Tomorrow begins another Round of Cherry-Picking

Published on by D. G. Hart41 Comments

While Justin Taylor advises on how to prepare for Lent (can you believe it involves a book published by Crossway?), Carl Trueman reminds about the arbitrariness of tradition among evangelicals (high and low):

The question of catholicity is, of course, more complicated than merely adopting a practice or a doctrine because it has deep historical and ecclesiastical roots. After all, Anglicans in the tradition of Hooker have rejected a large number of the elements of ‘catholic’ tradition. Roman supremacy, purgatory, transubstantiation, prayers for the dead, and the cult of the saints all have good claims to deep catholic roots. So why have Anglicans abandoned these? Presumably they have done so because they do not think that scripture gives grounds for retaining them. Well, once the scripture principle is allowed as an arbiter of true catholicity, the best we can say about Lent is that it might be a harmless, if biblically unjustifiable, personal preference with some historical roots – which is a point I never denied.

Yet if this point about the scripture principle is unpersuasive to Anglicans, let me offer an observation on Anglicanism along the same lines of Merrick’s critique of the Reformed. Anglicanism’s own selective catholicity would seem to imply that Hookerites regard those same centuries, 1500-1700, as a kind of moment of purity for the decision as to which prior catholic traditions can stand and which should be cast aside.

This is not a new problem for Anglicans. It was a significant part of what moved John Henry Newman Romeward. Of course, if the brilliant Newman could not persuade his friend, John Keble, Hooker’s greatest editor, of the immense difficulties of Anglican claims to historic catholicity, it is unlikely that I will do so with Hooker’s present disciples. Yet Newman’s critique surely remains a major challenge to anyone who blithely assumes the straightforward catholicity of the Anglican tradition as embodied in the Thirty-Nine Articles, the Homilies, and the Book of Common Prayer. It is actually much more theologically complicated and historically contested than that.

All of this is, however, largely beside the point of my original article. My main purpose was not to point to problems in the Anglican tradition’s claims to catholicity. It was to critique a recent cultural anomaly: The curious phenomenon of interest in Ash Wednesday and Lent among evangelicals whose ecclesiastical commitments do not theologically or historically sanction observance of such.

Funny how Trueman’s interlocutor assumes the historicity of Lent. But as with most subjects, history only makes certainties less certain:

The current state of research points to three possible conclusions. Because the evidence is slim and admitting of any number of plausible interpretations, one position has been to view Lent as a sui generis phenomenon—completely new and unique—that simply appears after the Council of Nicea. In this view, any attempt to hazard connections or lines of evolution from pre-Nicene fasting practices is too speculative to be of any value. Another, rather opposite, position has been to accept as historical the alleged Egyptian post-Theophany fast, to identify it as the dominant antecedent to Lent, and that Lent’s rapid dissemination throughout the Christian world is best explained in relation to the program of liturgical and theological alignment begun at Nicea. A final position, a sort of via media or middle road, acknowledges the incomplete and sometimes-contradictory nature of the evidence, but asserts nonetheless that Lent develops as an amalgamation of several early fasting customs and typologies of which the post-Theophany fast (if it existed) may have been but one of many. As with most issues in the study of the early history of the liturgy, certainty is elusive and we must be satisfied with possibilities. Judicet lector: let the reader decide.

Don’t mind me if I use the occasion to have an extra doughnut.

One Square Inch Not Covered

Published on by D. G. Hart12 Comments

I guess I should thank Father Longenecker for giving me so much material of late, but his recent post about the need to respond to ISIS raises an arresting question for those Christians with global outlooks (both neo-Calvinist and Roman Catholic). Do some sectors of life exist that Christ doesn’t claim as his?

The civilized nations of the world should begin equipping themselves for whatever it takes to overcome the ISIS threat. They should do so purely from a military and political standpoint. From our side religion should be taken out of the equation. This should enable us to make alliances with countries with Muslim majorities who also wish to extirpate the foe.

We should consider the ISIS threat the same way we considered the Nazi threat. Nazism may have been driven by a pseudo religious ideology of racial superiority, but we didn’t go in with an equally absurd ideology. We confronted the evil because it was evil. It was destroying innocent lives. It threatened our own way of life. We saw the evil for what it was, didn’t bother debating the stupid ideologies and simply rolled up our sleeves, put up our dukes and went into battle.

