The Shape of Discipleship-The Shape of History: Problems With “Loyalty to Christ”
September 26, 2010
The idea that “loyalty to Christ” will entail a hard life, a life of the Cross indeed, and that such a life may make demands of us that even at times it will require the breaking of fellowship with other Christians for the sake of such “loyalty,” has been a subject of meditation for me for a while. Scripture obviously at certain points indicate that “excommunication” sometimes is necessary, and this has been reinforced by many of the thinkers who have shaped my as-yet-young theological temperance. A friend has recently had an extended (and excellent) blog series on just this point. By some models though, “truth” – of the Gospel or of doctrine - is often set over against “unity,” which is sometimes even scorned as a concession to “man-made” structures and identities. This comes up constantly in Anglican circles from both sides, the one is accused of favoring “unity” over “justice” or “truth” and vise versa. Indeed “unity” almost always comes in short for these types of conversations. This is the plague of Protestant sectarianism – if you can’t see the truth as it “plainly” is set forth in Scripture, then I’m starting a new sect. ”Unity” here is always thrown into the eschatological future and has nothing whatsoever to do with the empirical Church.
Ephraim Radner calls this kind of thinking into stark question in all of his writings but concisely in his Hope Among the Fragments, specifically here his chapter “The Figure of Truth and Unity.” Radner recalls us to the perfect coincidence of Truth and Unity with respect to Jesus Christ, a truth brought out strongly in the Gospel of St. John, not least chapters 14-17. Radner challenges the dichotomy:
“If…unity and truth were viewed in parallel with pneumatic fruit (Gal. 5:16-26), their coordination would be of a profoundly different kind than if they were viewed as variously attained aspects of obedience. We do not tend to place kindness and self-control over and against each other…In walking by the Spirit, a Christian may fail to exhibit one spiritual fruit or another, such failures pertain to that life as a whole, to the character and shape of its discrete pneumatic history, and not to separable histories of particular virtues, as if one could say, “Until now, I have worked on love; only when this is achieved can I turn to joy.” (113-114)
Instead Radner points us to the traditional figural interpretation of the Song of Songs as an elucidation of the relationship of the Church to its Lord, a history that cannot be anything other than a complex and layered story.
“If this response [of the Church and its Lord] represents some kind of narrative progress, all that takes place in between – desire, opposition, sorrow, renewal – must therefore form the historical matrix within which the larger movement of union and conformity takes flesh” (119)
For Radner, this story envisions the Church as “a single character, whose variegated experience in relation to its Lord and lover never undermines the singularity of that link, but only undermines its temporal difficulty” (118)
Therefore:
“As a figure of the Church in the course of its Lord-conforming history, then, the Song of Songs is a bracing challenge to any attempt at its evaluative dissection on the basis of identifiable virtues. There is simply no room, in such a narrative, for assessing degrees of integrity and then acting distinctly upon them. For the existence of such degrees-the church of the more or less truthful, or more or less loving, or in more or less communion within its parts, upon which distinctions we must make decisions-cannot be detached from the single movements of its history in relation to its Lord.” (119)
This then is where I have and continue to struggle with the idea of understanding discipleship and sanctification, both individually within a parish and corporately between disparate bodies, as a singular “loyalty to Christ” which must be at all times maintained, for this is what (we are told) Scripture demands. Such a position assumes that the appropriate response to the Lords calling will be clear and readily apparent, yet in a divided Church, such clarity is hardly forthcoming. There is a sort of rigorist or puritan striving toward holiness, a position that historically has almost always lost.
Although I remain convinced that excommunication and parish discipline is absolutely necessary, this often can only be an exercise of authority open to contestation. Because of course I myself demonstrate both loyalty and disloyalty to Christ, more and less obedience. Rather than wrap up with a confident position of my own, I will end with a story from the desert monastics:
“There was a brother at Scetis who had committed a fault. So they called a meeting and invited Abba Moses. He refused to go. The priest sent someone to say to him, “They’re all waiting for you.” So Moses got up and set off; he took a leaky jug and filled it with water and took it with him. The others came out to meet him and said, “What is this, father?” The old man said to them, “My sins run out behind me and I cannot see them, yet here I am coming to sit in judgment on the mistakes of somebody else.” When they heard this, they called off the meeting.”
A recent internet acquaintance of mine has some opinions of his own as to how “theologically open” a seminary or Christian university ought to be. Everything sounds good on the surface of his post but I must admit that I disagree with almost all of it.
There seems to be undergirding the entire post a vision of the Church or “Christianity” as a unified body. Now on a dogmatic, especially a pneumatological level, this is true in some sense (this would of course be contested by the Eastern and Roman Catholic Churches) but in our lived lives it is quite simply false: We are divided by a myriad of issues from confessions to political bodies – (I am here endorsing wholeheartedly Ephraim Radner’s understanding of Christian division).
