The Wider Church On My Bookshelf

Jeff P., host of the upcoming edition of the Christian Reconciliation Carnival, asks a great question:

Have you read articles, essays, or books by a Christian of a denomination other than yours -- and found yourself agreeing with much of what he or she wrote? How has this changed your understanding of the divisions in Christianity?

Because my background is a little different than suggested by the question, I will answer both about writers of denominations other than mine and about what experience most changed my understanding of divisions in Christianity.

The Christian writer that I have loved the most has been J.R.R. Tolkien. Some people value his Christian insights less than other writers because they are presented as fiction. Some see Tolkien's fiction as less Christian than Lewis' because Tolkien was more subtle than Lewis' semi-reenactments of the Bible in Narnia. On the contrary, I can almost hear Tolkien saying, "The kingdom of heaven is like two hobbits." The Lord of the Rings is a far more deeply Christian piece than many give it credit for being; the world has not yet fully realized what Tolkien has said.

But what has most shaped my view of divisions in the church? My first pastor had a vision of the Church that transcended divisions. Though Lutheran, he introduced me to Thomas Merton, held remembrance services for certain saints days (I still remember a sermon he gave at vespers on the feast of St. Martin), and encouraged reading C.S. Lewis. From the time when I was first introduced to Christianity, I was shown a vision of the church having a broad and deep unity underneath all her differences and divisions. We were taught to be Christians -- followers of Christ -- first and foremost, and to regard our membership in a Lutheran congregation and a Lutheran synod as a matter of spiritual stewardship made necessary by temporal circumstances. Given that background, it never came as a surprise to find myself in large agreement with the writings of Christians outside my camp. On the contrary, the part that has kept surprising me is the unfairness with which the various groups often treat each other.

The experience that most affected my view of our differences occurred one day after I shifted from my first church body -- a liberal church -- to a more conservative church. (The shift was interesting in itself; I discovered that each side misunderstood the other badly, misrepresented the other badly, and resisted the idea that it was behaving unjustly and uncharitably toward the other.) But one particular day stands out sharply in my mind. Have you ever heard the same sermon text preached at two different churches? It was a shock. This particular Sunday I attended both services, the one at the liberal church and the one at the conservative church. Both taught on the same text. In the sermon, the liberal church preached about "speaking the truth with love": the pastor explained how love was the key and how those awful conservatives had a loveless truth. The conservative church, that same Sunday, preached about "speaking the truth with love" and taught how truth was the key and how those awful liberals had a truthless love. And after I heard those two sermons, what I really took away as the message was that 1) everyone thinks the other person's sins are worse than their own and 2) the two groups really need each other; without each other we're each incomplete, caricatures of what we're meant to be. Every time we divide, we lose the gifts that the other side brings to the table, the gifts we didn't value as much; every time we divide (like Voldemort's soul) each remaining part becomes a little less human, a little less whole.

Recognizing Good and Bad Theology: The Leftover Parts Test

I have a suspicion that the phrase "bad theology" will cause some objection (while "good theology" will go without notice). It's common for discussions of good and bad theology to have no content beyond taking sides and calling names. This has led to some justifiable distaste for the whole venture of separating good and bad theology. But recognizing the good is just as important as it has ever been; the problem is identifying the bad without going overboard and losing a valid perspective or descending into petty partisanship. I intend to sketch out several posts in a series of how to identify good and bad theology without subjecting the system to the judgment of any partisan system's pet litmus test; I hope to sketch out criteria which can successfully separate the partisan systems from the whole and robust systems.

Leftover Parts?
Consider this analogy: I take apart my lawnmower and put it back together. When I am finished, I have leftover extra parts. Looking at the extra parts, I claim to have put it back together better than before. Do you believe me? Or is it possible that I didn't really understand what those parts were for and how they fit into the whole?

One way to recognize a bad theological understanding is by the leftover parts. If there are passages of the Bible that have no place in a theological system, it's a bad system; at the very least it's incomplete. You can guarantee that there is a lack of understanding of those leftover parts, what they were for and how they should have fit into the whole.

A good understanding of God and his kingdom, at the very least, takes into account the whole of the Bible. There are no leftover parts which do not fit.

CRC #5 Topic Announcement

Jeff at The Cross Reference has announced the topic for CRC #5 which he will be hosting this coming weekend.

Have you read articles, essays, or books by a Christian of a denomination other than yours -- and found yourself agreeing with much of what he or she wrote? How has this changed your understanding of the divisions in Christianity?

Now is that a great topic or is that a great topic? Send your entries here on either the worthy topic of the month or anything of general interest to Christian reconciliation. Entries due by midnight this Thursday May 31, 2007.

CRC #5 to be hosted at The Cross-Reference

Jeff Pinyan from The Cross-Reference has graciously agreed to host Christian Reconciliation Carnival #5. Posts are due by midnight on Thursday May 31, 2007, with the Carnival to be posted over the weekend. Click here to mail in your posts and nominations for the Carnival.

Christian Reconciliation Carnival: Call for New Hosts

It's nearly time for the next Christian Reconciliation Carnival, and I am hoping for someone new to step forward to host. It's an easy Carnival to host, taking probably about an hour to put together. I firmly believe that the former hosts' comments have been correct: when reconciliation finally happens, it will have been as much (if not more) the work of the laity than that of the church administrators. If you have an hour the first weekend of June and support Christian Reconciliation, please drop me an email to let me know you can host.