This reminds me of Damon Linker’s reaction (thanks to John Fea) to President Obama’s speech at the National Prayer Breakfast (why can’t it ever be dinner, or at least a brunch?) which also drew upon morality in hues black and white to justify retaliation:

Broadly speaking, morality is universalistic in scope and implication, whereas politics is about how a particular group of people governs itself. Morality is cosmopolitan; politics is tribal. Morality applies to all people equally. Politics operates according to a narrower logic — a logic of laws, customs, habits, and mores that bind together one community at a specific time and place. Morality dissolves boundaries. Politics is about how this group of people lives here, as distinct from those groups over there.

Now this certainly overstates the difference between the two realms. In the real world, they overlap in all kinds of ways — and it is one of the great achievements of liberal government to have tamed some of the narrow-minded excesses of politics by more strictly applying moral criteria to the political realm than was common for much of human history before the modern period.

If the president truly believes that ISIS poses a dire threat to the United States — one requiring a military response that puts the lives of American soldiers at risk, costs billions of dollars, and leads to the death of hundreds or thousands of people on the other side of the conflict — then it makes no sense at all for him simultaneously to encourage Americans to adopt a stance of moral ambiguity toward that threat.

This appeal to morality is unnerving. It places those who seek to eradicate evil in the position of the righteous. Why can’t some kind of action or policy receive support merely by appealing to the need for international order and a recognition of those sovereign entities capable of trying to recover it?

I am glad to know that Father Longenecker is not going to defend the Crusades just as I am happy to know that when push comes to shove practically every modern Christian is 2k. But I’m not convinced that relying on bloated senses of moral outrage is going to be much of a help. Can’t people fight with a sense of restraint and modesty? Remember the prayer that Luther wrote for soldiers:

Heavenly Father, here I am, according to your divine will, in the external work and service of my lord, which I owe first to you and then to my lord for your sake. I thank your grace and mercy that you have put me into a work which I am sure is not sin, but right and pleasing obedience to your will. But because I know and have learned from your gracious word that none of our good works can help us and that no one is saved as a soldier but only as a Christian, therefore, I will not in any way rely on my obedience and work, but place myself freely at the service of your will. I believe with all my heart that only the innocent blood of your dear Son, my Lord Jesus Christ, redeems and saves me, which he shed for me in obedience to your holy will. This is the basis on which I stand before you. In this faith I will live and die, fight, and do everything else. Dear Lord God the Father, preserve and strengthen this faith in me by your Spirit. Amen.

The Terrors of Certainty

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Does this Make Jason and the Callers Terrorists?

I can’t say I agree with this fellow’s reasoning, but when it comes to charism he seems to have more of it than the guy in the flannel cap.

One of Pope Francis’ closest advisors, and the leader of one of the most “liberal” Catholic hierarchies in the world, has denounced “traditional” young people for wanting “to be clear in their positions,” warning that it is a path to “terrorism.” In a related interview with the Jesuit magazine America, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, the head of the German Bishops’ conference, applauded people in homosexual partnerships who want a “lifelong” relationship.

“I am astonished that most of our young people, and also Catholic homosexuals who are practicing, want a relationship that lasts forever,” Marx told America. “We must begin with the main points of the doctrine, to see the dream: the dream is to have a person say, a man and woman say, ‘You and you, forever. You and you, forever.’ And we as church say, ‘Yes, that’s absolutely OK. Your vision is right!’

“So we find the way. Then perhaps there is failure. They find the person, and it is not a great success. But life-long fidelity is right and good.”

He added, “The church says that a gay relationship is not on the same level as a relationship between a man and a woman. That is clear. But when they are faithful, when they are engaged for the poor, when they are working, it is not possible to say, ‘Everything you do, because you are a homosexual, is negative.’”

In his Stanford lecture, Cardinal Marx said, “I had a discussion with some of the students,” before the lecture, who asked him, “‘Cardinal is it true that the younger people are more traditional?’ And that’s true.”

“But that is not dangerous,” he said. “I have no problem with tradition. But we have also the tendencies that the people want to be clear in their positions. Black and white populism is growing in Europe. And that is the beginning, perhaps, of populism, of terrorism, that’s clear.”

“The atmosphere of reducing the complexity of the world, to give simple answers, to give black and white answers, is growing, and I think that is very dangerous,” the cardinal said.

Maybe Jason and the Callers’ defense is they aren’t young people.

Radio Worship

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Yesterday’s call to worship came from Hebrews 12:

For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. (Hebrews 12:18-24 ESV)

You could, if you were not a Protestant or were flirting with trying to find the old Roman mojo, try to capture this gathering by doing what television does, that is, you could actually try to depict it in statues, paintings, priestly garments, high end liturgy. That is, you could try to show this visibly. And you would give a lot of work to artists. Let’s hope you paid them well.

