Archive for January, 2008
The Divine Embrace 2: heresy vs. spirituality
Sunday, January 20th, 2008
Webber, as I mentioned in part 1 of this series, defines spirituality as “a lived theology.” That is, Biblical spirituality is based on the core teachings of the Church, as expressed in the earliest creeds. The early heresies, such as Gnosticism and Arianism not only challenged theological ideas, but challenged those areas that directly impacted how we are to live. The Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds specifically affirmed the Incarnation, the “God joined with man” concept that is essential to any understanding of what it means to be a Christian. Early Church theology, as does Orthodox theology today (and a similar concept in Lutheranism) is that of Theosis, or man becoming God (essentially, “Christ-like,” rather than equal to God). It is the principal of God becoming man that makes it possible for man to become joined to God.
Furthermore, this spirituality is solely at God’s initiative. The Pelagian heresy taught that man could achieve holiness through his own will. It was Augustine who argued that “a man’s free choice avails only to lead him to sin.” Pelagianism was rejected at the Council of Carthage in AD 407, which agreed that “our spirituality is not accomplished by our initiative but by God, who became incarnate…” It is only Jesus who can unite us to God.
Early Christian spirituality, says Webber, was a theological spirituality; that is, the theology was not meant to be merely believed, it was meant to be lived. The concept of the Trinity, for example, is essentially relational or communal; therefore, there can be no such thing as an individualistic spirituality. He quotes Philip Sheldrake as saying,
The incarnation is more than a defense of the reality … of the human nature of Jesus Christ. It is a governing principle of Christian living; of God’s way of relating to creation and our way of response.
Spirituality, then, is participating in the purposes of God in history, at the initiative of God.
Webber goes on in Chapter 2 to explain how Platonic Dualism began to distort the original concept of spirituality. Plato, as we know, saw the material world as inferior to the Ideal world, separating the physical from the spiritual. This way of thinking began to creep into the Church, causing a shift in contemplation from God as subject, to God as object. God was no longer the origin of our spirituality, the One who reached out to us, but spirituality became our way of reaching out to God. Spirituality shifted from being a gift of God’s grace to a striving after grace. That which was physical and normal to life became seen as evil, and only the spiritual was seen as good.
A second crucial shift in contemplation came in the late Medieval period, with the rise of mysticism. Where earlier contemplation was focused on the purposes of God (creating, incarnation and re-creating) of which we were the beneficiaries, now contemplation was focused on man’s experience, as he tried to grab hold of God. It was a shift of focus from God’s work toward us, to our work toward God. Furthermore, this shift caused a split between theology and spirituality, which now became a “spiritual discipline.” In man’s seeking after God, his relationship with God then started to take on a romantic aspect.
It is amazing for me to read Webber’s account and see these influences still at work in - and sometimes controlling - the church today. What really grabbed me was this comment by Webber:
… the language of spirituality moved from the “indescribable wonder of God” to the “wonderfully indescribable experience of God.” …spirituality expressed a movement away from “God’s story,” to “my story.” …
Consequently, participation in God shifted from life-affirming spirituality to a life-denying spirituality.
Webber’s correct, here, I believe. Of course, if you’ve read through this blog over the last couple of years, you’ll see that I’ve been on a similar track. But, Webber actually knows what he’s talking about, and he says things so much better than I can.
I have not done this chapter justice at all, but merely tried to pick out a few of the highlights, so you’ll be encouraged to buy the book, or at least begin to think about these things. Next time, we’ll move into Chapter 3, dealing with the Reformation to 1900. After than, he deals with Modernism in Chapter 4, and post-Modernism in Chapter 5. Then, he gets us back to the Good News. I can hardly wait.
Webber, as I mentioned in part 1 of this series, defines spirituality as “a lived theology.” That is, Biblical spirituality is based on the core teachings of the Church, as expressed in the earliest creeds. The early heresies, such as Gnosticism and Arianism not only challenged theological ideas, but challenged those areas that directly impacted how we are to live. The Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds specifically affirmed the Incarnation, the “God joined with man” concept that is essential to any understanding of what it means to be a Christian. Early Church theology, as does Orthodox theology today (and a similar concept in Lutheranism) is that of Theosis, or man becoming God (essentially, “Christ-like,” rather than equal to God). It is the principal of God becoming man that makes it possible for man to become joined to God.
