the local level and may be almost imperceptible to the participants. To show that teaching about faith and practice can change is not necessarily to say that, in any given instance they it ought to. Yet, we must read the signs and we must take account of new knowledge. It is not enough to retreat to a fortress, hurling biblical quotations as though they settled the issue, and allowing tradition to become a bastion for bias.
Bibliography
Bowlby, John Charles Darwin, NY & London, 1990
Brown, Peter The Rise of Western Christendom, Oxford: Blackwell, 1996
Chadwick, Owen The Victorian Church Part I 1829-1859, London 1966
Part II 1860-1901, London 1970
Hefling Charles, Ed. Our Selves, Our Souls & Bodies, Cambridge. Mass, 1996
Lindbeck, George A. The Nature of Doctrine, Philadelphia, 1984
McGrath, Alister, Ed. The Christian Theology Reader, Oxford: Blackwell, 1995
McGrath, Alister, Ed. Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Thought,
Oxford: Blackwell l993
Morgan Robert with Barton, John Biblical Interpretation, Oxford, 1988s
Vidler, Alec The Church in an Age of Revolution, Pelican 1961
Willey, Basil Nineteenth Century Studies, New York 1961
More Nineteenth Century Studies, New York 1956
Thursday, August 07, 2008
The status of homosexual persons - Some Theological Perspectives * Part B
Although it is almost ten years since I wrote this paper, I feel that it is still relevant to our current situation. Indeed during that time, instead of the question being reasonably and calmly debated, new levels of polemic and rhetoric have dominated the discussion.
Because of the length of the piece, I am putting it out in three parts:
A) A consideration of the nature of religion and its relationship to Christian practice and theology. (See Blog August 1, 2008)
B) The nature of doctrine and an examination of how (if so be the case) it develops and changes. (Today)
C) Theology and the Bible in changing world-views, with special reference to the Anglican Communion’s record in this matter.
This section, that looks at some of the issues connected with the development and change in doctrine, and, indeed, the very nature of doctrine, relies to a great degree on two sources. The first is George Lindbeck’s seminal book, The Nature of Doctrine (Philadelphia, 1984) and the second, much shorter piece is an essay by Charles Hefling in Our Selves, Our Souls & Bodies (Ed. Chas Hefling, Cambridge Mass. 1996)
1) Religion, Theology and Doctrine
Lindbeck begins his book with an analysis of various approaches to Religion, Doctrine and Theology. It is important to note the distinctions between the three areas at the same time as the obvious interdependence is acknowledged. “Theories of religion and doctrine are interdependent, and deficiencies in one area are inseparable from deficiencies in the other.” (Lindbeck, 7) Frequently, however, Doctrine and Theology are not carefully defined and it is important to emphasize the very clear distinction between the two. The confusion is apparent when one reads many books on “church doctrine” which are often, in fact, “wide-ranging theological treatises” rather than an examination of the specific doctrines regarded as authoritative by the church, or more realistically, by a particular branch of the Church. (Lindbeck, 76)
Doctrines as Communally Normative
To illustrate this and to sharpen the focus on the nature of doctrine it will be helpful to give a substantial quotation from what seems to me to be the central chapter of Lindbeck’s book.
“Church doctrines are communally authoritative teachings regarding beliefs and practice that are considered essential to the identity or welfare of the group in question. They may be formally stated or informally operative, but in any case they indicate what constitutes faithful adherence to a community. To disagree with Methodist, Quaker, or Roman Catholic doctrine indicates that one is not a “good” Methodist, Quaker or Roman Catholic. Someone who opposes pacifism, for example, will not be regarded as fully what a member of the Society of Friends should be . . . Operative doctrines, even if not official ones, are necessary to communal identity. A religious body cannot exist as a recognizable distinctive collectivity unless it has some beliefs and/or practices by which it can be identified” (Lindbeck, 74).
Reflection on this is instructive for the thorny issue of the development of doctrine. Lindbeck is surely right that a committed Quaker might be expected to embrace Pacifism, while this is clearly not a doctrine that is regarded as essential for a Lutheran, Roman Catholic or an Anglican. Yet, there is no possible doubt that it was essential for all Christians in the early church. Similarly, the Assumption of Mary is regarded not only as inessential, but as illegitimate by most Western Christians not in communion with Rome, whereas it is required doctrine for members of that communion. This suggests that doctrinal norms change, and that we accept, without thinking, various standards of doctrine set by specific groups.
2) Belief and Practice
Lindbeck does not make a very clear distinction between doctrines of belief (dogmas) and teaching about how a Christian should behave, but I suggest that such a distinction is important. His example of pacifism seems to fall into the second category (though it is clearly related to issues of belief, for example, about Jesus’ teaching on the matter). Perhaps this is true of almost all ethical issues, most clearly in the area of human sexuality. If one considers, for example, vivisection, it is not easy to find any consistent Christian teaching about its practice. Certainly some oppose it on religious grounds, but many do so on common humanitarian ones. A theological appraisal would need to consider beliefs about God, creation, human responsibility to animals and strategies for human health and betterment within God’s will for us.
In contrast, the central dogmas of the church do not in themselves prescribe any particular action. However, an authoritative Person or Group –Pope/Council – authenticates and enforces them in order to set limits on what a Christian can believe and still call herself or himself a Christian.
Change in Practice
When the question of change and development is put, it is easy to see that teaching about practice has changed in the course of the church’s history. Hefling suggests one very interesting and important example, usury, which will be considered later on. There is little doubt that central dogmas have also developed. It is arguable, for example, that Luke’s early chapters of Acts reflect an 'adoptionist' type theology, that is to say, that Jesus is not envisaged as the eternal Word (as, for example in the Fourth Gospel), but as being chosen by God and 'made' a son. Such a view is highly unorthodox judged by the standard of the central Chalcedonian dogma.
