Dear Readers,
Thank you for reading this year. Thank you for commenting.
If nothing else has been achieved by my blogging and interacting with your comments, my own thinking has been sharpened up!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year :)
In accordance with a very ancient ADU tradition, I won't post again until sometime into the New Year. We will all be fresher for a break. And I have some very exciting reading to do: thrillers and theologies ... if the latter don't inspire some 2018 posts what will?
PS We were given a "Google Assistant" today for a present ... wow! I think I will be posting about AI, robots, and techno-persons-at-the-dinner-table in 2018.
111 comments:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/25/opinion/faith-christmas-religion.html?
BW
"Through the power of faith, he says, we partake of and have association or communion with the divine nature. This [2 Peter 1:4] is a verse without parallel in the New and the Old Testament, even though unbelievers regard it as a trivial matter that we partake of the divine nature itself. But what is the divine nature? It is eternal truth, righteousness, wisdom, everlasting life, peace, joy, happiness, and whatever can be called good. Now he who becomes a partaker of the divine nature receives all this, so that he lives eternally and has everlasting peace, joy, and happiness, and is pure, clean, righteous, and almighty against the devil, sin, and death."
Martin Luther. Die ander Epistel Sanct Petri . . .gepredigt und ausgelegt. WA 14:19.3–12; LW 30:155.
Peter Wehner: only one word to add - hope! Faith, love - and hope! For learning to trust that form of love establishes hope - so Rom 5:1-5. Blessed Christmas, St Stephen, John Divine & Holy Innocents at Herod's Raging ... Faith, love & hope ...
Reducing cognitive tribalism--
https://youtu.be/2jo6srYWg-w
https://openmindplatform.org/
BW
A Blessed New Year to Father Ron!
https://youtu.be/A9Azd93Luko
BW
Thank you, Dear Bowman, for exposing us to Richard Rohr's dramatic reversal of what most Christians have seen as the 'Atonement' theory, which speculates of the Wrath of God - rather than the Love of God exemplified in the kenosis of Jesus. Deo Gratias. Every Evangelical should engage with this link - which is vital to our understanding of Salvation based on Love, not Fear.(I knew there was a reason for my being drawn to the Franciscans!
Bless you, Bowman!
Re RR BW:
Have you seen his latest "Trinity" stuff?!
A truly 'alternative' heresy ...!
Father Ron: I'm glad that you liked the link!
Bryden: To what video or text do you refer?
BW
Are you surprised?????? The whole Anglican Communion is a wasp nest; and until
it rids itself of the Arian influence, which pervades it at it's highest levels, it will never be a credible Church.
Bowman, herewith: The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation.
Glen, are you still with us?
Hi Ron,
Sure am, even if I am: The voice of one crying in the wilderness, "Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make His paths straight.Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough way shall be made smooth.And all flesh shall see the salvation of God".
I look forward to the day when the Holy Spirit raises up a revival in, not only the ACANZP, but also the whole Anglican Communion; and it proclaims the simple and glorious Gospel of Salvation - Repent and turn from your old ways and renew your hearts in CHRIST.
What the current ABC is allowing [if not encouraging], to happen in England; is nothing short of tempting God.He has split the Union and brought it into contempt.It will certainly be a great day when men of +Selwyn's calibre are once again Bishops of the Church.
Thanks, Bryden. No one expects the Anglican Inquisition! ;-) Nevertheless, I've downloaded and read the free Amazon sample. Nothing jumped out from that frontmatter that you seem likely to regard as contradicting the received deposit of defined dogma. In fact, although I would understand your surprise at this, it is not at all hard for me to imagine a fan of Richard Rohr's being pleased by your own trinitarian thinking. What heresy do you find in The Divine Dance and where?
BW
Well Bowman; I’d have to agree: there’s much in The Divine Dance which sounds most orthodox - at first blush. Yet - and it’s a final yet! - it isn’t actually about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the final analysis, as that orthodox tradition knows God. It’s a book about an alternative spirituality, one of “F/flow”. It’s committed to a metaphysic that refuses to recognize the necessary distinction between God and creation. We are thrown back into a reverse world of the Arian controversy: instead of Jesus being firmly on BOTH sides of that distinctive demarcation, as God of God and very human, “transcending God’s transcendence”, and so the saviour of our poor material world, with its additional weight of sin; we are pretty well thrown into a melange:
“Some mystics who were on real journeys of prayer took this message to its consistent conclusion: creation is thus “the fourth person of the Blessed Trinity”! Once more, the divine dance isn’t a closed circle—we’re all invited!”
So close - yet so far away ...
And, yet, Bryden, what is our future, as God's new creation?
To be the heavenly chorus praising the Trinity (so Rev 4-5)?
Or to be caught up into the Godhead (so Rev 3:21; and, all Scriptural talk of "in Christ")?
Peter! To share in the divine nature, theosis, or however we might depict it: all this never - never - transgresses that essential distinction, that between Creator and creation.
For, as Gregory of Nyssa suggests, our infinite calling is to be transformed from one degree of glory to another - as creatures, as this is ever only the lot of creatures.
Dear Bryden
Gregory of Nyssa was necessarily a man of limited vision.
Even such a luminary has no more insight or sight, than you or I have, of what life in God's glorious future will be like, including whether the distinction between Creator and created breaks down ... the Great Union of All Things?
Well Peter, you may believe what you like! May you enjoy your monistic future! Yet; by what authority might you still call yourself Christian? Hindu/Buddhist more like ... ciao ciao ...
Hi Bryden
I do not think communion with(in) the Trinity is monistic, is it?
I call myself Christian because my hope is in Christ and as I explore that hope in Scripture I am intrigued by Revelation 3:21.
What do you make of it?
What does "in Christ" mean for our eternal habitation?
If it means something which turns out to be close(ish) to a Hindu or Buddhist view of the future, to whom are you going to complain on that Great Day?
And what are you going to complain about? That Christianity is too much like Hinduism and Buddhism for your liking or that Hinduism and Buddhism could have been more appreciative of Christianity?
Hi Bryden,
It is what I find so dismaying about what is going down in the Western Anglican Union at this time. When one believes that that Jesus did not understand the difference between gender and sexual desires, when he spoke in Matt.19; one has to seriously question what Christ we believe is present in the Eucharist. Was the Jesus who the Creeds say was "True God and fully man"; the Jesus whose birth we have just celebrated.Not being able to distinguish between the Creator and His creation is just part of accepting a Church with two "INTEGRITIES".
What does "in Christ" mean for our eternal habitation?
We have died in Christ and have been risen up in Christ and are clothed in His Righteousness. I did not know that Hinduism or Buddhism expounded that future.
Glen, have you not heard about the 'Second Death' to which all humans are subject. Our eternal destination is 'en Christo'. However, we have still some journeying to do. This is why our being at unity with one another in Christ in this life at the Eucharist is so important. There is no substitute - not even in the pulpit. Of course, we have to be ready to acknowledge ourselves to be sinners - needy of salvation by the only Agency open to us. - "In God alone"
Glen, here in northern Zone 5B, seeds for hops must be germinated just a few weeks from now in February. Your advice?
BW
Hi Glen
@8.42 pm: Hinduism and Buddhism do not know Christ as Saviour and Lord and thus do not know "in Christ" as an experience of the spiritual life. Christianity is different to those two religions even if some aspects of each has some common currency (stress on the word "some").
@8.18 pm: you comment is highly objectionable and fails to meet criteria of fairness. At no point have I failed to distinguish between Creator and creator in this life and thus all the other snide, implied criticisms in your comment fail. I have raised the question whether in the life to come, Scripture offers hints of a union of Creator and created human beings. If Christians cannot raise questions about the meaning of Scripture without incurring the kind of "slapdown" you make, is there point in discussing anything, other than how many times a day we should recite the creeds?
I sense Peter, it’s time to back up the truck a little, otherwise this thread is going to get even more muddled than it is already ...!
The key springboard is mine @ January 7, 2018 at 5:58 PM, quoting RR; and then the immediate exchange @ 6:25, 6:51, and 8:08 next day. Going from there:
1. Using “limited” to describe Gregory of Nyssa’s views is rather inept; it smacks of “chronological snobbery” (CSL) and is downright far too PC! And even if his view is ‘partial’, so ...
2. For all that, since you want to entertain “the distinction between Creator and created break[ing] down”, I’ll go instead to Chalcedon, not least as you also - correctly - speak of “in Christ Jesus”. For what does/might that mean - notably re humanity’s destined future?
3. Initially, we’ve to yet again emphasize the four negatives (all starting with the prefix “alpha” in Greek), and the conclusion - “two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way abolished because of the union, ...”
4. Just so, even in eternity, after a new heaven and new earth is established, our humanity - and creation itself! - is redeemed and glorified on account of our being “in Christ Jesus”, as you say. Yet what more precisely is that mechanism? The hypostatic union is as Chalcedon states: the distinction remains, even as we are adopted into that redeemed human nature of Jesus’s. “Theosis” does not mean we become Mormons!! And certainly, the Christian Faith never envisages a monistic “breaking down” of the necessary distinction between the Creator and his creation. Frankly, that idea destroys an entire 2000 years, and more given OT, of Judea-Christian theology and practice.
Lastly, Glen; if anyone seeks solace from their participation in the Eucharist, perhaps they need to read 1 Cor 10:1-11, which sets up the entire two chapters’ worth, 10 & 11. And NB the clear parallels between 1 Cor 10:2-4 and 12:13. For such reliance is akin to Jer 7:4 (in context). Far more is involved in our participation in the hypostatic union than just the sacraments ... Church history is clear on that, as is Scripture itself.
Hi Bryden
For clarification, by "limited" re Gregory Nyssa, I meant no more than that he was a mortal person. No chronological snobbery involved, though I readily acknowledge I could have used a different word such as "partial."
I also happily reflect upon a strong direction in Scripture, including the Book of Revelation, that there will be a new heaven and a new earth, in which our redeemed humanity will be (so to speak) on display, albeit in a manner we cannot conceive.
But you otherwise make my point re what I also see as a direction within Scripture, arguably a weaker one: the divine-human Jesus Christ is fully One with the Father and the Son, that is, including his humanity. For us to be "in Christ" and to be invited to sit upon his throne as he sits on the Father's throne (to be sure, metaphors abounding), invites the possibility that we, the body of Christ, are drawn into a union with God which, indeed, is beyond our imagining.
There is a spectre haunting this thread. It is the spectre of the liberal historian Adolf von Harnack. Donald Fairbairn exposes this below in an article published in JETS.
BW
In modern study of historical theology, several varied factors have coalesced to give rise to what I am calling a two-trajectory approach to patristic soteriology. One obvious factor is that dividing early Christianity into East and West, Greek and Latin, is a convenient and familiar way to conduct historical study. Another factor is that modern study of historical theology often focuses heavily on terminology, and so scholars tend to assume that Church fathers who used the phrase “participation in God” basically fell into the same camp, in opposition to Fathers who spoke of salvation with juridical terms. Perhaps another factor is that scholars have tended to gravitate toward the familiar: Westerners can readily understand juridical concepts of salvation, but the whole notion of participation in God is a bit foreign. So modern Western scholars tend to lump all participatory concepts of salvation together.
