A Call to an Ancient Evangelical Future

One of the contemporary theologians who has influenced me most profoundly is Robert Webber (whose book Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail sometimes appears on my right-sidebar display of my 40 most recommended theology books). Just as I was coming to grips with the unworkability of the me-and-my-Bible sort of individualistic evangelicalism that I had learned along the way, he and several others pointed me back in time to a different way of doing Christianity that is also very timely for us "postmoderns."

And now Webber and a few other Protestant theologians, mostly coming from a moderate evangelical perspectice who will find some kinship with paleo-orthodox and a few emergent folks as well, have issued this Call to an ancient evangelical future.

This vision of living our Christianity together explicitly embraces tradition and understands it to be a continuation of God's narrative that is given in Scripture (thus legitimate tradition must stand under the judgment of and in continuity with the scriptural narrative); it refuses to accept Modernity's epistemology that flattens truth into 'empirical fact' and thus gives rise both to liberalism (which sees much of the Biblical narrative as failing to meet Modernity's criteria for "facts") and fundamentalism (which reduces the Biblical narrative of what God is doing in the world to a series of indepent propositional truth claims that may be systematized and understood individually and apart from the church that is the living continuation of that narrative); it also rejects the individualism that is rampant in contemporary evangelicalism as well as the relativism that is so closely related to it. It embraces serious catechism and life-long spiritual formation within the life of the larger Church which teaches us how to believe and live.

Obviously, I think these guys are on to something here. N.T. Wright has pretty well convinced me that we need to understand the narrative character of the Bible and use it (and understand how the different testaments work together) accordingly (See this article, or his recent book The Last Word for more on this perspective). Tom Oden has (along with Rob Webber and Tom Howard and others) convinced me of the importance of the life of the church through history, especially in her catholic/universal convictions and her liturgical celebrations, for understand the Scripture: for understanding what God truly has done and truly is doing in the world and for finding our place in that larger story or metanarrative. So I hope evangelical Christians will give serious thought and prayer and attention to this "Call to an Ancient Evangelical Future."

Rights VS. Rights

The pope in his book Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures (see below) said that if we make "freedom" our highest value in our society, then we will inevitably end up with situations where my freedoms or my rights conflict with someone else's freedoms or rights.

The recent issues that have emerged around pharmacists and their values or convictions about medications that cause abortions have highlighted this problem very well. Women are supposed to have a "right" to buy medication that is legal in our country, including those that cause abortions. On the other hand, we suppose that pharmacists have the right to hold certain religious beliefs and to live by those beliefs (we call that "freedom or religion"). So what happens when those two "rights" collide? Do we enact laws that force pharmacists to act against their religious convictions? If so we have essentially said (in agreement with a spokes-woman from the so-called "Religious Coallition for Reproductive Choice" - an organization that The United Methodist Church would do very well to distance itself from) that Roman Catholics and Evangelicals cannot become pharmacists, they may not participate in one of our country's biggest buisinesses (which is another unfortunate issue for another day).

As our world becomes more complex I would imagine that these sorts of problems will become more frequent. In a pluralistic culture, I have NO idea how they can be addressed. This is one very good example of my whole claim that legislation is NOT "morally neutral." It never has been. All legislation that passes into law in our country does effectively legislate morality. My question then is "whose morality becomes law?" Whose morality should become law? And why?

The "problem" of Anthropology

“What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” This question-prayer echoes through the Psalms (see. Ps. 8, Ps. 144, etc.) of the Old Testament. I think this may well be one of the most important questions that gets right to the heart of the intellectual and philosophical crisis that has engulfed our civilization: What is Man? What is a human being? What makes him special; is he special?

A few days ago I commented about the Pope’s book Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures and suggested (in agreement with him) that post-Enlightenment modernity, which confuses “facts” with knowledge and truth itself, and thus reduces and flattens out “knowledge” into only what can be known as factual by empirical or scientific or rationalistic methods, that this philosophy is incapable of sustaining a civilization because of it’s incompleteness, its inability to address metaphysical questions, chief among them are questions about what it means to be human. It simply dismisses the very questions that make a difference in our lives and our world. As I reflected and discussed this with my father and some of my loyal commentators, it occurred to me that ultimately our problem is Anthropology: because we separate religion from the public sphere, we in the West today don’t really have a coherent account of human nature, but we act (and legislate) as if we did.