3) Views of Doctrine - Propositional/Expressive
Lindbeck has some interesting reflections on the nature of Doctrine, which may be some guide here. He outlines three approaches to doctrine, all of which are still current, though not many would subscribe to the first, propositional position.
The following positions are described:
a) A cognitive approach, which emphasizes that doctrines function as propositions giving us information about God, the world and our place within it. This approach has a long history and, indeed, before the 17th century, was in various forms the norm. Nevertheless, everything that has happened since the Enlightenment (not least the development of the historical/critical treatment of the canonical scriptures) has created immense difficulties for this view. (See Lindbeck, 78, para. 2 for an incisive criticism of the inadequacies of this approach in the contemporary situation).
b) In response to the mounting problems facing doctrinal formulations from the beginning of the 19th century, we see emerging the “experiential-expressive” view of religion, which tends to treat doctrines as expressions of deep religious experiences. In this view, they are not giving information about the inner being of God, but are rather an “existential orientation” of the believer. Most contemporary Christians who are not affiliated with a strongly traditionalist position (e.g. conservative RC, Protestant Fundamentalist) tend to accept (probably quite unconsciously) aspects of this position. The assumption here is that there is a root or basic religious experience common to humanity that can be expressed in endless ways. The tradition begins, perhaps, with Schleiermacher's placing the source of all religion in the "feeling of absolute dependence". (cf. Rudolf Otto's numinous).
c) A third approach attempts to combine the two approaches. “Both the cognitively propositional and the expressively symbolic dimensions and functions of religion and doctrine are viewed, at least in the case of Christianity, as religiously significant and valid” (Lindbeck, 16). This approach is highly favored by ecumenically minded RC theologians and by Anglicans who are in the tradition of Bishop Gore.
4) Alternative Paradigm
We are strongly conditioned because of the developments of Western thought in the last two centuries to think of religion as a 'product' of deep personal "experiences of the divine (or the self, or the world)”, Lindbeck, 30). This approach seems to offer hope of rapprochement between many diverse traditions and is, doubtless, one of the reasons it is so influential. Lindbeck, however, suggests an interesting alternative, the converse thesis that the form of a given religion is what structures our experience. He calls this approach "a cultural-linguistic" alternative. In this view, "religions are seen as comprehensive interpretive schemes, usually embodied in myths or narratives and heavily ritualized, which structure human experience and understanding of self and world" (Lindbeck, 32).
Linguistic Studies
The fundamental paradigm for this approach emerges from the work of linguistic philosophers, particularly Ludwig Wittgenstein, and so a comparison is made between the way in which a language shapes a particular culture and the way in which Religion provides a frame work that gives shape to experience. Religion "is a communal phenomenon that shapes the subjectivities of individuals rather than being primarily a manifestation of those subjectivities". One of the great advantages of this approach is that it provides, as we shall see, a way of considering doctrine which allows for real development while maintaining a firm link with the deposit of the faith. It emphasizes, too, that Christian formation is crucial. "To become a Christian involves learning the story of Israel and of Jesus well enough to interpret and experience one's world in its terms". (Lindbeck, 33-34)
Community Forms Belief
Just as one learns a language by being exposed to it and practicing over and over again, so with religion, one internalizes the experience of the living community which one joins (or to which one is joined). What one learns, or perhaps, more accurately is "conformed to" is a tradition deeper and richer than could possibly be articulated in propositions. The ancient saying lex orandi, lex credendi is very close to this point of view, and it suggests that knowledge of propositions is secondary to living the faith. "Sometimes explicitly formulated statements of the beliefs or behavioral norms of a religion may be helpful in the learning process, but by no means always. Ritual, prayer, and example are normally much more important." (p.35). St. Paul speaks of Christians being formed by "the mind of Christ" (I Cor. 2.16), and in a much later tradition Aquinas suggests that one so formed has "connatural knowledge" - a knowledge very different from that of a professional theologian and something like an intuitive grasp of grammar by a poet who is no grammarian.
5) Change and Development in Doctrine & Practice
Lindbeck suggests that we regard doctrines as analogous to rules in a language.
"The novelty of the rule theory is . . . that it does not locate the abiding and doctrinally significant aspect of religion in propositionally formulated truths, much less in inner experiences, but in the story it tells and in the grammar that informs the way the story is told and used". (Lindbeck, 80).
The linguistic analogy suggests the application of a division between vocabulary and grammar. In Christianity the core vocabulary (stories, rites, symbols, injunctions) comes largely from the Bible, though there are clearly some post-biblical additions (e.g. Trinitarian language), and, it needs to be noted, not all the vocabulary of the Bible is in common use (e.g. ritual laws of Leviticus). Doctrine is best thought of here as the grammar of the language. It works analogously in various ways. Some doctrines are rules for vocabulary (what is in or out of the Canon); some (most?) provide rules for the application of the core vocabulary to the spiritual and missionary life of the church.
The following quotations suggest why doctrines change and how that happens.
(a) "Most doctrines illustrate correct usage rather than define it. They are . . . paradigms for the application of rules. Faithfulness to such doctrines does not necessarily mean repeating them; rather it requires, in the making of new formulations, adherence to the same directives that were involved in their first formulation. It is thus - as I shall later argue - that faithfulness to an ancient creed such as the Nicene should be construed. Similarly, to take an example from Latin grammar, "amo, amas, amat " operates as a paradigm when one says, e.g., "rogo, rogas, rogat," not when one insists on parroting the original." (Lindbeck, 81).
