|
|
Email
your suggestions,
disagreements or any
other comments and
they will be responded
to without delay
|
No broadband? |
|
|
| A PLAIN GUIDE TO
... Orthodoxy From the early days of the Church, there have been those who insist that orthodoxy is an essential part of being Christian. For over fifteen centuries this position has seldom been effectively challenged. But in the 21st century some have begun to work out the implications of asserting that the Church has access to truths essential to the eternal well-being of individuals. One of the most fundamental assumptions of the Christian Church is that it has access to certain absolute truths. These truths, it is said, form the basis of right Christian teaching. They are absolute because they have been derived from God. An orthodox person, then, is one who conforms to the established teaching of the Church. To refuse to conform to this teaching is to lapse into heresy. And lest anyone think this unimportant, a heretic exposes himself or herself to the possibility of eternal damnation in hell, whether or not the heresy is known about. Many think that the idea of orthodoxy grew gradually from very early confessional formulas. Examples of these are:
These simple statements gradually came to be used as entry tests of suitability to belong to the Church. Their focus gradually switched from the personal to the corporate. By the 5th century they had grown into complex creeds. The most complex of these is the Quicumque Vult or "Athanasian Creed". The "Apostles' Creed" and the "Nicene Creed" are today most commonly used in church worship. This change of usage is important. It is one thing to use words to publicly express personal commitment to Jesus. It is entirely another to commit to (or assent to) a formula in order to enter and remain in the Church. Bishop John Spong points out that "To the victor the spoils" applies to the orthodox theology which eventually emerged in the 4th and 5th centuries:
It should be said that exactly which teachings are right or orthodox is disputed. Christianity is broken up into many churches. All disagree about what orthodoxy is - though some claim that these differences are more apparent than real. That is, what seems to be in dispute in actually underpinned by broad agreement about underlying key principles. For example, it is said that all Christians agree about the underlying importance of the Bible as the source of all right doctrine. But the nature of the Bible and how to derive doctrines from it it strongly disputed. Similarly, all agree about the basic importance of worship for Christians - but how to worship is a matter of considerable contention and widely varying practice. A definition of an orthodoxy applicable to all Christians is impossible to arrive at. It is more correct to speak of multiple orthodoxies. Not only do many orthodoxies exist today, but there has never been such a thing as a single body of orthodox teachings. Orthodox doctrine has changed over the centuries, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly. As Nicholas Lash remarks,
A dilemma of church authorities is how to claim access to immutable, revealed truths on one hand, and on the other hand to allow change as defense of orthodoxy becomes more difficult - or impossible. The most frequent place of refuge from this dilemma has been the sanctuary of "interpretation" (technically known as hermeneutics). That is, change is said to be actually only a new way of perceiving and explaining immutable, eternal verities. In short, doctrine as teachings which can expand and develop according to human knowledge and insight is replaced by dogma. Dogma means unfaltering adherence to a divinely revealed truth, proclaimed as such by church authority, and forever binding on faithful Christians. Roman Catholics also refer to "non-defined dogmas" which are in the process of being understood by the Church. They can be later taught as revealed truths essential to orthodoxy - that is, as fixed and final points of interpretation - when necessary. The idea of orthodoxy began to break down in the 17th century. Catholics slated Protestants for having departed from authorised tradition, and Protestants dismissed Catholics for having corrupted biblical truth by addition. This broad division has been maintained ever since. But the greatest influences on the idea of orthodox Christianity came through two radical shifts in the way European Christians perceived the world:
The roots of this "great divide" between traditional Christianity and modern ways of thought are in essence nearly a thousand years old. A good illustration of the earliest well-known appeal to reason in matters of theology is the work of Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109). His great work, the Proslogion (1079) included the phrase "Fides quaerens intellectum". This famous phrase can be translated as "Faith seeking (leading to) understanding". In other words, reason is the servant of faith. Orthodoxy precedes and is a condition of the discovery of truth. So Christian authority may pronounce that birth control (to take one instance) is the equivalent of murder. If orthodoxy holds that murder is in all circumstances a sin, then what reason says about population control or the prevention of HIV infection is essentially beside the point. The modern world has, in effect, reversed Anselm's guideline to become "Understanding (reason) leading to faith". According to this position, a faith which is not reasonable is mistaken. Orthodoxy or "right belief" depends upon reason, not the other way around. If this is correct, then orthodoxy can remain a guideline to orthopraxis (right behaviour) in the modern era. But it must yield to reason. For example, if reason judges overpopulation or unprotected sexual intercourse a threat to human health and safety, then the use of birth control in the form of condoms may become orthopraxis regardless of what is traditionally orthodox teaching. However, it may be impossible to carry orthopraxis based on ancient orthodoxy through into every department of life. If so, the orthodox person is likely to be subject to great stress in trying to harmonise the past with the present. Some who attempt this partitioning seem forced to divide their lives into two watertight compartments - one for orthodoxy and one for the rest of life. Others become fundamentalist. That is, they assert their orthodoxy (biblical or institutional) regardless of practical consequence. Those Christians who are presently attempting to move away from the very idea of orthodoxy face three challenges: The death of God What has died is not God but our ancient concept of a God who rules the world from a position of absolute power, just as