C. John Sommerville, in his book The Decline of the Secular University takes up exactly this question. (once again I came up with a really good idea, only to find 2 days later at the bookstore, that someone had already written a book about it…) He argues that the secular university has become a “credential-factory” and has lost any real intellectual influence in our culture, which is by-and-large “post-secular.” In the second chapter he argues that one of the chief weaknesses of the secular academia is that it cannot even offer an account or definition of what a human being is. If we accept a purely naturalistic worldview (which universities do in some ways implicitly, but often not on this issue), then the human being is nothing more than (perhaps) the most evolved animal on this particular planet, but just another animal, not morally different than all of the other animals (who themselves are not having such a discussion or bothering much about “animal rights” for that matter). Certainly, Man is not a being endowed with “unalienable rights.” Indeed, the academic discipline that we (perhaps erroneously) call “Anthropology” is not really the study of what Man is, since a secular worldview cannot address that question, only of what Man does.

This inability to address and articulate a full anthropology – since to do so is essentially a religious function – means that secular academia cannot provide sustenance for a political system like ours, as Sommerville points out:
“When Thomas Jefferson wrote that all men are created equal, he could still assume creation and purpose. Darwin changed all that. But we cannot say that all men have evolved equally. So we have had to proceed with our analysis of politics, society, and economics without agreement on final principles.”

This is why I have argued that a democracy like ours cannot be a pluralistic “secular democracy” in which there are no “final principles” (and in which this pluralism is in fact dogmatically asserted). It is a sham. Democracy itself assumes certain things about the nature of human beings: that all are created equal and by virtue of that equality should have an equal say in the government. Thus the political system of democracy (or democratic republic in our case) assumes a previous position on the question of anthropology which is, by its very nature, a religious question (though some religions, such as Marxism, would never apply that word to themselves, but in fact use that word to dismiss other religions in order to give themselves and edge in competing – or actually to avoid competing - with the other religious views).

All political or communal arrangements make certain assumptions about the nature of Man, about anthropology and are arranged accordingly. Ours is democratic because we assume that humans are equal, yet imposes checks and balances because we assume that humans are not trustworthy for some reason. Think of the Hindu caste system. Certain people have certain positions in society because of their nature as determined by the religious ideology of Hinduism. Society is officially (or more recently, unofficially) organized accordingly. The same was true of the good regime of the Philosopher king offered by Socrates/Plato in Republic. The reason that was the best form of government was directly related to the nature of Man: he is reason at war with passions. Since the philosopher was led by reason and not his passions, he was most fit to govern. Likewise those who were “slaves by nature” – who were only ruled by passions and not reason (there are probably lots of these people)– were only fit to do slave-type work and wield no political power (this is also why he says democracy is the 2nd-to-worst form of government). The ordering of the society is based upon the anthropology, the previous assumptions about human nature.

A system of thought, such as post-Enlightenment Modernism/Secularism, that assumes an epistemology (a theory of what “knowledge” is) that rules out metaphysical questions (because they cannot be addressed “scientifically”) cannot therefore answer the question of the Psalmist: “What is Man?”

Think of the political ramifications of this deficiency: how shall we address whether keeping Muslims imprisoned in Cuba is a violation of their rights or not? How shall we address whether abortion should be legal or not? Is the fetus a human?? Does the woman have any “rights” in this matter at all? Why, or why not? Upon what basis? When is it acceptable to invade another country? What constitutes a just war if there is such a thing? Is our system of international trade inherently exploitative? If so, is that even a “bad” thing? What makes a thing “bad”? What constitutes a “marriage” and why? Where are the “lines” in bio-ethics or genetics? If we are able to create human hybrids to use for medical spare parts should we do so; would they be human; would they have rights?

And these are the questions that our intellectual leaders must address and these are all finally religious in nature (something that “values-voters” seem to understand better than scholars). These are the very same questions that post-Enlightenment/Secular Modernity is just incapable of addressing. This deficiency is also one reason why a dissatisfied “Post-modernity” has attacked and “deconstructed” Modernism. The problem with Post-modernity is that it destroys but does not create: it gives us no viable alternative upon which to build a civilization, only cynicism and suspicion and ambiguous relativism. Certainly it does not solve the problem of how we as a political community shall address these very concrete issues (and in many ways, Post-modernity further complicates matters).

