Is the Reformation Over - Additional Views

Richard John Neuhaus, in his Dec 23, 2005 post on First Things weighs in on Mark Noll's book "Is the Reformation Over?"

I have been of the opinion that the differences between Protestants and Catholics have been about soteriology and ecclesiology. There has been, with certain fringe group exceptions, agreement in the basic doctrines of God. Neuhaus focuses on the Doctrine of the Church as the remaining obstacle:

"I believe it is correct to say that the great question now is ecclesiology, and that question has many parts. But it should not be overlooked that, as a consequence, there is a qualitative change in the relationship between Catholics and evangelicals. When the decisive difference was justification, it was a difference over the ultimate question of salvation.

Is the Reformation Over?

Mark Noll recently published a book (with Carolyn Nystrom) that has an intriguing title “Is the Reformation Over – an Evangelical Assessment of contemporary Roman Catholicism”. I have not yet read the book, but there is a fascinating review of it at Reformation21.org

The short answer Noll apparently gives to the question is that since Luther stated that justification by grace through faith is the single tenet on which the Reformation stands or falls, recent statements from Catholic/Protestant dialogues in which Catholics acknowledge that very point are evidence that the Reformation is essentially over.

The Lord's Supper - Part 4

Scripture offers many examples of things which Christians are to accept as true even though they are spiritual realities which cannot be perceived by the senses. We are buried with Christ in baptism, raised as believers with him into the heavenly realms. We are citizens of heaven, eternal beings. We are to reckon ourselves as being dead to sin and alive to God.

None of these things can be subjected to scientific analysis, which is not to say Christianity is irrational. It is built on eyewitness accounts of miracles, an empty tomb and a risen Christ. But we cannot test these propositions about our own spiritual state scientifically. When we begin to try to rationally explain spiritual truths in natural terms, we come up short and cause far more problems than we solve.

In modern times, the effort to provide tidy explanations for spiritual things has led to outright denial of the supernatural in liberal theological camps and to wooden symbolism and denial of the sacramental in more conservative camps. But it is possible to live with the apparent contradiction.

And it is clear from the reading of the early church documents that the apparent contradiction was something that remained. It was not necessary, for them, to explain the unexplainable in modern, watertight terms. Hence, such a notable figure as Cyril can make two seemingly opposite statements in the span of a few sentences.

Referring to John 6, (which Catholic apologists insist must be taken literally), he argues: "Once when Christ was discoursing with the Jews, He said, 'If you do not eat my flesh and drink my blood, you do not have life in you'. Not hearing his words in a spiritual way, they were scandalized and went away to the hinterlands, believing that he had exhorted them to the eating of flesh. (Cyril, Catechetical Lectures - Mystagogic 4,4)"

Note that his point is that the Jews failed to see a spiritual truth behind the words. They were scandalized because they believed he literally meant the eating of human flesh. Cyril says, very simply, that if they thought he referred to literal flesh-eating, they misunderstood. This coincides well with Jesus' explanation of his words later in the chapter, where he says, "The spirit gives life, the flesh counts for nothing".

Yet Cyril, just slightly farther on in his Catechetical Lectures, says something definitive and seemingly contradictory: "Do not regard the Bread and Wine as simply that, for they are, according to the Master's declaration, The Body and Blood of Christ." (Cyril, Catechetical Lectures - Mystagogic 4,6)

How are we to reconcile these two statements? On the one hand, we could take the Roman Catholic position of the 12th century to the present, and argue that the bread and wine are wholly transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ. But to do so, would be to render Cyril's previous statement meaningless, and would require us to re-interpret numerous other statements of the church fathers as well. It would require us to force fit transubstantiation onto the whole of the post-apostolic record.

The Lord's Supper - Part 3

I spent a number of years in churches that taught polar opposite views on the Lord's Supper. The Catholic understanding that the Mass involved a transformation of the whole substance of the bread and wine into the flesh and blood of Christ conjured strange images in my head as a youngster. Then as a teen I embraced the evangelical view derived from Zwingli's influence, that the bread is just bread and the grape juice (no wine) is just grape juice, but we are to be obedient in "remembering" the sacrifice of Christ periodically.

Reading church history has forced me to rethink that common evangelical viewpoint, yet I don"t see that the Catholic view is quite tenable either. But as I looked at the writings of the early church, certain passages in scripture started to take on a richer meaning

The Lord's Supper - Part 2

Christian worship in evangelical circles has become something of a never ending attempt to stay hip. As a result of the Reformer's emphasis that teaching of the Scripture should be central, the pulpit became the primary focus of Protestant free church worship. But as a result of the well intentioned seeker approaches to making church relevant to the unchurched, the pulpit was replaced by the powerpoint screen and the "worship" band. As outreach became the purpose of the Sunday morning service, the whole emphasis of Sunday morning was radically altered - the purpose of worship was no longer worship. Now, in the emergent church movement, there is often a very eclectic hodge-podge of elements ranging from Celtic influences to street graffiti to chant, icons and liturgical formulas, street graffiti and performance art. All of this is still called "worship" - but is it?

Evangelicals have long spoken of wanting to emulate the first century church. But what was the first century church really like? It is simply undeniable that two elements in particular were essential to worship in the early church. First, the reading and teaching of scripture, and second, the celebration of the Eucharist. Both of these elements have fallen from prominence as the pursuit of relevance has replace the pursuit of God.

The Lord's Supper - Part 1

I recently started to understand that though the battles which led to the Reformation were about salvation by grace vs. Salvation by sacramentalism, the roots of the issue went back a bit further. There would be no debate on the issue of faith over works had Pasaschius Radbertus not proposed the theory of transubstantiation in the 9th century.

Radbertus attempted to explain how Christians could partake of the "flesh and blood" of Christ in the Eucharist by appealing to rather literal and metaphysical explanations. In stating that the bread and cup are actually physically transformed into the body and blood of Christ, he set in motion an unfortunate chain of events. The Roman church officially adopted transubstantiation as a doctrine in the 12th century. As this became a central tenet of the church, certain side effects were felt.

The role of the priest was inevitably elevated as he presided over a real and miraculous sacrifice. Masses were said in the absence of laypeople on behalf of others living or dead as this sacrifice was increasingly seen as powerful to remit sin. Since Christ was physically present in the bread, his body and blood were both taken to be present in the bread, so laypeople were no longer offered the cup in communion. The meaning of the Lord's supper became increasingly mysterious, fearsome, beyond the reach of the laypeople and effective in the forgiveness of sins. This effect of elevating the priesthood and making the mass a mysterious miracle was exacerbated by the fact that the mass was said in Latin at a time when the people no longer understood Latin. It was inevitable that many would see participating in the mass as a direct means of salvation. Hus and Wycliff recognized the change in understanding of the Lord's Supper long before Luther came on the scene.

It is odd, however, that such a literal, physical view of the sacrament of Holy Communion came to be applied only to this sacrament. Jesus said, it is argued, "this is my body". He said, "unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you". So, it was reasoned, and still is in Roman Catholic circles, the bread and cup literally become the body and blood and we truly eat his flesh and blood.

Unity

So after numerous posts documenting what I consider to be weaknesses in the state of Evangelicalism at the beginning of the 21st century, and enumerating a number of divisive incidents which have caused me to rethink my association to the evangelical movement, the question could legitimately be asked of me, does any of this rambling contribute at all to unity in the church, and if so how?

And I would suggest as an answer that I am not suggesting any magic fix to disunity in Christianity, but I am seeing a path toward it.

Unity cannot be achieved by the power of the human will. Nor can it be achieved by constantly reinventing Christianity with each generation. It cannot be achieved by blindly and legalistically insisting on the distinctives of a particular denomination or movement. It is not achieved through a particular organizational structure.

Unity begins by listening to a single voice. What is clear and undisputed among Christians of most all stripes and backgrounds?

The Succession of Bishops - Part 5

After wrestling with the question of leadership in the church and examining oft cited quotes from the early fathers, I felt it necessary to gravitate away from the view that the local church is completely autonomous and that leadership is something which merely arises out of personal giftedness and and local church elections. Clearly the early church did not function that way. A few summary thoughts:

1. The key role of the church leader is to defend, teach and preserve apostolic truth. Whatever authority he possesses is for that purpose and that purpose alone. Of course other responsibilities go with that key role, but the teaching of the apostles is the absolute foundation of every ministry, every program, every initiative. To fail on this point is to erode the stability of everything else.

The Succession of Bishops - Part 4

An additional issue related to the “succession of Bishops” is the strongly held belief that there is a unique spiritual continuity that is ceremonially carried forward by the act of consecrating bishops and presbyters. Both Catholics and Orthodox refer often to the “unbroken succession” of bishops from the apostles to the present, sometimes displaying the particular lists which connect a particular bishop to the past. Apostolic authority is, it is believed, granted through the ceremonial “laying on of hands” of one or more bishops consecrating a successor.