However much these and other general factors may have contributed, perhaps the most significant factor in the rise of this two-trajectory approach is the work of Adolf von Harnack, whose monumental History of Dogma (first published in German from 1885–89) has had a phenomenal influence on 20th-century interpretation of patristic theology. Harnack approaches his subject with a passionate and barely-controlled hatred for the Eastern Church, coupled with an almost reverential attachment to two Western Fathers, Tertullian and Augustine. Harnack writes:
"Tertullian and Augustine are the Fathers of the Latin Church in so eminent a sense that, measured by them, the East possessed no Church Fathers at all. The only one to rival them, Origen, exerted his influence in a more limited sphere . . . . We can exhibit the superiority of Western to Eastern Christianity at many points; we can even state a whole series of causes for this superiority; but one of the most outstanding is the fact that while the East was influenced by a commonplace succession of theologians and monks, the West was moulded by Tertullian and Augustine."
As a result of this attitude, in Harnack’s hands the history of Christian doctrine becomes a story of the way the Eastern Church lost the gospel virtually altogether as it developed the philosophical but unbiblical concept of human deification, whereas the Western Church preserved the biblical message as it proclaimed sin, forgiveness, and moral living.
...To adopt my terminology, Harnack sees two basic trajectories for understanding salvation in the patristic period. The Western Church followed a biblical trajectory by focusing on the juridical aspects of salvation (sin, atonement, forgiveness, and judgment), whereas the Eastern Church followed a trajectory that Harnack believes to be unbiblical by focusing on deification, mystical participation in God, and the overcoming of human mortality and corruption. The biblical picture of salvation served as the basis for the Western juridical trajectory, but to the East the biblical depiction was largely an irritant that hindered the Church from moving even further along its mystical trajectory.
I would like to focus in this article on [a problem with Harnack’s two-trajectory schema], that is, I believe, less widely acknowledged but particularly dangerous for evangelical theologians. This problem, in a nutshell, is that Harnack’s approach has given scholars an excuse to write off the vast riches of Eastern patristic thought. By neatly dividing patristic soteriology into a biblical, juridical trajectory and an unbiblical trajectory focusing on deification and participation in God, Harnack has provided a rationale for all Westerners to laud the superiority of the Western tradition and to pay little attention to the Eastern understanding of salvation. When one adds to this the fact that the word “participation” sounds suspicious to evangelical ears, and the word “deification” sounds positively blasphemous, Western evangelical scholars become convinced that such a view of salvation must be a warmed-over version of Eastern monism or Neoplatonic philosophy (or both!), and thus it could not possibly have anything to teach modern Westerners. Such, I believe, is the problematic legacy of Harnack’s work and the two-trajectory approach enshrined in it.
https://tinyurl.com/y8z9weuo
Two final things then perhaps:
1. ἀλλὰ καθὼς γέγραπται·
ἃ ὀφθαλμὸς οὐκ εἶδεν καὶ οὖς οὐκ ἤκουσεν
καὶ ἐπὶ καρδίαν ἀνθρώπου οὐκ ἀνέβη,
ἃ ἡτοίμασεν ὁ θεὸς τοῖς ἀγαπῶσιν αὐτόν.
2. There will EVER remain the distinction between Creator and all creatures ...
Hi Peter, I am sorry if you took my comments personally; when in fact they were directed at the Western Anglican Communion, from the ABC down. In the ACANZP, Bishops, Clergy and laity {who have signed a submission to G.S.}; are only permitted to expound the Scriptures, as they have been received and explained in the Book of Common Prayer, the Ordinals and the 39 Articles. It is the actions of the Church leaders which are "highly objectionable and fail to meet the criteria of fairness to orthodox Anglicans.
St Paul, and after him the reformers, taught that the believer is given such benefits as *justification*, *adoption*, *sanctification*, *vocation*, etc only in *union with Christ* (ie "very members incorporate in the mystical Body of Christ, the blessed company of all faithful people"). Everyone here agrees. But the fathers describe this union in diverse ways.
Donald Fairbairn's brilliant article typifies them for Evangelicals as the *Juridical* way with which we are all familiar, and the two participatory ones that he calls the *Mystical* and the *Personal.* He wants Evangelicals who flee participation theologies to instead choose a good one over a bad one.
https://tinyurl.com/y8z9weuo
Some fathers, following SS Irenaeus, Athanasius, and Cyril understand union as a regeneration of human beings, through their participation in the glorified humanity of Christ, that leads to an indirect participation in *perichoresis* through the Son ("Our Father..."). Fairbairn is attracted to the personalism of the writings on this trajectory, which he therefore terms Personal. Evangelicals, especially in view of the explosion of recent interest in *Union with Christ* (eg Richard Gaffin, Tomas Mannermaa), should indeed pay more attention to these fathers than they have done.
Indirectly, those of us who have read much from the House of Torrance are already doing it. Not to digress, Rowan Williams also presents a very personal soteriology in The Body's Grace.
Other fathers, following Origen, St Gregory of Nyssa, etc through St Maximus the Confessor and on to St Gregory Palamas understand this union as an infusion of divine qualities into human beings that enables their participation in God's life, but still not his essence ("Blessed are the poor in spirit..."). Fairbairn is put off by the impersonality that he finds in these writings, which he terms Mystical. But Rohr is attracted to the way these figures speak to a perennial hunger for religion that informs life with an articulate cosmology. For example, his *Flow* seems meant to situate what we know as the adamic vocation (cf John Walton) in the triune perichoresis (cf the Cappadocians). How is that different from what eg Tom Wright and Richard Hays have been up to? Bryden's suspicion of Rohr sounds a bit like Fairbairn's suspicion of Origen.
No father in either of the two blurs the Creator/creature distinction. If one of these famous teachers had done so, we might have heard something about that! But Fairbairn warms to the emphasis on persons of his Personal trajectory. And he still worries that emphasis on divine attributes in the Mystical trajectory is too impersonal for a sound soteriology.
Sorting the fathers into roughly Fairbairn's trajectories of focus on ontology and personality does partially overcome Harnack's prejudicial legacy. In that way, it continues his great project of liberating evangelical theology from the straitjacket of liberal historiography, much as the Early High Christology Club have been liberating the research on Jesus from German liberals of the early C20. But Fairbairn's evaluation of his participatory trajectories on the single criterion of personalism is puzzling.
Christians actually on the Mystical trajectory of the East seem awfully personal. It is hard to find an annihilation of the person in any of the Christian mystics chronicled in Bernard McGinn's multi-volume history. In what way, for example, is St Symeon the New Theologian less personal in his spirituality than Julian of Norwich in hers? Steven T Katz was surely right that mysticism is not a universal experience of the *impersonal Absolute* but the development of subjective depth within a devotional world. Among our own contemporaries, John Zizioulis would proudly speak for Fairbairn's Mystical trajectory, yet personalism in communion is precisely what we read him to work through. Since William James, we have been reading mystics to find out what persons are like when they are "all in" to what they believe.
Conversely, Christians on the Personal trajectory do not seem able to avoid talk of Christ-like attributes. If the humanity of Christ is our true model for realised humanity, then how are we to emulate his particular sea-walks, leper-healings, Temple-cleansings, etc apart from some bridging ideas? The best I know is Linda Zagzebski's *divine motivation theory*, a virtue ethic based on the emulation of divine motivations that might in another thought world be called *divine energies.*
Might perceptions of tension between these two ways of talking about participation in Christ be projection of a modern polarity-- hardnosed Reformed particularism v playful Franciscan wonder-- into sensibilities or concerns that are both at home in a canon that includes not only Psalm 51 but also Psalm 8? What do people who sing How Great Thou Art with wet eyes have to fear from a cosmological spirituality like St Francis's or Richard Rohr's? Those bored to tears with a Juridicalism that has bolted every chair to the floor lest someone sit too far from the table would seem to have a lot to gain from both of Fairbairns's perspectives on participation, and from Romans 5 as well as Romans 8.
https://tinyurl.com/y9hwomyu
BW
I like your reference to Harnack, Bowman. There is also that furphy re Eastern and Western ‘trinities’, which we try to lay at the feet of De Régnon, and which the likes of Lewis Ayres has now well and truly ‘corrected’: there is far more overlap between Eastern and Western views than we contemplated 100 years ago ...
As for “participation” etc. Two things need to be said I fancy:
1. If the Finnish School on Luther is anything to go by, there is again far more overlap between Luther’s ‘salvation’ and Calvin’s “Union with Christ” than has hitherto been contemplated. All of which permits ...
2. ... the likes of TFT [NB his pedigree!] to strongly propose a form of “theosis”. See notably Myk Habets, from our own Blessed Isles - Theosis in the Theology of Thomas Torrance (Ashgate, 2009).
Enjoy! And we may go into the New Year in Peace now!
Dear Glen
Apology accepted! I did take it personally and you did not intend that.
All is well!
Dear Bryden and Bowman
Wow!
Lots to ponder
I am always on the side of participationism :)
Just read this thread, phew, philosophical
As it can’t possibly be complex enough, I do believe, the boundaries between creator and creature and most in distinct in those who are Christian Scientists. They believe Jesus was the first person to ‘tap into’ God’s divine will for humans and by following his way we too can be as divine as Jesus here on earth. Buddhism - nah they don’t believe in any divine being so ....; Hinduism - nah Hindu gods are always superior to humans.
Jury’s out for me on all the other conclusions. There are many scripture references for a persons union with Christ to be ‘as Christ’ is to God - sons and daughters of God, co-heirs with Christ, we submit to Christ - Christ to God - who then is the all in all. So people figuring one day in some sense in Christ as a partakers in the relationship of the trinity I can conceive ... Yet my thinking has always been as God the Father as Creator rather than God the Son through whom the world was created, so union with Christ doesn’t immediately in my mind blur the created/creator framework; and in any part being considered equal with Christ seems well just, well just inconceivable.
"So people figuring one day in some sense in Christ as a partakers in the relationship of the trinity I can conceive..."
Yes, Jean, that happens when we recite the Lord's Prayer or more generally pray "in Jesus's name." The pray-er is then joining the relation of the Son to the "Father" on the basis of having been united to Christ. As a neutestamentler, Peter may differ, but I strongly suspect that the evangelists present Jesus's example and teaching on prayer to make that *participation* plain. As the Son, Jesus has a prior relation to his Father that we see when he retires to pray at strategic moments in his ministry. And then Jesus's disciples are bidden to join in that relation precisely by following his example in prayer. With that, the Trinity motivates the whole ocean of practise in Imitation of Christ.
The other idea-- that acquiring divine qualities unites us to God-- also depends on Jesus as the one who made these divine qualities human. Prophets and men of YHWH of the OT were mirrors of some aspect of God as they acted in response to a divine command. either symbolically (Hosea & Gomer) or effectively (Phinehas). However, less obscurely, partially, and provisionally, Jesus manifests God's nature in his own actions, which then are the lively key to the Beatitudes given to his disciples. Again, Peter or Bryden may have another view, but to me this is the most intuitive explanation for the use of *makarios*, which translators approximate with words like happy, blessed, or even lucky to give the word's connotation of divinity.