(b) "Religious change or innovation must be understood, not as proceeding from new experiences, but as resulting from the interactions of a cultural-linguistic system with changing situations. Religious traditions are not transformed, abandoned, or replaced because of an upwelling of new or different ways of feeling about the self, the world, of God, but because a religious interpretive scheme (embodied, as it always is, in religious belief and practice) develops anomalies in its application in new contexts. . . . Prophetic figures apprehend, often with dramatic vividness, how inherited patterns of belief, practice and ritual need to be (and can be) reminted." (Lindbeck, 39, italics added).
6) Some Conclusions
Limitations of Doctrine
(a) Such an approach might make us more aware of the limitations of doctrine. A continuing problem with the absolutist position (RC - Fundamentalist) is the assumption, either explicit or implicit, that doctrine is perfect, final and all-surveying. On the contrary, it is frequently imperfect and significantly culturally colored. All grammatical rules, as anyone who has tried to study Hebrew knows, have more exceptions than the tidy Grammar Books like to acknowledge, and this is analogously true of doctrine. This approach may also serve to remind us that in a living tradition (language or religion) vocabulary certainly changes and grammar gets modified.
Change & Stability
(b) It is true, that considerable stability is necessary both in syntax and in basic doctrines, but both change. The vocabulary of Chaucer is recognizable (just) as English, just as the Chalcedonian definition still gives some guidance about belief in the Person of Christ. It must be noted, however, that the English word ‘person’ means something very different from persona or prosopon in the Latin and Greek of the fourth century CE.
Syntax must remain fairly stable, but even here the rules change over longish periods, and similar parallel can be drawn with Christian doctrine.
Change in Behavior Patterns
(c) Accepted teaching concerning patterns of behavior is not separate from central doctrines of belief; nevertheless, such "practical doctrines" (Lindbeck) are on a different footing, and are the ones that develop and change more obviously in response (however slowly) to changing world views, alterations in human awareness of the nature of the human person, and, linked with that, the continuing growth of knowledge in chemistry, physics, biology and genetics.
Inherent Doctrines
(d) We may assume that some doctrines are permanent. For example, "God is love" (not actually formulated like that in the New Testament until the late Epistle of John). This could be said to be a sine qua non for claiming to be part of the catholic church. No Ecumenical Council has ever decreed it, but doctrines like this are "part of the indispensable grammar or logic of faith" (Lindbeck, 85).
Jesus on Divorce
(e) A distinction needs to be made between doctrines that are permanent and those which are abrogated by the developments noted above, but it is very important to note that some teaching which has quite specific New Testament backing (which very many behavioral rules do not) is no longer operative in many branches of the Christian church. The most obvious one is the current practice concerning divorce and re-marriage, which ignores Mark 10.1-12. Significantly, Matthew's parallel (Mt. 19.9), high-lights a very early shift in teaching on a practical matter, even though one of the ipssima verba of Jesus is at stake.
Accepted Doctrines Lacking Biblical Backing
(f) Most of the doctrinal statements of Ecumenical Councils have been regarded as permanent and required, though the emergence of the Athanasian as opposed to some semi-Arian position is an instructive study, and a doctrine like the immortality of the soul raises interesting issues. It can hardly be said to be a biblical doctrine, but it has become the norm for those Christians (the majority) in the West who, without realizing it, think in terms of a Hellenistic dualism heavily reinforced by Cartesian thinking. On the other hand, a better understanding of the Hebraism of the New Testament and contemporary criticism of the Cartesian position suggest it is not a permanent doctrine.
7) Hefling's Essay – Usury
Hefling begins his essay by noting that the ordination of women in the Anglican Communion is often cited as a good example of a change that defies all previous tradition and teaching. Certainly women's ordination shows that accepted teaching can change, but Hefling notes that it is not exactly parallel to the case of ordination of a practicing homosexual. Women were forbidden ordination not for something they had done or were doing, but because they were female. The case we are considering bases the prohibition on a moral consideration. A closer analogy would be the case of usury.
"Anyone who opens a saving account is, by that commonplace act, judged as the church would have judged it from earliest times and for many centuries, guilty of wrongdoing - not of some peccadillo, either, but of mortal sin" (Hefling, 159).
Usury as Sin
The prohibition in scripture is consistent and strong, and lending money to earn money remained a sin for Christians until the Reformation. Moral theologians explained this by saying that such a use of money was against its "nature", (an interesting parallel to many moral discussions of homosexual practice). Calvin was among the first to suggest that money was not by nature "barren", that is that it could not produce anything.
Calvin pointed out that "money locked in a box is sterile - any child can see that- but who borrows money to keep it in storage? Put it to work, and it can be as fruitful as many kinds of merchandise. Where does that leave the biblical commands and exhortations? They are to be construed in the light of the Golden Rule. Generosity and regard for the poor are still Christian virtues; cupidity and avarice are still vices; interest is still sinful it hurts one's neighbor, But moderate interest is not in any and all circumstances wrong" (Hefling, 160).
The application of this case is so clear that it needs no further explanation.
What is Sex For?
In the discussion that follows, Hefling examines this question.
The undoubted fact that the Anglican Church has, in the twentieth century, departed from a universal tradition in the matter is important (see Section C). Once it is allowed that the procreation is not the only purpose of human sexual intercourse, things not thought of at the time, may logically follow. The Lambeth Bishops of 1958 may well have been saying more than they thought when they approved the resolution that says:
"Sexual intercourse is not by any means the only language of earthly love, but it is, in its full and right use, the most revealing.... it is a giving and receiving in the unity of two free spirits which is in itself good...Therefore it is utterly wrong to say that...such intercourse ought not to be engaged in except with the willing intention of children" (Quoted in Hefling, 170).
As Hefling notes, this does not settle the matter, but it does, perhaps suggest that it is legitimate to ask what has been traditionally either a stupid or wicked question: Why should two committed people of the same gender not engage in sexual activity and still be able to call themselves Christian?