The practice of laying on hands is found in numerous places in scripture. In some cases it is not related to a transfer of authority, but rather a transfer of sin. Leviticus 16:21 says of the Hebrew priest Aaron, that on the day of atonement, “He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat's head. He shall send the goat away into the desert in the care of a man appointed for the task.”

Quote of the day

Quote of the day.

"A tolerance which allows God as a private opinion but which excludes him from public life, from the reality of the world and our lives, is not tolerance but hypocrisy. When man makes himself the only master of the world and master of himself, justice cannot exist. Then, arbitrariness, power and interests rule."
Pope Benedict XVI

The Succession of Bishops - Part 3

I have argued thus far that it is not tenable to hold that the concept of a succession of bishops is a fourth century corruption of an earlier congregational model. Clearly, the ideas that there were bishops and that those bishops held their office as a result of a “passing along” of authority from the previous bishop existed in the first century and was firmly in place by the end of the second. It is also clear that this succession was seen as a key to the unity, authority and doctrinal fidelity of the entire Christian church very early in church history.

I have also argued that there are aspects of the selection and retention of bishops that do not fit a purely authoritarian model. It is suggested by more than one of the early fathers that the selection of bishops is done by the “suffrage” or at least with the consent of the people and that there was the possibility of removing those bishops who strayed from their responsibilities either in doctrine or morals.

It is not difficult to see why there is a difference of opinion regarding church government. Those who accept apostolic succession argue strongly for the authority of the bishops. Those who see no such authority explicit in scripture can find support for their views even in the church fathers.

Succession of Bishops - Part 2

While it is difficult to dispute that from the latter part of the first century to the Reformation the entire church was governed under an episcopal structure and that a succession of bishops was seen as a sign of the unity of the church and apostolic teaching, there were significant reasons why the Reformers grew uncomfortable with apostolic succession as it had come to be practiced in the medieval Roman church.

Some of the problems were pure historical accident. As the Roman empire faded in power and faced outside threats, people looked to the bishop of Rome for leadership and some of those bishops acted admirably under pressure. But the result was that the Bishop of Rome became a political as well as spiritual figure and as a result, much intrigue surrounded the selection of successors to the office.

The Donation of Constantine, a document which purportedly gave the Bishop of Rome full authority over significant lands held by the Roman empire and over all other bishops, did cause papal power to be consolidated. Unfortunately, the document was exposed as a forgery in the 15th century, just prior to the Reformation. And not all who ascended to the chair of Peter were necessarily worthy of the role or title to say the least. When coupled with the indulgence controversy, the well known abuses of power by bishops and popes, it is not difficult to see why suspicion of apostolic succession grew to a rejection of it.

But it is also possible that the succession of Bishops as understood by the early church is somewhat different from the view of succession that had grown in the middle ages. If so, rejection of the latter view does not require rejection of the former.

In the first place, Paul gave Timothy very clear guidelines for who should be allowed to assume leadership in the church in I Timothy 3:2-7. Such requirements as - being the husband of but one wife (not necessarily celibate), not greedy, not a new convert, able to teach - cannot be applied to many who have held ecclesiastical office in general, much less the papal tiarra. The sins that plagued the Papacy in the middle ages are well enough documented, not the least of which was the divided papacy between Rome and Avignon and the violent intrigue that surrounded it. Whatever the early fathers meant by succession, it could not have meant the power struggles and corruption that marked the papacy during much of the middle ages.

Succession of Bishops Part 1

After nearly thirty years of experience in evangelical congregation churches, I came to a conclusion that as evangelicals, we are certain we know what legitimate authority is not, but are far less sure we know what legitimate authority is. As I wearily asked a few members of the church I called home for fifteen years, "who, in a congregation church, is the congregation accountable to?" None of us had a good answer. But I was gradually coming to a conclusion.

For three to four years I had dabbled in the study of early church documents. I owned Bettenson's "Documents of the Early Church" and Pelikan's "Emergence of the Catholic Tradition". I bought Jurgen's "Faith of the Early Fathers - Vol 1" and poured over quotations on the internet. I read apologetics from Catholic converts like Scott Hahn and Thomas Howard as well as Orthodox viewpoints from Frank Schaeffer and Kalistos Ware. What I discovered challenged long held assumptions and forced me to alter my views.

It is an unexamined assumption of most in the American Evangelical movement that an Episcopal form of church government - that is - a structure of churches governed by Bishops, was a corruption of the early church pattern that originated after Constantine legalized Christianity and the church became entangled in the politics of the Roman empire. It is generally assumed that the early church was made up of local churches governed by councils of elders and that, on occasion, regional councils of elders would gather to debate and decide larger issues. Any notion that there was significant authority in the Episcopal office was an "unbiblical" corruption that may have existed here and there, but never became the norm until the Roman church was corrupted by power in the fourth or fifth century.

Unfortunately the evidence militates against such a view. I "discovered" what should have never been lost, that by the end of the first century a significant view of the authority of Bishops was already present and by the second century a strong argument for a succession of Episcopal authority was in full force. What is more, such a view was held and argued by many and was essentially unquestioned throughout the history of the church until the Reformation. (This does not necessarily mean that no embellishments have crept into the Roman or Eastern church over two-thousand years, but that is for another discussion).

The oft quoted statement of Clement, who died in 99 A.D. makes it clear that some sense of authority being passed through a succession of Bishops was assumed in the church by the generation which lived immediately after, if not contemporary with, the apostles.

"Our apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife for the office of bishop. For this reason, therefore, having received perfect foreknowledge, they appointed those who have already been mentioned and afterwards added the further provision that, if they should die, other approved men should succeed to their ministry" (Letter to the Corinthians)

It is Irenaeus, in the second century, who is most often associated with the notion that true authority in the church is passed along in some sort of succession from bishop to bishop.

"It is possible, then, for everyone in every church, who may wish to know the truth, to contemplate the tradition of the apostles which has been made known to us throughout the whole world. And we are in a position to enumerate those who were instituted bishops by the apostles and their successors down to our own times, men who neither knew nor taught anything like what these heretics rave about" (Against Heresies 3:3:1 [A.D. 189]).

Tertullian, Gregory, Cyprian, Gerome, Eusebius and Augustine could all be quoted, and often are, as clearly articulating a pattern of apostolic succession. Cyprian, in particular makes a statement that ought to raise the eyebrows of anyone in a purely independent congregational church. Arguing against the heretic Novatian, he appeals to the unity of the church, as evidenced by both consistent teaching and structural continuity through the office of Bishop. One cannot assume leadership in the church, according to Cyprian, unless one is a successor to a previous leader:

"...Novatian is not in the Church; nor can he be reckoned as a bishop, who, succeeding to no one, and despising the evangelical and apostolic tradition, sprang from himself. For he who has not been ordained in the Church can neither have nor hold to the Church in any way" (Letters 69[75]:3 [A.D. 253]).

It would seem to me that anyone claiming authority simply on the basis of a subjective "call to ministry" who is not in some way willing to submit to the authority of the larger church would be summarily dismissed by most of the early fathers. But this does not mean that apostolic succession was an authoritarian arrangement. Gregory, echoing the Didache makes mention of the appointment of the bishop "by the vote of the whole people, not in the evil fashion which has since prevailed, nor by means of bloodshed and oppression.." suggestion that Irenaeus' concern about "strife over the office of the episcopate" was well founded, and it was apparent that certain methods of selection of bishops included an idea of consent. The whole church was involved, not just those who held office. This is echoed by Jerome, Cyprian, and Clement

Two Questions

My wife has rightly chastised me for focusing too much on the personal wounds which have led me to disillusionment with the present state of Evangelicalism. It is probably quite self-indulgent, and perhaps boring to some. I felt it necessary as background, my experience is something I cannot escape and something that has driven me to think, reason, pray and search. But ultimately I must turn a corner and move in a positive direction. There is a bottom line in all this.

I have been seeing the same trend for a quarter of a century toward subjective and individualistic expressions of Christian faith and have tried as a local church member to sound the alarm. As a rule my pleas have usually not been well comprehended, at other times they have been dismissed or ignored as mere "intellectual" concerns, not related to real life, as if ideas about right and wrong and truth are not "real".

We, as Christians, cannot speak to either individuals or the culture at large with any sort of moral authority if Christianity is merely another human opinion or warm experience that merely makes us feel better. For years I complained in frustration as the secular society ridiculed Christian faith as "personal/subjective" opinion and thus casually dismissed efforts to roll back laws which allowed the killing of pre-born infants and hurtled toward infanticide. I got the sense many in the church did not understand the root causes of what was happening.

Then it became clear why. Evangelicals had, by and large, accepted the very premise I was battling against. Their faith was in fact, exactly as described, a personal, subjective experience that led to an individual opinion about what was true for them. The Bible has been intentionally advertised in many evangelical circles as "love letters" to each individual to be interpreted according to his or her own needs and, as a result, not according to objective criteria of grammar, context or common understanding.

