My postmodern protestant crisis has, officially, blossomed into a full-scale crisis of faith tonight. Seems that my classes at Geneva have this power to them...
However, I am comforted (without even knowing all the answers) by Psalms 89, 90, and 73. 89, especially, holds near and dear to my now.
89 is strange in that the writer starts off saying "I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever; with my mouth will I make known your faithfulness to all generations." The words 'faithfulness' (God's keeping to his covenant promises) and 'mercy' (God's grace, and in a way, his acting out of the promises in day-to-day life) are key words throughout the psalm. The interesting part is that the psalm is not, overall, a happy one. The ending benediction "Blessed be the Lord forevermore. Amen." was most likely added by the final compiler of the book (each of the five psalm 'books' ends with a similar benediction). Other than that, though, the psalm is almost tragic. It recounts God's faithfulness and mercy to David and then, in what is reminiscent of the Exile, it turns to questioning God's faithfulness because the promises are being thrown down and trampled on. How could God let this happen? Where is God? And (most famously) how long, o Lord? With that sentiment the psalm ends, unresolved.
That is about how I feel right now. I always talk about the presence of God and have yet to receive all the answers I desire. In Psalm 90, written by Moses, his summary is my cry "Return, o Lord! How long? And have compassion on your servants. Oh, satisfy us early with your mercy that we may rejoice and be glad all our days! Make us glad according to the days you have afflicted us, the years we have seen evil. Let your work appear to your servants and your glory to their children. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us and establish the work of our hands for us; yes, establish the work of our hands." There really is no other way to describe it. I long for the presence, the real, tangible presence of my God. The clear cut understanding of his works, both in the original creation and in what he is doing know. His presence, though, is elusive.
Psalm 73 completes my thoughts. Here the psalmist, Asaph, looks at the injustice of the world and questions God's faithfulness. However, this psalm ends on a positive note. It is in entering the sanctuary of God that he finally understands his own stupidity and ignorance (I also realize how applicable that part is to me!).
The beauty of the Lord, in a lot of ways, he allows us to be human. He allows us to doubt, to question, to ponder, and even to disbelieve. For "you hold me by my right hand". Even though my faith and its implications seem so tortured and bewildering right now, God is there. He may be hidden from me, from the world, but he allows me to cry "Return, o Lord! How long?" I still wonder, though, the things that I have been wondering...where is the Spirit? Where is the presence of God? Who can mediate it here on earth (the authority question, in a sense)?
My own sense of myself and the Church is that of Jerusalem after it has been sacked by Babylon: I am living the book of Lamentations right now. Is God really setting things to rights by Jesus as Paul argued throughout his writings? Why haven't things changed then? Is the promise of his coming so far off still?
My last comfort is Psalm 42-43. It has my two favorite passages in it.
"Why are you so cast down, o my soul? Why so disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise him, the help of my countenance and my God."
"The Lord will command his lovingkindness (Hebrew is hesed, meaning love and mercy--a beautiful word) in the daytime and in the night his son shall be with me--a prayer to the God of my life."
Even when knowledge fails and faith falters, hope is there. But greater than hope is love, that even when my heart is discouraged, the love of God through Jesus keeps me going in hope.
God, forgive my unbelief and lead me to the knowledge of you in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Friday, April 15, 2005
My Postmodern Protestant Dilemma
Right now I'm reading The Soul of the American University by George Marsden. It is a very challenging book to me because Marsden carefully uncovers some of my own cherished beliefs as belonging to the world of secularism. Or, in the case of individualism, he shows how shallow and uncritical my antipathy towards ideas are. Most of all though, and this is mainly due to the professor of the course, I am finding myself once again struggling with the issue of authority and, especially, "ultimate" authority in the Church. I had these same struggles while reading John Henry Newman's The Idea of the University.
With Protestantism as a whole, we have an authoritorial crisis. The Reformers, I believe, originally did not want to separate their ecclesial authority structure from the bishopric of Rome. When (basically) forced out, they wanted to set up their own authoritative tradition, much in line with the whole "Rome" idea, except without all the "added" trappings of 16th century Catholicism. However, they found that many began to take the whole idea of an individual's right to question the authority structure without any ultimate reference to ecclesial authority (by which I am refering mainly to the Anabaptists as I understand their history). With the onset of Enlightenment emphases on individualism and autonomy (notably popularized by means of the Reformation), the authority crisis became graver and deeper: we all know that story by now. In wasn't until the rise of postmodernism (thanks Derrida) that the authority of the individual to make broad, absolute (yet individual, go figure) claims was successfully challenged. The modernist church couldn't answer the claims, since it was largely built on the same and if you are sawing the branch the you sit on you only have two options: you could fall and "great was its fall" or the saw could bind and you could realize your folly. Postmodernism is the outgrowth of that bind (which in many ways proceeded to get off the limb, finish the cut, and then jump after it in existential angsty depression).
