Why is the future of reasoned Christian disagreement endangered? Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, has a penetrating answer in “Knowing Myself in Christ,” an essay that belongs to The Way Forward?: Christian Voices on Homosexuality (Eerdmans, 2003), edited by Timothy Bradshaw. Although he specifically addresses the contentious issue of human sexuality, substitute any other contentious issue in the church and his insight still applies.
Ours is a time in which it is depressingly easy to make this or that issue a test of Christian orthodoxy in such a way as to make wholly suspect the theology of anyone disagreeing on the issue in question; in other words, the possibility is neglected that Christians beginning from the same premises and convictions may yet come to different conclusions about particular matters without thereby completely voiding the commonness of their starting-point. It is really a matter of having a language in which to disagree rather than speaking two incompatible or mutually exclusive tongues. Of late, attitudes toward sexuality have come to be seen as a clear marker of orthodoxy or unorthodoxy in many circles; and it is true that there are plenty of people for whom the casting of ‘traditional’ or even scriptural norms to do with certain kinds of sexual behavior is part of a general program of emancipation from the constraints of what they conceive to be orthodoxy, part of a package that might include a wide-ranging relativism, pluralism in respect of other faiths, agnosticism about various aspects of doctrine or biblical narrative, and so on. However, it seems to me that the St Andrew’s Day Statement, beginning as it does with proposed principles for theological discussion, recognizes that the assumption that revisionism on one questions entails wholesale doctrinal or ethical relativism is dangerous for the future of reasoned Christian disagreement of a properly theological character.
August 14th, 2010 | 9:14 am | #1
There are certain issues which reveal a serious, fundamental misunderstanding of other issues. Homosexuality is one of those revealing issues. There are others.
August 14th, 2010 | 2:13 pm | #2
I second that, Mr. Roberts. Homosexuality is one of those revealing issues.
I’m not sure that either “agree-to-disagree” or “disagree-to-disagree” is a helpful general principle, because it depends on what the disagreement is. Can we simply say that we have a duty to speak the truth, live by the truth, and stand by the truth, let the chips fall where they may? Can we say that churches have a responsibility to preach the true gospel, and to truthfully communicate God’s revelation to man? Can we say that we must speak out against false gospels, protect our flocks from false teachers, and encourage repentance in those who are liars, cheaters, slanderers, thieves, adulterers, fornicators, etc., etc.?
I hope that this, at least, is something we can all agree on.
August 14th, 2010 | 2:26 pm | #3
Mr. Mator: You ask: “Can we simply say that we have a duty to speak the truth, live by the truth, and stand by the truth, let the chips fall where they may?” I wish it were that simple, but it is not. I am not a postmodernist when I retort: Whose truth? On the origins of life, is it the truth of the creationists, ID proponents, or theist evolutionists? On war, is it the truth of the just warriors or the pacifists? On poverty, is it the truth of government workers or philanthropists? On torture, is it the truth of deontologists (who argue that torture is always wrong) or utilitarians (who argue that torture is acceptable in some circumstances)? On contraception, is it the truth of abstainers (Catholics) or users (Protestants)?
You ask: “Can we say that churches have a responsibility to preach the true gospel, and to truthfully communicate God’s revelation to man? Can we say that we must speak out against false gospels, protect our flocks from false teachers, and encourage repentance in those who are liars, cheaters, slanderers, thieves, adulterers, fornicators, etc., etc.?” Here again, I am compelled to retort: Whose gospel? Everyone has the same Bible, but there are different formulations of the gospel. Is the “true gospel” the one according to the magisterial Reformers, the radical Reformers, the Roman Catholics, or the Eastern Orthodox? At the very least, orthodox Christianity seems to share in common the Nicene Creed and Apostle’s Creed. Beyond that, differences abound.
August 14th, 2010 | 3:13 pm | #4
Christopher:
I think you took my words too far. I’m not saying everyone agrees on what the gospel is; just that we do, nevertheless, have the responsibility to preach the true gospel and condemn that which is false.