But if you took the radio approach and let your imagination do the work without the aid of images, you might simply read the passages and not try to prescribe for the gathered who still live on planet earth how this assembly of the living and dead, of angels and God himself should picture such a meeting. It would be like listening to Phil Hendrie or Jean Shepherd (no relation to Norm) and letting your imagination supply the images.

Of course, radio isn’t as refined as high art. But if high liturgy winds up doing to the imagination what television’s images do, how great is that if you are merely a plumber?

Your Subtext is Showing

Published on by D. G. Hart114 Comments

Why do so many people on the firm side of the squishy/hard moral divide care about 50 Shades of Gray (I must have read another 10 posts)? It seems to me that tracking the mainstream productions of Hollywood or American popular culture reveals more about those objecting than it does about the degradation of our culture (which seems obvious to most people). If you are in the habit of watching the junk that sells or attracts ratings (like Breaking Bad), then maybe sometimes your conscience jumps up and bites. But what about your aesthetic sense? And if you have lots of friends who talk about this stuff, then how stimulating is your social life? Maybe you should acquire a better set of associates. Or maybe you are really, really concerned about the moral ethos of American society. But why single out an apparently vapid book and movie? Why not Girls?

Then again, if you are like (all about) me, you sit back and marvel at the cornucopia of cultural expressions, find your niche, and hope for friends with similar sensibilities.

Civilization Goes Better with Christ

Published on by D. G. Hart10 Comments

That is yet again the message of Joseph Pearce after the trial of Britain’s first Muslim mayor, Lutfur Rahman, “who is accused of ‘subverting democracy,’ running a ‘den of iniquity’ and ‘systematically stealing votes’ as he turned the London borough of Tower Hamlets into his own private fiefdom.” But it turns out that the abuses of which Rahman is apparently guilty are no worse than those of the “hell-hole” into which British society has descended (cue David Robertson):

I see nothing worse about Islam than I do about modern Britain. It is a choice between false gods and godlessness. It is akin to choosing between the arrogant stupidity of the Montagues and the arrogant stupidity of the Capulets. Asked to make such a choice, we should echo the words of Mercutio and call down a plague on both their houses.

And as Mr. Pearce is wont, the origins of the descent are the abandonment of Roman Catholicism:

Heresy has not been a sin in Britain for almost five hundred years, ever since the days of Tudor “savagery” that she rightly condemns. What has been a sin ever since the time of Henry VIII is not heresy but orthodoxy. [Allison Pearson] does not mention, and probably does not know, that Catholic priests were hanged, drawn, and quartered in Britain for a period of 150 years. Without going into the gory details, it could certainly be argued that this form of execution carried out by the secular state against its Catholic victims was as slow and tortuous as being burned alive. And while it is true that we do not burn people alive in Britain any more, we do threaten to imprison them for the public expression of traditional views on marriage and sexuality. It is no doubt a mark of our “civilized” times that it is now considered a hate crime to suggest in public that there is nothing gay about being “gay.” And, of course, there is the question of the millions of unborn babies being slaughtered in the womb, an abominably barbaric practice that would never have been condoned by our “savage” ancestors.

Pearce adds:

Need we remind Ms. Pearson of Chesterton’s quip that when people stop believing in God they do not believe in nothing but in anything? Need we remind her that the replacement of God with godlessness has led to the Guillotine, the Gas Chamber, and the Gulag Archipelago? Do we need to remind her that the last century, the most godless in human history, was also the bloodiest and most barbaric? What, one wonders, would Ms. Pearson call the horrors of trench warfare or the development of poison gas? What about Blitzkrieg, the Holocaust, or Hiroshima? Perhaps these deplorably modern things, unknown to our ancestors, are examples of “the slow, patient development of what we call civilization.”

Cherry picking alert. How civilized were the Crusades? Maybe you can justify that by lower numbers or just-war theory, but then what do you do with European explorers and settlers of South and North America? For whatever reason, western Christians, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, assumed a kind of superiority that allowed them to conquer the planet and make civilization global. From the first encounter during the fifteenth century of native Americans, to the carving up of the world after World War II, Europeans — with all sorts of encouragement from the global pretensions of both Rome (think papal universal jurisdiction) and Amsterdam/Washington (think w-w and seeings thing whole or some version of the universal rights of man) — have felt called to run the world often times without the consent of the people being run.