emperors and monarchs once did. This God is in charge of history, in charge of each and every individual life. There is nothing unreasonable about concluding that God exists - though it has been widely recognised that it's impossible to prove this. Nor is it unreasonable to construe God as a person. Who is to say that the Creator of everything cannot know our most intimate thoughts and emotions? The unreasonable part is to suppose that we are able to receive and mediate absolute truths from God. That God is dead. It is no longer viable to think of God as an all-powerful ruler who offers final answers. Even more outrageous to many in the 21st century is the claim by certain individuals - usually masked by an institution - that they are the ones who can speak for God, a claim which affords them great power and influence. Our present understanding of the nature of truth disallows that. This understanding may change in the future. But for now that's the way the cards have fallen. We no longer have the protection of an ancient divine dispenser of orthodoxy. We are on our own. We have recognised that we, not God, make our own orthodoxies. The resulting challenge is twofold: [a] To move away from the comfort of hand-me-down verities and [b] to begin to work out more viable ways of understanding ourselves and the universe in the light of provisional truth. The death of the Bible Some hold that the Bible is inspired by God to a degree which makes it the infallible source of all basic truths. This fundamentalist position implies that those truths are absolute. Any proposition - scientific or philosophical or any other sort - which contradicts the Bible must be denied and opposed. By far the majority of Christians hold a modified form of biblical inspiration. It's true, they say, that the Bible contains contradictions. It's also true that some of its teachings and rules can no longer be sustained in the modern world. But underlying all such difficulties is a groundswell of absolute truth. This core of truth is there to be discovered by anyone. However, it's up to scholars and those trained in biblical hermeneutics (interpretation) to lead the way. They have the technical knowledge to sort out the wheat from the chaff. In the last resort it is the hierarchy of the Church which lays down the orthodoxy which is so often concealed by these biblical difficulties. Biblical absolutism in any form is not compatible with the modern ways of construing truth I have outlined above. Nor does it rest easily with the idea that each of us is autonomous. If truth is provisional rather than final, then even the Bible as a record of the foundations of the faith can be superceded. So, for example, it is correct that the Bible condemns homosexuality. But this condemnation cannot stand in the face of what we know today about it as a type of sexuality which is prevalent everywhere and which has always been there. Reason and information prevail over orthodoxy. Even what we know about Jesus is determined by other than the plain text of the New Testament as received from the early Church - a text which was not finalised until the late 4th century. Scholars have long since reached the conclusion that not all the deeds and sayings of Jesus reported by the gospels really happened as a matter of good history. The death of the Church Underlying the decline in the West is, I think, a widespread recognition of two things: [a] That doctrines fundamental to Christianity often don't make much sense to the modern mind; and [b] that the concept of orthodoxy is incompatible with the open and sceptical nature of economic, civic and political life in democratic societies. Not all are fully conscious of these problems. Rather, if they investigate Christianity at all, they dismiss its premises and teachings instinctively as "myths" or "impossible". The vast majority are not gripped by the traditional so-called "good news". It appears largely irrelevant to their day-to-day lives. In many churches the reaction to this scepticism and dismissal is often a yet greater emphasis on orthodoxy. Official boundaries between warring denominations are becoming more permeable. So, for example, some evangelical Christians are finding common ground with traditional enemies in the Roman Catholic Church. What is common to both parties is an unswerving focus on right belief. Institutional borders melt away when the notion of absolute revealed truth, common to both though managed very differently, is to be protected. Similarly, many churches are taking their instruments of doctrinal examination out of store and polishing them up in anticipation of bringing heretics to book. The Church of England has for centuries been the home of a broad, inclusive body of Christians. Despite that, it now has plans to prevent, on pain of dismissal, the free speech of its clergy . Without a doctrine of absolute truth and the consequent need for orthodoxy, the traditional hierarchy of the Church must eventually collapse. In contrast, a Church of the far future, given the power and persistence of secular society, may be able to survive as a social force only if dialogue takes the place of orthodox pronouncement. One of the radical changes likely to slowly develop involves Christian attitudes to other religions. Broadly speaking, a Church in dialogue with other faiths may well be forced to give up its absolute claims and acknowledge that other religions have as much to say about God as it does. In this sort of interchange only Jesus will remain Christianity's unique focus. John Cobb puts it well:
God, the world and morality are not the exclusive realms of Christianity. They belong to and concern everyone. Only Jesus of Nazareth gives Christians a special focus on life in general. To sum up: The nature of modern thought is such that it is on a collision course with traditional Christian orthodoxy. If trends in the West are anything to go by, demands by the Church for right belief will lead to its eventual collapse as a world-wide institution. If those trends persist, we can expect our ideas of God to continue to change, albeit at a slow pace. Meanwhile secular society is likely to increasingly regard Christianity as irrelevant - at least until a version of the gospel which means something to non-religious seculars is worked out. The Bible will remain a guide to Christian roots. But there will be a far greater emphasis on thinking our way through to an orthopraxis based on both the guide and reason. Christianity will no longer be able to actively press for the conversion of others
to orthodoxy. Others will have every right to be heard and, if
reasonable, to prevail. The Church will take its place as only one of
many ways of construing the creation. |