If it seems I exaggerate, consider that today only one-fourth to one-third of adults in evangelical churches believe in absolute truth and only ten per cent of teens. If truth is not absolute and objective, it is by definition relative and subjective. A casual look at the lyrics of many, if not most, of the "worship" choruses flooding the Christian music market reveals that most express feelings of closeness to "God" or a need for an experience, as opposed to affirmation of the timeless truths of the historic faith.

In recent years, many in the "emergent" church movement have swallowed theories of radical post-modernism uncritically and welcomed the idea that Christianity is one worldview among many and some even suggest it is an act of "violence" or even "terrorism" to suggest Christianity has a claim to absolute truth. Hence Christianity becomes one more opinion in a talk show saturated society, where truth is determined by who can purchase time on the airwaves and package the product most strategically.

What then is the answer? It begins with reframing the essential question.

Protestants and Evangelicals, seeking a source of authority have traditionally asked "what does scripture say?" They do so as a habitual reaction against the authoritarian misteps of the medieval Roman Church. But the result has been endless competition about how to interpret scripture. Fragmentation, division, denominationalism and in the end, despair of any hope of unity in the "universal" church is the state of affairs today.

Catholics and Orthodox, in seeking a final authority ask instead "what does the church teach?" This is a question forged in historic battles against heresy in the early centuries of the church and is repeated in the face of the endless fragmentation of Protestantism. But the result has been an inability to self-correct when tradition has strayed beyond the confines of clear texts of Scripture.

But there is a third way, suggested by Vincent of Lerins and echoed by Thomas Oden. That is to ask not one question but two, and in a particular order. The Reformers were correct in asking first, "what does Scripture say", but to counter the individualism of the age and restore our connection to the church of history, we must ask a second question, "how has the whole church understood that authoritative body of scripture across the centuries?"

By grounding the church in the first question, we avoid the tendency to allow "tradition" to stray into unsupportable areas. But by seriously considering the second, we may avoid and perhaps even roll back much of the fragmentation that has plagued the western church for half a millennium.

But this has implications many evangelicals will not welcome and Catholics and Orthodox will also find difficult to accept as well. Evangelicals will have to abandon the practice of reinventing the Christianity with every twist and turn of culture. This will have a significant impact on how evangelicals worship, on how they approach theology, eschatology, and to a certain extent, evangelism and discipleship. Catholics and Orthodox would need to reconsider the cherished belief that what the Roman or Eastern church teaches today is necessarily equivalent to what the church has always taught, to entertain the notion that like the Jewish teachers and priests of Jesus' day, at least some cherished traditions may be of men and not necessarily of God.

In short, humility is needed. Dialog is mere monologue if one assumes a conclusion before the discussion begins. Such a dialog grounds truth not in rationalism or individualism, nor does it ground truth merely in ecclesiastical authority. Truth, instead, is grounded in the revelation of Scripture, understood and affirmed by millions of believers across twenty centuries and across a multitude of cultures. Such truth is not a mere opinion. Nor is it an authoritarian decree. It's source is supernatural, attested to by the reliability of scripture itself and the historicity of the incarnation and the cross, but also attested to by the common threads of understanding that have transcended all the debates, battles, human foibles, historical circumstances of two millennia. Such truth is summarized in the Apostles Creed, Nicene Creed and Athanasian Creed, but is also affirmed again and again in the faith statements of many, many church and parachurch organizations. And on questions that still divide, a path toward consensus may still one day become apparent.

Francis Schaeffer correctly noted that the central question of the age was one of epistemology, how we know what we know. He correctly identified that autonomous human reason was insufficient and that irrational mysticism was even worse. He identified revelation as the ultimate point of reference which enables us to make sense of God's world. I once despaired that so few understood. And even Schaeffer mourned over the disunity of the Protestant "church before the watching world". I despaired even more when radical postmodern theorists tore down not only rationalism, but rationality as well.

But Thomas Oden, by pointing to Vincent of Lerins, has pointed a way forward. Humility, based in scripture, but dedicated to listening to ALL of church history and not merely the faction we happen to be a part of at the moment, can lead us forward.

Objections

Some have objected to my pulling not away from, but back from, independent evangelicalism on the grounds that the division that exists in the evangelical church is largely superficial, that is division does occur, but not usually on the basis of major theological issues.

I agree in part, that the evangelical world has not as a whole repudiated essential Christian doctrine, and that division often occurs for petty and personal reasons, rather than doctrinal ones. Thomas Oden and J.I. Packer have just published a book, One Faith: The Evangelical Consensus, which attempts to show that on essential doctrine, evangelicals do have a common core of belief.

But as I look back on division as I have seen, experienced and to some degree participated in it, I have to counter that in nearly every case, division had a theological root.

One church split, in part, because of differing views of eschatology. The congregation held a pre-tribulation rapture view, that Christ would remove the church from the earth prior to seven years of judgment which precede his physical return in His second coming. The pastor held a post-tribulation view and sincerely felt that if believers, expecting to be "rescued" from such a time of tribulation were not in fact "snatched away", they would be ill equipped to deal with the struggles, suffering and persecution that might follow (assuming, as all did, that we were in fact near the "end times".) To evangelicals in the late 1970s, this was neither a petty nor a non-theological issue. And it is not insignificant that these intense debates are over a view of eschatology unknown to the church prior to the 19th century.

A second issue contributing to a major division was interpretation of scripture regarding moderate social drinking. Was it acceptable for a Christian adult to drink a beer with a friend? Romans 14 was quoted, emotionally and passionately insisting that it was wrong to cause young Christians to stumble. (It was not noted quite as strongly that Romans 14 also speaks of passing judgment on another for what he eats or drinks.)

A church struggled with division over a building program centered largely on the evangelical practice of the "faith promise". The congregation was expected to make a pledge of contributions "over and above" the normal tithe, trusting God to provide the extra on the basis of faith. The questions "faith in what? Faith for what? On the basis of what?" were not questions I asked as a young adult. I supported the project and the leadership. But the nebulous realm of undefined faith led to bitter and acrimonious exchanges about "pushing" on the part of leadership and "resisting" on the part of the congregation.

Then, in yet another situation, there was the issue of "signs and wonders" theology. According to this line of thinking, true revival comes when the Holy Spirit "moves" in power. Revival will occur when people see miracles, healings, changed lives, and things that are beyond the realm of normal experience. Unfortunately, at least one "healing" turned out to be bogus, and weekly sermons tended to use scripture as a proof text for a pre-conceived conclusion, rather than reading scripture objectively and allowing scripture to speak for itself.

Finally, in a long protracted struggle, there were issues related to authority. Where does authority come from? How far does it extend? Who gives authority and how? When can authority be questioned? If Elders are elected for a "term" by a congregation, are they accountable to the congregation? Does the pastor cast the vision for the church or does the church cast its own vision? Does the youth pastor set the tone for his program or does he try to please the parents? When conflict arises how is it resolved and by whom? Does the denomination have a right to interfere? Does the denomination have a responsibility to interfere?

Because evangelicals have as the rock bottom foundation for their existence the authority of scripture, every issue is at its heart theological. And this is the problem, exacerbated by the individualism of the late twentieth century, that critics of evangelicalism most often point to. Since evangelicals generally accept the idea of the right of personal interpretation, that scripture is not the exclusive domain of the clergy, it becomes the private right of each individual to make up his or her own mind about everything.

And since we, as evangelicals, have little or no knowledge of the history of Christianity, save for a general knowledge of Luther and the Reformation, most read scripture in a historical vacuum. We lack context for our personal Bible reading and it becomes very subjective. Scripture means what we understand it to mean, and as such, it does not have the authority for "correction, reproof, and training in righteousness" (2 Tim. 3:16) that it should. It is an exaggeration to say, as Franky Schaeffer has, that we become our own popes, but even an exaggeration has an element of truth.

There is a passage in Vincent's Commonitorium that I wish every evangelical could memorize. "Here, it may be, some one will ask, Since the canon of scripture is complete, and is itself abundantly sufficient, what need is there to join to it the interpretation of the Church? The answer is that because of the very depth of Scripture all men do not place one identical interpretation upon it...Therefore, because of the intricacies of error which is so multiform, there is great need for the laying down of a rule for the exposition of Prophets and Apostles in accordance with the standard of the interpretation of the Church Catholic (Universal)."

Vincent assumes scripture is complete, that it is abundantly sufficient. That is not the question. What he adds, he adds because even in his day, multiplicities of interpretation existed. What is needed is a standard of interpretation. What is that standard? His answer, "...we take the greatest care to hold that which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all."

My problem is simple. I have come to understand that scripture alone as the most authoritative written record of apostolic teaching, sola scriptura, though it is a true concept, is an insufficient one. It is impossible to have a stable approach to scripture apart from the history of the church. And the more I studied the church of history, the less it looked like the congregationally governed, variety-show influenced, people focused, constantly changing organizations I had associated with for a quarter century.

I was not, and am not seeking a personal preference for something "new" or "different". I am not abandoning rationality in favor of "mystery". I am not abandoning scriptural authority in favor of ecclesiastical power. I am trying to delve more deeply into truth, to be submissive to something higher than myself, to stand on the shoulders of those who have come before. I am trying to be obedient to the teaching of the apostles. And I found I could not do that in churches where independence is the dominant guiding principle.

