Authority, The Innane Quest for Certainty
October 31, 2008
For one to determine a definitive answer to the question of authority, they must be willing to first understand the relativity of any position for which they arrive. Furthermore, they must recognize the futility of the quest itself. How did I arrive at this conclusion? Let us take a step back and look at the four proposed solutions to the question of ultimate authority. It has been proposed that one must choose from reason, tradition, scripture, or experience as their authority. However, a cursory examination of these four views quickly reveals that there is really only one choice and that choice is irrelevant.
Let me explain further. Let us say that the choice is scripture. This one has been universally panned by our consortium. The biggest reason for this is the sheer relativity of perspective when it comes to scripture. As has been pointed out many times before, scripture can be made to say whatever one wants it to say. Ah, but some might argue that scripture has but one message and that message is ascertained through historical research. This would then mean that it is history and reason that must be ultimately seen as authoritative. This too, however, quickly proves itself to be quite relative. You see, while history and reason may assume a certainty of answers, in reality there are as many options as there are historians to espouse them. In other words, every historical or reasoned position can be seen as relative to the person who is looking at the facts.
This leaves us with tradition and experience. Many have argued that tradition should be seen as authoritative since it can wrestle down the varying opinions of history and reason into a definitive position. After all, if it’s been done for hundreds of years then it must be right. This would seem to be a plausible position until one takes into account the relativity of time. What worked for the church in 500 CE may not necessarily work for the church in 2008. It is like asking a mechanic from the 70’s whose sole car experience is carburetors to work on a 2008 model with a fuel injection system. In the end tradition must be tempered with reason and experience of the day. This leaves us with only one choice, experience.
As I stated in the beginning a simple critic of the four positions leaves only one plausible answer. This answer, however, offers none of the solutions that were hoped for in the beginning. You see everyone’s experience is personal and cannot be duplicated. To appeal to communal experience, as authority, appeals only to the experience of the chosen few in leadership.
Furthermore, experience does not offer a stable position as it is apt to sway with every changing fad. This is why most religious traditions choose the illusion of scripture, tradition, or in a few cases reason as there model for authority. Most understand that these choices are simply arbitrary and provide no real foundation for which to determine truth from conflict. However, they also understand that without these illusions there would be nothing but chaos.
So here is my final conclusion. The only real authority in the church is the personal experiences of those who are in charge. Every other vehicle that is used is tainted by experience. The delusion of man is to assume that one can escape oneself and make decisions from a perspective above our own. There is one final question that must be asked in this a religious forum. Where is God in my experiences? The answer is simple in its complexity. God is the source of your experiences. He is the animator of your being. He is the silent voice for which you unknowingly consult for the authority in which you seek. God is in it all, and yet you will never escape your own experiences.
Lets Just Call it a Paradigm Shift
October 31, 2008
I think that the idea of another “Reformation” suffers from the same historically confused amnesia as the idea of “Crusades for Christ.” Can there be a more inappropriate name for a missional group than one which recalls the slaughter of Muslims, Jews and Christians? And should the current struggles in Christianity be likened to the Reformation?
The Reformation is idealized and made pure when in fact it was tragic. While it is certainly true that God used the Reformation to correct some of the many errors of the Church at the time, and this blessing has continued on to this day in the rejection of many sub-Christian doctrines, the fact that the people of God were split yet again should be a matter of lamentation. Indeed, the subsequent multiplication of denominations bears testimony to what was the biggest failure of the Reformation: the absolute independence of the autonomous individual. “If I don’t like you, I’m gonna split and do my own thing.” As Reed likes to say: “And 24,000 denominations later…”
I feel that there are better ways to describe what is now happening and what needs to happen other than deeming it a “New Reformation.” In his famous and incredibly influential book, Thomas Kuhn describes shifts in thought across disciplines (in this case the Christian worldview) as “Paradigm Shifts.” A particular pattern of thought carries with it certain assumptions and all new information is interpreted through these assumptions. What inevitably happens is that some new information which seems to contradict the dominant paradigm begins to become too obvious to ignore. What follows is a period of transition where an “old guard” proclaims a pox on the new paradigm, while others begin to explore new avenues of thought and follow the new information as it leads, until a new and enhanced, and also radically different, paradigm emerges. Eventually this repeats itself.