My quote from Luther at the top of the thread shows that these notions of participation were not unknown to the Reformers. So why have we heard so little about them? In the C16-17, a certain legalism grounded in the Decalogue was much more useful in establishing a mass morality for Europeans adapting to such innovations as cities, enclosure, wider trade, printing presses, mass prosperity, etc. And anyway, until one is no longer struggling not to covet the neighbour's wife, one is unlikely to practise peacemaking with success. So notions of right action drawn directly from Christ himself, although familiar to medievals, were eclipsed in the street knowledge of moderns. Now, in whatever age has followed that one, the unfamiliarity of these ideas to the mass of Christians is a scandal.
BW
Dear Bowman et al
Thanks for the Fairburn article - excellent delineations and I see that my speculations are in good Origenist and Gregory Nyssiast company (the latter's feast day today, I believe) but likely, in the end, I will tend towards Fairburn's "personalist" trajectory!
Dear Bowman/Jean,
1. I am most happy (sic) with what you say BW re the Lord’s Prayer, and even say as much and more in LDL pp.37-42, esp the conclusions on 41-2. However, in light of Brant Pitre’s recent Jesus and the Last Supper, which was published 2015 by Eerdmans after my own, I have already modified that section for a possible/probable/proposed 2nd edition (along with a number of other key additions, raised by readers).
As for your other two paras ...
2. It all depends on how we conceive of these “divine qualities” being ‘reflected’. The very purpose of our being made in the divine image was/is to reflect and represent (be a representation and a representative of) God. Hence Jesus himself as the Divine Image - ONE meaning. Yet the OTHER meaning, that Jesus is also, simultaneously Yahweh in the flesh, implies altogether something else. And it’s this “altogether something else” which is driving my line of conversation on this thread. In a word, as the Book of Revelation displays over and over (and Peter surely loves to go there!) - worship! It is the calculus of monotheism and hence idolatry which drives both Judaism and Christianity (and fascinatingly, even Islam in its ‘curious way’ ...). And it was worship of Jesus, which the entire NT displays in one way or another, that is the seed for the notion of Trinity.
3. YET all of 2 does not negate a due carefulness around what Union with/in Christ Jesus does and does not mean, nor how it might be properly/better realized. Just so now, my God’s Address. While that newer book does not go into the needed careful subtleties of things - it is after all a Scripture Workbook for folk in the pew - what this thread is throwing up is how muddled and muddied things can become if we do not watch how the calculus of 2 operates. In Chalcedonian language (which still gives a due anthropology not only of Jesus but also ourselves by derivation), we humans participate in the human nature of Jesus person; and whatever we might make of the subsequent debate re the communication of properties (communicatio idiomatum - which itself goes back to the differing tendencies of Alexandrian versus Antiochene Christologies), humans even in their glorified state and status are/will be NEVER objects of worship (viz only Rev 19:10, 22:8-9). In which light, how might we better understand and appreciate and realize said “communicated properties”?
Enjoy!
Hi Bryden
Humans will never be the object of worship is a telling remark and thus, in Fairburn's terminology, pushes my thinking in the personalist rather than mystical direction!
Hi Peter,
Wonderful, that through the love of Christ the air is clear again. My frustration and anger is mainly directed at those who are bringing the Church in England and Scotland into mockery. I get ashamed and embarrassed when my relatives say: "Have you read the latest from the ABC or what the Church at home is doing; do you still say you are Anglican?" They are up in arms out in the Isles because a liberal Bishop has just been appointed over very conservative parishes. Sadly it seems that they following TEC, Spong and Gerring.
Though I read your threads and enjoy the posts between you,Bowman and Bryden; on this issue I always err very much on the side of distinction between the Creator and the creation. It is so easy for people to turn well intended truths into half-truths. Mankind was created in the likeness and image of God and through Christ, [and Christ alone was redeemed, Gal:4/5 the adaption of sons]. Or, as John says:"But as many as received him,to them gave he the power to become the sons of God.Even to them that believe on his name "1/12. The recipient was capable of "believing"; not every poor wee mouse or earth worm. A point well made by C.S. Lewis.
But where does anyone from St Gregory of Nyssa to St Gregory Palamas propose that Christians should worship people? And if no authority in the seventeen centuries of that trajectory has said that we should, then why not worry less about that and more about stray asteroids? Suspicion just spoiling for a fight over nothing very clear seems unhealthy.
More reasonable to me are two pastoral Western codicils to the two Eastern trajectories.
(1) Luther was right (Heidelberg Disputation, 1518) that in the pre-metaphysical imaginary of scripture, the Creator's unique creativity motivates his love for sinners.
(2) The Reformed generally are right that, even if it begins in an account of cosmology or of the divine and human natures, a soteriology is not complete unless it addresses the particularity of the elect.
I think (1) should satisfy Bryden within the bounds of scripture alone. And (2) should explain the Evangelical affinity for the Personal trajectory with less prejudice against the Mystical one. What passes those tests, passes.
In practise, as Fairbairn notes, many fathers belong to more than one trajectory and so teach with a hybrid vigour. In that, they resemble the NT's own use of several metaphors to represent salvation. Although we in the West have been accustomed to one dominant soteriology, the ecumenical Church has never defined one as dogma, and it is not obvious that any should act today as though it had.
https://tinyurl.com/y8fyesy4
BW
Ever panned for gold Bowman? Or had to filter water to extract deposits so that it may become drinkable? Either involves vibrations of sorts ... That's all I've been doing to make sure Peter's own musings along the way are gold/less muddy ;)
Meanwhile; "Atonement: a many splendid thing" by Michael Green, a talk once given years ago, sums up your last thoughts nicely enough.
Hi Bowman and Bryden
Thank you for once again expanding my levels of understanding and intellectual comprehension...
I think my viewpoint formed by experienced would fit quite well into the personal trajectory and I think I would have got on quite well with Cyril. I have previosly been ignorant of the Eastern theology of union with Christ and the implication on views of salvation. My mystical leanings albeit within the personal spectrum are formed by scripture (e.g. whatever you do for one of these you do it for me or the perishable becomes imperishable through Christ), and experience (once upon a time I prayed one night and the following morning at church our Pastor said the evening before (yes at the time I was praying) he had felt Jesus speak to him saying he was feeling..so and so... so and so being exactly what I had prayed. It blew my comprehension away. Of course no one else had any idea nor was I jumping up and saying oh that was how I was feeling last night. I was simply struck fully that as I had felt it so too had Jesus felt it, and a new awareness of the very depth of Jesus identification/union with those whom are His.
I appreciate your point Bryden re worship and it is clear one must keep distinct that we remain ‘ourselves’ while in union with Jesus to the extent that we are not God or the Son nor ever shall be Amen. I also see union with Jesus as the result of salvation as opposed to the means of it, and as gift in this context rather than the fostering of inherent attributes. As you mention Bowman any union we have is achieved through and by Jesus.
Many thanks for this thought provoking start to the year!
And Glen do not fear, the theologies of Geering and Spong gain no traction with me albeit I treat each area of contention in its own context (e.g. I do not lump Women in ministry, views on that topic or marriage after divorce in one basket); Jesus not being raised from the dead being included in any church teaching or theology would have me running out the door - perhaps not without being able to resist a bit of challenging viewpoints first.
Ah Bowman our contributions crossed; would it helped if being mystical was viewed as seeking communion with God rather than seeking to be as God?
Yes, Bryden, in wilder places I have done both. And I am certainly not suggesting that retrieval and application be uncritical. But although things are better on the blessed isles, as usual, here up yonder there are Christians whose hypervigilant "orthodoxy" is a sort of auto-immune disease of the Body. So much do they enjoy being lazily or ignorantly suspicious of anything new that they reject unfamiliar good and sometimes embrace time-tested evil. The Body expends more energy in resisting their assaults on healthy new tissue than on growing to its full stature. Having the harm that the hypervigilant do in mind-- not you or Peter-- I discourage idle suspicion. Otherwise how can we get people to read books as refreshing as your own?
BW
Bryden (and Father Ron), I have not been able to locate the Michael Green talk that you mention, although I did find this--
https://tinyurl.com/y7ewa2fn
Happily, my search for it was rewarded with two Reformed articles on atonement metaphors. Daniel Strange corrects critics of PSA but also defends them up to a point by appeal to *perspectivist* epistemology.
https://tinyurl.com/ydx4k24s
Trevin Wax explains why decade after decade some of Tom Wright's Reformed critics (aka "los Hypervigilantes" ;-) cannot detect the clear and robust affirmation of PSA that runs through all his work.
https://tinyurl.com/y6wjpqha
Bringing the conversation full circle, Richard Rohr seems to be trying to offer a *mystical theology* (cf Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange) that is broadly accessible and has Franciscan rather than Thomist roots. Like any mystical theology, it tries to mediate two discourses-- dogmatics (not systematics) and mystical writing (not the Wesleyan Quadrilateral). Evangelical historians and their popularisers (eg John Piper) embark on a very similar enterprise when they relate the spectrum of C17-18 Reformed theology to the experiential writings of English Puritans and Jonathan Edwards. Rohr is a popular teacher but not an academic systematician, appears to be self-taught in what he knows of Protestantism, and although ecumenical in policy is plainly most at home among Catholics and Anglicans with a liberal sensibility.
Rohr will make some feel queasy where those old Puritans would also make them feel queasy-- he engages personal experience. But Evangelicals-- Cross, Bible, Conversion, Action-- should have no quarrel with that. And he discomforts eg Dominicans and the Reformed in another way-- the railing in his stairwell is not St Thomas, on whom both have historically relied for fundamental theology, but St Bonaventure. Evangelicals who ground their theology in scripture anyway should not be troubled by that either.
It is high time that some Pentecostal or Evangelical offered a mystical theology that solves our problems today, just as the Dominican Garrigou-Lagrange better distinguished *illumination* from *revelation* for Catholics in the early C20. These problems broadly arise in the whole world of spiritual experience beyond diligent moralism that is celebrated along with that in scripture. On the ground, the heated arguments over PSA have been less about the scriptural support for that and other insights into God's love for us than about a certain panic that he may have more in store for those who love him than conscientious social conservatism. In my country, that dysangelical panic is driving a generation from the faith. At least until someone from our side takes up mystical theology, Rohr's modestly successful and doubtless imperfect project will have intrinsic interest for us.
BW
"Have you read the latest from the ABC or what the Church at home is doing; do you still say you are Anglican?"
Glen, I hear your pain. And your dear relations are being absurd.
As Nick will attest, this is a trying time for conservative Christians everywhere. Talk among conservative Roman Catholics like that about Francis was unimaginable just a few years ago. Even the Southern Baptist Convention, whose leaders since the 1980s have tried hard to eradicate liberalism, is discovering that dissidence is a self-seeding perennial.
The fact is that churches that serve whole populations from top to bottom deal openly with their many pressures and challenges. A great mission has the scope to make many great saints, but also lesser parasites and hypocrites. In fact, an eminent Authority once spoke of tares among the wheat as though they could not be separated in this aeon.
That the Church of England still soldiers on to engage issues of national importance reflects its determination to remain a truly national church "with a Christian presence in every community." One would think that true conservatives would respect this noble Establishment and faithfully carry the burdens of it as their ancestors did. As you do now.
Which is to say that they are false conservatives who have fled from the Establishment to hide from the battle in its hour of need. Little boutique churches that are defined as much by class or ethnicity as by sectarian faith are not escaping the challenges of the day. They are just much more quiet about their inner struggles-- until they cannot be.