Thus it is difficult to conceive in any meaningful sense what a “merely” “Christian” seminary or university would look like. The Nicene Creed can function as a solid enough base to flesh out a basic confessional unity in most Christian contexts but when considering seminary especially, it becomes far more complicated as to whether or not such a base is truly sufficient to serve the needs of our unique churches. What hath Geneva to do with Canterbury?
The complex Christian cocktail that has resulted from the “Ecumenical Movement” as well as the utter failure of western protestantism to sustain anything like a distinct Christian confessional unity becomes clear in conversations like this. This confusion has several strains currently expressing themselves in our churches, I’ll mention four: 1) Most evangelical don’t have much in the way of any theological identity. They don’t know or recite the creeds, they don’t catechize and they don’t like homosexuals. So long as they sing modern worship choruses and preach 45 minute sermons they feel that they get along fine. 2) Many older churches such as the Mainline still maintain a sense of their historic identity but there is a significant toleration of theological diversity such that there is a widely acknowledged reality of the dissolution of a coherent evangel. 3) Also within the Mainline but also in many Emergent and certain evangelical churches there is a repudiation of confessional unity and a glorification of diversity. 4) There are the hold-the-line or buckle-down-and-fight groups.
I admit this is reductive but on a generic level I think it holds. Within churches we are bound to find any of several of these so I don’t pretend that they are watertight between groups.
I am of the opinion that theological identity is essential to evangelism, discipleship and unity. It follows, as I’ve mentioned before, that I think you should teach what you believe. This of course sounds ridiculous coming from an Episcopalian 
Now… All this and yet I agree that closing off creative and inquisitive theology can be utterly destructive. Honestly, at this point, I’m absolutely clueless as to how to hold these two things together in a balance, historic theological identity and faithful theological response. Or rather I have an idea of how it can work in churches structured according to historic catholic order but no idea how it can work between churches. Whatever the case, Methodists should pump out Methodist pastors and Lutherans Lutherans, anything else just creates a muddle.
A Word from George
February 24, 2010
extra ecclesiam nulla salus?
January 29, 2010
As one reads and thinks one begins to get interested in particular rabbit holes in theology. Feeling called to Ecumenism, Ecclesiology is one such rabbit hole of mine.
I wish to propose some brief propositions that have swum around in my mind. I realize that they are not positions that the Church has traditionally agreed with but I’m trying to follow out some logic that stems from good Catholic theology. Mostly, I want to locate the Church. If one cannot do such, even if in a provisional way, it seems difficult to speak at all about it. Tell me what you think.
- I am, along with at least the RCC, a religious inclusivist. That is to say I trust that there will be many from different faiths who “find salvation.”
- Karl Rahner called these people “anonymous Christians”
- Catholicism is concerned with the locatability of the Church as opposed to Protestant spiritualizing and volunteer’izing of the Church.
- A “Christian” is someone who in faith is baptized into the Church and prayed over to receive the Holy Spirit
- A so-called “anonymous Christian” has not been baptized nor prayed over to receive the Spirit and even if their ‘faith’ is truly toward God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit it is not shaped in this way.
- If such a person can be “saved,” and if “there is no salvation outside of the Church,” then by this logic A) People can be “saved” without the Sacraments B) People can be part of the church without knowing it…
- There seems to be a tension to me. Now, if the Sacraments are necessary to become part of the Church (as I would argue), AND “there is no salvation outside of the church,” THEN “anonymous Christians” (or their souls?!) must be baptized post-mortem.
- This is just plain silly to me.
- Would it not make more sense to use the old dictum (was it Luther?): ”There is no salvation outside of Christ?”
- This would allow us to locate the Church, which is absolutely necessary for witness, fellowship, worship, evangelism, discipline, etc…
- AND it would allow us to remain religious inclusivists who acknowledge, no, Rejoice!, that God is at work in the whole world?
- This also makes sense of some otherwise puzzling passages in the New Testament
So how ’bout it? There is no salvation outside of Christ but there is outside of the Church?
Even More ’09 Reflections, or “Futures in Anglicanism,” or “For the Love of God Please Stop”
January 25, 2010
In a previous post I reflected on a chaotic year for Anglicans. The post itself remained largely ambiguous as to whether I saw much hope for the coming year and several commenters wondered aloud what might set us back on track.
Far be it from me to miss an opportunity to wax eloquent on my own opinions. In this post I shall briefly, unsystematically and without much justification toss out some things I’ve been thinking about that, it seems to me, could contribute to a discussion on being faithful to our Tradition. There is absolutely no reason that anyone should take the meanderings of a kid too seriously so take it all with a grain of salt.