Only Religion can really address our needs as a political community and as individuals. The question becomes which religion. There is a very real possibility that vigorous Islam could displace Secularism (which in turn has displaced Christianity) to become the new foundation of Western Civilization, especially in Europe. In Europe, Christianity is virtually dead and new waves of Muslim immigrants arrive every year – and this time Charles Martel will not come out to meet them, for he has no reason or resolve to do so. Islam has a very strong anthropology-derived political order that is enshrined in Sharia law and its long interpretive tradition. It asserts what man is, and how he should live before God, and arranges society accordingly.

Personally, I would like very much to not see Islam emerge as the new Western worldview. Rather, the Christian intellectual tradition, that helped build the West, is able to address the issues of the day in a persuasive way, if only secular Academia will allow it to have a voice in the dialogue. This is how we can begin to recover the intellectual rigor of Western Civilization that serves as the basis for our political community. (I might also point out that by-and-large, Roman Catholicism currently seems better suited to this task than does confused Protestantism, I can only hope we might catch up – and do my homework).

I think that there ought to be a conscious inclusion of religious perspectives within academic discourse, something at which Secular Modernity would have gawked. Universities like Duke, or Notre Dame, or Southern Methodist University, or Baylor – which are known as fine academic institutions and have clear religious roots and affiliations (even divinity schools!), should be on the forefront in encouraging sustained dialogue of a uniquely Christian perspective with traditional secular academia on these issues.

Last year, for instance, SMU’s Political Science symposium had a debate on stem cells and invited Roman Catholic priest and scholar Father Tadeusz Pacholcyzk (who has 9 stinkin’ degrees including a PH.D. from Yale and a post-doctorate degree from Harvard!) to debate a proponent of Embryonic Stem-Cell research, Eve Herold. The debate in fact re-enforces Sommerville’s (and my) point: Herold conceded that science was unable to answer the question of when an embryo becomes human – thus has nothing useful to say on the most critical hinge of this debate.

This sort of discussion needs to be fostered and sustained (more than just a one-time debate) within the academic world if it is to truly address the needs of our society. I think the traditionally Christian private schools are a great place for this to happen – so long as they are not afraid of sounding too religious! This is how we might begin to re-invigorate Western Civilization, the Lord God being our helper.

Ancient Disciplines for contemporary Christians

I have been pleased to see a steady stream of books and articles encouraging evangelical Christians to re-learn the ancient disciplines (that some quarters of the church never forgot). We are being encouraged to grow into a steady rythm of fixed-hour prayer, scripture and spiritual reading, regular feasting at the Lord's Table, fasting, meditating, simplicity of lifestyle and stewardship, solitude and silence, even pilgrimage. Here is an article along the same lines from a Lutheran pastor: Selling Ancient Disciplines to Moderns. He argues that the best way to encourage normal Christians to take up these disciplines is to emphasize that they are a normal and necessary part of Christian growth and are not an optional extra reserved for "spiritual super-stars." Without them we simply will not grow in the love and knowledge of God.

Methodists evangelize; use appropriate cliches

I am certainly glad to see that The United Methodist Church in Lithuania is seeking to evangelize in the name of Christ, saying that every Lithuanian should "know God personally" and that The United Methodist congregations there are a great place to learn to do so. Of course, I am glad to see that, and am not one bit surprised to find that it is an Asbury grad that is heading the thing up. I also noted that the description uses all of the appropriate catch-phrases and cliches of our church today: the commercials and tracts being used are "relevant" to Lithuanians today and we must keep in mind how "inclusive" Jesus was in reaching out to people. I will have to look again but I am sure there must be some talk about the value of "diversity" as well. Sigh.

Great Post on Justification

Even as the World's Methodists signed onto the "Joint Declaration" by the Lutherans and Roman Catholics on the doctrine of Justification, there has been a discussion among catholic bloggers of all denominations as to what the disagreements really are. Here is a fascinating post at Pontifications that contrasts Richard Hooker's view on Justification, Hooker being one of the most important Reforming theologians in the English Church (which has great significance for Methodist theology since Wesley claimed to preach "only the doctrines of the Church of England") with that of the Council of Trent. One things I am becoming convinced of after reading these bloggers is that most Protestants have a mis-conception of what the Roman Church actually teaches (and many Roman Catholics may also) about justification. I am really becoming more interested in this issue and need to do more research since I am not entirely sure I agree with the conventional Lutheran understanding of how justification works.