There is no purity in small numbers or great exclusions. Here up yonder, one of these tiny purer-than-thou denominations tried a minister for heresy. He was and is a Presbyterian teaching the *New Perspective on Paul* and the *Federal Vision* of Reformed ecclesiology. His prosecutors alleged that in these ways his theology was heretically slouching toward Rome, and their indictment attracted excited support from throughout the Reformed blogosphere. But in the event, the trial was inconclusive, except in one ironic respect: the chief prosecutor is now a layman in the Roman Catholic Church. Indeed, he was pondering his swim across the Tiber even as he prosecuted another man for dipping his toe in same water. Liberals are not the only ones tempted to cruel hypocrisies.
If one is a friend of the fox, one does not hunt with the hounds. So if one happens to be a social conservative-- I am not, although I deeply respect those who are-- one simply must stand as you do with the religion of the Church of England as by law established. Given that, to pretend to be a social conservative whilst joining those who lob grenades at those in the Establishment that conserves the society is absurd. Q.E.D.
BW
Dear Bowman
Thank you for your last comment which perfectly captures my own concern that we might so define "Anglican" in respect of various perfections of doctrine, ethics and liturgy, that we confine ourselves to a very small circle of supporters (albeit those supporters feeling very satisfied with such Anglicanism). We exist to serve the whole nation and we need a better way to do that than constant toying with temptations to secede schismatically ...
Dear Peter; your last sentence, prefaced by the first (and there are only two) begs an entire series of responses, which are based themselves on an entire series of assumed questions.
"Perfections": as we both know (and it hovered in the background of much that we tussled with earlier in this thread), there are both communicable and incommunicable attributes/properties/perfections (KB) of God. And what the Church is asked to steward naturally embraces only those the Gospel itself communicates - Word made flesh. The only question is how faithful is our stewardship. Alternatively, how tempted are we to toy with the ways of the age/world, the one loved so much that the Word made flesh seeks to warn us of others whose primary task appears to be to woo us away from the Shepherd's voice. Schism is not the likely fruit of our time. Insipid, luke warm 'compromise' is far more likely - the Lowest Common Denominator. As we reflect not God's attributes but those of a "Broken Image". And the ensuing reflection cannot but be confused. For the 'voice' itself is that of double-speak due to all the fragments. And to ask for clarity is not to gainsay a wider company; it's to humbly request the once true Image be graciously restored. The names of our own three city squares bear testimony to no less - at some cost. One hopes and prays for a Happy New Year; the likelihood may very well be otherwise.
Hi Bowman and Peter,
I take issue with both your last blogs.The Church was formed by Christ and exists to serve Him and not man.It is here to "keep and proclaim the Holy Writ".One is free to define "Anglicanism" any way you wish;but all those who have signed a submission to the General Synod of the ACANZP are bound to hold and maintain the Doctrine as defined in the Constitution 1857 Fundamental clause 1. The Constitution 1857 Part "C" para 14:"No doctrines which are repugnant [inconsistent] to the Doctrines and Sacraments of Christ as held and maintained by this Church shall be advocated or inculcated by any person acknowledging the authority of General Synod". All clergy of the ACANZP are bound Title "D" Canon 11-6:"Teach only Doctrine and interpretation of the Faith that are in conformity with the formularies of this Church,and not teach private or esoteric doctrine or interpretation in contradiction of those formularies"
Unfortunately,the great mission that the Anglican Union? has set out on has the scope to make more great parasites and hypocrites than saints.This great mission to serve the whole nation will end in the Church being ripped apart.Does it not exist to help transform the nature of believers into the great priesthood?
Hi Peter
I made a couple of posts last week on this thread and although probably out of date now, and no worries about that, just thought I would let you know in case there are posts from others pending somewhere as well.
Cheers!
Hi Jean
They were languishing!
No longer ...
Dear Bryden and Glen,
(1) Our Anglican heritage is a heritage of serving Christ in and for the whole "nation" (once meant England, here means Aotearoa New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa.
(2) Sometimes that service has involved some strange accommodations (witness Cranmer scurrying about Scripture and Europe to justify Henry finding a way through the maze of his marriage, papal politics and the search for a male heir ... not Cranmer's finest exegetical hour, but needs must ...).
(3) Sometimes that service has involved some accommodations not strange but bending with the ways and needs of society (witness the famous 1930 "change" of Lambeth on contraception; witness accommodations on marriage and divorce [NB NOT because someone relooked at Scripture and said, "Hey, we should be more accommodating" but because clergy were overwhelmed by the number of marriages breaking down and the ensuing numbers looking to remarry and thus Scripture was relooked at with a "Hey, we COULD be more accommodating..."]; witness accommodations on women and ministry IN A CHANGING SOCIETY which forced the church to re-examine its "Male Only" approach because, frankly, competent, gifted and called women were able to present themselves for discernment as capable ministers.
(4) Generally Anglicanism, facing both its internal commitment to doctrinal standards and its desire to be a church for the nation and not only for it perfecting of doctrine has eschewed pathways of Puritanism, Dissent, Plymouth Brethrenism, Believers' Baptism and Methodism while managing (often kicking and screaming!) to accept appropriate revivals, evangelical, charismatic, Anglo-Catholic.
(5) My comment above (I expect Bowman's too but he can answer for himself) is a serious question about what kind of Anglican church we wish to be in these islands and/or North America. Obviously (at least I hope it is!) I would prefer that Anglican church to stop accommodating, to not need to accommodate, and to generally avoid appearances of the same; but that preference is outweighed by a preference for us not, finally, to become what we have always avoided: narrowing ourselves into a puritanical sect.
The desire you state Peter at first blush is laudable. And it comprises something of an “Anglican vision” - but not its entirety.
1. You speak of “accommodations” as if they expressed some universal principle. They do not. Each has its own peculiar traits and costs and consequences. Once more, as with your list of opposites you assembled some years ago, you fail to show they are commensurate; nor can you, for they are not.
2. What needs to be done is to address the Gospel issue at stake in each; the particular context of the mission of the Church which it seeks to serve; and how; and why. When we do that sort of thing, for each of the cited examples, something else emerges, I suggest.
3. For today, in our post Christian, secular setting, which pursues an anthropology, I have suggested, that is derived precisely from the Gospel over many centuries, and yet which has emerged now as its bastard step-child—that precipitates a set of circumstances way removed from Henry VIII’s realpolitik. On account of the Incarnational identity of the Faith, it strikes at the very core of things. [For the Diocesan Library: Procreation and the Spousal Meaning of the Body by Angel Perez-Lopez (Pickwick Publications, 2017).]
4. Lastly, I merely ask: what might we serve WITH? What might we witness TO? What is emerging via ACANZ&P is frankly far too insipid, fragmentary, and incoherent to cut it - join Rotary or the Red Cross frankly. The result for the Church will be the wilderness, the desert of exile, and eventually that cry of Ezekiel’s “Can these bones live?” For as with the previous chapter’s verdict, we will have profaned the Lord’s name among the nations, not ministered to their needs.
5. No; this diagnosis is not a recipe for schismatic isolation. Ezekiel was in exile with the rest; nor was he allowed to mourn his wife! Yet Ichabod it still was - again. Nor are we anywhere near those final visionary chapters of the river of life streaming into the Dead Sea ... I doubt it will be a Happy/Blessed Year ...
Hi Bryden
I think I "get" each of your points and I take on board point 5: there might not be schism but "exile" and "Ichabod" instead.
Isn't #2 critical?
"What needs to be done is to address the Gospel issue at stake in each; the particular context of the mission of the Church which it seeks to serve; and how; and why. When we do that sort of thing, for each of the cited examples, something else emerges, I suggest."
That is precisely why I am trying to say what I am trying to say!
The Gospel issue is how people might hear the good news of Jesus Christ and, frankly, what I am perceiving, is that gay and lesbian people are NOT hearing the good news of Jesus Christ when it is clouded over with rhetoric and debate about the terrifying thought that priests might be permitted SSB while constrained not to go near SSM. In that talk what some (most?) gay and lesbian persons are hearing is that the church at best doesn't understand or care for them and at worst hates them. Something seems dreadfully wrong with our understanding of what it means to be the incarnate body of Christ in this particular context (one which, I venture to suggest, the body of Christ has never known before).
Without getting into the rights/wrongs of SSB/SSM, I am trying to raise the question how we as a church might talk in such a way, both to each other and to the world, so that we better "address" "the particular context of the mission of the church." Otherwise we seem in great danger of losing our connection with the world.
Hi Peter,
Perhaps one can take the last sentence of your blog at 9.43 PM as the actual starting point of thinking. Our connection to the world and other people is in Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit. The Mission of the Church, is to keep the Holy Writ pure and proclaim it boldly, as the Apostles did; even under the threat of death. It is the Gospel of "Inclusion in the Kingdom of God, as adapted sons and daughters";it is Christ's Call to "Come,follow me".It is the call to "Costly Grace"; it is costly, because it cost Christ His life. It is costly, because it requires us to surrender ALL to Christ. It requires us to allow the "old man" and his earthly desires to die and the "new man" to be transformed in Christ's image. It is the CALL that Christ and Christ alone can make.
If General Synod's "way Forward" is our connection to the world and other people; it will be [as Bryden says] lukewarm and insipid; lacking the
potency of "Repent ye:for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand". Matt 3/2.
Many a man has heard this CALL but "walked away sorrowful"; because they would not yield to Christ, that which they thought was the basis of their human identity.Luke 18/23.
As one LGBT person said recently,"Christ did not call me from being gay to being straight; but from being a gay to being a son of God. Yes, I had to repent of my old life and identity; but I am now a transformed son of God".
Hi Glen
(1) Bowman has replied to your comment but done so on the next post (the first post for the New Year). I am happy for the comments to continue there.
(2) Supportive of Bowman's response there, I observe that it is actually more "costly" (if we might use that measure for a moment) for the church to walk a pathway which seeks to hold people together (re differences in our church) and to continue to speak the gospel in ways which both challenge hearers about what Christ's Word for today means while also enabling gay and lesbian persons to want to at least hear what that Word is rather than run away from the church because of its perceived homophobia.
(3) I happen to have read Matthew 11:28 this morning. I wonder what the lightness of being in Christ means in the world today!?
Thanks Peter for picking up on #2. Yet it’s exactly your attempt at parsing all that (the rest of your comment) which is frankly where we differ so greatly. I’ll illustrate as best I can via a number of parallels. For what you fail to appreciate IMHO is the radical significance/consequences of “the bastard step-child”. Now; again, frankly, this is not surprising. For you are no near, yet so far away - so very far away, in the end. How so?
Two examples, the first for a NT man such as yourself, Romans 1:16; nor could we get a more famous example! And what might we ‘hear’? Four key words, in order: ashamed; gospel; power; (unto) salvation. Sure; the Reformers would go to town on the fifth, faith!! All four directed into an explicit Roman audience; and all four tugging at strings with massive, hefty tugs!
1. How/why might Paul be “ashamed” of his message? 1 Cor 1-4 tells us plainly!
2. Gospel: BUT that is already a Roman word, already a pronouncement of “salvation”, at the hands of Octavian, subsequently honoured by the Senate as “Augustus” after the “peace” (Rom 5:1) he (supposedly) brought, after ...
3. ... he secured a “powerful victory” over all his opponents [ah yes; who are these in that Letter?!];
4. all of which secured “salvation” throughout the oecumene.