This is where our Christianity seems to be. In a period of transition. But what will emerge and how is only foggy ahead of us. I noticed that that (Re)formation page and event was mostly done by Free Church Protestants, almost all white westerners, and NO women. The (Re)formation of the Church, is gonna have to be more representative than that if it wants to really affect Christianity!
I agree with Paul (Stewart), the Church always needs to reform. But we have got to learn to do it together. Another thing I think is important to notice. The Church is growing in other parts of the world.
I think that one of the biggest reasons that the Church in the West is shrinking has nothing to do with church planting strategy, or even theology, both of which are important; but I think it might have something to do with the fact that God is the God of the poor and oppressed. We are neither, and I thank God for being there with those who are.
You propose an ambitious project Reed. Let’s see how much of it we can actually do!
New Luthers and The Rumored Second Reformation
October 31, 2008
Drop yourself into any corner of the N. American Christian cultural pool for a while and it wont take long for you to feel the stirring waters of something called, “The Second Reformation.” It’s so popular, in fact, that the notion seems to have taken on an ambiguous meaning of its own. The idea has been utilized by such diverse elements within Christianity as prominent mega church pastor and best selling author Rick Warren, grassroots, friendly post-evangelicals in the Emerging Church, “young blood” new wave pastors like Mark Batterson and Rob Bell, liberal Christian thinkers like Marcus Borg, hyper-pentecostal spiritualists like The New Mystics, and Liberation theologians and pastors in both the first and two-thirds world like Jeremiah Wright.
Martin Luther
On one level, this term refers to Martin Luther, 16th century reformer who’s 95 Theses triggered years of dormant counter-cultural energy in Europe to create massive political and religious change. On another level, it refers to current dissatisfaction with the Christian climate in our world (especially amongst first world Christians in N. America and Europe) and desire for creating climactic, lasting change.
Around 30% of the world’s Christians trace their heritage back to Luther. Now major voices from these movements are calling for change again.
Martin Luther (King Jr.)
1. How does our political/religious/economic climate compare to that of Martin Luther’s in the 16th Century?
2. How can this single historical event capture the ideals of so many diverse movements within Christianity?
3. Is a Second Reformation necessary? Presuming it’s even possible, who is in the best position to bring it?
4. What implications does this type of thinking carry over for Apostolic traditions that don’t have a common heritage in Luther? (Roman and Eastern Christians) What, if anything, do they have to say about this movement?
The Greatest Books Ever?
October 30, 2008
For at least three of us, the series of books by the Anglican Bishop of Durham, Nicholas Thomas Wright, called “Christian Origins and the Question of God” have been absolutely foundational to our understanding of the world behind the New Testament, as well as to how we understand Jesus and his relation to the Gospels. It has also considerably helped us understand where Paul is coming from (his next book in the Series will be on Paul).
So far the Series includes, in order: “The New Testament and the People of God (NTPG),” “Jesus and the Victory of God (JVG),” and “The Resurrection of the Son of God (RSG).”
In NTPG, N T Wright sketches the world of Judaism at the time of Jesus and Paul. He quotes extensively from original sources which include heavy doses of Josephus, Philo, and the many pseudographs from the period.
In JVG, he provides a picture of the so-called “Historical Jesus.” In incredibly creative ways Wright weaves together his picture from NTPG and the Gospels, revealing a Jesus that is both strange and more alive.
In RSG, he takes 800 pages to speak to the understanding of “resurrection” in the OT, the larger Greek/Roman world, intertestimental Judaism, and in the NT and other early Christian writings such as the Apostolic Fathers.
I would hardily recommend all of these books for serious study by anybody who wants to get in touch with the foundations of the New Testament. If you would rather try out a more accessible version of two of these books first, Wrights “The Challenge of Jesus” is based on JVG, and “Surprised by Hope” is an elaboration built off of RSG. Both worthwhile reads for the non-scholar. At first they are a rather daunting read, each book gets longer and more detailed, yet I cannot overexagerate how profoundly these books have shaped my (our) understanding of Jesus and the NT.