Because of the length of the piece, I am putting it out in three parts:
A) A consideration of the nature of religion and its relationship to Christian practice and theology. (See Blog August 1, 2008)
B) The nature of doctrine and an examination of how (if so be the case) it develops and changes. (Today)
C) Theology and the Bible in changing world-views, with special reference to the Anglican Communion’s record in this matter.
B Can Doctrine Change and Develop?
This section, that looks at some of the issues connected with the development and change in doctrine, and, indeed, the very nature of doctrine, relies to a great degree on two sources. The first is George Lindbeck’s seminal book, The Nature of Doctrine (Philadelphia, 1984) and the second, much shorter piece is an essay by Charles Hefling in Our Selves, Our Souls & Bodies (Ed. Chas Hefling, Cambridge Mass. 1996)
1) Religion, Theology and Doctrine
Lindbeck begins his book with an analysis of various approaches to Religion, Doctrine and Theology. It is important to note the distinctions between the three areas at the same time as the obvious interdependence is acknowledged. “Theories of religion and doctrine are interdependent, and deficiencies in one area are inseparable from deficiencies in the other.” (Lindbeck, 7) Frequently, however, Doctrine and Theology are not carefully defined and it is important to emphasize the very clear distinction between the two. The confusion is apparent when one reads many books on “church doctrine” which are often, in fact, “wide-ranging theological treatises” rather than an examination of the specific doctrines regarded as authoritative by the church, or more realistically, by a particular branch of the Church. (Lindbeck, 76)
Doctrines as Communally Normative
To illustrate this and to sharpen the focus on the nature of doctrine it will be helpful to give a substantial quotation from what seems to me to be the central chapter of Lindbeck’s book.
“Church doctrines are communally authoritative teachings regarding beliefs and practice that are considered essential to the identity or welfare of the group in question. They may be formally stated or informally operative, but in any case they indicate what constitutes faithful adherence to a community. To disagree with Methodist, Quaker, or Roman Catholic doctrine indicates that one is not a “good” Methodist, Quaker or Roman Catholic. Someone who opposes pacifism, for example, will not be regarded as fully what a member of the Society of Friends should be . . . Operative doctrines, even if not official ones, are necessary to communal identity. A religious body cannot exist as a recognizable distinctive collectivity unless it has some beliefs and/or practices by which it can be identified” (Lindbeck, 74).
Reflection on this is instructive for the thorny issue of the development of doctrine. Lindbeck is surely right that a committed Quaker might be expected to embrace Pacifism, while this is clearly not a doctrine that is regarded as essential for a Lutheran, Roman Catholic or an Anglican. Yet, there is no possible doubt that it was essential for all Christians in the early church. Similarly, the Assumption of Mary is regarded not only as inessential, but as illegitimate by most Western Christians not in communion with Rome, whereas it is required doctrine for members of that communion. This suggests that doctrinal norms change, and that we accept, without thinking, various standards of doctrine set by specific groups.
2) Belief and Practice
Lindbeck does not make a very clear distinction between doctrines of belief (dogmas) and teaching about how a Christian should behave, but I suggest that such a distinction is important. His example of pacifism seems to fall into the second category (though it is clearly related to issues of belief, for example, about Jesus’ teaching on the matter). Perhaps this is true of almost all ethical issues, most clearly in the area of human sexuality. If one considers, for example, vivisection, it is not easy to find any consistent Christian teaching about its practice. Certainly some oppose it on religious grounds, but many do so on common humanitarian ones. A theological appraisal would need to consider beliefs about God, creation, human responsibility to animals and strategies for human health and betterment within God’s will for us.
In contrast, the central dogmas of the church do not in themselves prescribe any particular action. However, an authoritative Person or Group –Pope/Council – authenticates and enforces them in order to set limits on what a Christian can believe and still call herself or himself a Christian.
Change in Practice
When the question of change and development is put, it is easy to see that teaching about practice has changed in the course of the church’s history. Hefling suggests one very interesting and important example, usury, which will be considered later on. There is little doubt that central dogmas have also developed. It is arguable, for example, that Luke’s early chapters of Acts reflect an 'adoptionist' type theology, that is to say, that Jesus is not envisaged as the eternal Word (as, for example in the Fourth Gospel), but as being chosen by God and 'made' a son. Such a view is highly unorthodox judged by the standard of the central Chalcedonian dogma.
3) Views of Doctrine - Propositional/Expressive
Lindbeck has some interesting reflections on the nature of Doctrine, which may be some guide here. He outlines three approaches to doctrine, all of which are still current, though not many would subscribe to the first, propositional position.
The following positions are described:
a) A cognitive approach, which emphasizes that doctrines function as propositions giving us information about God, the world and our place within it. This approach has a long history and, indeed, before the 17th century, was in various forms the norm. Nevertheless, everything that has happened since the Enlightenment (not least the development of the historical/critical treatment of the canonical scriptures) has created immense difficulties for this view. (See Lindbeck, 78, para. 2 for an incisive criticism of the inadequacies of this approach in the contemporary situation).
b) In response to the mounting problems facing doctrinal formulations from the beginning of the 19th century, we see emerging the “experiential-expressive” view of religion, which tends to treat doctrines as expressions of deep religious experiences. In this view, they are not giving information about the inner being of God, but are rather an “existential orientation” of the believer. Most contemporary Christians who are not affiliated with a strongly traditionalist position (e.g. conservative RC, Protestant Fundamentalist) tend to accept (probably quite unconsciously) aspects of this position. The assumption here is that there is a root or basic religious experience common to humanity that can be expressed in endless ways. The tradition begins, perhaps, with Schleiermacher's placing the source of all religion in the "feeling of absolute dependence". (cf. Rudolf Otto's numinous).
c) A third approach attempts to combine the two approaches. “Both the cognitively propositional and the expressively symbolic dimensions and functions of religion and doctrine are viewed, at least in the case of Christianity, as religiously significant and valid” (Lindbeck, 16). This approach is highly favored by ecumenically minded RC theologians and by Anglicans who are in the tradition of Bishop Gore.