Catching the drift ...? Words which sound the same and yet which are loaded with awesomely different meanings. It’s all about frameworks, discourses, narratives, grammars even. Do you recall my published paper, “Whose Language? Which Grammar?”? That laid the foundations of our essential disagreement: you speak one language; I’m speaking another - even as we seem to appropriate similar or the same words. Which is exactly where Alasdair MacIntyre comes in with his “Disquieting Suggestion” - one which has spawned now an entire series of conferences and secondary literature so powerful has it proven to be. Yes; I’m aware too that my own suggestions are equally disquieting - to some/many/you.
The second example, Arius. Frankly; I’m genuinely sorry for Arius. For by his own lights, he makes a genuine mistake - cannot but make that mistake - by his own lights - which he takes to be so genuine (recall now my loaded word, “genuine”, the third of my oft repeated Three Questions I’ve been raising from the beginning of Ma Whea etc. “How do folk become genuinely mistaken?”). Such is the prevalent paradigm of Hellenism, with its inherent, inevitable dualism, with such attempted compromises as the supposed ‘glacis of being’, that of course, obviously, Jesus can only be the greatest intermediary figure, the highest form of mediator ever between the One and the cosmos - BUT NOT ACTUALLY GOD OF GOD ETC. Nicaea is Hellenistic heresy ...!!! And yet; and yet ...
Catch the drift Peter now ...?
We in the 21st C in ACANZ&P are drowning in a confusion of words and mixed paradigms, a curiously alloyed confusion what’s more, due to that genealogy of the bastard step-child (aka MacIntyre’s evaluation too). Specifically, on topic: SSM vs. SSB vs. the Estate of Holy Matrimony vs. polyamorey. And furthermore, there’s so supposed means of adjudication among the options, such is the prevalence of pluralism. And to go further: human rights vs. equity vs. catholic human dignity vs. “no partiality” vs. “one new (true) Man”. What is needed is such a repentance by the Church, such a metanoia, that Athanasius termed it dianoia! No accommodation is actually possible at this point, in this context. Not for weird Puritanical, Perfectionist reasons, but on the grounds of the simple nature of the Gospel itself, the Incarnation-cum-Atonement, Word-made-flesh-Lamb-of-God, the One sent into the world to redeem God’s world. Given our moment in history ... Period!
That’s my parsing of #2. And the differences between us are seismic ...
Hi Bryden
Yes, the gap between us is seismic but not in the way you think.
I am trying to get the church (including you!) to think about what it means to live in this century with this century's language (and grammar), with special reference to non Christians who are further away from the church and its gospel message than the Romans and Greeks were in the first century (after all, they believed there were divine beings ...).
Your reply above, brilliant and pertinent though it is to the internal, ongoing theological debates of the church, and salutary though it is to myself trying to be in that same ever-debating church but also facing the world, simply has not come even close to addressing the question of reaching out to a world which does not want to know what we want to teach.
So, yes, the gap is seismic, but surely you and I need to work on bridging it so that together we can present the gospel?
Two small, brief responses Peter:
1. How can any of us build a bridge if we've already, institutionally, left one of the banks ...? That is, have ceased to be anchored there?
2. My comment to BW on that new thread might begin to apply ... plus serious features of the Benedict Option - correctly interpreted.
Hi Bryden
1. Brilliant imagery! ( ... we are heading into uncharted seas ...!??? ...)
2. I concede that a (so to speak) smaller, tighter [dare I say?] ship might be less of a (schismatic) "sect" (which I fear because penultimate step to non-existence) and more of a "beacon of holiness and light" (cf. BW's comments on the other thread; your "serious features of the Benedict Option - correctly interpreted" above)
1. I've heard of suspension bridges, Peter - but this appears to be truly a Bridge Too Far?!
2. I'd definitely add to that qualifying rejoinder to BW re Dallas Willard on that other thread (re the Benedict Option) the work of Richard Foster and his Renovaré Movement. For DW was RF's mentor for many years - and it shows:
https://renovare.org/
I have used their resources over the years, notably with church house groups. And they work well!
Hi Peter,
"The thing that hath been,is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done:and there is no new thing under the sun". Ecc 1/9
The bridge to the other side is the same as it always has been.The example of a life built on Faith and prayer. There is no magical catchall program.The life of the believer, whose actions and words stand apart from the mundane; can be the bait that God uses to "hook" the new fish.The Church needs to equip believers in the knowledge of the "power" of their lives and words."And they were astonished at his doctrine:for his word was with power".Luke 4/32. If we do our part and prepare the way,The Holy Spirit can do His.
Hi Glen
I hope nothing I write here implies that the bridge you are talking about ever changes: the importance of each Christian being a person of prayer, of faith, of the Holy Spirit is vital in every season of human history.
Nevertheless the church exists within society and society exists through language: what we say, what we signify (e.g. through symbols, through actions), and the church contributes to that language. Thus my concern that we get that language right ...
Oops! If you do mean "language", Peter, then perhaps you might be closer to my position of 16 Jan 6:30 after all ...?!?! Yet your use of that very word endorses even more the need for a radical discernment
Hi Peter,
I realize that this question is driven by a genuine desire on your part to communicate the message into the wider society.However,communication consists of far more than just the spoken word.The "heart" has a language all of it's own; as does the body.How often do we hear politicians say "all the right things" but one thinks, "I don't believe this guy".It is because the language of their hearts and the language of their bodies contradict the words gushing forth from their mouths.
We get that language right when we do the right thing right.The right thing in evangelism is to encourage others into an encounter with the Holy Spirit; not to get them into Church.It is the function of the Holy Spirit to "convict of sin",not ours.From the start,this was the problem with the question of SSM/SSB; one side saying God has no problems with such relationships and the other responding by accusations of sin.The language of both sides were and are at fault.You may be able to "prepare the way" [forward] into the ACANZP with faulty ways; but not into the Kingdom of God.
An Irish guy came up to my wife at a local supermarket car park ,saying him and his wife were touring NZ and that he had left his wallet at their motel and he was out of petrol.She gave him $20 so he could get back to the motel.
An act of kindness can be different to a Church setting up a soup kitchen or a food bank.The latter may only increase dependency.The same words and deeds are not appropriate in all circumstances.
Hi Bryden at 10.38am
Yes, it is about the language we use and that is every bit of language and every level of the message being sent (tone, texture, etc as well as content).
Jean and Jonathan, I would be much obliged to you both for the great favour of your brief definitions of P, where--
P = the proposition that Peter affirms and Bryden denies, or vice versa, in this thread.
I have looked for P daily for a week or so, but I still cannot find it. And yet they not only disagree day after day, but seem to know what they are disagreeing about. They even cite my comments as they do so, and each knows what the other meant by doing that, but I myself do not. And worse, they agree that they disagree and that their disagreement is even "seismic," which sounds dire. But I agree with everything that I understand in the comments of both of them, and yet I do not feel seismic at all.
One difficulty, I suppose, is that at points of definition they rely on metaphors. The result is like reading, "O my ? is like a red, red rose." We might agree with Gertrude Stein that a rose is a rose is a rose, but a prickly porcupine and a red fire engine both have enough similarity to a rosebush to stand in for ?
O my prickly porcupines's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June:
O my prickly porcupines's like the melodie,
That's sweetly play'd in tune.
O my red fire engine's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June:
O my red fire engine's like the melodie,
That's sweetly play'd in tune.
Silly maybe, but until your poetic license is revoked, you get to say things like that, and schoolkids have to learn them. So, if he didna tell us, how would we ken that Robert Burns was actually crooning till a the seas gang dry about his Luve?
Similarly, I am puzzled by the strange suspension structure that is a bridge too far on one bank but has no foot on the other. From context, I can see that the analogy is from a bridge, not to a brassiere or a tennis net or a circus tightrope, but to a channel for some kind of communication. But although a church has a lot of communication, I am not sure what in it is like a channel, so I cannot imagine what Bryden and Peter find analogous to missing a footing or overreaching a bank. Again, what they both agree that they both understand must make sense. But I cannot discover what sense that is.
BTW Glen's comments are more legible to me. But since Glen's view is not quite the same as either Bryden's or Peter's, his clarity has not helped me to understand their disagreement.
BW
Hi Bowman
When you put the question like that (!) ... I am a little confused myself, and time short to track my way back through the comments. Here goes ...
(1) Bryden and I have been discussing the theological state of our church and whether it (e.g. via General Synod) operates according to a coherent theology; with ramifications for what we may or may not decide re SSB and (my point in particular) whether we are capable of articulating the gospel faithfully and effectively in the 21st century milieu. "Effectively" links to talk about "bridge": from church to world. Can we build that bridge? I am trying to. Bryden reckons we lack the theological solidity to anchor the church end of the bridge.
(2) Bryden and I both recognise incoherency in our church's theology (this is not attested to in a comment above) but I would emphasise that this is because we have diverse and competing theologies; Bryden here is emphasising a simple lack of will to think theologically).
(3) Bryden and I differ on whether the work of the WG should be more prolegomena (sorting out a coherent theology of and for our church) or pragmatic (working with our differences, acknowledging they are not going to change in any immediate future, seeing what accommodation might be reached which makes some kind of sense).
I trust I am being fair to Bryden ... and to myself!
Bowman; Peter is being fair - as far as he goes.
Where he and our own ACANZ&P do not go nearly far enough is in this: they utterly fail to perform the sorts of deep metanoia - so necessarily deep that Athanasius termed it dianoia - around the nature of human being and identity. That had become a curious alloyed confusion given its genealogy. Hence my double whammy image of a bastard step-child: utterly dependent upon its Christian heritage down the centuries but also so distorted and disfigured these past 250+ years that it's become a mere shattered glass.
My Three Basic Questions, posted on ADU twice since 2014 and our Ma Whea? Commission, are the framework.
Re practices: I've invested the last dozen years or so in twin NZ institutions where these are being gloriously formed and performed: it's just not ACANZ&P ...!
FYI Bowman, the Three Basic Questions - which are NOT prolegomena, but properly basic for any Church with any integrity (pun intended):
1. How did western Christianity finish up here? How did we reach the point we have? This may be framed in the form we are being presented with today, symptomatically: we have a complete stand-off between those who deem homoeroticism per se a sin, and those who desire to see it set within what they suggest is a “reasonable and holy” relationship. [NB I say homoeroticism, NOT homosexuality per se, which though related clearly is something else.] Nor should we fail to note well: neither ‘side’ sees the matter to be adiaphora; positions are therefore held strongly and with seeming strong justification. While the Canadian St Michael Report (2005) saw the issue to be “non-creedal”, it also saw it as more than a mere “pastoral matter” since it implied a change in the doctrine of marriage (and therefore as a specifically political matter according to ACC’s Constitution).
The bottom line for me is around a due Christian anthropology, and the upshot of today’s bastard step-child.
2. Expressing this stand-off, the GS Motion 30, 2014 (which determined subsequently the premise for the WFG’s Report, and subsequently again the WG of 2016) saw “two integrities”, two supposed equally valid stances:
“(a) ... those who believe the blessing of same-gender relationships is contrary to scripture, doctrine, tikanga or civil law, ...
(b) ... those who believe the blessing of same-gender relationships is consonant with scripture, doctrine, tikanga and civil law ...”