Furthermore, this spirituality is solely at God’s initiative. The Pelagian heresy taught that man could achieve holiness through his own will. It was Augustine who argued that “a man’s free choice avails only to lead him to sin.” Pelagianism was rejected at the Council of Carthage in AD 407, which agreed that “our spirituality is not accomplished by our initiative but by God, who became incarnate…” It is only Jesus who can unite us to God.
Early Christian spirituality, says Webber, was a theological spirituality; that is, the theology was not meant to be merely believed, it was meant to be lived. The concept of the Trinity, for example, is essentially relational or communal; therefore, there can be no such thing as an individualistic spirituality. He quotes Philip Sheldrake as saying,
The incarnation is more than a defense of the reality … of the human nature of Jesus Christ. It is a governing principle of Christian living; of God’s way of relating to creation and our way of response.
Spirituality, then, is participating in the purposes of God in history, at the initiative of God.
Webber goes on in Chapter 2 to explain how Platonic Dualism began to distort the original concept of spirituality. Plato, as we know, saw the material world as inferior to the Ideal world, separating the physical from the spiritual. This way of thinking began to creep into the Church, causing a shift in contemplation from God as subject, to God as object. God was no longer the origin of our spirituality, the One who reached out to us, but spirituality became our way of reaching out to God. Spirituality shifted from being a gift of God’s grace to a striving after grace. That which was physical and normal to life became seen as evil, and only the spiritual was seen as good.
A second crucial shift in contemplation came in the late Medieval period, with the rise of mysticism. Where earlier contemplation was focused on the purposes of God (creating, incarnation and re-creating) of which we were the beneficiaries, now contemplation was focused on man’s experience, as he tried to grab hold of God. It was a shift of focus from God’s work toward us, to our work toward God. Furthermore, this shift caused a split between theology and spirituality, which now became a “spiritual discipline.” In man’s seeking after God, his relationship with God then started to take on a romantic aspect.
It is amazing for me to read Webber’s account and see these influences still at work in - and sometimes controlling - the church today. What really grabbed me was this comment by Webber:
… the language of spirituality moved from the “indescribable wonder of God” to the “wonderfully indescribable experience of God.” …spirituality expressed a movement away from “God’s story,” to “my story.” …
Consequently, participation in God shifted from life-affirming spirituality to a life-denying spirituality.
Webber’s correct, here, I believe. Of course, if you’ve read through this blog over the last couple of years, you’ll see that I’ve been on a similar track. But, Webber actually knows what he’s talking about, and he says things so much better than I can.
I have not done this chapter justice at all, but merely tried to pick out a few of the highlights, so you’ll be encouraged to buy the book, or at least begin to think about these things. Next time, we’ll move into Chapter 3, dealing with the Reformation to 1900. After than, he deals with Modernism in Chapter 4, and post-Modernism in Chapter 5. Then, he gets us back to the Good News. I can hardly wait.
Two views of Scripture
Saturday, January 19th, 2008
Some time ago I wrote a bit about the authority of the Bible, which you can read here. Beneath the issues of orthodoxy, orthopraxy, theology and denominationalism we will often find some discussion about the Scriptures, with questions as seemingly elementary as, “what constitutes Scripture?” We are taught as children that the Bible consists of 66 books, beginning with Genesis, ending with Revelation, all inspired by the Holy Spirit (the Aprocrapha is, of course, not inspired). We even somehow think that the order of the books is important, sometimes judging those who don’t know where Romans is.
This morning I read a couple of very interesting posts on the subject on the internet monk blog. The first is by Michael Spencer (the IM himself - he’s actually Baptist, I think), who identifies himself as a “post-evangelical,” which he defines elsewhere on his blog. The second post (on the same internet monk site) is by guest-poster Josh Stodtbeck, a Lutheran blogger who gives a Lutheran perspective on the Scriptural Canon.
Both posts raise very interesting issues and challenges with regard to how militant we can be concerning our position on the Canon of Scripture. As I think I’ve mentioned before, it is interesting to note that based on what we read in the New Testament, the “Word of God” does not seem limited to anything which was written down, and in fact, seems to speak of oral testimony. It would seem that some fundamentalist approaches to the Bible, while trying to raise the stature of the Bible and encourage faith by assigning adjectives such as inerrant, may in fact have the opposite effect.
