Aedificium

Ken raised a question in his comment to the last post about being uncertain over how Christianity should be defined. This has actually been in the back of my mind for some weeks.

As an historian of religion as well as someone who identifies himself as “Christian,” I’ve been trying to make some sense out of this. Ancient Christianity, for example, as as diverse as it is today, and the arguments over defining what it is are not new. I think there are two different ways to approach this: 1) asking “what is Christianity” as an institution, and 2) “what (or who) is a Christian?”. I think that breaking it down this way yields different answers.

Institutional “Christianity” seems to have been defined according to subscription to specific doctrines, beliefs and ideas at least since the second century. Right doctrine was the point of departure. We have texts that describe that the only way you could tell a “heretic” in may places was by talking to one of them privately and casually outside of church meetings, because in their practice they appeared to be the same as everyone else. Irenaeus, for example, notes that it is this very thing that makes “those guys,” according to him, anyway, so dangerous to “us.” They sneak up on you, because if you don’t really know them, you have no idea what kind of system of doctrine they subscribe to (if they subscribe to any at all) and therefore have no grounds for figuring out if they are “Christian” or not. Christians who followed a different set of doctrines and mythology than the ones Justin, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, and a host of other early proto-orthodox writers, saw the proto-orthodox set of doctrines and ideas as ridiculous, and thought of themselves as nothing other than Christians following Christianity.

So the question I have is this: is subscription to a certain set of doctrines, platitudes, propositions, and so on a realistic mark of Christian identity? Can Christianity be reduced exclusively to this? If so, how many, and which one? And can one subscribe to doctrines, yet not really believe it? I think that for many in the churches today, this latter question is perhaps the most pertinent, yet one that hardly anyone will touch.

Now what about ritual and liturgy? Even if we grant that doctrine is at least one defining element, there’s the ancient question of whether or not someone who participates and observes the liturgical and ritual structure, defined by some authoritative figure and yet doesn’t “do it right,” is a “christian.” It’s easy enough to look for examples in antiquity; one might be the observation and celebration of the feast of Easter Day. There were those (many, in fact) who believed that the Lord’s resurrection should always be on the 14th of the month of Nisan, regardless of what day of the week that happened to fall on. Others (the winning party, at least in western christendom) believed that Easter should always be on the Sunday on or after the first full moon of the spring equinox. Both said they were Christians; both denied full “Christian” identity to the other. The same situation pops up in issues over Baptism (in antiquity as well as now), Eucharist (then as now), and so on. In other words, it’s the same problem as doctrines. And of course, could you observe Jewish rites, holy days, practices, and so on, and be Christian? The authoritative answer from many powerful figures, such as John Chrysostom, was “no way,” and that if you do participate in, say, a Seder or a Purim carnival, you were Jewish, not Christian.

What about ethics and morality? Day-to-day life? Now here is where things really start getting interesting. Because we have evidence from early christian texts that suggest that the ONLY difference between some groups was in ordinary life practices, and this starts with Paul in the letters to the Corinthians and continues until the present day. So this doesn’t appear to be very helpful. Usually these were issues over sexuality, food, and social roles. Again, what was true in the first century was true in the 4th and true in the 21st. Nothing’s changed. Denominations that ordain women are rejected by some as not really christian. Churches that take a disparaging attitude to the joy of sex and to celebrating the beauty of the body’s sexuality cannot understand why others who seem to delight in physical beauty can think of themselves as Christians. Can one be an environmentalist and “green” and be a real Christian? This is not a flippant question (sadly!).

Enough. Let me propose something of a tentative “description” for discussion.

I think the “doctrinists,” those who argue that you have to truly, authentically, and unquestioningly believe and subscribe to certain doctrines and to “the Bible” (another complicated topic for another day), have one thing right. I think there IS but a single doctrine that, without which, I can’t see identifying with Christian faith, and that’s the doctrine of the lordship of Jesus the Christ. That is to say, a confession that Jesus is my/our Lord should be the doctrinal base for the Christian religion. After that, there are a million variations on the theme, and propositional theology becomes mere details. But for someone who professes Christianity and who yet denies Jesus’ lordship, either in word or (more often) in deed, I can’t see how this can be the case. In other words, I think it is entirely possible for people to believe all the right stuff and not be a Christian. Now, what “lordship” means is the sticking point, but that’s to be expected. Everything else after Jesus’ lordship is conditioned by memory, history, psychology, experience, geography, and so on.