Sola Scriptura

I have said much about why I have been uncomfortable with the path Protestantism has taken, particularly in the last century or so. But I do not wish to be unclear. I remain "Protestant" in many ways. And I should be clear about some things I still cling to from my Protestant heritage. One is the authority of scripture.

I am always curious about the assertion of apologists for Eastern Orthodoxy or Catholicism that the Protestant conception of Sola Scriptura is a rationalist invention of independent radicals Reformers in the 16th century, with no basis in scripture or church history.

On the one hand I sympathize. Liberal Protestantism has, on the one hand, turned the scripture into a pliable document which has been twisted to support virtually every faddish political cause of the 20th century, not the least of which are condoning abortion and endorsing ordination of practicing homosexuals. On the other hand, many Evangelicals, particularly during the New Age era, were content to use the scriptures as a sort of sanctified ouija board, gleaning subjective "personal" guidance from obscure passages with no regard whatsoever for grammar, syntax, context, historical background or any sense of the history of the church's long understanding. Today scripture is often seen as a self-help text from which only "positive" messages can be harvested leaving the husks of the hard sayings of scripture behind.

But to say, as many advocates of the primacy of "tradition" do, that the Bible was a product of the church, is a bit of an exaggeration, to say the least. And to say that the history of the church had no conception of scripture being an ultimate authority by which all else should be judged simply ignores evidence to the contrary, exhibit A being the very word "canon".

The term canon means measuring rod. In saying scripture is the canon the early church established a standard of teaching by which all other teaching must be judged. What the reformers, for all their faults and excesses, had in mind was simply to allow the canon to be the canon.

Lest I neglect to offer at least a bit of support for this contention, I should quote scripture itself to start. Deuteronomy 30:10 is just one Old Testament example of the typically Jewish understanding that written scripture has a unique authority, saying, "if you obey the LORD your God and keep his commands and decrees that are written in this Book of the Law and turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul." It should be clear to anyone who reads scripture that the authority of written revelation is assumed from cover to cover.

Jesus constantly argued with the Pharisees, the advocates of "tradition" of his day, by quoting scripture. "It is written" is his constant refrain. He chides them, "You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me," (John 5:39) I do not think Jesus meant to totally discredit tradition, that is, the "passing down" of truth from one generation to the next, but he said much about scripture in a way that acted as a check on abuses of tradition, which were rampant in Jewish Pharasaism.

Paul clearly articulates the concept of a "canon" in 1 Cor 4:6, "Now, brothers, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, 'Do not go beyond what is written. Then you will not take pride in one man over against another.' So written documents clearly are authoritative and are intended as a limit on subsequent teaching.

For those who need patristic evidence, I could quote Cyril from the fourth century:

"For concerning the divine and sacred Mysteries of the Faith, we ought not to deliver even the most casual remark without the Holy Scriptures: nor be drawn aside by mere probabilities and the artifices of argument. Do not then believe me because I tell thee these things, unless thou receive from the Holy Scriptures the proof of what is set forth: for this salvation, which is of our faith, is not by ingenious reasonings, but by proof from the Holy Scriptures." (The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril 4.17)

Gregory of Nyssa, also in the 4th century articulates the concept of scripture as canon: " ...we make the Holy Scriptures the rule and the measure of every tenet (dogma); we necessarily fix our eyes upon that, and approve that alone which may be made to harmonize with the intention of those writings." (Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (Peabody: Hendrikson, 1995), Second Series: Volume V, Philosophical Works, On the Soul And the Resurrection, p. 439). Gregory of Nyssa

And Athanasius seems perilously close to arguing for a supposedly "modern" concept of inerrancy: "We, however, who extend the accuracy of the Spirit to the merest stroke and tittle, will never admit the impious assertion that even the smallest matters were dealt with haphazard by those who have recorded them, and have thus been borne in mind to the present day." (Athanasius, Orations 11.105)

Augustine bluntly points out that the writings of the fathers, though valuable, are in no way equal to scripture. "As regards our writings, which are not a rule of faith or practice, but only a help to edification, we may suppose that they contain some things falling short of the truth in obscure and recondite matters, and that these mistakes may or may not be corrected in subsequent treatises ...Such writings are read with the right of judgment, and without any obligation to believe. ...In the innumerable books that have been written latterly we may sometimes find the same truth as in Scripture, but there is not the same authority. Scripture has a sacredness peculiar to itself. (Augustine, Reply to Faustus the Manichaean, book 11.5)

When the Reformers looked at what they believed to be significant changes in the understanding of the Eucharist, the novel additions of teachings on Purgatory, indulgences, and excesses in ecclesiastical authority, they argued simply that the canon should be the canon, that scripture should be the measuring rod by which those teachings should be evaluated. They were doing exactly what the Bereans were commended for in Acts 17. "Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true."

Converts and apologists for Orthodox and Catholic traditions are correct to point out the excesses of Protestant abuse of scripture (which began almost immediately after the start of the Reformation). They are not correct to blame the excesses on Sola Scriptura itself. Sola Scriptura is simply a restatement of what the church had laid down as a standard in the fourth century, that Scripture is the Canon, the measuring rod.

Rather than tear down Sola Scriptura, I would wish that Roman Catholic advocates of Holy Tradition would heed the words of Vatican II document Dei Verbum a bit more closely, "This teaching office is not above the word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on, listening to it devoutly, guarding it scrupulously and explaining it faithfully in accord with a divine commission and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it draws from this one deposit of faith everything which it presents for belief as divinely revealed." (Dei Verbum 2)

The Pope formerly known as Cardinal Ratzinger once said that Dei Verbum attempts to "take into account, to the widest possible extent, the points made by the Reforchurch'srchs and was intended to keep the field open for a Catholic idea of Sola Scriptura." (Thomas G Guarino, Catholic Reflections on Discerning the Truth of Sacred Scripture, Quoted in "Your Word is Truth", ed. Colson and Neuhaus, p 86)

And as Orthodox Theologian Georges Florovsky has stated, echoing the fifth century figure Vincent of Lerins, "Tradition was actually Scripture rightly understood. And Scripture was for Vincent the only, primary and ultimate, canon of Christian truth." (Quoted in Eastern Orthodox Theology ed. Daniel B. Clenendin, p 99)

Sola Scriptura does not mean the Bible is my personal property to be read outside the understanding of the whole of church history. Evangelicals should be most severely chastised for allowing this travesty of subjectivism to flourish. Catholic and Orthodox believers have every right to challenge these excesses and many Protestants make the same point. But Sola Scriptura does mean the church has a responsibility to restrict itself to what can be reasonably gleaned from scripture. Where teachings develop in any tradition that seem to have no basis in the written text, according to scripture and many of the early fathers, we have a right to demand proof or reject such teachings as false, or at best, unnecessary.

Which is why, though I am uncomfortable with evangelical excesses, I am unwilling to let go of this particular Protestant distinctive.

Division

We live in a fallen world and some division between sinful and selfish people is inevitable. In fact, even in the earliest accounts of church history, arguments and all out verbal warfare can be seen. But my experience in evangelical churches over 28 years has been marred by too many instances of heart-wrenching discord and separation between people who were at one time close. Only one out of the six evangelical churches that I have been associated with has avoided some sort of major power struggle and the wreckage these battles have left in terms of broken relationships and wounded families, particularly among the young, is very hard to comprehend.

As a young man of nineteen, I witnessed a Pastor and mentor leave a church ostensibly to become a missionary, but the reality was he was under duress. During the same spring, the pastor of the church near my hometown, which was the first non-Catholic church I had ever attended, was forced out based in part on differences of opinion on end times Bible interpretation and the social drinking of an adult son of the Pastor.

A few years later the church I attended in California split over a building program. This was preceded by the less than delicate termination of employment of an associate and youth pastor.
Two years later, a church I attended was led by a pastor with just a high school education. He fell under the spell of “signs and wonders” theology. Misuse of scripture and at least one bogus healing went unchecked and uninvestigated by the leadership. At that point I was feeling bewildered. But a job change led to a relocation and I saw 12 years of peace in two different churches.

Then it happened again. Differing views of authority vs a habit of independence, much miscommunication, and some personal issues precipitated a split in another church. An attempt was made to rebuild, one that I was determined to participate in. For five years I poured myself into the task. There was the work of, “casting a new vision”, redrafting a constitution and charting a course, and a new pastor was called. His intentions were good, but it was quickly apparent that his view of the new constitution was unfavorable, and the vision statement the church had worked months to draft was unwisely discarded. Influenced by the strategies of church growth gurus, ambitious programs were undertaken and in a short time key families, mine included, were exhausted. Tensions rose and yet another pastor resigned.