Here is a link to a site where a young scholar, Andrew Perriman gives a rather fantastic synopsis of each of the chapters for all three books. If you feel that you do not have the time or ability to read the originals, or you just want to brush up on the ones that you have read, this site is invaluable.
More on (biblical) Authority
October 28, 2008
One of my favorite professors liked to say, just to ruffle up some feathers, that while the Church cannot make it without the testimony about Jesus, it can survive without the New Testament. “We did it for a few hundred years” he would say.
Consider this, for the first centuries it would have been the norm, not the exception, that an individual Church might have only one or two of the Gospels, perhaps the undebated Pauline letters, and perhaps some other book which acted authoritatively but is now not considered “scripture”, say The Shepard of Hermas.
What might “scriptural authority” have looked like in a Church which perhaps only had access to the Johannine Corpus (yeah, that’s latin guys, whatcha gonna do about it?)? Would their theology have been different or incomplete compared to us who have the “whole” New Testament? If to be a Christian one has to “believe” the right things, what of churches which did not have Hebrews, and so missed out on believing Jesus to be the Great High Priest in the Order of Melchizedek? What of a Church which only had the Gospel of Mark? Does it matter that the Revelation of John was hotly contested as a canonical book all the way up to the formation of the Canon? Or that much of the “Deuterocannonical Books” would have been widely used, even by Paul and John.
This is not even to mention other smaller yet significant details such as; what if the text of the book they had differed from the one we have? Mark without the extra endings, John without the Adulterous Woman?
I would tend to agree with Dan, although of course, I would nuance his argument; Scripture and Tradition are intertwined, and to look at the New Testament without taking into account it’s history as individual documents, spread variously throughout the Churches, and its long and complicated history to Canon is to mistreat Scripture. We make it our safe haven. It’s easy when different interpretations happen to just sigh and say “I believe in the Bible,” but I feel that that road is fraught with peril. How can we simply retreat to a bare belief in the Authority of Scripture when we know that the New Testament did not just fall from the sky. It was a bloody and political battle to the leather clad, red Lettered NIV Study Bible we have in front of us. Even the most conservative among us do not adhere to the belief, like that of Muslims, that the writers simply were dictated our Holy Books; yet we treat them as if they were. That this is a shallow understanding of our Scriptures is confirmed by the progress in Redaction, Canonical and Narrative Criticism; the best of which is being done by Evangelicals! I believe that kids like us will have to take on ourselves the huge battle to make our Scriptures honest if we are to continue to preach the Good News, and, even if we affirm orthodox Christianity, to “demote” the Bible will garner much scorn.
But neither do I believe the way forward is like the RC’s or the Orthodox. The Bible is not simply a product of “The Church,” who has the “authority” to declare what is wills, even if that “authority” is from God. This is where I think the Pentecostal’s have got it made, and a robust Pneumatology is the way forward. The Holy Spirit is amongst his people even to this day. The same Spirit that gave Peter a vision gives our own Missionaries visions. The same Spirit which directed the leaders in Jerusalem directs ministers now. I am much too unlearned to attempt to plot a detailed way forward as of yet, but these are the questions that need to be asked, and answers will not be easy in coming or in gaining acceptance.
That Presidential Debate That We Wanted
October 27, 2008
I’ve never watched the West Wing before but somebody directed me towards this debate as an excellent resource for gaining a fuller understanding on the contemporary worldviews of the United States’ two largest parties. It also eerily foreshadows our current presidential race.
The next time you have about 50 minutes to kill and you would like to learn something, watch these in the order provided.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvG8QWxnMl0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wezfAmc7sQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoxOfrc7E4c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFI1dOO8XjU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfuWXYMJQos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyTsYS7_Yc4
NOTE: the guy who posted them on youtube titled them, “Obama vs. McCain” only because this 2005 TV show echoes our current situation so oddly.
Authority and The Shoimakian rationale
October 20, 2008
I want to start by saying how much I enjoy this topic. I have heard Tony talk about this for about two years; it is fun to see Reed play these thoughts out in a whole new series of dialogues.
