Angloblography

Weekend Reading

I spent the weekend immersed too far into coverage of the aftermath of Katrina and cartoon depictions of conservative but somewhat agreeable furry animals. The first time I wanted to put my head above water I read portions of Foxe's Book of Martyrs . This is a problematic exercise, because I usually don't agree with Foxe's theological worldview but I certainly sympathize with his martyrs. It's perhaps more problematic because I really don't see the point of Christians executing other Christians over matters of religion. Is this because I'm a child of the Enlightenment? Well, yes. But there's something about it that strikes me as particularly unchristian. I didn't have words to express my feelings until I read Clement's Letter to the Corinthians in a further attempt to avoid Katrina press coverage. (I also took a few bicycle rides.) And when I read Clement, I found my concern expressed rather nicely. Clement complains against the Corinthians for persecuting leaders of their church in various nasty ways for being on the wrong side of some controversy. He points out to his readers (to put it succinctly) that persecution in the Scriptures usually involves the People of God (Israel, the Apostles, or the Church) being persecuted by other people. Rarely does the true people of God persecute anyone. Thus, religious persecution by Christians puts the persecutors in the Biblical role of enemies of God's people. Now, some Amorites, Perizzites, and even Israelites might complain against this view, but I think Clement gives the stronger interpretation.

For let us hear the preacher to the Hebrews on the Jewish martyrs, "Others were tortured to death, refusing release, to win resurrection to a better life. Others, again, had to face jeers and flogging, even fetters and prison bars. They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were put to the sword, they went about clothed in skins of sheep or goats, deprived, oppressed, ill-treated. The world was not worthy of them. They were refugees in deserts and on mountains, hiding in caves and holes in the ground" (Hebrews 11:35-39). In some sense, I don't care what kind of justification some can bring forth for doing violence to people on account of their faith. Though all the angels absolve them, I will suspect them as enemies of the people of God. Perhaps, such acts were worthy of Moses but they are deeply iniquitous in a people redeemed by the Blood of Him who was condemned as a traitor and a blasphemer. For therein lies my true trouble with Foxe, no matter what I think of the beliefs of those being persecuted, I can't help but see Christ in them.

Jeux De Verite

Michel Foucault, as deeply relativist as his worldview was, had one thing straight: truth-games are everywhere. And I guess my definition of truth game is something like this: a meta-discourse concerning some more fundamental discourse in which some truth and wisdom is achieved at the beginning but as it continues brings declining returns unto nothing and generally obscures the discourse on which it comments. I thought of two salient examples today.

1) Anglican Scotist, as we all know, likes to reveal the liberal individualist underpinnings of reasserter theology. I find this to be productive insofar as it reveals that those who claim to be guardians of universal and eternal tradition against the darkness really are subject to the scandal of particularity they like to point out in their opponents. Today, Rev. Canon Harmon linked to a piece by Ephraim Radner of the Anglican Communion Institute which does a little of this pointing out. In this case, the reassesors are read through the lens of ECUSA's theological presentation at the ACC: To Set Our Hope on Christ as American pragmatists. I could rant for eons on Radner's piece, but it would do no good. Although I appreciate the efforts of Scotist, Radner, and all other players of this game, the meta-discourse of showing that the other is constrained by their particular cultural context obscures whatever we're all supposed to be arguing about.

This game might have more use if it were more universal and eternal but less nostrocentric. We could play it with all of our predecessors in Christ. How fun. What say you, reasserters? That's a stinky liberal game? Well, if you're going to be spoilsports about it... How about we seek a more productive discourse? Let us instead disambiguate everyone's theology from their cultural context. But I still hear objections. Well, the most authentically orthodox solution I could propose would be to suggest the worldview of the apostles is most authoritative. After all, as long as we restrict this worldview business to human beings, how many would disagree with this? Well, many probably would disagree, but I am seeking the greatest consensus. Well, let's disambiguate everyone's theology from everything inconsistent with the apostolic worldview. But then we are left with the question of what apostolic worldview? Should we listen to James and the Church of Jerusalem? Is Paul more authoritative than Peter? John, son of Zebedee, may have been a Galilean fisherman, but he surely sounded like an Ionian philosopher in his latter years. What's up with that? Did he spend too much time in Ephesus? Or should we use the worldview of the Resurrection? No, that wouldn't be good.

Let's abandon this business. Because it is founded on one very important false premise. The game and my proposed improvements do not assume even that cultural context is irrelevant to the gospel, they assume that cultural context is harmful to the gospel. For Scotist and Radner certainly seem to assume that if they can find some strong strain in a theology of the particulat spirit of its age, that strain and even that theology cannot possibly participate in the doctrine of the Church Universal. The leap I am about to take is a great one, but I think it is valid. This assumption, applied universally and eternally as is proper, proclaims the promises to the Patriarchs and the very Incarnation as vanity. And that's where every faithful Christian theologian ought to shout loudly and pull the emergency brake, "Stop this train, I want to get off."