After the departure of another youth pastor, something in me finally snapped. The emotional strain of trying to resolve conflicts and stay on course proved too much. It was during this time, that I started to wonder if it was even possible to maintain a healthy congregational church. I asked in one Elder meeting a simple question. In congregational churches the leadership is accountable to the congregation. “Who”, I asked, “is the congregation accountable to?” We all sat in silence. No one, amazingly, had ever really asked the question.

It is not that I believe the faith or sincerity of Free Church evangelicals is in question. Rather, I finally have come to conclude evangelicals have been victims of their own ingenuity, constantly trying to invent a better mousetrap, suspicious of the excesses and abuses of the past. The unfortunate events of the middle ages and the acrimony of the Reformation have made it impossible for evangelicals to see anything good in the historical church since the day the last bit of ink dried on the New Testament epistles up till Luther's revolt against Rome.

But as a result of the independence and fear of the abuse of absolute power, a pattern of absolute autonomy has produced the opposite evil. The average evangelical pastor manages to remain in a particular church on the average about two years. The concern many of the evangelical converts to Catholicism or Orthodoxy raise is the difficult to refute objection that there are now over 25,000 different evangelical denominations. Division is the rule, not the exception.

I cannot get around the fact that the first church split occurred more than a half century before Protestantism. Protests by Catholic and Orthodox apologists about Protestant disunity are taken with a grain of salt. Unity is not in our nature. Perfection is not a realistic expectation.

But there are too many painful reasons not to at least feel uncomfortable in the evangelical protestant “congregational” tradition – if one has in mind any concept of a church which “the gates of Hell will not stand” against.

For many months I sat in church with a suffocating weight crushing my spirit. Experience is a hard teacher at times. It was becoming clear to me that though absolute power might corrupt absolutely, too much autonomy could never produce stability. There has to be a better way.

Authority

I have been attempting to document my reasons for drifting away from the loose and independent evangelicalism I have been associated with for most of the last 28 years. I discussed the tendency to evaluate truth on the basis of experience and the excesses this has led to. I need to add to that an issue that Orthodox converts like Franky Schaeffer have rather mercilessly pointed out - a poor conception of authority that has led to endless division and as a result a lack of moral authority in the culture at large. My experience confirms his criticisms, even if I cannot quite embrace his final conclusion...

Protestantism is founded on a simple principle. That principle is that no authority-figure in a religious organization deserves unquestioned allegiance. If someone in authority should stray from the clear teaching of the apostles, then their authority is false and even a lowly German Monk should have the right to question him. It could be said, on the positive side, that this shift in thinking in the church had a huge impact on larger culture, further paving the way for a move from the divine right of kings to an acceptance of constitutional democracy. But that move toward democracy and away from the pure authority of the episcopate is most obvious in free church evangelicalism.

Unfortunately this movement away from Episcopal authority may have produced side effects we still do not understand. Our somewhat democratic way of dealing with the issue of authority in many churches means that anybody with a Bible and a title or even a subjective ”call” can claim spiritual authority. Much of my own experience has been marred by constitutional conflicts, varying interpretations of roles of officers, and in the end if one does not agree with the way things are done it is easy enough to simply leave and go elsewhere (which I admit I have done in some cases). The actions of one group of leaders, presumably taken with much thought and prayer can easily be overturned by a subsequent group of leaders on the basis that they felt "led by the Lord" in a new direction. Was the old direction not "led by the Lord"? How do we verify such a thing? Who do we trust? How do we submit? Certainly human leadership can be wrong and decisions sometimes must be reversed, but the balance between change and stability seems almost non-existent.

And on the other hand, pastors and others in church leadership seem to face the opposite temptation. Once entrenched in a position of authority, many find it easy to insist that their directives be followed at all costs and without question. They see a somewhat military “chain of command” that one dare not resist. If a pastor teaches heresy or abusively rules over the lives of those under his charge, there seems no reasonable recourse for those in the congregation to employ. No amount of reasoning, hard evidence and scriptural argument can dislodge such a leader from his doctrinal, intellectual or political viewpoint. Once he believes his view is “God’s way”, the argument is in effect over – or perhaps just beginning.

In either scenario, the tug of war between leadership and the lay people all too often leads to division. Without clear guidelines for establishing leadership and holding leadership accountable, many evangelical churches face an almost impossible task to remain unified. It should be noted that this tension is not completely unique to evangelicalism, or Protestantism. But the proliferation of denominations is both a cause and symptom of the problem.

Is the problem that individualistic American evangelical lay people just don’t know how to submit to proper authority within legitimate roles? Or is part of the problem that many of those in “authority” are not suited for or worthy of the roles they fill? Probably both in many cases. Because authority today is fully grounded in the “me and my Bible” mentality, the legitimate individual response exhibited by the Berean church in carefully checking the teaching of even the Apostle Paul against their Old Testament scriptures can quickly become a subjective witch hunt where folks want teachers who will “tickle their ears”. If they don’t get what they want they establish opposing camps and the battle escalates.

On the other hand, undisciplined preachers quite often do abuse scripture in their preaching and abuse their roles in practice. And if even the most well-meaning of laypersons should raise an objection, they may be accused of “resisting God”, “resisting the Holy Spirit” being divisive, being tools of Satan. Often these accusations come subtly in the form of sermon allusions, but the pattern is the same. Instead of leadership by men whose desire is to serve, there are just enough wolves in clerical clothing whose thirst for power is difficult to bridle that a level of distrust between laymen and leadership has developed that may never be overcome.

In Protestant circles, authority is supposed to be grounded in Scripture and men are supposed to derive their authority from some combination of biblical principle, demonstrated leadership ability, endorsement from other leaders and some level of consent from the congregation they oversee. Each denomination fine-tunes that mixture according to its own recipe. The further the denomination is removed from the first days of the Reformation, the more limited the authority of the leadership.

Catholic ecclesiology, on the other hand, teaches that even a priest who is immoral or a heretic can, because of his office, dispense valid sacraments. One salutes the office, not the man. Hence division is not as prevalent, though my experience with Catholicism is enough to validate division can manifest itself in covert as well as overt ways. It is well known that even some popes have been both immoral and heretics and those under them submitted grudgingly to their authority, or simply ignored them. One tends to think that Luther was right in insisting that such men should not be in authority.

Yet we live in the days of the opposite extreme. We think, as evangelicals, that we know what legitimate authority is not, but we find it difficult to say with any degree of comfort what legitimate authority is. I am weary of the battles. There has to be something more stable than mere congregationalism. I am a big fan of democracy, but democracy is messy business. I am no longer convinced that is what Christ, Peter and Paul had in mind for the church...

Experientialism

I need to document some of the reasons I have long felt a certain "cognitive dissonance" with evangelicalism. One of the key problems for me has been that I have long watched the evangelical movement increasingly adopting the notion that truth is determined by experience.

It seems more and more that evangelicalism is steeped in feeling over fact, and relationship over reason.

Yet this presents a problem: If my “experience” is different from the prevailing flow, is there something wrong with me? In my early evangelical days, I devoured books by C.S. Lewis, Josh McDowell, Francis Schaeffer and others, books that tried to show the reasonableness of Christianity, its historicity, that it can be demonstrated to make sense and be true to reality. I spent hours looking into apologetics from understanding the first chapters of Genesis to the evidence for the resurrection to the logical defenses of the existence of God. I thought everyone would find such things relevant, interesting, vital to a solid faith. To this day, that intellectual foundation has been the source of a lasting commitment to God and the scriptures.

As the years went on I found more and more that I was the exception to the rule. Today, the emphasis of evangelical Christianity is on “relationship”. If one has a good experiential “sense” of being in communion with God, that is the vital thing, perhaps the only thing. Evidence matters little, in part because more and more evangelical leaders have swallowed the mystical post-modern notion that our understanding is so imprisoned in our subjective perceptions that evidence can never be looked at objectively. As a result our churches are primarily built on methods of providing a positive "experience" and a good group of social acquaintances and emotional support.

When I was young the criticism of the church was that it was too much of a “social club”. Today, that is exactly what seems to be the desired goal in church growth strategies. Provide a good hook to get folks in the door and surround them with people who will smother them with affection, and you will have made a convert – at least for a time. It works. But it works for cults as well and has no necessary connection to the question of whether Christianity is true.

If one has an “experience” with something that is alleged to be of the Holy Spirit, then that is all the proof that person feels is needed of the validity of the event. But if one detects doctrinal deviation in the teaching and dares to call it to the attention of those in charge, he will be quickly dismissed or even denounced as one who “resists the Spirit”. I am not exaggerating in this case. I have been treated in this way more than once. Truth is no longer determined by reason and evidence. Truth is determined by feelings and pragmatic instant results. In this way parts of the evangelical church are not at all different from the worst of the postmodern fringe or the New Age cults.

I should stress that some of this is a reaction to the cold intellectualism of the “modern” period, where “head knowledge” ruled the day and had no connection to real life. But Biblical and historic Christianity must not be confused with modernism. Modernism at least shares the belief implied in scripture that there is an objective world that can be understood rationally. But modernism denies the source of that objectivity and had no way to sustain it. The men of the enlightenment tried to base everything on reason and in the end reason alone could not sustain the load. For historic Christianity, reason was a God-given tool, nothing more. And objective truth was not based on reason itself but on the God who created all of reality. For the radically postmodern mind, reason is an illusion. And many evangelicals today are products of this extreme postmodern mindset.