So, my postmodern protestant dilemma.
From whence comes authority?
This also grew out of a vague suspicion (once again, something I thought of in class when I probably should have been thinking about other things, but it was a logical jump for me, which isn't saying much...) that "orthodoxy" was ultimately situational because it invariably grew out of an historical context (I feel so adult using 'an' with 'historical'). The ecumenical creeds grew out of a religious and philosophical climate that was decidedly Greek and decidely neo-Platonic. Both of which, I think, have been successfully challenged from a Biblical perspective by H. Dooyeweerd (it was also challenged by the amount of vowels in his name--wow!). So how can we relate these ideas of orthodoxy to our modern context that has shades of Greece, Rome, Israel, Britain, Germany and many other cultures and contexts? Does our orthodoxy look (or read) any different? Is it truly an absolute and timeless truth that we must follow uncritically? Anyway, that's a bit off topic for now.
If we do question the orthodoxy, one of the only remaining vestiges of old church authority remaining in Protestantism as a whole, or even if we don't, where does authority come from? Protestantism already has a history of asking this question of the Bible, hence the rise (and God-blessed demise) of higher criticism. We (by which I mean Protestants) have a strong tradition that if a man senses (or feels or 'knows' or whatever) a call to the ministry, most likely he will end up as a pastor. The judges of this call are men who came to the pastorate by similar means. However, we also have a strong tradition that we don't trust 'feelings' or emotion to judge theological issues, which I think would logically apply to the issue of pastoral calling. The problem being that Protestants have for a long time had a problem determining the workings of the Spirit, fearing (rightly) the absolute quenching of any Spirit activity and also fearing (rightly) the mania that can (but not necessarily) accompany revivals and Charismatic branches of the church. We end up tending to the former end of the spectrum and then usually ending up as cessationists.
What we have used though to determine 'fitness' for leadership, and therefore authority, has been education. Education is close to a co-mediator with Jesus in many Protestant circles, especially as the definition of 'Protestant' becomes larger and larger and more inclusive (and therefore more nebulous). Originally, at Harvard, a man needed to be educated (in the classical tradition, especially with the Biblical languages) to be in the pastorate. I am all for, by the way, the mastering of the Biblical languages by the pastorate (and not just because that is what my academic degree is in). This was because since the Reformers and Reformed had cast off papal authority they needed to back up their claims to Scriptural meaning with first rate exegesis and scholarship (my friends, I hope, will note the drool that just proceeded out of my mouth in excited fervency). However, in many places today, we have "pastor's seminaries" and "academic seminaries"--meaning that "pastor's sem" doesn't need to be (and therefore, as a rule, isn't) academic or inclined to serious scholarship. In other words, you can be a better Biblical scholar by getting an undergraduate degree (or pulling a "Good Will Hunting") in Biblical studies than you can be getting a master's at a "pastor's sem". Although, if you do that, you don't have any authority (but you do get a lot of weird glances from folks who are wary of someone speaking theologically that hasn't been to seminary). This isn't to say that you can't be academically astute by going to a ps (I'm abbreviating further since I didn't know I'd be using the description so much): the pastor at my church is very astute and academically inclined without losing his practicality.
Anyway, the authority is based on education that might not be wonderful. Plus, that sort of education doesn't breed the liberal mind of critical self-and-other inquiry. It is rewarded by the candidate being tested on the basis of a (more) limited, sectarian orthodoxy (not to be confused, necessarily, with the orthodoxy mentioned earlier). Not that nonsectarianism is possible in our present state (or possibly any state). I hope that the problem is coming into focus. If orthodoxy is historically conditioned and we are in a furthered (not a different necessarily since history is a continuum) historical setting, how can we base our authority on a lacking education that conditions to an orthodoxy that may need to have its underpinnings examined in light of Christian philosophy?
One solution is that we need a dictator. Protestants, generally, see the papacy that way and would balk at such an idea. Whether or not I'd identify the papacy with a dictator, I too would balk at the total control of God's church by one fallible human. Order may arise out of that, but it would severely limit the truth of God's word being spoken in any age because it would produce an impenetrable dogma (in the bad sense) that eventually would be codified outside of its historical moorings and may, anyway, be based on philosophical presuppositions that would find the climate of Greece or Rome or Germany or America more favorable than that of ancient Palestine.