And answering objections that God chose the ancient Near East, I would say that if we are to believe cultural context always obscures and is harmful to the salvific Word, we might wonder at the utility of the promises and the Incarnation as intelligibly universal. But I do not want to much further with this. It's clear to me that Radner and the Scotist do not mean to play the game to this end. But they should be wary. Our chief epistemological limitation lies in the illusions of coherence and completeness. W.R. Hamilton's first few Lectures on Metaphysics illuminate this idea very well. Yes, we are fallen. Yes, we participate in the continuing rebellion of our race initiated by our foreparents. But we also impose order on the chaos of our sensory and intellectual perception. Our sensory perception is limited to very narrow spectra of the potential. Our intellectual perception is limited to bare grasping at the intelligibles. God does not forsake us. God the Father is the ultimate provider of these activities in us. God the Son became incarnate, not only offering Himself for the salvation of our souls, but also forcing our intellect to admit the absurdity (to us) of the divine economy and our senses to admit their limitations. God the Holy Spirit continues this activity in us. Thus we should not fear confidence in what we know nor refuse to admit what we see. The humility of theological and general epistemology lies in admitting that coherence generally is an illusion. Our faith lies neither in sensing the coherence, nor proving the coherence, but living on this little but most blessed world and crying out in faith to God, "It doesn't fit, Lord. I cannot make it fit, Lord. But it does fit, Lord. For You Are." Thus I fear not the ignorant, for they can gain knowledge, nor the unfaithful, for their faith can be strengthened, but those who dishonestly say that something coheres perfectly when they know it does not. I fear that nothing can be done for them. And strangely enough, I am sure this means there's something wrong with me.

2) The other truth game that has been bothering me also can be seen in Randall Foster's latest post. It can be seen elsewhere. It was especially vehemently discussed in the Lutheran blogosphere before ELCA Churchwide Assembly. Yes, I'm talking about Carl Braaten's famous letter where he renews Barth's criticism of Kulturprotestantismus against the ELCA. The rules of this game are very simple: Prove X is a church of "liberal" Protestants who don't care about the universality of the church but only want to do their own thing. The ELCA in this game becomes just another Protestant denomination. As Randall Foster puts it,

"Many Episcopalians in the US are in fact liberal Protestants by conviction. They just happen to prefer a “fancy” style of worship, with esthetically appealing worship spaces, vestments and music. Many liberal Episcopalians could care less about the authority and integrity of Scripture or Tradition. Classical Anglicanism has been marginalized within ECUSA. A dozen dioceses, a few dozen embattled parishes in heterodox dioceses, a couple of seminaries—that is about all that remains today."

This truth game is especially powerful to me, because the critique is a correct, if uncharitable reading of many people I know. I really should be a reasserter. For the last six years or so, I'll go through some sort of period of doubt about the direction of the Episcopal Church and convince myself that I need to fight or leave. And then God usually forces me into a library or a new church and seems to suggest that those with whom I am tempted to align myself do not have the happy relationship with "the authority and integrity of Scripture or Tradition" they claim. And when I point this out all I hear is, "Oh, you're a Democrat" or "You don't read the Bible enough" or "You had a liberal and deceptive religious education" or "You're a scientist. That stuff you do isn't important or relevant to this" or "You know nothing about the ancient world" or "Oh, come on, it can't really mean that."

Yes, there is a Kulturprotestantismus . It is good in that it strives continually for reform and for the conformation and transformation of the Church into a fit Bride for the Lamb of God. It is bad in that it loses track of its roots, sees itself emergent from a vacuum or recovering some pristine vision of the Christian faith. If you want a Classical Anglican example of this critique, see Hooker's Preface to Laws , wherein he gives a splendid aetiology of presbyterian government. But just as easily there can be a Kulturcatholischimus , so enamoured of its roots that it sees all current practice and current prejudices as reflected in the past and sees everything incoherent with it to be irrelevant and invisible. It searches for the same pristine order but as part of a continuity, which becomes more and more muddled unless there is some Kulturprotestantismus . What I want is Kulturcatholisch . And I am sure this is what Randall wants, too. But a lot of people must open their eyes to make it happen.

Well, that was a bit of a rant, wasn't it? And it all seems dreadfully unfair. But these jeux de verite keep multiplying, obstructing substantive dialogue about Scripture and Tradition, and I am sore of heart,

Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray you avoid making Leviathans of the intellect merely for the sport of it, but instead be led by the Spirit of Truth into all truth.