Huge things are presupposed right here. Yet granted (for the moment) each ‘side’s’ respective “integrity”, how do we move from this mere phenomenon of (a) and (b) within a single organization to an evaluation of that organization? By what criteria or frame of reference might we truly conduct such an evaluation? This is a truly basic dilemma! For related to it is the other question: supposing any ‘successful’ outcome, and a ‘new’ organizational body, with these two parts (and multiple forms in-between), coming into existence - as now specifically recommended by the WG - what of the “integrity” of the eventual structure that seeks to house BOTH of these conflicting opposing stances, together? How on earth might we ‘read’ the integrity of this new whole?!
cont.
3. These two Qs 1 & 2 lead to an interim conclusion. Given an essential link between history, and the ontological and the logical, in the final analysis another set of questions arises: how do people become sincerely mistaken? NB: I do not say “are” mistaken; I am being resolutely historical here. For all humanity is comprised of both personal, little histories (all our multiple little histories, as well), and our respective cultural histories—all set within that Grand Story that is the Triune God’s Economy of Salvation. Add to which now our 21st C as a polyglot confluence of many cultural strands, which we fondly term the postmodern. This last series of questions, under 3, seeks to probe the very possibility that either one or the other ‘side’ in this stand-off is indeed mistaken - from a truly Christian point of view. In fact, it might be that BOTH are mistaken, to varying degrees. It is this third section’s questions which have prompted my own frail attempts these past 30+ years to get to the bottom of our present ‘dilemmas’ and their supposed “accommodation” (viz. my own version of answering Q.1, omitted here). And to repeat: the bottom line is encapsulated in my phrase, the bastard step-child.
Lastly, integral to these 3 Qs now is my comment posted earlier @ January 16, 2018 at 6:28 & 6:30 PM. And I repeat too, these 3 Qs are not prolegomena; they are basic to any missiology worthy of the Church’s task in the 21st C. And I say this as one reading serious missiology for nearly 40 years now, as well seeking to be its practitioner.
Thanks, Peter and Bryden, for your replies to my query to Jean and Jonathan. I still wonder what they make of all this, but am happy to reflect on your clarifying comments.
Business schools these days distinguish two kinds of businesses-- platforms and providers. Uber and Amazon are platforms; they make money as marketplaces where many independent sellers meet many independent buyers. Your local cab company or bookstore are providers; each is a single seller making money by selling a branded product to the myriad independent buyers. It really sounds to me as though Peter is saying that ACANZP should be more like a platform, while Bryden is saying that it should be more like a provider with a premium brand. In past comments, I have been taking a mediating position-- the inevitable platform is the ecumene, not any single church, and ACANZP offers two premium brands that are confusing buyers with very different value propositions.
Is there danger? Yes, but we frame it differently. To Peter, it is that ACANZP will fail as a platform by preventing new modes of community from emerging as Anglicans have done in response to social change in the past. To Bryden, it is that ACANZP will lose its Anglican brand identity if it does not shake off an alien influence and return to its roots. To me, it is that a continuing deadlock over something beyond the scope of either viable brand means that neither of them will achieve nation-wide convert-led growth. We like Sherlock Holmes better than Professor Moriarty, but soon both will tumble over the cliff.
So then what should a WG do? If it follows Peter's counsel it will be planning to make ACANZP more of a platform by loosening the ties that yolk the brands together, and perhaps establishing a regular way to charter new communities. If it follows Bryden's counsel, then it will be reading St Athanasius to understand what he means by *dianoia*, and perhaps proposing another WG to recommend a new theological anthropology to the West. Not bad ideas, although difficult. If it followed my counsel, some WG would---
(a) prioritise convert-led growth, recognising that those *retained* from churched and *converted* from unchurched backgrounds will be in very different places with respect to theological knowledge and the pastoral rites;
(b) propose measures in keeping with the Lambeth Quadrilateral to strengthen the Protestant ecumene on the blessed idles;
(c) study and evaluate the range of ecumenical and ACANZP responses to unauthorised SSB or SSM.
Those on the blessed isles will at once see a thousand difficulties with what I suggest. And Peter and Bryden will protest that I have not fully appreciated the depth of their positions. And the terrible thing about such harsh criticisms is that-- they are true. But perhaps this comment will make it easier for us to disagree than it was before ;-)
BW
Dear Bryden
Where does love fit into your analysis of our church?
Might love for one another and shared love for Jesus hold us together?
Might an appreciation of love generate a different anthropological appreciation of the commitment two people have to love one another until parted by death?
I am somewhat unmoved by your theological critique at this point because it sees no good at all in two people of the same sex loving each other. Is there no possibility that a mature and coherent theology of humanity within a church of the God who is love might find a way to appreciate ways in which people otherwise unable to marry are able to love one another?
Dear Bowman
We are within days of the report being made public ... so wishes for it to be what it may or may not be ... are too late!
But I love your analysis of the differences between Bryden and my positions re understanding of what is at stake in our church.
Not that I am completely happy with it, however!
You write: "To Peter, it is that ACANZP will fail as a platform by preventing new modes of community from emerging as Anglicans have done in response to social change in the past."
I am much less concerned about ACANZP failing as a platform than that sentence implies. My much greater concern is that as a platform ACANZP will not stupidly fail because (a) it drives out some existing communities; (b) it attempts to prevent new communities emerging but then finds they emerge (somewhat rebelliously) anyway!
Aha Peter; I've been waiting for someone to use that "love" word ... The simple thing Peter is this.
As we've all heard at numerous weddings, "Love is patient, ... it does not insist on its own way, ... does not rejoice in wrong-doing but rejoices in the truth"
Now; as any good NT scholar will tells us, JOY is also chief among the responses to the Good News (so Luke/Acts). Yet, as per our current ACANZ&P's proposals, we simply do not know what the truth is; we do not know what to rejoice in; let alone how to actually love intimately. We are in fact at complete loggerheads about these basic things. I'd even go so far as to suggest, we've been beguiled in our WG Proposals that we may 'rejoice' collectively in "postmodern truth" - with no consequences ...
Your bottom line question is far too Hollywood like. Try JM Bennett for an alternative, for she tables the Church's responses down the ages.
After commenting at 1:50, Bryden, I am just now seeing your last two comments on the Three Questions. I do promise to ponder them with care.
Meanwhile, FWIW, I will remind Peter's readers that I myself see ample evidence for Three Trends-- (1) from antiquity to the present, birthrates have fallen with relative wealth, so that an essentially non-procreative view of sex is an expected byproduct of mass prosperity; (2) in the 1960s, the great mass of women rejected church teaching on sex, love, marriage, and family, and that rebellion of the mothers has caused church participation to plummet in England and elsewhere; (3) resurgent Christian movements have most often been characterised by a retrieval of celibacy. Prosperous, mildly feminist, fun-loving Anglicans happen to have gotten stuck on That Topic, but were fated to have some big quarrel about sex sooner or later. Even if everyone agreed to impeccable orthodoxy on That Topic, the underlying differences between the Bible and the mess that the Three Trends have made would rise to the surface to be debated under another name.
BW
Thanks Bowman for your analogy re platforms and/or providers. One difficulty I see however in the analogy (begging the key thing that the oecumene is naturally the first economic model!) is that Amazon etc. is not exactly a community - by definition; it’s a clearing house. And I thought your desire to see effective witnessing communities to be your key objective. And so it should be: the Gospel simply must be(come) embodied.
And then there’s this simple observation: if we’d behaved as if platforming were the right thing to do back in the 4th C, then there’d be no Nicene Creed, no orthodoxy, merely syncretistic soup ... with all religious consumers winners.
Or is my grasp of the analogy misshapen?!
Hi Bowman,
Thanks for your thoughts on the other thread. Your three examples of people joining the LDS; are consistent with my observations that, at heart, we all want to belong to something which has boundaries and borders. Only there do we feel truly secure.They, as do the JWs, put a lot of effort into ensuring that new comers fully understand the beliefs they must uphold and the ceremonial laws they must practice.
Peter is, in my humble opinion, in a double bind. He accepts that the ACANZ&P claims it is a broad and diverse Church; but also wants it to reach out to a even more broad and diverse secular society. The Question he needs to settle is quite simply; from where on that broad plane of diversity, do you start to erect the bridge; and where in no-mans land will it touch down.
Or, put more simply; whose or what part of this broad and diverse Church's
message do you take across that bridge. On the other side, the words addressed to the grieving parents whose small child was killed in an accident are far different to those addressed to a group of university students. Different words leading to the same goal-an encounter with the Holy Spirit. This bridge is of course two-way and the hope is that people will travel back across it only to be confused.
Dear Bryden, Bowman and Glen
We need to be alive to the realities of the 21st century world and church (we are not in the 4th century, I am not advocating for a "platform" for the 4th century, and the 4th century issue was not about human relationships, a matter which has troubled the church off and on for centuries, and for which no one neat credal solution has ever sufficed (note current RCC angst despite the apparent clarity of the Catechism).
I am thankful that Bowman is alive to the challenge. I am also grateful to Glen for reminding us of the role of the Holy Spirit.
Bryden: please re-read what you wrote about a Hollywood question and ask whether that is a befitting comment from a pastoral perspective?
It is not the language (or "language") I would be using in a context where I am trying to keep GLBT Anglicans in our church rather than have them feel unloved and unwanted. Is it really the language you wish to use as a pastor? Is it the language that will make GLBT Anglicans feel that they are a welcome presence in our church or is it the language that will make them feel they provoke bad questions, poor theology and supporters of dubious ecclesiastical legitimacy? (Recalling that recently you questioned whether I was a Christian on this site!).
I believe in you and I think you can do better!
You raise some important points Bowman in 1 & 2 of your latest comment; thank you. I'd also add technology/biochemistry to prosperity as factors. But this is far from the full story.
For while celibacy - that is your #3 - might feature, there is another far more interesting thing occurring in those Christian communities who take our sexuality with due care and attention. And both in the West and in Majority World too - even China.
My wife, a medical practitioner, has been a member of WOOMB and a Billings teacher of teachers for many years. Our observation is this: whether one is a member of the RCC or an Evangelical or a Pentecostal, biochemistry and/or reproductive technology is out and wiser stewardship of fertility is in. That is to say, the 1950s to the late 1980s in Western society and our so assumed ideas around sexuality during this time might very well prove to be a blip. Not that 1 and 2 are exactly false; rather, the long term story is far more complex - even as it is evolving. And revival is throwing up far more interesting factors to incorporate into the equation.
So let's indeed ponder the brute social facts of the past 50-70 years; but let's also not be too selective about what constitutes those very facts, and lift our gaze even more.
"We are within days of the report being made public ... so wishes for it to be what it may or may not be ... are too late!"
Too late for the WG, Peter, not too late for those reading the signs of the times.
"You write... I am much less concerned about..." Of course you must be right, but from afar the difference between the two sentences is not clear to me.
"I am somewhat unmoved by [Bryden's] theological critique at this point because it sees no good at all in two people of the same sex loving each other."
The challenge is not love but lust. The Bible sees lust as a disruptive force tolerated for the sake of procreation, so that non-procreative lust, whatever its object, is disruption without the sole excuse for it. St Paul sees an overcoming of that force as an aspect of sanctification, and interestingly never pauses to defend that view. Rather he sees marriage as a state in which the believer balances care that a spouse not be tempted to fall into sin with the value of avoiding sex for the sake of deeper prayer. Isn't that interesting! Every serious contemplative knows experientially what he was talking about. The fathers are even more emphatic about it, and it is not a coincidence that martyrology knows so many virgin martyrs who died for the thwarted lust of Roman officials. Surely in this #MeToo moment we see nothing quaint about that?