Of course there are reasons I think these things, but with homework being of much greater importance than blogging I will largely keep from any thorough justifications for my two cents.
1)For the love of God everybody stop, stop, stop with revisions of all kinds. A total moratorium on all Prayer Book, theologically informed Canon Law, Liturgical and theological revision for at least a decade. Our English is not nearly old enough to need updating, our laws left unchanged will not hand us over to chaos, our prayer and collects are and have been largely consistent with Catholic Christian practice and thought and our theology is not yet proved false. This will provide the common bonds of public trust so as to continue to enable the recognizability within our fellowship. Any priest altering a liturgy independently should be swiftly disciplined and any bishop or province should be pleaded with to just chill out: This means you Church of England with your lady bishops (and I’m all about lady bishops), you Nigeria with your canonical marginalizing of the Archbishop of Canterbury, you Episcopal Church with your endorsing diocene composition and implementation of rites of same sex blessing and consideration of Communing the unbaptized, and you Australia with your insufficient theology of Priesthood and Eucharist.
- 2) With that in mind, for now focus on those things central to our life and mission as Churches. Worship, Evangelism, Justice and Catechesis seem to be atop this list to me.
It seems that these two things will build the trust and love necessary to begin to hash out the future of Anglican practice which will largely be in reference to, either for or against, the Anglican Covenant. It’s here and it’s not going away. The one, a choice rooted in the Protestant conviction that one is at liberty to interpret the Scriptures on their own, the other a choice for that Episcopal concilarity of the first four universally regarded Ecumenical councils.
But the “Covenant” is not nearly enough. As the massive and desperately needed book “Love’s Redeeming Work: The Anglican Quest for Holiness” states, there has been at least since the Second World War, a general inability to understand our Anglican identity. To that end I propose a few things…
Episcopacy is absolutely central to Anglican theology and life. It must be insisted upon and emphasized that in continuity with the very early Church through the ages, we have vigorously maintained that Apostolic Succession by the reality that we have never christened a bishop without the laying on of hands of at least three other bishops so consecrated. Our Liturgies for consecration have never deviated from this. We are not Baptists with prayer books, indifferent to the right ordering of our life, neither do we think Church tradition so trite as to be of no authoritative worth. Our Articles also bear this out as we understand nothing in our liturgies to be contrary to Holy Scripture.- Related to the above…What the hell ever happened to Common Prayer? I propose the possibility of a Book of Common Prayer for use in all Covenanted churches. Or, at the very least, in terms of the liturgist exraordinaire’ Dom Gregory Dix, the “Shape” of our liturgy should agreed upon, especially our Eucharistic liturgy and the liturgies for Episcopal functions like ordination, baptism and confirmation. Parishes should not be allowed to use the Roman Mass nor neglect the Hymnal in favor of modern chorus’, or ignore the Rubrics.
- Similarly we need a Catechism. Which, though not to be used as a “Confession” in the sense that it’s contents are necessarily to be comprehended or assented to in entirety for Salvation, should be widely used and authoritative.
- Communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury is fundamental to being Anglican and is one of the only “checks” against loose consularity and is essential to ecumenical dialogue with the Roman and Orthodox Catholic churches.
- Jesus loves Fender guitars
- There being a large number of Christians in the so-called “Global South” does not meant that a) those Anglicans can disregard their history b) that they cannot nor need not listen to the insights of more historic fellowships, especially the Church of England c) that they have become our rightful judges
- The idea of in-house “parties” like “Anglo-catholic,” “Broad Church” and “Evangelical” needs to become progressively left behind in favor of solidarity. Evangelicals will have been unfaithful Anglicans to the extent that they do not include the whole Christian tradition in their theology, piety and Scripture reading; Anglo-catholics will have been unfaithful to the Reformation in England if they not recognize the centrality of Scripture over all else; and Broad churches will likewise fall short if they don’t realize that there is nothing virtuous about being bland.
- All of this points to the need of a more unified practice of piety.
- If you don’t like it, become a Baptist. ***update*** (One misses the point if they think I’m using “Baptist” pejoratively. I mean only that being Anglican is not simply uniquely British way of being a Congregationalist.)
- Authority is not a four letter word.
- I am most certainly full of myself.
Responses…? Additions…? Complaints…? I want ‘em all.