Good judgment: It may not be what you think

The first to plead his case seems right
Till the other party examines him. (Proverbs 18:17)

In some ways, we are each of us like judges. We reach decisions on important matters many times in our lives. We constantly make "judgments" about viewpoints, attitudes, and questions that come before us. But how often do we take our judgments seriously? Do we consider what is involved in "good judgment"? There is a tendency to speak as if good judgment is a matter of having intelligence -- which doesn't hurt -- or having good intuition, which doesn't hurt either. But neither of these is actually good judgment, or any substitute for good judgment. Good judgment involves having a good command of the facts and handling them with fairness. Good judgment follows a procedure:

1. hear each side;
2. let each view question the other;
3. don't decide before the facts are in;
4. don't show favoritism;
5. don't rush the outcome but be patient with the procedure.

This is good judgment.

I can't help but wondering: in our debates amongst ourselves as Christians, in our dealings with those of other views, how often do we show good judgment?

Test everything; hold on to that which is good. (1 Thessalonians 5:21)

Feminism and Mother's Day

It's been awhile since I posted on feminism. It's not really one of my favorite topics, as the whole atmosphere tends to be dry and strident, political in the bad sense, and divisive, without much edifying in the conversation. But in reading the latest Lutheran Carnival, two of the Mother's Day entries caught my eye. The first is from Rev. Cwirla:

Some today decry the "feminization" of the Church, but I beg to disagree. What is wrong with the Church is not its feminizing, but its neutering, in which there is neither male nor female but a gnostic, androgynous, politically-correct "it." I would argue instead that the Church is not nearly feminine enough, just as her ministry is not nearly masculine enough. As fatherhood goes, so goes motherhood. We have lost the motherly nurture and care of the congregation just as we have lost the firm, fatherly authority of the pastoral office. We have lost the proper place and dignity of our being male and female, and so we are confused about our respective roles.

Recovery and reform are not to be found in chest-thumping distortions of masculinity or in strange caricatures of femininity, but in brokenhearted repentance. Kyrie, eleison!

Myself, I particularly enjoyed that a complementarian has replied so graciously to the steady stream of derisive caricatures of the complementarian position. It's one thing to agree or disagree with a view and another to resort to mockery; but it takes incredible amounts of love and prayer to respond to mockery both boldly and graciously. Whether you agree with Rev. Cwirla or not, his contribution was well-done.

Next is from Emily Carder at Quicunque Vult as she reviews Elizabeth Cady Stanton's mixed legacy:

Her success in separating women from the Word of Life is so complete that feminists now celebrate women’s experience as a grace event. Can there even be need for a Savior now that the judgment upon mankind had been removed from the Bible according to Stanton? She taught that if there had actually been a fall in an actual Garden of Eden, then "when Eve took her destiny in her own hand and set minds spinning down through all the spheres of time, she declared humanity omnipotent..." (Gaylor 1997, 134). Ethics for feminism is now deemed as whatever validates the full humanity of the woman. Refusing a woman any freedom to act as she wills is denying her full humanity; therefore, abortion-on-demand must be among a woman’s most cherished prized possessions.

Stanton's is a much more complex life and legacy, with good and bad mixed together. If, as Carder argues, "ethics for feminism is ... whatever validates the full humanity of the woman", that validation is itself a good thing. Ethics can be seen as whatever validates the full humanity of all humans, and in that sense feminism is partisan and a little bit narrower than humanism. The narrowness of focus on women alone avoids the uncomfortable humanist question of the life of the next generation while still in its delicate dependence on the mother. From a Christian viewpoint, the irony and the shame is that someone had to voice teaching "the full humanity of the woman" as if it were an objection to the Bible instead of the teaching of the Bible, which teaches that male and female are both created in God's image. From this standpoint Christianity teaches a higher view of both men and women than humanism.

And it's fascinating to me to hear the comments on Adam and Eve: "when Eve took her destiny in her own hand and set minds spinning down through all the spheres of time, she declared humanity omnipotent..."

Theologians down the centuries have said much the same thing when reading the same passage: that our rebellion against God was an attempt to displace God and crown ourselves as gods instead. We really shouldn't be too surprised if someone reads the same passage and sees humanity's declaration of independence from God, a proclamation of ourselves as gods and goddesses with no authority but our own. Such is the power of that passage that this rallying cry of rebellion from God still resounds thousands of years after it was written with the voices of those who do not apologize for it; such is the power of that passage that even those who are fully convinced it never happened may claim it as their own.

But what about grace? "Feminists now celebrate women’s experience as a grace event." I think there is a sense in which conservative, complementarian theology still needs to ponder the matter of grace. Adam's curse included death; but death is abolished in the world to come. Eve's curse included "he shall rule over you" (Genesis 3:16). In the New Creation, will all the curses be undone? Is Eve's curse borne on the tree as well as Adam's? To what extent is subordination, like death, a matter of a cursed world? Death is the door to resurrection, of being restored. If submission is the death of pride, then is submission also a door to resurrection and restoration? If some part of Eve's sin was self-exaltation, then is "women, submit" similarly sinful if spoken in self-exaltation? Where is the line between submission and subordination? When subordination is taught as good, does it lead women to search elsewhere for grace and for recognition of full humanity?

I'm not suggesting that people stop wrestling with the passages or stop taking the Bible seriously. I'm suggesting that conservatives allow themselves to take a good hard look at the fact that the Bible here presents this particular subordination as a curse, that it is just as natural for women to see it as a curse as for men to see death as a curse, just as natural to hope for release and see it as a return to a more pure and wholesome state of things. Not every instance of a woman wishing for freedom from it is a matter of pride; some of it is a wish for redemption and the restoration of a non-cursed state. In this, the Church should be firmly on the side of redemption. This leaves plenty of room for discussion on exactly how that should take shape.