As Paul told Timothy, all scripture is inspired by God. However, as I realized some years ago, in context we see that Paul was referring to that “scripture” which Timothy learned as a child. While I do not doubt the inspiration of the New Testament books, it seems fitting to ask (and not assume), “What did Paul mean by ’scripture?’” Michael Spencer writes:
It is important, however, to note that the term “scripture” was not synonymous with “approved canon.” It is apparent that Jewish writers could use the term “scripture” in a much broader sense than we would use the word “canon,” and that books not included in canonical lists might be referred to as scripture. This seems to provide strong evidence that there are books- such as the Apocryphal books- that may have been quoted as “scripture” while not appearing universally on all Jewish lists of canon. In fact, it’s clear that the Jewish canon was never as settled as the retelling of the canonical tale might sometimes imply. This suggests that the category of “beneficial, but not authoritative” should be applied to some writings, and that supplemental collections of non-canonical books and readings are appropriate.
Spencer’s post give’s his own, “post-evangelical” views. Mr. Stodtbeck presents a Lutheran understanding of the Canon and how it works in practice; that is, how it impacts Lutheran theology. For example, he discusses how not all books were unanimously adopted into the Canon; some books, like Revelation, were highly contested:
An example of the application of this is that Lutherans will never make some particular interpretation of Revelation a church-defining issue. Yes, we preach from it, write commentaries in it, and read it in our lectionaries, but because the early church witness to the origin of this book is divided, our confessional principles on eschatology are ultimately drawn from the Gospels and Epistles.
You may not agree with either position, but if you have any interest at all in the subject, I think you’ll find the articles worth your time.
Some time ago I wrote a bit about the authority of the Bible, which you can read here. Beneath the issues of orthodoxy, orthopraxy, theology and denominationalism we will often find some discussion about the Scriptures, with questions as seemingly elementary as, “what constitutes Scripture?” We are taught as children that the Bible consists of 66 books, beginning with Genesis, ending with Revelation, all inspired by the Holy Spirit (the Aprocrapha is, of course, not inspired). We even somehow think that the order of the books is important, sometimes judging those who don’t know where Romans is.
This morning I read a couple of very interesting posts on the subject on the internet monk blog. The first is by Michael Spencer (the IM himself - he’s actually Baptist, I think), who identifies himself as a “post-evangelical,” which he defines elsewhere on his blog. The second post (on the same internet monk site) is by guest-poster Josh Stodtbeck, a Lutheran blogger who gives a Lutheran perspective on the Scriptural Canon.
Both posts raise very interesting issues and challenges with regard to how militant we can be concerning our position on the Canon of Scripture. As I think I’ve mentioned before, it is interesting to note that based on what we read in the New Testament, the “Word of God” does not seem limited to anything which was written down, and in fact, seems to speak of oral testimony. It would seem that some fundamentalist approaches to the Bible, while trying to raise the stature of the Bible and encourage faith by assigning adjectives such as inerrant, may in fact have the opposite effect.
As Paul told Timothy, all scripture is inspired by God. However, as I realized some years ago, in context we see that Paul was referring to that “scripture” which Timothy learned as a child. While I do not doubt the inspiration of the New Testament books, it seems fitting to ask (and not assume), “What did Paul mean by ’scripture?’” Michael Spencer writes:
It is important, however, to note that the term “scripture” was not synonymous with “approved canon.” It is apparent that Jewish writers could use the term “scripture” in a much broader sense than we would use the word “canon,” and that books not included in canonical lists might be referred to as scripture. This seems to provide strong evidence that there are books- such as the Apocryphal books- that may have been quoted as “scripture” while not appearing universally on all Jewish lists of canon. In fact, it’s clear that the Jewish canon was never as settled as the retelling of the canonical tale might sometimes imply. This suggests that the category of “beneficial, but not authoritative” should be applied to some writings, and that supplemental collections of non-canonical books and readings are appropriate.
Spencer’s post give’s his own, “post-evangelical” views. Mr. Stodtbeck presents a Lutheran understanding of the Canon and how it works in practice; that is, how it impacts Lutheran theology. For example, he discusses how not all books were unanimously adopted into the Canon; some books, like Revelation, were highly contested:
An example of the application of this is that Lutherans will never make some particular interpretation of Revelation a church-defining issue. Yes, we preach from it, write commentaries in it, and read it in our lectionaries, but because the early church witness to the origin of this book is divided, our confessional principles on eschatology are ultimately drawn from the Gospels and Epistles.
You may not agree with either position, but if you have any interest at all in the subject, I think you’ll find the articles worth your time.