Another solution is anarchy. Technically, it has been argued that Jesus' church is to be an anarchy, based on the passage that says "The Gentiles lord (Gr. arche) it over their subjects, but it shall not be so with you..." Unfortunately, 'anarcy' conjures up images of bomb-throwing individualist dictators (they would impose their version of authority and truth on whoever couldn't withstand them--the mafia is a good example) that ends up as a true dictatorship, which brings us back to the other option.
Linguistically I fail to come up with any way to describe an ideal situation of church authority (possibly because I can't think of any ideal situation, but the question of "does language bring it into being or does the being create the language" befuddles the problem further). It would be nice to return to the system of communal appelate judges of the Old Testament, but they had Moses (or the king) to go to to settle hard disputes. We do, technically, have Jesus to go to, but my tradition doesn't believe that he speaks audibly anymore (he only speaks through the pastors, which is a convenient way to befuddle any congregation that thinks about how a pastor is claiming papal powers for himself, even if he contradicts the Protestant pastor--sometimes of the same denomination--down the street on regular occasion).
In the long run, I am reiterating what I starting to say in "The Spirit says 'Come'" (which, by the way, Gideon I would like to speak some other time, thanks for the comment): where is the presence of God today? The Old Testament had theophanies and the New Testament had the ultimate theophany in Jesus (even though I'm critical of 'official' orthodoxy that doesn't mean that I'm not still orthodox). We seem, though, to have nothing, except the feelings of either the "mad" (declared so by the establishment), the "bad" (see previous comment), or the "Godly" (the sort-of-inspired pastor in his "preaching of the word", which, by the way, is a poor misconstruel of what the apostles meant by that phrase--it never meant a sermon, but more on that anon). But feelings, as I've said before, don't cut it in my tradition.
My initial thought (if anything this late in a long post can be called 'initial') is that we need to stop viewing the church as an institution and more as a community. The definition of those two words, however, is greatly debatable--and the two concepts are sometimes conflated (hence the presence of an institutional advancement office at a college that calls itself a 'community'). Most view an institution as something governed by strict rules while a community is more 'informal'. Apart from being impossible (everything has limits and boundaries and rules, although I argued it in a different context), communities always have rules--membership is always by strict rules and exclusion from a community can be harsh and unrelenting. (This, as a side note, lends some credence, I think, to NT Wright's understand in the New Perspective, with faith--given by the Holy Spirit--determining the community's membership).
At this point, I'm at a loss of what to say next. I feel that I've argued this all before, both on this blog and with myself and others to no suitable conclusion. Any comments would be appreciated. If any of you, dear readers, have read this far, thank you for your time and consideration into this poor, bedraggled and ragged 'souls' spiritual wanderings and confusions. Maybe I should rename the blog "Job's Mutterings"?
Thanks for your time.
With Protestantism as a whole, we have an authoritorial crisis. The Reformers, I believe, originally did not want to separate their ecclesial authority structure from the bishopric of Rome. When (basically) forced out, they wanted to set up their own authoritative tradition, much in line with the whole "Rome" idea, except without all the "added" trappings of 16th century Catholicism. However, they found that many began to take the whole idea of an individual's right to question the authority structure without any ultimate reference to ecclesial authority (by which I am refering mainly to the Anabaptists as I understand their history). With the onset of Enlightenment emphases on individualism and autonomy (notably popularized by means of the Reformation), the authority crisis became graver and deeper: we all know that story by now. In wasn't until the rise of postmodernism (thanks Derrida) that the authority of the individual to make broad, absolute (yet individual, go figure) claims was successfully challenged. The modernist church couldn't answer the claims, since it was largely built on the same and if you are sawing the branch the you sit on you only have two options: you could fall and "great was its fall" or the saw could bind and you could realize your folly. Postmodernism is the outgrowth of that bind (which in many ways proceeded to get off the limb, finish the cut, and then jump after it in existential angsty depression).
So, my postmodern protestant dilemma.
From whence comes authority?
This also grew out of a vague suspicion (once again, something I thought of in class when I probably should have been thinking about other things, but it was a logical jump for me, which isn't saying much...) that "orthodoxy" was ultimately situational because it invariably grew out of an historical context (I feel so adult using 'an' with 'historical'). The ecumenical creeds grew out of a religious and philosophical climate that was decidedly Greek and decidely neo-Platonic. Both of which, I think, have been successfully challenged from a Biblical perspective by H. Dooyeweerd (it was also challenged by the amount of vowels in his name--wow!). So how can we relate these ideas of orthodoxy to our modern context that has shades of Greece, Rome, Israel, Britain, Germany and many other cultures and contexts? Does our orthodoxy look (or read) any different? Is it truly an absolute and timeless truth that we must follow uncritically? Anyway, that's a bit off topic for now.