4) Alternative Paradigm
We are strongly conditioned because of the developments of Western thought in the last two centuries to think of religion as a 'product' of deep personal "experiences of the divine (or the self, or the world)”, Lindbeck, 30). This approach seems to offer hope of rapprochement between many diverse traditions and is, doubtless, one of the reasons it is so influential. Lindbeck, however, suggests an interesting alternative, the converse thesis that the form of a given religion is what structures our experience. He calls this approach "a cultural-linguistic" alternative. In this view, "religions are seen as comprehensive interpretive schemes, usually embodied in myths or narratives and heavily ritualized, which structure human experience and understanding of self and world" (Lindbeck, 32).
Linguistic Studies
The fundamental paradigm for this approach emerges from the work of linguistic philosophers, particularly Ludwig Wittgenstein, and so a comparison is made between the way in which a language shapes a particular culture and the way in which Religion provides a frame work that gives shape to experience. Religion "is a communal phenomenon that shapes the subjectivities of individuals rather than being primarily a manifestation of those subjectivities". One of the great advantages of this approach is that it provides, as we shall see, a way of considering doctrine which allows for real development while maintaining a firm link with the deposit of the faith. It emphasizes, too, that Christian formation is crucial. "To become a Christian involves learning the story of Israel and of Jesus well enough to interpret and experience one's world in its terms". (Lindbeck, 33-34)
Community Forms Belief
Just as one learns a language by being exposed to it and practicing over and over again, so with religion, one internalizes the experience of the living community which one joins (or to which one is joined). What one learns, or perhaps, more accurately is "conformed to" is a tradition deeper and richer than could possibly be articulated in propositions. The ancient saying lex orandi, lex credendi is very close to this point of view, and it suggests that knowledge of propositions is secondary to living the faith. "Sometimes explicitly formulated statements of the beliefs or behavioral norms of a religion may be helpful in the learning process, but by no means always. Ritual, prayer, and example are normally much more important." (p.35). St. Paul speaks of Christians being formed by "the mind of Christ" (I Cor. 2.16), and in a much later tradition Aquinas suggests that one so formed has "connatural knowledge" - a knowledge very different from that of a professional theologian and something like an intuitive grasp of grammar by a poet who is no grammarian.
5) Change and Development in Doctrine & Practice
Lindbeck suggests that we regard doctrines as analogous to rules in a language.
"The novelty of the rule theory is . . . that it does not locate the abiding and doctrinally significant aspect of religion in propositionally formulated truths, much less in inner experiences, but in the story it tells and in the grammar that informs the way the story is told and used". (Lindbeck, 80).
The linguistic analogy suggests the application of a division between vocabulary and grammar. In Christianity the core vocabulary (stories, rites, symbols, injunctions) comes largely from the Bible, though there are clearly some post-biblical additions (e.g. Trinitarian language), and, it needs to be noted, not all the vocabulary of the Bible is in common use (e.g. ritual laws of Leviticus). Doctrine is best thought of here as the grammar of the language. It works analogously in various ways. Some doctrines are rules for vocabulary (what is in or out of the Canon); some (most?) provide rules for the application of the core vocabulary to the spiritual and missionary life of the church.
The following quotations suggest why doctrines change and how that happens.
(a) "Most doctrines illustrate correct usage rather than define it. They are . . . paradigms for the application of rules. Faithfulness to such doctrines does not necessarily mean repeating them; rather it requires, in the making of new formulations, adherence to the same directives that were involved in their first formulation. It is thus - as I shall later argue - that faithfulness to an ancient creed such as the Nicene should be construed. Similarly, to take an example from Latin grammar, "amo, amas, amat " operates as a paradigm when one says, e.g., "rogo, rogas, rogat," not when one insists on parroting the original." (Lindbeck, 81).
(b) "Religious change or innovation must be understood, not as proceeding from new experiences, but as resulting from the interactions of a cultural-linguistic system with changing situations. Religious traditions are not transformed, abandoned, or replaced because of an upwelling of new or different ways of feeling about the self, the world, of God, but because a religious interpretive scheme (embodied, as it always is, in religious belief and practice) develops anomalies in its application in new contexts. . . . Prophetic figures apprehend, often with dramatic vividness, how inherited patterns of belief, practice and ritual need to be (and can be) reminted." (Lindbeck, 39, italics added).
6) Some Conclusions
Limitations of Doctrine
(a) Such an approach might make us more aware of the limitations of doctrine. A continuing problem with the absolutist position (RC - Fundamentalist) is the assumption, either explicit or implicit, that doctrine is perfect, final and all-surveying. On the contrary, it is frequently imperfect and significantly culturally colored. All grammatical rules, as anyone who has tried to study Hebrew knows, have more exceptions than the tidy Grammar Books like to acknowledge, and this is analogously true of doctrine. This approach may also serve to remind us that in a living tradition (language or religion) vocabulary certainly changes and grammar gets modified.
Change & Stability
(b) It is true, that considerable stability is necessary both in syntax and in basic doctrines, but both change. The vocabulary of Chaucer is recognizable (just) as English, just as the Chalcedonian definition still gives some guidance about belief in the Person of Christ. It must be noted, however, that the English word ‘person’ means something very different from persona or prosopon in the Latin and Greek of the fourth century CE.
Syntax must remain fairly stable, but even here the rules change over longish periods, and similar parallel can be drawn with Christian doctrine.