Postmodern people react against modernism with extreme skepticism toward reason. In one encounter, an evangelical friend told me that seeking theological education was a sure way to be influenced negatively by the “wisdom of men”. He was involved in a fairly extreme Pentecostal church. I asked if his Pastor had sought any theological training. He said no. I asked how this pastor managed, then, to prepare a simple sermon. His answer was that he did not need to prepare, the Holy Spirit just revealed the words to him as he spoke. I asked then, why did this pastor even need the Bible, the scriptures themselves?

His reply – “he doesn’t need the Bible”.

“That’s heresy”, I replied. At which point he started to reconsider his position.

Such an example may seem extreme to the evangelical in a middle-American small town church. It is not extreme at all in reality. One can find plenty of examples on the religious airwaves, on the religious bookshelves and one can be relatively certain that at least one church in most any town wanders near the edge of such experiential nonsense.

And the problem is it trickles down. We want an “encounter” with God, a feeling of being loved and accepted and evangelical programming has become adept at providing it. We provide a warm community, a carefully crafted Sunday morning service that makes us “feel” close to God. But the level of doctrinal and biblical illiteracy betrays the shallowness of the ultimate product.

As many as 91 out of 100 evangelical teenagers no longer believe there is such a thing as an absolute truth. How can one believe in God and not believe in an absolute truth? Does God both exist and not exist? One can reconcile that seeming discrepancy only if God is just a “personal experience” and not an objective reality. This is becoming the norm for evangelicals.

But a God who only exists in my head is no God at all, he is merely an idea, and such believers should be pitied, not put on a pedestal. As Paul said, “… if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.” (1 Cor 15:14)

Devastation

This is not a news blog, but I cannot let the devastation in New Orleans and the surrounding areas go by without a word of concern. Let us all focus on helping and healing now and leave the political sniping about who is to blame for a later time. This is the time for compassion, not campaigning.

A New Beginning

I have not posted in quite a while. This will be a long one...

There comes a point in time when one has to face reality. I decided, after 25 years or so of discomfort, that I needed to graciously bow out of the world of independent evangelicalism and try to find a connection to the early church. For many of my friends, this decision seems confusing, to a few it may seem outright heretical. But there are reasons that are practical and not just theological or personal.

If one accepts the premise (which all Protestants and most Catholics do) that there was corruption in the Roman church leading up to the Reformation, then one should accept that there were at least valid reasons for protest. (Whether a division of the western church was necessary is another matter.) I have come to understand that the protest which was intended to call the church back to the center instead led to a tug of war with Rome pulling one way and the Reformers pulling the other. Unfortunately, the rope broke. As a result, it appears that the Roman church continued on a path that was veering off to one side on certain issues, but the protestant churches, at the breaking of the rope, fell away to the other side, veering away from the center in the other direction.

Luther and the reformers objected to indulgences, transubstantiation and abuse of papal power. But Luther ended up rejecting the book of James. Calvin agreed with Luther about Rome, but ended up denying (to some degree) human free will. Zwingli rejected the sacraments and largely redefined worship. And so a steady devolution began. Eventually, a generation ago, mainline protestant bishops would reject the virgin birth and the resurrection, while fundamentalist church leaders would withdraw into separatist movements and attempt to reconstruct a "first-century" faith beginning only from the New Testament and human reason.

As a result, for most evangelicals in independent churches, there is little or no knowledge of, much less connection to, church history. We have moved away from the perceived abuses of Rome, but have wound up teetering on the edge of our very foundation. For all most evangelicals know, at least those I have associated with for 25 years, the true church ceased to exist in the middle of the second century and was somehow revived by Luther. It was then necessary, in the eyes of some, to "correct" even Luther's view of infant baptism and the eucharist. Most evangelicals remain convinced that the particular movement they are associated with is truer and more "biblical" than virtually every other movement in all of church history. And we don't seem to find that presumptious in the least.

Today, independent evangelicals follow a particular pattern, a mode of operation. Armed primarily with the Bible and a with sermons and commentaries from a limited number of like-minded evangelical figures from the last 100 to 400 years, we have tried to respond to the rapid changes in culture, trying to anticipate where it is going, usually reacting too late, and reinventing the church accordingly.

In the evangelicalism I first knew in the early seventies, we sought to convince people intellectually of the truth of scripture, or our understanding of it, with argumentation, debate, reasoned apologetics. We tried to draw people to faith by borrowing musical forms from the culture at large and pasting salvation messages into the lyrics. Church services gradually focused more and more on preaching that tried to engage the issues of the day and music that sounded like top 40 radio.

Then the 80s came, and new age thinking overtook the culture. We responded with an approach that focused on a more subjective sense of the spiritual. Reasoned apologetics gave way to experiential encounters with a more contemporary God. The 90s came and the megachurch came with it. Nothing in the church existed that could not be analyzed, quantified, systemized, and evangelism became a marketing campaign. Worship became a therapeutic self-help seminar.

Oddly, though we couldn't see why, the culture at large was for the most part unaffected by all our activities, stategies, passion and zeal. Divorce rates within the church rose to frightening levels, church kids were sexually active, understanding of real theology became more and more shallow.

Little by little it dawned on me - we evangelicals never denied the essentials of the faith explicitly, we just let them drift away while we were busy trying to reinvent virtually every aspect of Christianity. We devised new strategies for evangelism, created new music for the seeker, invented new patterns of worship, reorganized our governing structures, forged new alliances with human service organizations, developed new ways of interpreting scripture, even rethought doctrines about God and Christ and salvation and the church itself. But at some point, if everything is re-invented, it ceases to be what it once was. At some point there is nothing left.

One cannot have a stable Christianity if one loses sight of the Ten Commandments, the Lord's prayer, the apostles' creed, as if such things are outdated and below our enlightened sensibilities or too stale for the latest growth strategy. One cannot have a stable Christianity if churches are governed only by a loose agreement between pastors and lay people not to devour each other, as if submission to structure of spiritual authority is a corruption of the New Testament and early church practice. One cannot have a vital and compelling Christianity if scripture can be "interpreted" subjectively according to the needs of the individual or "deconstructed" to be relevant to the latest trend, as if no one had ever studied the Bible before Marin Luther. While we as evangelicals have sought to defend the "fundamentals" at times, the list of what is fundamental and non-negotiable keeps shrinking and getting redefined with each successive generation and each new movement.

So I have had to move back to the center. Though I agree with the Reformers that the Bible is the final authority and above all others, I no longer believe it is the only authority or can be read without respect for 2000 years of church history and interpretation. Even though I believe, with the Reformers, that transubstantiation is an overwrought and confusing explanation of the Lord's Supper, I cannot ignore that the church of at least 1600 years of history considered the Lord's Supper to be vital and the culmination of worship, uniting believers with Christ and each other. Even though I cannot accept a notion that a church hierarchy is infallible and has absolute authority to interpret scripture and seemingly define new doctrines that are difficult to find in the early church, I cannot ignore that the church has been organized from the earliest records with bishops being charged and consecrated for the task of preserving apostolic teaching and maintaining order in the churches.

For over thirty years I have sought only to understand the truth of the the Christian faith and to be obedient to it. If I am to be faithful to the truth of the faith, I cannot ignore what I have recently come to understand. I remain Protestant, in that I think there were things in the medieval Roman church worthy of protest. I remain orthodox, in that I wish to affirm core truths that have been held, as Vincent of Lerins put it, "always, everywhere and by all". I desire to be catholic, with a small "c", in that I desire an eventual end to denominationalism and a unity around what C.S. Lewis termed "Mere Christianity". But to be an orthodox, catholic, protestant, I needed to change and come back to some essentials most evangelicals have forgotten.

So from this point forward, I am on a new path through old territory. And this blog will be an attempt to document some of my thoughts over time and allow for dialog. Perhaps the pendulum is swinging back to the center. Personally, I have to hope so.

Watching Death

There is so much being written about the Terri Schiavo case. I think rather than adding too muuch mor ink, I'll primarily just link to a couple of the better articles. This one, by Nat Hentoff, is worth a read.

And Thomas Sowell is eminently logical as always, today and yesterday. As is Peggy Noonan. The unabashedly confrontational Ann Coulter points out a bit of hypocrisy.

I have written on this subject before. Right now I am just a bit numb. I have been seeing this day coming for twenty-five years. It is hard to watch and hard to find words that haven't been used, arguments that haven't been tried. Killing of adults who are not terminally ill and are not on life support is now a legal precedent.

But we should not despair. We do not know what tomorrow holds. Perhaps this incident will be the pivot point for the general public to begin to take a new view of abortion, infanticide and euthanasia. Perhaps we'll still come to our senses.