Crisis of Cultures

I have been meaning to read one of the books of Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, for a while. I once started one on liturgy but it was very dense and not well translated so I gave up pretty quickly. Finally I read the short but very dense Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures in one sitting at the book store. I was delighted to find the Pope saying some of the same things I have been trying to say (only better and more completely) about the nature of politics in the Western world. He argues that political decision making must be made on the foundation of collective moral and philosophical beliefs on the part of the whole society.

There has been a concious effort in Western Civilization to relocate the Western moral and philosophical foundations of society away from our Jude0-Christian heritage toward a post-Enlightenment worldview. This is why, he says that the EU's constitution can have no mention of God or of the Christian roots of European culture: not because this would offend Muslims and others, but because the secular philosophical foundations want no competition from God as a foundation. The problem is that post-Enlightenment modernity is simply incomplete and incapable of providing a foundation for a free society because of its rejection of metaphysical claims. It is also seeking to cut itself off from its own roots by marginalizing Christian thought.

The Pope goes on to point out that the over-riding value of secular Western culture, "freedom," when guided by no other principles, soon destroys itself since my freedom may conflict with yours (eg. my freedom to get an abortion may conflict with your freedom to live; my right to security with your right to privacy, etc.). So there must be some outside standards by which we can govern freedom or arbitrate the conflicts that arise. Otherwise we will simply descend into the will of the strong (of the majority) over-riding the will of the weak. This is "the law of the jungle." Political Darwinism.

At the end of the day we, as humans who naturally organize ourselves into society with others, must make decisions corporately. Those decisions will either be made in a manner that acknowledges a God who has a universal and natural law, or they will not. The attempt to compromise will increasingly become unacceptable to either world-view (discussions of legitimate sexual activity bring this problem to the fore like few other issues).

The Catholic (not just Roman) Christian intellectual traditon is vigorous (regardless of the anti-intellectual impulses of many fundamentalist groups, as well as some evangelical and Pentecostal groups in America) and has a potentially well-organized mode of dissemination (that being the various Churches themselves). I think we as the churches must consistently and loudly make this assertion to Western governments: "without God, you have no legitimate foundation upon which to legislate!" That is, without some kind of universal natural law that our laws seek to conform to for the good of all people, there can be no such thing as justice in our societies, which seems to me to be the fundamental reason for having law-making and law-enforcing governments in the first place. Some might want to argue that the purpose is simply to have "order" since there is no such God, no such natural law, and therefore no such thing as justice. This position might be logically coherent, but those who hold it would have to conceed that there is also no such thing as human rights and that we were wrong to invade Nazi Germany since there system was so efficient and orderly. The very fact that nobody is willing to make these concessions reveals that the natural law theory is the correct one. We know it "in our bones," as it were that there IS a such thing as justice and therefore there ARE natural laws that human laws may conform to (if they are good laws) or diverge from (if they are bad laws). If there were no such thing as natural law, there could be no such thing as a bad law, but we all know that there are.

I am most certainly NOT saying that the government must be Christian or must be theocratic (this is where I would want to challenge the direction that a great deal of the un-reflective political rhetoric sometimes used by conservative Christians of all stripes in my country seems to be heading). I am saying that there must be a higher authority than simply "the will of the majority" if our society really is good and legitimate, otherwise it is simply a sophisticated version of "might makes right" and a hypocritical one at that, since it would deny such an accusation. The founding fathers of the US certainly believed (according to the Declaration of Independence) that the people should have a say in government NOT because the majority can enforce its will, but because humans are created equal and endowed with rights by the God of nature. It is God who ensures the equality that serves as the foundational principle of democracy (that all people should have a say in government because all are equal).

And if there is such a higher authority, our government (if it is legitimate) must CONSCIOUSLY acknowledge that fact. This is what is so powerful about the monarch of Great Britain being crowned in a great Church and explicitly declaring in the coronation liturgy that God, not the king, is the highest authority in the realm.