If we do question the orthodoxy, one of the only remaining vestiges of old church authority remaining in Protestantism as a whole, or even if we don't, where does authority come from? Protestantism already has a history of asking this question of the Bible, hence the rise (and God-blessed demise) of higher criticism. We (by which I mean Protestants) have a strong tradition that if a man senses (or feels or 'knows' or whatever) a call to the ministry, most likely he will end up as a pastor. The judges of this call are men who came to the pastorate by similar means. However, we also have a strong tradition that we don't trust 'feelings' or emotion to judge theological issues, which I think would logically apply to the issue of pastoral calling. The problem being that Protestants have for a long time had a problem determining the workings of the Spirit, fearing (rightly) the absolute quenching of any Spirit activity and also fearing (rightly) the mania that can (but not necessarily) accompany revivals and Charismatic branches of the church. We end up tending to the former end of the spectrum and then usually ending up as cessationists.
What we have used though to determine 'fitness' for leadership, and therefore authority, has been education. Education is close to a co-mediator with Jesus in many Protestant circles, especially as the definition of 'Protestant' becomes larger and larger and more inclusive (and therefore more nebulous). Originally, at Harvard, a man needed to be educated (in the classical tradition, especially with the Biblical languages) to be in the pastorate. I am all for, by the way, the mastering of the Biblical languages by the pastorate (and not just because that is what my academic degree is in). This was because since the Reformers and Reformed had cast off papal authority they needed to back up their claims to Scriptural meaning with first rate exegesis and scholarship (my friends, I hope, will note the drool that just proceeded out of my mouth in excited fervency). However, in many places today, we have "pastor's seminaries" and "academic seminaries"--meaning that "pastor's sem" doesn't need to be (and therefore, as a rule, isn't) academic or inclined to serious scholarship. In other words, you can be a better Biblical scholar by getting an undergraduate degree (or pulling a "Good Will Hunting") in Biblical studies than you can be getting a master's at a "pastor's sem". Although, if you do that, you don't have any authority (but you do get a lot of weird glances from folks who are wary of someone speaking theologically that hasn't been to seminary). This isn't to say that you can't be academically astute by going to a ps (I'm abbreviating further since I didn't know I'd be using the description so much): the pastor at my church is very astute and academically inclined without losing his practicality.
Anyway, the authority is based on education that might not be wonderful. Plus, that sort of education doesn't breed the liberal mind of critical self-and-other inquiry. It is rewarded by the candidate being tested on the basis of a (more) limited, sectarian orthodoxy (not to be confused, necessarily, with the orthodoxy mentioned earlier). Not that nonsectarianism is possible in our present state (or possibly any state). I hope that the problem is coming into focus. If orthodoxy is historically conditioned and we are in a furthered (not a different necessarily since history is a continuum) historical setting, how can we base our authority on a lacking education that conditions to an orthodoxy that may need to have its underpinnings examined in light of Christian philosophy?
One solution is that we need a dictator. Protestants, generally, see the papacy that way and would balk at such an idea. Whether or not I'd identify the papacy with a dictator, I too would balk at the total control of God's church by one fallible human. Order may arise out of that, but it would severely limit the truth of God's word being spoken in any age because it would produce an impenetrable dogma (in the bad sense) that eventually would be codified outside of its historical moorings and may, anyway, be based on philosophical presuppositions that would find the climate of Greece or Rome or Germany or America more favorable than that of ancient Palestine.
Another solution is anarchy. Technically, it has been argued that Jesus' church is to be an anarchy, based on the passage that says "The Gentiles lord (Gr. arche) it over their subjects, but it shall not be so with you..." Unfortunately, 'anarcy' conjures up images of bomb-throwing individualist dictators (they would impose their version of authority and truth on whoever couldn't withstand them--the mafia is a good example) that ends up as a true dictatorship, which brings us back to the other option.
Linguistically I fail to come up with any way to describe an ideal situation of church authority (possibly because I can't think of any ideal situation, but the question of "does language bring it into being or does the being create the language" befuddles the problem further). It would be nice to return to the system of communal appelate judges of the Old Testament, but they had Moses (or the king) to go to to settle hard disputes. We do, technically, have Jesus to go to, but my tradition doesn't believe that he speaks audibly anymore (he only speaks through the pastors, which is a convenient way to befuddle any congregation that thinks about how a pastor is claiming papal powers for himself, even if he contradicts the Protestant pastor--sometimes of the same denomination--down the street on regular occasion).