(In American English, the embargo on the split infinitive is as dead as a dodo, and the distinction between ‘like’ (prep. + acc. case) and ‘as’(conjunction) has gone by the board even among highly literate speakers and writers: “she speaks like me” - “she speaks as I do” are no longer required forms. )
Syntax has changed, and the theory suggests doctrine, too, has changed.Change in Behavior Patterns
(c) Accepted teaching concerning patterns of behavior is not separate from central doctrines of belief; nevertheless, such "practical doctrines" (Lindbeck) are on a different footing, and are the ones that develop and change more obviously in response (however slowly) to changing world views, alterations in human awareness of the nature of the human person, and, linked with that, the continuing growth of knowledge in chemistry, physics, biology and genetics.
Inherent Doctrines
(d) We may assume that some doctrines are permanent. For example, "God is love" (not actually formulated like that in the New Testament until the late Epistle of John). This could be said to be a sine qua non for claiming to be part of the catholic church. No Ecumenical Council has ever decreed it, but doctrines like this are "part of the indispensable grammar or logic of faith" (Lindbeck, 85).
Jesus on Divorce
(e) A distinction needs to be made between doctrines that are permanent and those which are abrogated by the developments noted above, but it is very important to note that some teaching which has quite specific New Testament backing (which very many behavioral rules do not) is no longer operative in many branches of the Christian church. The most obvious one is the current practice concerning divorce and re-marriage, which ignores Mark 10.1-12. Significantly, Matthew's parallel (Mt. 19.9), high-lights a very early shift in teaching on a practical matter, even though one of the ipssima verba of Jesus is at stake.
Accepted Doctrines Lacking Biblical Backing
(f) Most of the doctrinal statements of Ecumenical Councils have been regarded as permanent and required, though the emergence of the Athanasian as opposed to some semi-Arian position is an instructive study, and a doctrine like the immortality of the soul raises interesting issues. It can hardly be said to be a biblical doctrine, but it has become the norm for those Christians (the majority) in the West who, without realizing it, think in terms of a Hellenistic dualism heavily reinforced by Cartesian thinking. On the other hand, a better understanding of the Hebraism of the New Testament and contemporary criticism of the Cartesian position suggest it is not a permanent doctrine.
7) Hefling's Essay – Usury
Hefling begins his essay by noting that the ordination of women in the Anglican Communion is often cited as a good example of a change that defies all previous tradition and teaching. Certainly women's ordination shows that accepted teaching can change, but Hefling notes that it is not exactly parallel to the case of ordination of a practicing homosexual. Women were forbidden ordination not for something they had done or were doing, but because they were female. The case we are considering bases the prohibition on a moral consideration. A closer analogy would be the case of usury.
"Anyone who opens a saving account is, by that commonplace act, judged as the church would have judged it from earliest times and for many centuries, guilty of wrongdoing - not of some peccadillo, either, but of mortal sin" (Hefling, 159).
Usury as Sin
The prohibition in scripture is consistent and strong, and lending money to earn money remained a sin for Christians until the Reformation. Moral theologians explained this by saying that such a use of money was against its "nature", (an interesting parallel to many moral discussions of homosexual practice). Calvin was among the first to suggest that money was not by nature "barren", that is that it could not produce anything.
Calvin pointed out that "money locked in a box is sterile - any child can see that- but who borrows money to keep it in storage? Put it to work, and it can be as fruitful as many kinds of merchandise. Where does that leave the biblical commands and exhortations? They are to be construed in the light of the Golden Rule. Generosity and regard for the poor are still Christian virtues; cupidity and avarice are still vices; interest is still sinful it hurts one's neighbor, But moderate interest is not in any and all circumstances wrong" (Hefling, 160).
The application of this case is so clear that it needs no further explanation.
What is Sex For?
In the discussion that follows, Hefling examines this question.
The undoubted fact that the Anglican Church has, in the twentieth century, departed from a universal tradition in the matter is important (see Section C). Once it is allowed that the procreation is not the only purpose of human sexual intercourse, things not thought of at the time, may logically follow. The Lambeth Bishops of 1958 may well have been saying more than they thought when they approved the resolution that says:
"Sexual intercourse is not by any means the only language of earthly love, but it is, in its full and right use, the most revealing.... it is a giving and receiving in the unity of two free spirits which is in itself good...Therefore it is utterly wrong to say that...such intercourse ought not to be engaged in except with the willing intention of children" (Quoted in Hefling, 170).
As Hefling notes, this does not settle the matter, but it does, perhaps suggest that it is legitimate to ask what has been traditionally either a stupid or wicked question: Why should two committed people of the same gender not engage in sexual activity and still be able to call themselves Christian?
Friday, August 01, 2008
The status of homosexual persons: Some theological perspectives
Introduction
This is a paper I prepared in the mid 1990s when serving as a member of the (Delaware) Diocesan Council. It was in the context of an early discussion about the appropriateness of allowing blessings of same gender relationships in parishes where there would be support for the principle and for the individuals concerned.
Although it is almost ten years since I wrote it, I feel that it is still relevant for our current situation. Indeed during that time, instead of the question being reasonably and calmly debated, new levels of polemic and rhetoric have dominated the discussion.
Because of the length of the piece, I intend to publish it in three parts:
(A) – see below – this week and (B) & (C) in the following two weeks.
The issues involved in this question have been researched and debated now for decades, and so it is unlikely that anything startlingly new can be produced. Nevertheless, it is important for the pastoral, legislative and intellectual leaders of the diocese to review the material. The object of the notes that follow is to draw attention to some of the salient religious and theological factors that must be addressed before practical and legislative action be attempted. These notes will draw attention to the following concerns:
A) A consideration of the nature of religion and its relationship to Christian practice and theology.