Protestants and Mary

Mark D. Roberts has a series of articles responding to Time Magazine's cover story regarding alleged Protestant rediscovery of Mary. The Time article, by David Van Biema, according to Roberts, suffers a bit from the Oliver Stone method of journalism, claiming that there has been a long Protestant "conspiracy" to keep Mary out of Protestant Christianity.

I won't rethink Mark Roberts' well done evaluation and reflections. But I would recommend others give it a look. And I would suggest this discussion should go even further, in the spirit of "mere" Christian dialogue.

To try to be fair and accurate, Protestants do not object to Mary, but to perceived excesses of devotion to her. There has been a fair amount of confusion and miscommunication between Protestants and Catholics over Marian dogmas and polemicists on both sides seem to talk past each other. But the bottom line for Protestants is simply fear that devotion to Mary approaches and at times drifts into Mariolatry, so that less informed Catholics, particularly in developing countries where ancestor worship is practiced, fall into idolatry.

Information can't hurt. Marian dogma has developed over many centuries. What Protestants should attempt to understand is that original doctrines regarding Mary had more to do with Christology than Mariology. One of the first questions related to Mary had to do with the nature of Christ - was he fully man and fully God? If he was fully God from conception then Mary carried in her womb a being who was not only man, but also God. Hence the term Theotokos or "God-Bearer" was applied to Mary. It was necessary to call her the "Mother of God", not to overly exalt her, but to preserve Christ's full divinity. Informed Protestants who know the reasons behind the term, generally do not object to the term "Mother of God". Less informed Protestants do, but primarily because they do not understand the reasoning behind the term.

The virgin birth is an essential part of Christology as well, hence her virginity at the time of Christ's conception is a non-negotiable element of faith, for Christ could have no human father.
It is not surprising nor objectionable that Mary's humility, devotion, her willingness to accept this totally unique role, and to be the only one who has ever held this role, led many in church history to see Mary as an extraordinary character, one to be admired. In fact scripture demands exactly this, that all the nations of the earth would call Mary blessed. I agree with Mark D. Roberts that there is no real "conspiracy" against Mary. She is respected and loved in Protestant circles and always has been, but within limits.

What Protestants object to, however is simply that subsequent devotion to Mary seems to have created new dogmas which are difficult to support in scripture. Some of those dogmas have support in church tradition, but scriptural evidence is weak. The notion that Mary was "ever virgin", seems to be contradicted by statements in scripture referring to the "brothers" of Jesus. The belief that Mary's body was "assumed" into Heaven at the end of her life has no clear warrant in the Bible, though it is a "traditional" belief. Neither of these beliefs is necessarily objectionable, but seem to have insufficient support to be insisted on as dogma, hence Protestants avoid them.

Then there is the issue of Mary's own moral state. Once again, owing to a perhaps overblown systematic Christology, some forwarded the idea that in order for Christ to be born without original sin, he had to be born of a pure mother. The theory is that God looked forward to Christ's work on the cross and extended the Grace of Christ's sacrifice to Mary so that, through Christ, she was preserved from sin. It is important to note that this is, again a Christological concern, attempting to explain how Christ could be fully human and free from original sin. But Protestants will still object that it is perhaps unnecessary - are there not other possible explanations for Christ's sinlessness? And once again, this view has virtually no direct support in scripture so why has it become essential dogma? Still, Protestants need to be fair and recognize that even this teaching does not assert that Mary was sinless because of her own merit, but was preserved, in theory, by the Grace of Christ.

As a result of some of these less biblical Marian beliefs, terms like "co-redemptress", "mediatrix" and "Queen of Heaven" have been applied to Mary. Since she willingly cooperated with God's plan of salvation, it is asserted that she played a role in the salvation of the human race in a way no other could have. Catholics need to understand that it is Christology that leads Protestants to reject these terms, the same concern for Christology that led to the original Marian dogmas and the term "Theotokos", "Mother of God". To preserve the essential view of Christ, Protestants strongly reject any notion that "redeemer" or "mediator" can be applied to anyone but Christ.

It is unfortunate that the Roman church has issued various anathemas toward those who do not accept all of the Marian dogmas it has instituted. Having said that, there is room for agreement in some areas, and some of the other disagreements may fall into the category of "non-essentials" on which Augustine suggested we all might exercise charity.

In keeping with what I understand to be St. Vincent's prescription for determining essential Christian truth, I do ask what has been believed "always, everywhere and by all". I also find Paul's warning in 1 Corinthians 4:6 "Do not go beyond what is written" to be a rather significant warning. And I recall as will the warning from Cyril of Jerusalem, "For concerning the divine and sacred Mysteries of the Faith, we ought not to deliver even the most casual remark without the Holy Scriptures: nor be drawn aside by mere probabilities and the artifices of argument. Do not then believe me because I tell thee these things, unless thou receive from the Holy Scriptures the proof of what is set forth: for this salvation, which is of our faith, is not by ingenious reasonings, but by proof from the Holy Scriptures."

It is interesting the the Catholic Encyclopedia states that "No direct or categorical and stringent proof of the dogma (of Immaculate Conception) can be brought forward from Scripture" and even notes that "In regard to the sinlessness of Mary the older Fathers are very cautious: some of them even seem to have been in error on this matter." Many quotations from the fathers are offered regarding her sinless purity. But scripture itself offers no conclusive support.

Protestants do not have a conspiracy against Mary. We just don't want Marian devotion to go beyond the limits of what is clear in scripture. Hence, I wonder if any Christian body should insist on the perpetual virginity of Mary, or the assumption. Maybe we should all take a step back and ask what is really essential and only insist on those things. And we can all agree, Christ was born of the virgin, and that all nations can and do call her Blessed.

The Death Precedent

I am more than a little frustrated with newspeople, even those on Fox News (Mara Liasson), who keep referring to Terri Schiavo as "comatose". Even the term "persistent vegetative state" (Mort Kondracke) is extremely bothersome because it is undefined, probably inaccurate and is a way of basically declaring her a non-person, much the way "fetus" depersonalizes the unborn child.

World Magazine has a timeline of Terri's Case which notes the troubling issue surrounding her ability to swallow. Three doctors have apparently filed affidavits indicating she can swallow on her own, yet she has been denied by Judge Greer, through the wishes of her husband, the administering of swallow tests, which would establish whether this supposedly "comatose" individual can eat and drink on her own.

Lately the debate has been all about the alleged hypocrisy of Republican lawmakers in attempting to intervene. Democrats, as well as Chris Matthews and Tim Russert, are incredulous that Republicans would be so dismissive of states rights in this case. Robert Bork sees no problem whatsoever with what lawmakers are attempting to do, as documented in this CNS News article. Bork says what is obvious, that the real issue is that any right to life case scares the Roe v. Wade supporters to death.

As always, what is missed, or deliberately ignored, is that this case is not just about Terri Schiavo. It is about legal precedent. For most of those movers and shakers who are not supportive of Terri's parents, it is not about marital rights or state rights. It is about the right to die. A precedent is being established here, and unfortunately, the actions of Congress are giving federal courts a chance to solidify that precedent. The precedent is that a human being who has no terminal illness, who requires only nutrition and hydration, who responds to stimulus and may be able to swallow on her own, is being legally defined by the courts as in a "persistent vegetative state", and is thus written off as having no legal right to life. The precedent is that a living human person is being starved to death by court order. The state is killing an innocent human being based only an arbitrary notion of quality of life.

This is why reshaping the courts is so critical. It matters not at all what laws are written when judicial decisions can so easily turn those laws on their heads or render them meaningless. Once a judge decides what a law "means", all subsequent decisions are negatively influenced because conservative judges are less likely to overturn precedents and liberal judges are more likely to establish them.

If Terry Schiavo is starved to death, after appeals to federal courts, the unwanted but predictable result will be that a Federal judicial precedent will have been set allowing starvation in future cases. This is an extremely dark day and I am quite sure most folks don't really get it.

Active Euthanasia is Now a Reality

The starvation of Terry Schiavo has begun. We have fallen off the slippery slope.

A New Focus

I started this blog a few months ago as the Presidential election was winding down. I wanted an outlet for my writing and wanted to be part of the blogosphere wave. Recently, personal events, technical problems and a bit of exhaustion have kept me from regular posts.

But I have also had to re-evaluate and narrow my focus. Though I have an interest in current events, and politics can get me rather agitated, I want to focus on my main obsessions and leave much of the political blogging to others more qualified, more informed and those who have more time. My main focus needs to be one of my own obsessions -- faith.

One of the first "grown-up" books I ever read in my early teens was C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. Over the course of my lifetime, the idea has stayed with me that there are certain truths basic to all branches of Christianity. But a lifetime of witnessing division within Evangelical circles and contentious polemics between Catholics and Protestants has been disheartening.

Recently, Thomas Oden's Rebirth of Orthodoxy has rekindled some old flames. There are numerous movements across the globe that are gaining momentum toward seeking understanding and some level of unity among Christians. As Oden has documented and insisted on, this is not a wishy-washy ecumenism that waters down biblical truth for the sake of organizational unity, but is a genuine attempt to wrestle charitably with the theological, cultural and historical matters that have divided Christians. It is a new kind of ecumenism that is respectful of scripture and also respectful of the history of biblical exegesis across all of twenty centuries and not just the last four.

