What Went Wrong...

My last post, some weeks ago, lamented the end of a journey. I have been able to give some thought to that journey and have reached a few conclusions.

Several years ago, I started down a path inspired by Tom Oden's "Rebirth of Orthodoxy". I may have misunderstood a bit of what he was saying in that book, but here is what I thought was the central thesis:

The "God-breathed" scriptures are alone the final authority by virtue of their inspiration, but the history of orthodoxy is the history of exegesis, and as such is a path toward greater Christian unity.

As I understood Oden, tradition has great value as a guide to the interpretation of scripture, but scripture remains the objective source of Christian truth. Whatever authority is given to tradition is secondary and derivitive and must be rooted in the Biblical text.

I saw in the Anglican doctrinal statement, the 39 Articles of Religion, a beautiful balance of absolute commitment to scripture as the final authority with respect for the history of how the church has understood scripture. Traditon, if one reads the articles in a normative fashion, is never allowed to assert as "necessary for salvation" anything that is outside the limiting boundaries of the Biblical text. This is why I chose one particular path and rejected others. I was never quite willing to reconsider Rome or follow other evangelicals to Eastern Orthodoxy because my evangelical commitment to the authority of scripture would not allow it, no matter how much I respected aspects of the early church that seemed compatible with either. For both Catholics and Orthodox, tradition plays a role that in some way subordinates the written Biblical text. The 39 Articles clearly insisted that whatever role the creeds, the liturgy and tradition may play, the source and limit is always the writte Word.

But the Anglo-Catholic influences, present in Anglicanism since the Reformation and increasingly prevalent since the days of the Tractarian movement, seems to have introduced an understanding of the role of tradition that goes "beyond what is written". Nineteenth century polemicists like J.C. Ryle were harshly critical of the "ritualism" introduced by Pusey, Newman and others, practices which had a place in the history of Christianity, but did not have a clear warrant in the text of scripture. The use of vestments, candles, incense, particular arrangement of church furniture all came under scrutiny as the excesses of the "traditions of men".



It has been suggested to me that much of this is harmless - that all Christian factions have their pet "traditions". In fact, it is suggested that some "tradition" is desirable. One thinks, for example of D. James Kennedy preaching in his scholar's robe, a tradition not practiced by Rick Warren or Mark Driscoll. Isn't such a "tradition" unbiblical? But isn't it a harmless and potentially useful tradition that actually suggests a sense of respect for the authority of the pastor and reverence for the sanctuary?

Here is where a distinction must be made. The Reformers' main critique of the medieval church was not merely that extra-biblical traditons had become excessive, but that those traditions had obscured and distorted the gospel itself. On the one hand, what a minister wears may or may not be a paricularly vital issue. On the other, if the wearing of a particular garment suggests a view of soteriology, of how one is rescued from sin, that is substantially contrary to the teaching of the New Testament, then the garments become a point of contention.

At a certain point, tradition ceases to be the preservation of apostolic teaching - an agreed upon understanding of the essential faith taught by the apostles and instead becomes an addition to the apostolic teaching, or a taking away from it. This was the great sin of the pharisees. Those who advocate for tradition as the final authority (usually insisting that all truth is "interpreted" truth and that "private judgment" is itself an authoritative tradition) need to recall the historical drift that occurred prior to Christ's first coming. The "traditions of the elders", 1400 years of purportedly "preserving" the law of Moses, was instead, according to Jesus, at times a "nullifying" of the laws of God in favor of the traditions of men. Likewise Paul repeatedly battled with those whose "interpretations" of the Old Testament texts missed the essential meaning altogether. The "interpretation" that circumcision was a "work" that one did as part of one's justification before God rather than a symbol of God's covenant was for Paul a matter of eternal salvation or damnation.

In the end, two issues remained that I could never compromise.

The first was the finished work of Christ. I don't have any great aversion to many aspects of the "high church" aesthetic. There is beauty in stained glass, in great architecture, in judicious use of candles, banners, and liturgical forms. None of these things in themselves get in the way of the essentials of the gospel (though Ryle was quite opposed to candles on Altars). In fact they do, for many, promote a sense of reverence and "otherliness", a refuge from the relentless drumbeat of secularisation.

But as I have documented elsewhere, particular elements of liturgical practice, subtle infiltrations, remnants of medieval theology, revived in the ritualist movement of the 19th century and slowly spreading throughout segments of Anglicanism became stumbling blocks I could neither avoid nor move. And the central stumbling block was the subtle view that in some way, Christ's sacrifice is not a "finished work", but is an ongoing, eternally "present" event that we participate in whenever we eat and drink the "true" body and blood of Christ.

Hebrews 10:12-14 is abundantly clear, particularly in the context of the whole book.

But when this priest (Christ) had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.

There is no ongoing "present tense" sacrifice. His work is finished. He remains seated "since that time". And this is where the "traditions" of particular priestly robes, particular liturgical phrases, specific gestures obscures an element of the gospel that is absolutely critical. Any tradition that suggests that the communion table is an offering of Christ to the father for the remission of sins or a mystical re-presenting of an ongoing perpetual sacrifice was to the Reformers, including the English Reformers, blasphemous. "It is finished". Or as Romans 8:1 puts it, "There is therefore NOW, NO CONDEMNATION for those who are in Christ Jesus."

I cannot emphasize enough how relieved I have been to be out from under that cloud again.

The second issue is simply the authority of scripture. I do not care particularly about all the emphasis placed by either Catholics and Orthodox on the one hand or by postmodern "post-conservatives" on the other on the notion that scripture must be "interpreted". Usually those who emphasize the "interpretation" do so to assert that it is the interpretation that is authoritative and not the text.

I remain committed to a belief that God has created a world that is objectively knowable. I remain committed to belief in the correspondence of truth to reality. As such I simply cannot relinquish a belief that human beings can know the truths God intended for us to know sufficiently (though never perfectly) by the careful reading of the written Word. If scripture cannot stand over tradition in a way that regulates and corrects it, then all sense of scripture being "authoritative" is meaningless. It cannot be a "norming norm" unless the words on the page have objective meaning. If all truth is "interpreted" truth, then it is the interpretation of scripture that is authoritative and not the scripture itself. Scripture then has no authority, all authority rests in the church.

Once it became clear that the anglo-catholicizing tendencies of certain segments of Anglicanism were going to wrest power away from the text and place increasing amounts of authority in the "the church", I knew I was no longer in the place I thought I had gone.

Which leaves me with a question. Is there any hope for the goal I once sought, that of greater unity among Christians in a fragmented, pluralistic and chaotic age?

I don't know if I have a solid answer, but I can say this. If there is hope for unity among Christians it is absolutely dependent on asserting the authority of Scripture. If we are arguing about the meaning of the text, there is hope. If we are arguing about matters that are not found in the text, not found in the "God-Breathed" testimony of the apostles themselves, but only in the habits and traditions of later generations, then there is no hope for unity.

For me, it is the authority of scripture and the finished work of Christ that are non-negotiable. Unity that forsakes those essenials is not worth having.