B) The nature of doctrine and an examination of how (if so be the case) it develops and changes.
C) Theology and the Bible in changing world-views, with special reference to the Anglican Communion’s record in this matter.
A Religion & Theology
Clearly, religion is, even in this so-called secular age, still a central human activity. Reasonably reliable statistics repeatedly tell us that the USA is one of the most religious of the western industrialized nations with a vast majority of those polled affirm some kind of belief in God (or, perhaps, god).
The word ‘religion’ comes from a Latin word that was used to describe the required attitude of a human being to the unseen forces of the world. Peter Brown, Professor of History at Princeton, in a recent book about the emergence of Christianity in the Roman Empire writes, “The gods were there. They were invisible and ageless neighbors of the human race.....Religio, the apposite worship of each god, stressed ...social cohesion and the passing on of tradition in families, local communities, and through the memories of proud cities and nations bathed in centuries of history.” (The Rise of Western Christendom, p. 20).
Only One God
In contrast to this, the early Christian message of salvation centered on belief in one God, not many, and it cut across precisely those old rituals and immemorial customs that were the very stuff of ancient religion. From the conversion of Constantine in 312 for many centuries, there was no doubt in people’s minds that true religion meant Christianity, and, what is more, a particular form of Christianity, Catholicism centered on the ancient city of Rome.
When one says “peoples’ minds”, however, it is important to remember that this really refers to a fairly small elitist group of governors, officials and committed congregations. It does not include the vast numbers of peasants, slaves and ordinary towns-folk of the Empire. As late as the seventh century, in sermon after sermon, Bishops were bemoaning the continuing power of paganism, what today we might call “contemporary culture”. Still, by the end of the first millennium, Europe thought of itself as more or less a Christian continent and true religion meant being in line with the mother church in Rome.
Emergence of National Churches
The long dominance of western Catholicism was challenged by the movements of the Reformation, and by the end of the century, Europe had many groups and National Churches each claiming to have a true (and superior) version of Christianity.
In the light of anthropological study and a more accurate appraisal of world religions it is commonly held that religion in some form or other seems to have been universal in human behaviour. Barbara Smith-Morgan in an interview in Science & Spirit said recently, “I believe that as a species we are religious by nature, just as we are musical by nature; that’s in the genes, I think”. Now this suggests a very interesting paradox. If such a definition of religion is correct, it means that religion is essentially a human activity; it is something we do to achieve some end. We produce music to dance to, to give us joy and so on. We develop our religion to give us a feeling of security in a hostile world.
We do not need to go all the way with Karl Barth, who had some striking things to say about the understanding of religion as essentially a human activity. As usual Barth gives us a paradox. Religion “is unbelief....it is the one great concern of godless man”. And again, “Religion is never true in itself and as such....If by the concept of “true religion” we mean truth which belongs to religion in itself, it is just as unattainable as a “good man”. On the other hand, religion can be redeemed and sanctified; “like justified man, true religion is a creature of grace”. (Church Dogmatics, quoted in McGrath, The Christian Theology Reader, p. 323)
Paradoxically, Barth is suggesting it may mean that “true religion” is to be free of ‘religion’. Certainly, religion does not seem to be a very good influence in many parts of the world. In its name, people in Ireland have been killing each other for centuries. In the Middle East religion lies behind terrible and bloody conflicts, and the genocide in Bosnia and Kosovo was fueled by religion.
'Religion' in the USA
If we turn to the USA, a rather different, but not necessarily reassuring scene emerges. The US is known as the most religious of all the western industrialized nations. The brands of religion abound; quite outside what are called the “main-line” churches, all kinds of groups and cults spring up, and in recent years, this diffuse, undifferentiated kind of religion has produced a whole industry dedicated to angels and what is loosely called “spirituality”.
In spite of the great diversity of the religious scene in the USA, several characteristics stand out.
Firstly, religion tends to be full of cheer, promising comfort, success and immediate answer to prayer. This seems to be a pattern in what might be called our national religiosity, and it stands in stark contrast to some of the stern words of the gospel tradition.
Secondly, religion tends to be conservative, and connected much more with cultural/political norms than with a theological understanding of God’s gracious action towards fallen humanity. It is arguable, for instance that the fierce homophobia of fundamentalist Christianity (and, for that matter, Judaism and Islam) is much more the result of religious positions than of truly theological ones based on a comprehensive understanding of God, God’s nature and God’s dealing with humanity.
Thirdly, this generalized ‘religiosity’ is as pervasive as it is, on the whole, unexamined.
In the light of this, as we wrestle with what is consonant with God’s will for us in the question at hand we need to be on our guard that “religious” attitudes to homosexuality do not block out new understandings of the gracious action of God for us.
Hot Line to God
Another characteristic of much religion in the USA today is that its adherents are usually very clear indeed what it is that God wants, and, perhaps, even more tellingly what God does not want. The whole New Testament tradition should remind us that this religious attitude was very much implicated in the death of Jesus. All too often, religion is something we do to influence God (or fate or the gods or whatever is the name of the ‘unseen’ forces in our culture). This is not at all what the bible talks about: from first to last the biblical story tells what God does to and for us; it does not speak of our finding God, but of God finding us, and, above all, it never suggests that the call that God sends us will necessarily be the one we expect.
To be continued
This is a paper I prepared in the mid 1990s when serving as a member of the (Delaware) Diocesan Council. It was in the context of an early discussion about the appropriateness of allowing blessings of same gender relationships in parishes where there would be support for the principle and for the individuals concerned.
Although it is almost ten years since I wrote it, I feel that it is still relevant for our current situation. Indeed during that time, instead of the question being reasonably and calmly debated, new levels of polemic and rhetoric have dominated the discussion.
Because of the length of the piece, I intend to publish it in three parts:
(A) – see below – this week and (B) & (C) in the following two weeks.