If you’d like to talk about what the true gospel really is, we can also have that conversation. :)
August 14th, 2010 | 3:39 pm | #5
Mr. Mator: Well, yes, “we do… have the responsibility to preach the true gospel and condemn that which is false.” I’m satisfied with the Reformed expression of the gospel in The Cambridge Declaration. Of course, any of the older confessions are sufficient as well: Thirty-Nine Articles, Belgic Confession, and Westminster Confession. What about you?
August 14th, 2010 | 7:23 pm | #6
I like a lot of things in The Cambridge Declaration, although my take on “sola Scriptura” is different from the Reformed view.
But how would I define the gospel? I think a good place to start is with Paul, since he is part of the reason why we even use the word “gospel” or “good news” in the first place.
In Romans 1, he tells us what the good news is. “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God— the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Continuing in Romans 2, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’”
August 15th, 2010 | 1:17 pm | #7
If the future of reasoned Christian disagreement is endangered could it be because more and more our intellectual leaders seem to be unable to decide what to believe. The handwringing and fretting is palpable. An intellectual who holds no dogmatic principles (beyond tolerance) has no chance of standing in the face of this dictatorship of relativism. If all you can offer is “whose truth”, I can’t understand what contribution you hope to bring to First Things beyond muddy water. In these darkening days the only people who will be able to strike a blow for Truth are those who believe they have some of it.
August 15th, 2010 | 2:28 pm | #8
Mr. Mator: Indeed, “a good place to start” defining the gospel “is with Paul, since he is part of the reason why we even use the word ‘gospel’ or ‘good news’ in the first place.” You quoted some of my favorite passages from the Book of Romans.
August 15th, 2010 | 10:42 pm | #9
Christopher,
Thank you for your earnest engagement with matters of importance!
It sure would be nice if the Spirit actually palpably led the Church “into all truth,” rather than abandoning us on so many important matters, wouldn’t you agree?
For what it’s worth, here are three possible notes on avoiding the vertigo accompanying the collapsing of things spiritually discerned with “reasonable arguments,” on the logic of St Paul, who claims that “spiritual things are spiritually discerned,” and on the logic of the Acts of the Apostles, where the Spirit’s presence is recorded again and again as entirely palpable. The first is from St John Cassian, on interpreting Scripture; but it applies, I think, in some general sense to the matter of theological interpretation you raise. The second, from St Gregory the Theologian, underscores the first. The third is a link to a paper more properly introducing this trajectory, in which it is understood that “the pure in heart” see God, that such purification involves the internal and external dialogue of “reason” and “reasonable arguments” (dianoia, logismoi, etc.), and that such considerations are determinative for would-be theologians.
1. St John Cassian (c. 360-440):
“The reason that such great differences and mistakes have arisen among commentators is that most of them, paying no sort of attention towards purifying the mind, rush into the work of interpreting the Scriptures and, in proportion to the density of impurity of their hearts, form opinions that are at variance with and contrary to each other’s and to the Faith, and so are unable to take in the light of truth.”
2. St Gregory the Theologian (329-390):
“Approach God by the way you live, for what is pure can only be acquired through purification. Do you want to become a theologian someday, to be worthy of the divinity? Keep the commandments, make your way forward through observing the precepts: for the practical life is the launching-pad for contemplation.”
3.The paper:
http://en.hilarion.orthodoxia.org/6_20 (scroll down to section 2: “Theological Education”)
I will throw in a fourth point for free, since I raised the matter of the Holy Spirit:
4. According Vladimir Lossky, Tradition simply *is* “the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church,” guiding her to all fullness, betwixt and between difficult interpretive matters, through the centuries, to the present day. It seems to me that the lives of the saints in every century, even the 20th, attest to the trustworthiness of this statement.
Sorry for such a long post!
August 16th, 2010 | 4:55 am | #10
Christopher Benson: “Why is the future of reasoned Christian disagreement endangered? Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, has a penetrating answer”
Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the Anglican Communion….
Look at his tenure as Archbishop of Canterbury and look at his example and leadership and practice of “reasoned” Christian disagreement.
Many folks believe it’s his leadership that has endangered the Anglican Communion precisely because of how he himself conducts “reasoned” Christian disagreement.
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