So long as most people had a procreative sexual ethic, the biblical one did not seem strange. But Western men seem to have abandoned it in the years after the Great War, and Western women disgusted with the resulting double standard have scorned it with a vengeance from the 1960s. Today, lust (like usury) has been a mainstream value of Western societies for several decades. Ironically, many of our contemporaries have no appetite for the sex that they anxiously believe that they should be having. Meanwhile, churches talk about sex either as though lust were simply wonderful, or else as though the Archduke Ferdinand enjoyed his trip to Sarajevo and returned home to die of old age. Both ways are absurd.
It is only this absurdity that keeps That Topic alive. When Father Ron complains about the hypocrisy that revels in heterosexual lust whilst scolding homosexual lust, he is right as far as he goes.
So how does a church in this lusty age make peace between the sexes, and a place at the communion rail for sexual minorities? Two things seem obvious.
On one hand, holiness, not morality per se, is the point of churchly counsel. Justification by grace through faith in Christ apart from works of the law, entails that one entrust one's whole life to Christ our God. One who does that will do what s/he must about wealth... power... and sex... too. The story is different for every soul, for every soul begins from a different place.
On the other hand, that trust does lead to a transformation of the self with some well known features, including the self control that first brakes and then breaks the power of lust, both in the heart and in life. There are few positions more confused than one that opposes SSB while preaching a gospel of grace without transformation. (Personally, I think that Team (a) has led many into that confusion, but that is another matter.) There are few positions more deeply satisfying that the one that sees this as the reconciliation within the heart of Creator and creature, things invisible and things visible, heaven and earth, paradise and world, man and woman (St Maximus).
BW
Hi Bowman
By all means let's have a discussion about lust and not love, but could we have some contributions from those for whom the overcoming of lust cannot also involve entering into (heterosexual) marriage. Otherwise I fear our discussion would be interesting and valuable (because it does engage in Scriptural reflections) but without an idea whether it was relevant to reality.
I sense, however, that if we had those contributions we might have some voices which talk about lust being overcome where love can come to fruition and thus we would also discuss the question I am raising, whether we might be able to show some appreciation (note, that is a carefully chosen word) of the possibilities for love between people.
After all, to take another side of the "hypocrisy" of the church, we are also aware that sometimes where homoeroticism has been proscribed in the life of the church it has been pushed underground rather than overcome.
We don't want to do that, do we, anymore than we want GLBT people to feel unwelcome in our midst?
Peter; you correctly raise the issue of "love"; and I started with one key depiction of that very word - which you totally avoided. And in that context, I naturally invoked other possible depictions given our contemporary culture's massive confusion on the subject. A confusion moreover which our church seems to be emulating. Nor is it at all clear to me, given your expressed stance over many months/years, that you are in fact any the clearer in your mind. (For what constitutes loving action is not an academic matter!) Your accommodation seeks merely to tolerate the confusion - whatever the deemed legitimacy in your mind of its rationale. The unity we shall finish up with will not be one either of peace or love. But rather an organizational fudge that will end with an institutional whimper ...
Hi Peter and Bowman,
Is the REAL question that we should be facing up to,about love and lust?; or is it about being called into the Kingdom where the Will of God is done,as it is done in Heaven.
Is the "Way Forward" about establishing a Church with two Integrities?; or is it about walking the "narrow way" to that Kingdom, where we have been promised CITIZENSHIP, if we overcome? The Call of Christ:"Come follow me"; is not a call to wander the desert for forty years, but a call into the very heart of God.It is a call to transformation into being a citizen of God's Kingdom.It is a call to discern the Spiritual Gifts and use them for the Kingdom's Sake under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
The ACANZP needs a dynamic teaching on POWER and AUTHORITY,as well as TRANSFORMATION.
Bonhoeffer reminds us:"When Christ calls a man,He bids him to come and die".
"Knowing this,that our old man is crucified with him,that the body of sin might be destroyed,that henceforth we should not serve sin".Romans 6/6
"And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with affections and lusts.If we live in the Spirit,let us also walk in the Spirit".Gal 5/24 & 25
Jesus answered:"Verily,verily,I say unto you,except a man be born of water and Spirit,he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. John 3/4&5
Greetings Bowman,
Apologies I have been pre-occupied of late. Thank you for asking my opinion although I dare say my knowledge and acumen fall well short of Peter and Bryden’s on this matter, so all I can give is my personal stance.
My understanding of the disagreement here arising is what constitutes the bridge, if the bridge implies connecting Christ with people in our word today. Will or does widening the practical interpretation of the truth to make it more palatable to the masses mean people feel a whole lot more comfortable and keen about approaching the Churches doors or staying within them; or conversely does such an interpretation so diffuse the truth of the scripture itself that truth in itself becomes relative, and although the connection with society at large is made, will it mean the gospel is lost to us.
I comment little on ‘The Topic’ as I often just don’t know what to say and it is a subject taken intensely personally by people thoughout the spectrum of viewpoints, many times understandably so. My view is that we can not erase what is written and as much as I have read and as much as I understand I have yet to find any conclusive or contextual argument convincing enough for me to believe God’s intention is for people to actively undertake a same sex relationship. Still I open to being convinced.
Theologically and sociologically I am apprehensive about the huge social experiment, my so called can of worms, that will come from an endorsement of such relationships. This includes the next step of children and the effect on these children (we do not yet know what the ramifications are for children having two parents of the same sex, many of these children will not know their biological father mother, and at some point the need to comprehend ‘where and how they came to be’ will be a part of their life); currently family life can be complicated this will make it more so, by choice. The altering of lets call it the tenents of the Church to make them more accommodating to social realities this has an echoe of an underlying featuring that is becoming commonplace in the way many people think (general assumption by me here) - that morality and ethics and self determined. Example: our blessed Isles legalisation of prostitution; “it is no skin off my nose if people choose such an occupation, people should be able to do what they want if they aren’t hurting anyone else” (ignoring the fact it isn’t alway a choice) this viewpoint is now backfiring as people aren’t too keen on their kids school teacher moonlighting in this industry but it is legal, or having a brothel set up next door to them although it is legal). My preference had been to make it illegal for men to use brothels : ).... Example 2: Recently reading an article about a same gender couple married in a church in NZ and truthfully wanting to know the person’s viewpoint and why having a wedding in a church was important to them hoping to gain some insight to how they reconcile their faith and gender. I was disappointed to read the commentary which basically indicated both women had grown up with some church influence and wanted therefore to get married in a Church. The lady interviewed thought the Church needed to get up to play and ‘to be more what the village wants it to be’. It was in essence a ‘we should have it because we want it approach’.
Hi Glen
Every Christian faces the question of what it means for Jesus to bid us come and die; for the kingdom to be sought first and other things to be added to it.
But how far does that get us on what the call of Christ means for us in respect of relationships? Do I keep non-Christian friends (they might be a bad influence on me v. I might win them for Christ ...)? Do I marry or not? (Clearly many Christians through the ages have felt marriage is compatible with the cost of discipleship; but others have embraced celibacy ...).
Oh dear just failed to cut and paste the last bit of my comment, now I better get off to church so maybe later : ) Jean
Hi Bryden
(From your comment above ...): "Love is patient, ... it does not insist on its own way, ... does not rejoice in wrong-doing but rejoices in the truth."
[Alongside that we could put that love covers a multitude of sins; but I suspect that won't aid our discussion!]
It is quite unclear to me what your cited words from the greatest love poem offer us in the divide we are in. As I best understand progressive Anglicans on SSB/SSM they are precisely wanting to be able, in church, to rejoice in the truth of the discovery that two people of the same sex may love each other with the same committed, faithful, affirming love which a husband and wife have for each other.
In part, their theological argument for doing so relies on the fact that when the RCC will not rejoice in the remarriage of a divorcee (for that is to rejoice in the wrong of adultery), Anglicans have found a way, theologically, also canonically, to rejoice in the remarriage of a divorcee. At the very least, Anglicanism has thrown up to itself a debate about what is right/wrong, true/false re human relationships (cf. Bowman's pertinent social survey of the last century in various comments here).
So my rejoinder to you is that "love" is about how we serve one another, affirm one another and meet together with one another when we are in serious disagreement on precisely what it is we may rejoice in (and, indeed, for the time being, cannot rejoice in together).
Is it not possible that life in the church involves a mixture of joy and sorrow at the same time. Yesterday, as may have been reported to you, I was present at a Catholic funeral, a requiem mass. My joy in being able to participate in an occasion full of love and affection for someone all of us, including non-Catholics held in great affection, was tinged with the continuing "bitter-sweetness" of being unable to share in the communion. The denial of that participation, as you know well, is precisely because Rome cannot rejoice in what Anglicans hold to be true about Communion. Conversely, Anglicans rejoice in Catholics sharing in our communion, precisely because (as I see it) of two understandings we hold dear and to be true:
- that there is no single understanding of Communion required of Christians;
- that Christian love is at its best when Christians are in communion even as we hold our disagreements within that communion.
Peter, what the "cited words from the greatest love poem offer us" is - to clearly repeat:
We, as an institutional church, no longer know what the truth is, no longer know what wrong-doing is, for we wish to have a prevaricating bob each way - for whatever reason; and so, what's there to rejoice in collectively, as a catholos.
The true joy and peace of the Holy Spirit is not derived from such "Aufbegung" of contradictory opposites. True; RDW loves Gillian Rose's love of Adorno, and ran our last Lambeth accordingly. But Jesus' cross and resurrection is no Speculative Good Friday in the course of this World's Geist's evolution. To parade as much is to court real death in the End.
Dear Bryden,
Funnily enough, I agree with you "the true joy and peace of the Holy Spirit is not derived from ... contradictory opposites."
I see no joy and peace to be derived from GS agreeing with what is proposed; instead, quite a lot of hard work going forward, etc.
But I see no other realistic way forward for our church given its state of disagreement ... but I am open to the Spirit surprising me, and you!
Peter @ 4:50, five quick replies--
(1) Scriptural views of lust and holiness bring intrinsic criteria to bear on proposed rules for sex for the 100%. In contrast, the bare Six Texts have been applied extrinsically as blind law for the 3%. This seems important.
(2) To be clear, New Zealand and ACANZP have SSM today. Nobody has any power either to give or to withhold what citizens already have by the law of the land. And even recognition by fellow Christians of whatever religious meaning these civil unions have is an informal, organic process that legislation may possibly influence, but cannot and will not supplant. There is very little at stake in the debate on SSB.
(3) The overzealousness of SSB proponents is their own worst enemy. If they had to make a living selling cars, they would starve. They would never stop hectoring shoppers with memorised pitches RECITED OVER AND OVER to goad them to BUY THE ONE CAR THEY WANT TO SELL. Buyers would walk away from such pushy selling of just one option in disgust. People buy in when they are allowed to make choices to do so, and they fiercely resist being herded into one pen.
(4) Those who do not like SSB actually have three broad options for ACANZP response to civil SSM-- (a) oppose rites for SSB and all other official responses, (b) respond casewise to local improvisations as necessary, (c) enact sweeping ACANZP rules to regulate everything everywhere in advance. By definition, they prefer (a), but if SSB is to come anyway, then they may well prefer that it come gradually and experimentally through (b) rather than suddenly and imperiously through (c).