Determining how much of this owes to European self-conceit or Christian overreach is why they pay historians modest bucks. But for Mr. Pearce not to notice the problems of Christian civilization (both in thought and deed) is itself of the sort of pride that comes with the rise of thinking cult or w-w is the basis of culture.

Another Two Cheers for Secularization

Published on by D. G. Hart27 Comments

What a great achievement the United States is and the entire process of breaking up Christendom into nation-states with their own sovereignty, based not on Christian teaching but on the give and take of practical politics. Gary Welton sees secularization as a problem but his reaction to the Paris killings actually shows the value of secularization:

I understand that much of the world sees the West as Christian, yet it can be argued that Christianity is on the decline in the West, while it is expanding in Africa and China. It is a stereotype to think that the West portrays the essence of Christianity. In fact, the West provides for a rather free expression of faith. Granted, Christianity has been the dominant faith in the West, but I am not willing, as a Christian, to take the blame for Charlie Hebdo’s depiction of Muhammad. Charlie Hebdo is a reflection of the secular West, not particularly a reflection of Christianity. I am not Charlie Hebdo.

If Europe and its off shoots around the world were still in the mold of Christendom, Mr. Welton would not have the option of distinguishing between his temporal and spiritual identities. Again, the Crusaders did not fight as Frenchmen, Germans, Spaniards, or Irish. They fought as Christians. But by distinguishing Christian identity from a political one defined by a nation (as problematic as that may be), Mr. Welton and I have the advantage of dissenting from our countries’ policies and distinguishing Christianity from politics. But if we get rid of secularization, then Christians need to fight in the name of Christ. And that doesn’t make any biblical sense. Just ask Peter, the first pope.

Is This Constitutional?

Published on by D. G. Hart11 Comments

The similarities between neo-Calvinist and Roman Catholic transformers continue to be remarkable (at least to all about me). Adding to the remarkableness is that the inspiration for cleaning up public life or for motivating Christians to become involved can go in either politically conservative or liberal directions. What is more, the ideas don’t need to be tied directly to confessional theology — as in matters that rise to the level of dogma.

Consider two recent examples from the Roman Catholic world. First an appeal on the left to a version of the Social Gospel that goes cosmic:

“As Catholics, we must be continue to be involved the issues of world hunger, human rights, peace building and justice promotion,” Wenski said. “This social ministry is not opposed to the ultimate spiritual and transcendent destiny of the human person. It presupposes this destiny, and is ultimately oriented toward that end.”

“This Earth is our only highway to heaven,” he said. “And we have to maintain it. As Catholics we are concerned about ecology, both natural ecology but also human ecology. In other words, we have to make sure that to the best of our abilities this highway of life is cleared of the obstacles that sin, both personal and structural, has placed in the path of those traveling on it.”

Remarking on biblical figure Job, who’s friends “blamed him for his miseries,” Wenski said that, “today, in a world of increasing inequality, as Catholics we must struggle against what Pope Francis has termed ‘the globalization of indifference,’ and we must struggle against that tendency within American society, which we see especially today in the debate over immigration reform, to blame the victim!”

Then a call (not that one) for Christian statesmen to clean up the U.S.A.:

There are currently twenty-six Catholics in the Senate, although many are Catholics in name only. The House of Representatives lists 142 members who claim to be Catholic – the greatest number in our history, and at a crucial period of moral peril. But where is their witness to natural law, religious freedom, and enduring moral truths?

Happily, several (faithful) Catholics are considering a run for the presidency. We should hope that would include both parties. What a wonderful moment it would be if our once-great country were to produce a number of great Catholic statesmen ready and able to confront the great crises, moral and civilizational, threatening our nation (and the world) today.

This post comes with a citation of the Roman Catholic Church’s catechism about the work of God’s people (which I hardly regard as dogma):

898 By reason of their special vocation it belongs to the laity to seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and directing them according to God’s will. . . .It pertains to them in a special way so to illuminate and order all temporal things with which they are closely associated that these may always be affected and grow according to Christ and may be to the glory of the Creator and Redeemer.

899 The initiative of lay Christians is necessary especially when the matter involves discovering or inventing the means for permeating social, political, and economic realities with the demands of Christian doctrine and life. This initiative is a normal element of the life of the Church: Lay believers are in the front line of Church life; for them the Church is the animating principle of human society.

Imagine if we heard imams in mosques telling Muslims the Islamic equivalent of these bromides. Maybe then the notion of secular society and the separation of church and state (not to mention the spirituality of the church) look a whole lot more appealing. But when Christians violate American habits of governance for Christ’s sake, it’s not only okay but great pretty good.