Spirituality

Eugene Peterson, author of "A Long Obedience in the Same Direction", is was interviewed in Christianity Today. The interview is titled Spirituality for All the Wrong Reasons.

In the CT article, he summarizes a few thoughts about a misunderstanding of spirituality. Much has been written critical of the trends in evangelical culture toward subjective experience, marketing the church based on "felt needs", tailoring the message to target demographic groups. Peterson seems to have a very down-to-earth take on all of it that is refreshing and at times blunt.

He compares much of the "personal relationship" language of contemporary evangelicalism with gnosticism, the idea that Christianity is somehow distinct from the ordinary, the physical, the moment by moment real world stuff all people have to deal with.

"The New Age stuff is old age. It's been around for a long time. It's a cheap shortcut to - I guess we have to use the word - spirituality. It avoids the ordinary, the everyday, the physical, the material. It's a form of Gnosticism, and it has a terrific appeal because it's a spirituality that doesn't have anything to do with doing the dishes or changing diapers or going to work. There's not much integration with work, people, sin, trouble, inconvenience.
I've been a pastor most of my life, for some 45 years. I love doing this. But to tell you the truth, the people who give me the most distress are those who come asking, "Pastor, how can I be spiritual?" Forget about being spiritual. How about loving your husband? Now that's a good place to start. But that's not what they're interested in. "

Like a number of other folks I have been reading lately, such as Os Guinness, he is not impressed with church growth strategies and believes genuine faith is by its nature countercultural, in that it will always and always should be something different, transcendent, sacred. Says Peterson in probably the most animated line of the interview,

"I think relevance is a crock. I don't think people care a whole lot about what kind of music you have or how you shape the service. They want a place where God is taken seriously, where they're taken seriously, where there is no manipulation of their emotions or their consumer needs.
Why did we get captured by this advertising, publicity mindset? I think it's destroying our church."

I have discussed similar matters with a friend who is a former Pastor and a seminary prof. We have ruminated long on Acts 2:42,43, "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles." Ultimately church is always about the same things, the teaching of the apostles, genuine fellowship or community, the breaking of bread in the Lord's Supper (with appropriate emphasis on confession and repentance) and prayer. As such it can be mundane and routine at times, but still it is necessary to focus on those essential things, regardless of whether they seem relevant or hip.

The notion that "everyone was filled with awe", also seemed to us important. Why? Because if spirituality is genuinely God focused and God blessed, there will be a character to it that is beyond the natural, more than just a strategy or a program can provide, something, for lack of a better word, "spiritual". All our attempts to be relevant, many are beginning to say, are removing the timeless and transcendent elements from church life and from faith. If everything is programmed, if our strategies are all market based, if our message is continually reshaped by the "needs" of culture, something is lost. Peterson continues,

"... if we present a rendition of the faith in which all the mystery is removed, and there's no reverence, how are people ever going to know there's something more than just their own emotions, their own needs? There's something a lot bigger than my needs that's going on. How do I ever get to that if the church service and worship program is all centered on my needs?"

Peterson's interview is worth a read. Christianity is not quite so complicated as we make it. It is usually about doing the ordinary things faithfully rather than trying to find some new way of doing something big. It is "a long obedience in the same direction" and it's effects on the culture and our neighbors and friends is usually gradual, not dramatic.

Howard Dean

There has been some reaction to Howard Dean's rant yesterday, reported by the Lawrence Journal in Lawrence Kansas. Dean said many of the the things one would expect about going to every state in the Union and rallying supporters, even in Republican states. But he probably did his party no good with his statements on social issues. According to the paper:

"'The issue is not abortion,' Dean told the closed-door fund-raiser. 'The issue is whether women can make up their own mind instead of some right-wing pastor, some right-wing politician telling them what to do.'
And Dean told the Hiebert fund-raiser that gay marriage was a Republican diversion from discussions of ballooning deficits and lost American jobs. That presents an opportunity to attract moderate Republicans, he said.
'Moderate Republicans can't stand these people (conservatives), because they're intolerant. They don't think tolerance is a virtue,' Dean said, adding: 'I'm not going to have these right-wingers throw away our right to be tolerant.'"

Many individuals, not the least of which would be Christian apologist Josh McDowell, have pointed out that the word tolerance has become a code word for the stubborn insistence that no ultimate and final truth can exist about anything, and a hammer to keep faith-based values out of public discourse. Tolerance, to the liberal mind, means all views are equally valid except those views that claim to be objectively and finally true. As long as something is only personally true, one can believe anything one wants. But when something is asserted as universally true, to the liberal, it is a sign of supreme arrogance on the part of the one who holds that standard.

When morally conservative people say murder is always wrong, and that a human fetus is always a living human being, morally liberal people see arrogance. How can anyone say anything is always true? And morally liberal people, (tolerant as they are), tend to use liberal politics to impose their viewpoints on society with the force of law, usually through the courts.

I do think the reaction of the state Rebublican party leader, Derrick Sontag, was a bit over the top.

"'My immediate reaction to that whole dialogue is, it's full of hatred,' Sontag said. 'The Democratic Party has elected a leader that's full of hatred.'"

Liberalism is not necessarily hatred, and I don't think it wise to respond to labels with labels, to play the "hate" card the way some play the "race" card, or the way gay rights activists have used the word "hate" to bash everyone who doesn't think homosexuality is a morally neutral genetic trait. Rather, liberalism is a mindset that cannot conceive of the possibility that there can be any universal truths, (save for the absolute rule that no absolutes exist). And it drives morally liberal people to distraction that conservatives can't see the obvious arrogance in saying something is actually true. I think Dean is sincere. I think he is totally clueless as to how shrill and ridiculous he sounds to most Americans. I think he really believes we just aren't enlightened enough to understand.

Anglican Church Closer to Split

The ordination of Bishop Gene Robinson continues to divide the Anglican communion as this AP Report shows. That thirty-five church leaders would ask U.S. Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada, active in the support of Robinson and gay unions, to withdraw from a major Council is encouraging to conservatives, but, Bishop Griswold of the US Episcopal Church stated the action of the primates still left matters open to "many views". The likelihood of a split appears to be enhanced, even though the unwillingness to make a final decision on the part of the Bishops is intended to allow time to find a way to retain unity.

Christianity Today has a web page that tracks the reaction of many of the 39 Anglican Provinces to this issue, and it is fascinating to see how the African leaders are the staunchest voices for traditional Biblical morality. Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya, is quoted as saying, "The devil has clearly entered the church. God cannot be mocked" and insisting his church will not even accept missionaries from the U.S. Episcopal Church.

It is clear that amid all the talk of "unity" and "not breaking the Communion", conservatives in the Anglican Church believe the Communion is already broken. Fascinating that The Anglican Mission in America has been founded by Bishops of Africa and Asia as a missionary effort to America because of both the loss of faith in this country and in part because of the biblical infidelity of the U.S. Episcopal church.

Last year's Windsor Report talks of sensitivity regarding the issue of same sex unions by urging, "an ongoing process of listening and discernment, and that Christians of good will need to be prepared to engage honestly and frankly with each other on issues relating to human sexuality."

On the other hand, the report is fairly strong in it's criticism of Anglican Bishops who have sought to provide Biblically conservative leadership for those churches which have found the consecration of Robinson repulsive:
"We call upon those bishops who believe it is their conscientious duty to intervene in provinces, dioceses and parishes other than their own:
to express regret for the consequences of their actions
to affirm their desire to remain in the Communion, and
to effect a moratorium on any further interventions.
We also call upon these archbishops and bishops to seek an accommodation with the bishops of the dioceses whose parishes they have taken into their own care.

Bishop Akinola of Nigeria, responded to the language of Report,
"It fails to confront the reality that a small, economically privileged group of people has sought to subvert the Christian faith and impose their new and false doctrine on the wider community of faithful believers....Why, throughout the document, is there such a marked contrast between the language used against those who are subverting the faith and that used against those of us, from the Global South, who are trying to bring the church back to the Bible? ...Where is the language of rebuke for those who are promoting sexual sins as holy and acceptable behaviour? ... The Episcopal Church and Diocese of New Westminster are already walking alone on this and if they do not repent and return to the fold, they will find that they are all alone. They will have broken the Anglican Communion.

As I read both Scripture and church history, there can be no unity that does not include doctrinal unity, and there is simply no precedent in scripture or church history that would allow, much less condone, the consecration of a bishop who is not only living with another man, but who left his living wife and two daughters to do so. I would hope that Christians of many backgrounds can stand together on this issue.

Certainly, Christians of the last 2000 years have been united on this issue. That a few "progressive" bishops in an upscale northeastern United States location should feel comfortable repudiating not only the rest of their own church, but the consensus of all Christians for 20 centuries is rather breathtaking.