(5) In fact, if SSB were to be utterly crushed never to rise again, four wonderful things would happen for sexual minorities as a result-- (a) diverse, local, experimental "violations" of the canons would take place that are much more contextual than any official rite, (b) churchly conversation about their special needs could broaden to take up some urgent yet less polarised topics (eg suicide, marriage counseling), (c) a real pastoral conversation about sexuality and sanctity for all could begin, and (d) they would be spared the burden of being the reason for schisms real and imaginary. Passing some official SSB is institutionally tidier, but it is worse than letting the matter play out in pastoral care. Those who feel SSB is being crammed down their throats may not care much about tidiness.
BW
Because Peter the One who fulfilled the Covenant the way He did in Jesus and continues to unfurl its meaning in the Spirit is Who He is, mercifully anything is possible. The difficulty remains our ongoing confusions which diffuse and filter the rays of Light ...
Hi Bowman
I see what you are saying.
As you will see when the Final Report is released, the capacity for "local options" is a live one, because it will be for bishops to approve services. (This is not quite what you are saying, I know, but what the Final Report says is not quite, IMHO, your 4(c).)
So, Peter--
(6) Whilst the practise of SSM will continue to attract scrutiny (eg Jean's comment above) and fundamental critique (eg Bryden's bastard stepchild theory of everything), as well as hopeful support (eg your comments and Father Ron's) the presenting question for those who dislike SSM is not--
(a) Is SSB is wonderful enough for all to like?
--but rather--
(b) Which practises of SSM along the range of options are least and most bad?
--and--
(c) On what basis should practises be compared?
Interestingly, even one who dislikes SSM could count its proposed benefits along with its problems among the proposed bases.
BW
Thanks Bowman
You are talking about my "appreciation" ...!
Doctor: I have asked you to come in for this Appreciation, because we have some decisions to make.
Patient: Oh?
Doctor: Er, yes. Regrettably, your situation is dire. We can amputate your foot, your calf below the knee, or your leg below the hip. Or you can just drop dead.
Doctor: Nobody truly knows the day or the hour, but next Wednesday at 3:52 in the afternoon seems very inauspicious for you.
Patient: Well, I very much appreciate my leg, my calf, and my foot, so there will be no amputation! Is there anything else for me to appreciate?
Doctor: Well, it is important that you appreciate the danger that you are in. The less we cut off, the more of that there is, and the sooner you will die.
Patient: Right now I appreciate the danger of losing my leg.
Doctor: You need to appreciate the danger of losing your life.
Patient: Yes, but it is hard to appreciate the value of a life without a leg.
Doctor: We are here to help you with that. The loss is real, and nothing fully compensates for it, but you will receive a peg leg, a parrot for your shoulder, and a bottle of rum.
Patient: Aaaaaarggh! It is much easier to choose from among two or three good things than from among two or three bad things.
Doctor: Yes, that is neurologically correct. The dopamine-based reward system that normally helps you to choose from among desired possibilities does not help you to gauge avoided possibilities.
Patient: All that my mind can do is keep protesting that I don't want to lose my leg and I don't want to die either.
Doctor: We have five minutes until my next patient comes in. Think-- quickly-- about the bright side.
Patient: Well, what do I get if you cut off my foot?
Doctor: A prosthetic skateboard.
Patient: My calf?
Doctor: Some stylish bloomers.
Patient: What do parrots eat?
Doctor: Parrot feed is included in your treatment.
Patient: How long?
Doctor: For as long as the parrot lives.
Patient: Who lives longer, me or the parrot?
Doctor: The parrot.
Patient: Well, I suppose that if I have to give up a leg to take care of the parrot that's the logical choice to make.
Doctor: You won't live to regret it, sir!
Patient: Thank you, I appreciate that.
BW
I am puzzling to myself, Bowman, if your dialogue has any relationship to what I meant ... :)
Inspecting tea leaves Bowman?! Meanwhile; before I sign off for a sabbatical, two things.
1. Have you yourself even tried to answer my Three Basic Questions? It seems rather important to ask them, since any prognosis (our current updated WG proposals for our May GS, for example; TEC has already offered its own ‘diagnosis’ and ‘prognosis’) is entirely dependent upon any due diagnosis. Get the latter wrong, and the former falls apart ...
2. My “theory” is but an attempt by me of partially answering notably Qs 1 & 3. One crucial reason (there may be also other lesser ones) for the existence of these two strongly opposing and contradictory stances in today’s Church is that we are driven by two opposing anthropologies in our western societies.
2.1 The classic Christian view is that human being is made in the image of God (however exactly construed ...); therefore we are creatures and there is the Creator, to whom we are accountable and answerable, even as we are creatures of immense worth and dignity, being that Creator’s representation and representatives (one textual view of “image and likeness”); yet there is an ambivalence to our nature, which may be summarized as our being “essentially good (the image remains) yet fundamentally flawed (the Fall, again however construed)” - NB the two qualifiers’ etymology; there’s a basic asymmetry here.
2.2 Our contemporary view, directly attributable historically to centuries of Christian developing culture, yet by now also seriously distorted (hence “bastard step-child”), may be summarized in this way: human beings are autonomous, self-positing personal subjects, the emerging upshot of a long, natural evolving process. NB the likes of Mahathir Mohamad’s insight, who is on record as saying “human rights are a western social construct” - he is both partially right yet also partially wrong.
2.3 Thus we have in our western churches an alloyed confusion, which prompts “genuine mistakes” - my third question is vital to our current plight: how do we become genuinely mistaken? Either way ... Fascinatingly, I watched a You-tube interview with Stephen Fowl y’day during which he spoke of his students’ experience of OT idolatry: how could Israel have possibly finished up where they did, they felt, by the time of the Prophets, after their glorious Great Start (the Pentateuch)??!! He went on to give a contemporary example of how these things creep up on us, by way of illustration ...
Over and out.
"I am puzzling to myself, Bowman, if your dialogue has any relationship to what I meant ..."
Many sincere and indefatigable derps on each side have debated That Topic for years without learning much from the other. In the plainest meaning of the word, Peter, your "appreciation" is indeed my 6b and 6c. And indeed, the situation on the ground will soon require much such "appreciation." But just as 6b and 6c are not derping, so derping is not the appreciation for which you call. It seemed kind to acknowledge and explain, if only by analogy, that derps will find appreciation difficult.
BW
Hi Bryden (But understood that you are "over and out"!)
Might you be (so to speak) "partially right and partially wrong."
Right: I agree, we, Western, Anglican, Protestant Christians (in particular) have lost the original plot (like Israel!) and we are a church full of autonomous, self-positing personal subjects (try to get clergy to move far from the bigger cities!!!).
Wrong: nevertheless this church is the church today; it is not the original church (either in time or in proximity to the ideal; we might or might not get back to being what we are meant to be; but in the meantime we, if employing Israel's history analogously, might we be an Israel in search of a king, like the other nations!, which God does not want but does concede? That is, living in this world, this world of self-positing, autonomous personal subjects, which has been unfolding for several centuries, which has influenced the church in ways it seems comfortable with (contraception, remarriage after divorce, ordained women), what is the church to do? Is it to make an example of same sex partnered people, to make them the cause celebre for a "back to the fons" reversal of history? Much as I am in agreement with you about your diagnosis, I am not entirely with you in your prognosis!
This is old ground between us in this thread and I think I can predict your reply (should you make one) ... but I couldn't resist picking up on the possibility that Mahathir and you have something in common!
Dear Bowman
Aha!
Tea leaves for grownups-- http://olmstednyc.com/food-and-drink#tea
Tea leaves for connoisseurs-- https://www.te-nyc.com/collections/new-arrivals
BW
Benedict's cave revisited? A very loaded reply...
Hi Bryden
Do you mean this place, http://www.waitomo.co.nz/en-gb/adventure-tours/st-benedicts-caverns , where we could incarcerate ACANZP's heretics?
Seriously: Yes, Benedict retreated before advancing; and, maybe, we should od the same.
Meanwhile, on a walk this afternoon, I pondered why it is that autonomous, self-positing, personal subjects who marry one another (and together autonomously self-posit delay in being fruitful) do not bear the logic of your diagnosis? Should we not be ferreting away from the blessing of the church all self-positing autonomous personal subjects? Not just those who are gay or lesbian?
That is, I remain in agreement with you, and the whole church tradition, that God ordained humanity to marry, male and female coupling together for the continuation of humanity; that the grounds for the church to now say that, against Scripture and tradition, that other couplings are also blessed is dubious, at best. But I remain far from convinced that working on the besetting sin of current humanity as autonomous etc and speaking of bastard step-childs etc is a means to carry an argument forward against the WG proposal which is itself coherent and likely to be applied with consistency.
Q.2 remains unaddressed by either your own perambulations and/or WG.
Correction Bowman: tea for connoisseurs = http://www.teatotal.co.nz/ ;-)
Dear Bryden
Fair point re Q2. Here goes (beginning with citation of your Q2 above).
"2. Expressing this stand-off, the GS Motion 30, 2014 (which determined subsequently the premise for the WFG’s Report, and subsequently again the WG of 2016) saw “two integrities”, two supposed equally valid stances:
“(a) ... those who believe the blessing of same-gender relationships is contrary to scripture, doctrine, tikanga or civil law, ...
(b) ... those who believe the blessing of same-gender relationships is consonant with scripture, doctrine, tikanga and civil law ...”
Huge things are presupposed right here. Yet granted (for the moment) each ‘side’s’ respective “integrity”, how do we move from this mere phenomenon of (a) and (b) within a single organization to an evaluation of that organization? By what criteria or frame of reference might we truly conduct such an evaluation? This is a truly basic dilemma! For related to it is the other question: supposing any ‘successful’ outcome, and a ‘new’ organizational body, with these two parts (and multiple forms in-between), coming into existence - as now specifically recommended by the WG - what of the “integrity” of the eventual structure that seeks to house BOTH of these conflicting opposing stances, together? How on earth might we ‘read’ the integrity of this new whole?!"
To a degree the question is irrelevant in terms of the Final Report (see now my post responding to it, with links to Taonga) because the Final Report does not set up two equal yet opposite integrities in terms of structure. It retains the constitution, it changes not the doctrine of marriage, it proposes permission for services of blessings, it provides guarantees for those who to use such services and for those who do not wish to.
To another degree the question is relevant because what is proposed adds a degree of formality to different viewpoints already present in our church. It also makes statements or implies states of affairs which can be evaluated over time: for instance, the report provokes these evaluative questions:
- will the constitution yet change?
- will the marriage doctrine give way to a new formulation?
- will proposed safeguards turn out to be safeguards?
To be sure, by proposing that (e.g.) bishops permitting SSB cannot be disciplined it sidesteps how doctrinal implications of such actions might be evaluated in a formal sense. But is not what is proposed setting the church up for evaluation in other ways: which dioceses and hui amorangi will flourish as a result? How will Christian Communities fare in this new environment? [See my Part 2 response tomorrow re "Incorporation".]
That is, I see your question being answered over time by signs of flourishing.
Or, am I completely mis-reading your question?
What's that saying re "... a thousand qualifications"? Hat tip A. Flew naturally.
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