Meanwhile, which of the saints, whether overseers of the overseen, are worried about the teachers at church institutions that might be leading the people and the politicians astray (think Richard McBrien):

Although Fr. McBrien was often called fearless and broad-minded, he was frequently hypersensitive to criticisms of his own views. After he defended Mario Cuomo against possible ex-communication, for instance, McBrien complained about the letters he received, calling them “mean and vindictive.” Notably, though, he never used such language against politicians who took the lives of unborn children, much less theologians who provided cover for them.

The one thing most frequently said about Fr. McBrien—which he himself affirmed—was the least convincing: that he “never held back.”

In fact, he did hold back—on everything from the value of clerical celibacy, to the dangers of moral relativism, to the necessity of the Catechism, to courageous pro-life witness. He had the intelligence and gifts to take action, guided by the wisdom of the Church, but consistently let those opportunities escape him.

But why oh why do American Christians worry more about Washington, D.C. or debates at the United Nations Security Council than about faculty or pastors and priests within their own communion? Could it have anything to do with failing to heed the apostle Paul’s dualism, that distinction he makes in 2 Cor 4 between the seen and unseen things?

From DGH on Critiquing Westminster Submitted on 2015 02 12 at 11:15 a.m.

Published on by D. G. Hart11 Comments

Mark,

I understand that you live in Canada and do historical theology and so may be unfamiliar with Presbyterian developments in the United States. But when you want to revise the Shorter Catechism Q. 1 with “To glorify God and Christ and enjoy them, through the Spirit,” you may not understand how much you are following the trail blazed by those American Presbyterians who wanted to gut the Westminster Standards of their hard Calvinist edge.

Maybe you can recall the writings from the 1890s of Benjamin Warfield and W. G. T. Shedd against confessional revision. Their arguments failed and the PCUSA went ahead and added chapters to the Confession of Faith on the Holy Spirit and the Love of God. The thinking (if you can call it that) was that the Confession didn’t say much about the Holy Spirit or the love of God and so needed explicit statements — as if you can’t find the Holy Spirit wherever the divines invoked the Word of God or as if the chapters on salvation and its application are not affirmations of God’s love.

The kicker of this revision was that it set up the 1906 merger between the PCUSA and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church — a body that in 1810 had explicitly rejected Calvinism’s harder edges. Affirming the Holy Spirit and the love of God sweetened the deal and made Warfield worry.

So when you add the language about Christ and the Holy Spirit to Q. 1, do you have in mind some kind of merger between the PCA and the Presbyterian Church of Canada? Your later explanation is helpful to a point. But because you continue to live in the world of seventeenth-century English speaking theologians and don’t seem to pay heed to historical contexts of closer proximity, I do worry about this latest move.

Overseer Overload

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Do bishops who claim apostolic succession have it this rough? (I am, by the way, according to the Form of Government for the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, a bishop: “Those who share in the rule of the church may be called elders (presbyters), bishops, or church governors. Those who minister in mercy and service are called deacons. Those elders who have been endued and called of Christ to labor also in the Word and teaching are called ministers” (FoG, V.3)

Last Friday after teaching a regular load, I got in the car and made the 3 and 3/4 hour drive to Cincinnati to give the first of three lectures at the conference, Reformed in America. I gave two more lectures the next day and then taught Sunday school at Good Shepherd OPC on — get this — Sunday. It was a very pleasant time with a lot of enjoyable folks. But it was a long weekend and I couldn’t even benefit from the company of Cordelia and Kabbigail.

Last night, in preparation for today’s session meeting, I finished minutes from our last gathering — the longest set of minutes I have yet to produce, mainly because the correspondence was thick and heavy. That process took almost two hours and I followed it up with a nightcap of filling out the statistical report for the Statistician of the OPC’s General Assembly. It’s not rocket science but neither is it as easy as surfing the web in search of hardware for shelves in the newly renovated bathroom.

Today’s meeting should not be overly long, but at 9:00 tonight I have the honor and privilege of participating in a conference call for the sub-committee of Christian Education that is working on the production of a Psalter-Hymnal with folks from the United Reformed Churches.

With all this avocational work, how would a Presbyterian elder ever have time for this?

My father-in-law, a Baptist minister, would have called all of this a glorious privilege. I am more inclined to think of this as something completely different from the sort of episcopal chores that lead some bishops to talk about a “poor church for the poor.” In the OPC’s case, it’s more like “middle-rank church officers volunteering for middle-class Presbyterians.”

If only we had bingo (but that would also bring the Bishop of Bling).