The issues involved in this question have been researched and debated now for decades, and so it is unlikely that anything startlingly new can be produced. Nevertheless, it is important for the pastoral, legislative and intellectual leaders of the diocese to review the material. The object of the notes that follow is to draw attention to some of the salient religious and theological factors that must be addressed before practical and legislative action be attempted. These notes will draw attention to the following concerns:
A) A consideration of the nature of religion and its relationship to Christian practice and theology.
B) The nature of doctrine and an examination of how (if so be the case) it develops and changes.
C) Theology and the Bible in changing world-views, with special reference to the Anglican Communion’s record in this matter.
A Religion & Theology
Clearly, religion is, even in this so-called secular age, still a central human activity. Reasonably reliable statistics repeatedly tell us that the USA is one of the most religious of the western industrialized nations with a vast majority of those polled affirm some kind of belief in God (or, perhaps, god).
The word ‘religion’ comes from a Latin word that was used to describe the required attitude of a human being to the unseen forces of the world. Peter Brown, Professor of History at Princeton, in a recent book about the emergence of Christianity in the Roman Empire writes, “The gods were there. They were invisible and ageless neighbors of the human race.....Religio, the apposite worship of each god, stressed ...social cohesion and the passing on of tradition in families, local communities, and through the memories of proud cities and nations bathed in centuries of history.” (The Rise of Western Christendom, p. 20).
Only One God
In contrast to this, the early Christian message of salvation centered on belief in one God, not many, and it cut across precisely those old rituals and immemorial customs that were the very stuff of ancient religion. From the conversion of Constantine in 312 for many centuries, there was no doubt in people’s minds that true religion meant Christianity, and, what is more, a particular form of Christianity, Catholicism centered on the ancient city of Rome.
When one says “peoples’ minds”, however, it is important to remember that this really refers to a fairly small elitist group of governors, officials and committed congregations. It does not include the vast numbers of peasants, slaves and ordinary towns-folk of the Empire. As late as the seventh century, in sermon after sermon, Bishops were bemoaning the continuing power of paganism, what today we might call “contemporary culture”. Still, by the end of the first millennium, Europe thought of itself as more or less a Christian continent and true religion meant being in line with the mother church in Rome.
Emergence of National Churches
The long dominance of western Catholicism was challenged by the movements of the Reformation, and by the end of the century, Europe had many groups and National Churches each claiming to have a true (and superior) version of Christianity.
In the light of anthropological study and a more accurate appraisal of world religions it is commonly held that religion in some form or other seems to have been universal in human behaviour. Barbara Smith-Morgan in an interview in Science & Spirit said recently, “I believe that as a species we are religious by nature, just as we are musical by nature; that’s in the genes, I think”. Now this suggests a very interesting paradox. If such a definition of religion is correct, it means that religion is essentially a human activity; it is something we do to achieve some end. We produce music to dance to, to give us joy and so on. We develop our religion to give us a feeling of security in a hostile world.
We do not need to go all the way with Karl Barth, who had some striking things to say about the understanding of religion as essentially a human activity. As usual Barth gives us a paradox. Religion “is unbelief....it is the one great concern of godless man”. And again, “Religion is never true in itself and as such....If by the concept of “true religion” we mean truth which belongs to religion in itself, it is just as unattainable as a “good man”. On the other hand, religion can be redeemed and sanctified; “like justified man, true religion is a creature of grace”. (Church Dogmatics, quoted in McGrath, The Christian Theology Reader, p. 323)
Paradoxically, Barth is suggesting it may mean that “true religion” is to be free of ‘religion’. Certainly, religion does not seem to be a very good influence in many parts of the world. In its name, people in Ireland have been killing each other for centuries. In the Middle East religion lies behind terrible and bloody conflicts, and the genocide in Bosnia and Kosovo was fueled by religion.
'Religion' in the USA
If we turn to the USA, a rather different, but not necessarily reassuring scene emerges. The US is known as the most religious of all the western industrialized nations. The brands of religion abound; quite outside what are called the “main-line” churches, all kinds of groups and cults spring up, and in recent years, this diffuse, undifferentiated kind of religion has produced a whole industry dedicated to angels and what is loosely called “spirituality”.
In spite of the great diversity of the religious scene in the USA, several characteristics stand out.
Firstly, religion tends to be full of cheer, promising comfort, success and immediate answer to prayer. This seems to be a pattern in what might be called our national religiosity, and it stands in stark contrast to some of the stern words of the gospel tradition.
Secondly, religion tends to be conservative, and connected much more with cultural/political norms than with a theological understanding of God’s gracious action towards fallen humanity. It is arguable, for instance that the fierce homophobia of fundamentalist Christianity (and, for that matter, Judaism and Islam) is much more the result of religious positions than of truly theological ones based on a comprehensive understanding of God, God’s nature and God’s dealing with humanity.
Thirdly, this generalized ‘religiosity’ is as pervasive as it is, on the whole, unexamined.
In the light of this, as we wrestle with what is consonant with God’s will for us in the question at hand we need to be on our guard that “religious” attitudes to homosexuality do not block out new understandings of the gracious action of God for us.
Hot Line to God
Another characteristic of much religion in the USA today is that its adherents are usually very clear indeed what it is that God wants, and, perhaps, even more tellingly what God does not want. The whole New Testament tradition should remind us that this religious attitude was very much implicated in the death of Jesus. All too often, religion is something we do to influence God (or fate or the gods or whatever is the name of the ‘unseen’ forces in our culture). This is not at all what the bible talks about: from first to last the biblical story tells what God does to and for us; it does not speak of our finding God, but of God finding us, and, above all, it never suggests that the call that God sends us will necessarily be the one we expect.
To be continued
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