More ’09 Reflections: Anglican Iconoclasm
January 3, 2010
“Yea, I am persuaded, that of them with whom in this cause we strive, there are whose betters amongst men would be hardly found, if they did not live amongst men, but in some wilderness by themselves. The cause of which their disposition so unframable unto societies wherein they live, is, for that they discern not aright what place and force these several kinds of laws ought to have in all their actions. Is there questions either concerning the regiment of the Church in general, or about conformity between one church and another, or of ceremonies, offices, powers, jurisdictions in our own church? Of all these things they judge by that rule which they frame to themselves with some show of probability, and what seemeth in that sort convenient, the same they think themselves bound to practice; the same by all means they labour mightily to uphold; whatsoever any law of man to the contrary hath determined they weigh it not. Thus by following the law of private reason, where the law of public should take place, they breed disturbance.” Richard Hooker, Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity – I.xvi.6
The ideas were liberating: “We don’t have a Luther or a Calvin, just a Prayer Book;” “It’s not so important that in all things we agree but that we worship together;” “Anglicanism is a Via Media between (insert whatever two things you want);” “You don’t have to leave your brain behind (or another wonderfully condescending phrase);” etc… These are the things that you hear as you begin to approach the Anglican churches. And to a disillusioned Pentecostal who doesn’t know what he believes, they are glorious things to hear.
Unfortunately they are all false. Or at least in most ways confused, or interpreted diversely, or forgotten. In many ways the petty arguments about “Initial Physical Evidence” or really bad eschatology between a tiny minority of youth and their elders in the Assemblies of God pales in comparison to the sheer scope of disagreements currently going on within Anglicanism. And don’t think for a second that the homosexual thing is the only thing. There is a perennial struggle for the soul of the church. Is it Catholic? Is it “biblical?” Is it Evangelical? Is baptism optional? Should laypeople administer the Sacraments? Given the homosexual struggle, was it an error to have allowed Women clergy? Are the large numbers of Christians in the Global South proof of mass Western apostacy?
Whereas these are legitimate questions to ask, we have found that there are no structures available in our various means of Communion to curb the increasingly fierce independence desirous of being expressed in our diverse bodies.
We are a hairs breadth from every Province becoming an island of theological conscience to themselves.
This for me is most terrifying possibility. “Catholicism” is not a matter of mere piety, as if praying with Icons or singing the Magnificat makes one a catholic. Even having monEpiscopacy is not enough to qualify a church for being “Catholic.” “Catholic” is a matter of the structure and vision of a Church. I began attending an Episcopal parish largely on account of C.S. Lewis and N.T. Wright, but I stayed because of Michael Ramsey, Rowan Williams, Richard Hooker, George Herbert, Radical Orthodoxy and the Oxford Movement. I could compose my own Prayer Book, I could plant a church that sung the Divine Liturgy, but I could not make from scratch a Catholic church structure and history. If Anglicanism splits into a looser federation, I’m not really sure where I’d be, but I’d be a wreck.
At every turn I’ve been confronted by contradictions. Many liberals aren’t really inclusive but of their own kind; many evangelicals are deeply unaware of their Anglican history and doctrine; there isn’t much of a Via Media but an intolerable and systematic diversity from low church Reformed Protestants to Anglo-Papists; few know or care why we have Bishops and a Prayer Book instead of a Presbytery and Confessional, unless of course not having a confessional becomes permission for doctrinal indifference or iconoclasm; many conservatives are completely unaware that their highly determined systematic theology influences their “biblical” readings and quite a few liberals don’t yet realize that the academy doesn’t give a rats ass about Tillich anymore.
Not that I’ve not found glimmers of hope. I’ve found a great many reflective priests and there are a number of stupendous Bishops (mostly in the Church of England) and Anglican academic theology is currently without peer in most of the world.
But may I say, in keeping with an open and honest tone, that I’m truly terrified. I know it would be more pious and faithful of me to say that I’m hopeful but I’m not really not. I feel as if I walked into the middle of a Family Feud that I’m not much interested in taking to the grave, and while I hold on in trust, I’m still at a point where I’m apprehensive as to how it will turn out. I say this because I don’t feel as if enough people are saying it even though it’s not very constructive. Of those whom I respect many must put on a good face while many for whom I have less respect are declaring the triumph of their “side.” “Winning,” is not something at this point that can happen and constancy is for those stronger than I.
Lord have Mercy.
Baptism & Eucharist
December 22, 2009
It is pretty rare that we dedicate a post to pointing out someone else’s blogging but I thought this series by Fr. Matt Gunter about the necessity of Baptism for Eucharist was exemplary. O that all our priests could consider theologically in like manner!
PART I – A Sketch of an Argument for the Logic of the Traditional Discipline
PART II – Inclusion vs. Renewal & Incorporation
PART III & IV – Community vs. Association & Fellow Citizens
PART V – Under Judgment
PART VI & VII – Transformation & Whose Table?
PART VIII – Hospitality
PART IX – Conclusion
Tony Hunt
jstambaugh
Shawn Wamsley