Let me begin by asserting first what I believe is an issue within these systems of analyzing authority: culture. I think all of us may have steeped ourselves deeply into dividing these issues as if they contained some sort of separate (I believe non-partisan fits here) line of epistemologically fitted logic, or “knowing”. All fittings stand inside their culture and are unforgiving of other lines of certainty. Take our group, how many of us would continue in practices of superstition (more appropriately – supernaturalism) while believing those acts are merely phenomenological (or solely conscious) events separate from existential reality? I would assume none of us. Did the early Christians believe their claims were without rational thought? We assume culture as these separate forms as if they preferred one to another, when in reality, the means in which one believed has continued to evolve (through technology and philosophy) through time due to culture.
Second, I see us separating scripture (bible – a term too specific & ambiguous for me to appreciate) and tradition. Perhaps there exists a line of logic I miss. Wesley believed scripture to be the unsullied revelation (word) of the one god to his people. I believe not this as much as tradition; passing revelation through sullied people as they understood their god to develop what most Christians (and fundamentalists the most ignorantly) call the Bible. Now if we were to remove the perfect nature (inerrancy, infallibility – in my opinion: deification) of the scriptures do we not have tradition?
Third, (really 2b) is not this tradition passed down by the means of the logic or “reason” of the times? Why can we not call the old way of ‘knowing’, like we knew Paul was the author of Hebrews, reason and now not call our ability to discern his lack of living to mean he was not the author (unless god used post humus penmanship – which I think bodes well for inerrancy) tradition?
Having said all of this I believe a simplified version of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral could be described as the Shoimakian Line: experience and tradition, that being historical and cultural.
Imagine this line being pulled by both ends, wiggling back and forth through the times as logicians, philosophers, historians and Orthodox Church attendees fight to pull and suck the line from the Essenes, Mystics, Charismatics, Pentecostals and Jesus Freaks. An historical/intellectual versus experiential/emotional tug-of-war disabling the other from taking complete control of understanding, while allowing their other half to struggle against their neighbor developing a certain mode of knowing.
I believe it is this battle that keeps our interests peeked, we prefer a specific balance to the two forms and may never agree on which should take hold of the line greater.
I believe this is my great problem with this subject. Whenever Reed asks me what should be our authority I always respond, “God” (yes capital “G”, the ungraspable one).
My reasons for this are twofold. First, I believe our worship, intellectual pursuits, meaningless banter and masochistic acts all bring us back to a desire to “know” our creator. For this reason the one to whom we direct out efforts is the authority on such matters. God would do it better; God may show us the way. Second, I believe every form of authority (bible, papal, maternal) is attempting to discern that exact thing: the desire of the creator. The problem is they cannot do it, may never do the speaking from the mouth of the divine. I mean this in its perfection, the church is the mouth of god; the people are the physical resemblance of the unseen god. But scrawny, dirty and comparably mindless.
I cannot count the number of times I have heard Reed’s mom speak to us in her semi-serious manner “Ok Danny, this is from the Lord God …” or “God would want it like that …” or “Bless him Jesus.” In these instances, I do believe God has spoken to me; spoken to me through an imperfect, culturally entrenched, extraordinarily lovely person who loves me, god and our combined existence. This is a voice of authority, but the authority is from god.
When the Pope speaks ex cathedra (and he is way more sinful than Reed’s Mom), he speaks for a god to the people. In this he speaks for “God” and that god remains the authority.
And of course, when someone reads the scriptures they may gain an inkling of the motivations, experiences and failures of a people who served this great god. They speak, through their experience to a new culture; on the behalf of their authority – god.
I would go into what making the authority the speaker would do to usurping the position of authority god has, but I believe this can be derived from above.
Now this is not to say, we should not be connected to the history of those listening to their authority in ecumenism. It is through this examination we see more clearly how our authority has dealt with us in the past and through this how he is continuing to deal with us now. This examination of our historic roots as believers in god is surely connected to the world before us as it is to the world we stand upon. How others have reasoned this progression of revelation is equally important; they are our family, they are we.
This point is crucial to our understanding of god, in his interaction with the world. It means we do not stand on equal footing in our rationalizations. One who studies culture (ancient and recent) may gather drastic conclusions whereas the bible-belter who stands in front of a congregation lacking historic or current knowledge only speaks to a world behind his eyes.
Tony Hunt
jstambaugh
Shawn Wamsley