In the long run, I am reiterating what I starting to say in "The Spirit says 'Come'" (which, by the way, Gideon I would like to speak some other time, thanks for the comment): where is the presence of God today? The Old Testament had theophanies and the New Testament had the ultimate theophany in Jesus (even though I'm critical of 'official' orthodoxy that doesn't mean that I'm not still orthodox). We seem, though, to have nothing, except the feelings of either the "mad" (declared so by the establishment), the "bad" (see previous comment), or the "Godly" (the sort-of-inspired pastor in his "preaching of the word", which, by the way, is a poor misconstruel of what the apostles meant by that phrase--it never meant a sermon, but more on that anon). But feelings, as I've said before, don't cut it in my tradition.
My initial thought (if anything this late in a long post can be called 'initial') is that we need to stop viewing the church as an institution and more as a community. The definition of those two words, however, is greatly debatable--and the two concepts are sometimes conflated (hence the presence of an institutional advancement office at a college that calls itself a 'community'). Most view an institution as something governed by strict rules while a community is more 'informal'. Apart from being impossible (everything has limits and boundaries and rules, although I argued it in a different context), communities always have rules--membership is always by strict rules and exclusion from a community can be harsh and unrelenting. (This, as a side note, lends some credence, I think, to NT Wright's understand in the New Perspective, with faith--given by the Holy Spirit--determining the community's membership).
At this point, I'm at a loss of what to say next. I feel that I've argued this all before, both on this blog and with myself and others to no suitable conclusion. Any comments would be appreciated. If any of you, dear readers, have read this far, thank you for your time and consideration into this poor, bedraggled and ragged 'souls' spiritual wanderings and confusions. Maybe I should rename the blog "Job's Mutterings"?
Thanks for your time.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Constancy
In this world of shifting allegiances, changing metaphysics, and transient politics, it is good to know that at least the speed of light is constant...
...or is it...
Thanks for you time.
...or is it...
Thanks for you time.
Friday, April 01, 2005
The Structure of the Temple
Here's an idea. I wish I knew how to draw it for the Blogger, but I don't know how.
The Torah of God, His covenant with His people, is like the structure of a house: the rough framing, the foundation, the sheathing, the roof, etc. All the things that make a house livable. The Prophets are like the building inspectors, making sure that we are building up to code and not trying to (say) cantilever large additions with just the balancing support of vinyl siding. The Wisdom books are how we fill the house, with all sorts of comforts and treasures, the things that make our homes 'homish' and pleasant to do our work or living and our loving in. May God's presence fill that Creational house.
Thanks for your time.
The Torah of God, His covenant with His people, is like the structure of a house: the rough framing, the foundation, the sheathing, the roof, etc. All the things that make a house livable. The Prophets are like the building inspectors, making sure that we are building up to code and not trying to (say) cantilever large additions with just the balancing support of vinyl siding. The Wisdom books are how we fill the house, with all sorts of comforts and treasures, the things that make our homes 'homish' and pleasant to do our work or living and our loving in. May God's presence fill that Creational house.
Thanks for your time.
The "Free" Market
I think, with the thoughts I posted about boundaries in Creation, that the term 'free market', from an absolute standpoint, is a misnomer. Since the market is a created thing (potential-wise by God, actualized by man), it must follow in those created boundaries. Otherwise, it attains the status of 'principality and power', which is a larger symptom of cultural breakdown.
If we are talking from a human standpoint, though, the term does make sense. A market 'free' from civil government control. But I believe, in our post-Enlightenment context, that it is necessary to make that linguistic distinction, lest we find another way to succumb to economic idolatry.
In a way, we could say then that no market is ever 'free', since it is bounded by issues of place, time, people, etc. It's natural boundaries are non-negotiable in that sense (the market cannot be absolutized and, therefore, cannot be effectively globalized without extreme violence to the places, times, people, etc. that the market affects). It's artificial boundaries, however, are the proper place for our tradition of wisdom to take root and dialogue in a humble way.
Thanks for your time.
If we are talking from a human standpoint, though, the term does make sense. A market 'free' from civil government control. But I believe, in our post-Enlightenment context, that it is necessary to make that linguistic distinction, lest we find another way to succumb to economic idolatry.
In a way, we could say then that no market is ever 'free', since it is bounded by issues of place, time, people, etc. It's natural boundaries are non-negotiable in that sense (the market cannot be absolutized and, therefore, cannot be effectively globalized without extreme violence to the places, times, people, etc. that the market affects). It's artificial boundaries, however, are the proper place for our tradition of wisdom to take root and dialogue in a humble way.
Thanks for your time.
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