Ethically and morally, my years of studying the Abrahamic religions suggest to me that there are far more similarities than differences, not to mention local variations within each tradition. And so I don’t feel that ethics and morals are much good for defining one from the other, and I’m grateful for this. I do believe that when apply the lordship criteria, however, we see how each tradition nuances the ethical and moral common ground (or, perhaps, holy ground). A truly Christian ethics and morality, I think, stems from where we put the role of Christ. For me, an understanding of Christ’s lordship means viewing - and following, as best as I am able and as far as I can understand - Christ as the quintessential representative of ethical justice as was revealed in Hebrew Scripture and the Gospels of the New Testament. It is a conscious decision to model our ethics after those of Jesus, who was our prototype for applied ethics in a life in imitation of the ethics and morality expected by God as revealed in the Hebrew scriptures. Removing Jesus from this equation obviously denies lordship to Him. One may still follow an ethics of the Scriptures, but there is little that will distinguish Christian ethics from Islamic or Jewish without the confession of Jesus’ lordship and accepting his role as an ethical and moral prototype. Another way to put this is that I recognize that one can lead a life of “christian” ethics without being a Christian.

Finally, rite, ritual, worship, liturgy, and so on. I have been to so many churches that call themselves Christian, who confess his lordship, and who strive and struggle to live a life based on ethics they feel derive from Jesus’ lordship. And yet for some of them, they can be so different, even to the point that visitors may wonder if they are, indeed, in a Christian church or setting. Wine or Grape Juice? Bread or wafer? Dunked or sprinkled? Children or Adults? “Classical” or “contemporary?” King James or Today’s English? Consubstantiation or transubstantiation? Organ or Band? And so on. All of this makes about as much difference, as Frederick Buechner says, as whether we pray sitting down or standing up. I find my present house of worship to have one of the most consistently creative, beautiful, and meaningful worship services that I have ever been a part of. It glorifies God and emphasizes his justice and recognizes the role Christ plays in Christian narrative and action. I love it, and it is the primary form of spiritual nourishment I receive from the place. Some argue that it doesn’t pay enough attention to Christ’s lordship and defeat of “sin.” Perhaps. Others recognize that the worship is thoroughly Christian, but that it seems to be through appearances. Maybe so. In other words, simply having “Christian” worship and rites and liturgy doesn’t necessarily mean the church or house of worship is a “Christian church.” Worship alone does not demonstrate a church’s “Christian-ness.” Worship, I think, is the expression of loving God and enjoying him.

Procrastination needs to stop here. Back to the dissertation.

In the Christian liturgical tradition, today is Maundy Thursday. The term itself has its roots in the Latin mandatum, or command, and is mnemonically connected to Jesus’ last command to his disciples: To love one another.

In reviewing the last 2000 years of church history, it seems that we really still have not grasped what this means. Christianity is supposed to be defined by how we love one another, both other Christians and those outside of the Christian circle. We have a checkered history, to say the least, and I daresay that the group that has suffered most from our inability to live by the mandate of Maundy Thursday is “those” Christians, whoever “they” are. We are quick to judge and exclude Christians who minimize doctrine and belief and emphasize justice and ethics. We are quick to judge and exclude Christians who do just the opposite, who maximize doctrine and biblicism and personal morality and minimize justice and ethics. We are quick to judge and exclude those who pay scrupulous attention to tradition and ritual, who yet seem lax over study or knowledge of the Scriptures. We condemn those whose personal morality differs from ours, whose sense of ethics place more value on saving the planet than saving souls, whose politics fail to cohere (we think) with biblical principles.

We condemn those who we think condemn us.

Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.

We don’t deserve it.

Well, the talk went well. And won’t you know it, none of the previously mentioned potential visitors showed up. Implications? Not sure. Maybe a lot of smoke and mirrors. Thoughts?

I did have one women, probably in her 70’s, who asked a few questions about Jesus and the Jews in the NT, and they were framed in such a way as to kind of suggest that she assumes the NT is the only real authority for Judaism in the first century. Another fellow wanted to drive the conversation into source critical analyses of the Hebrew Bible (especially Genesis) and another tried to argue that rabbinic Judaism owes more to ancient gnosticism (!) than to any other factor. All of which were dealt with pretty quickly; the NT is one of the precious few literary sources we have for first century Judaism, but to rely on it for real info on Judaism (as opposed to what late first century writers thought about Judaism) would be like relying on the Talmud as the authoritative source for Christianity. Not the best idea. The second question was largely irrelevant to the topic at hand (it came up during a discussion of holidays!) and the third was a classic case of someone reading too much and not digesting enough and came to a wild conclusion.

Anyway. I applaud this kind of lecture series by public institutions. I do think that scholars in this field (any field, really) ought to be engaged in more public venues to broaden awareness of issues that are close to home. Few disciplines these days are as well-placed for this as religion. And to have the chance to do some public scholarship was great; in some ways, because of my background in churches, I’m more comfortable in public scholarly atmospheres than in those locked into the ivory tower.

Anyway, I look forward to doing more of these kinds of things in the future.

So tonight I’m giving a talk at our county public library on Judaism. I have the honor of distilling a 3,000 year old religious faith and tradition into one hour. (guffaw!)

The word is out, too. By this, I mean that apparently the chairwoman of the regional homeschooling association has learned that I’m doing this and is all excited. She got talking with some of the other homeschooling moms, who also got interested, and then they approached the wife to say how excited they are over this, began talking about having me offer classes in the homeschool co-op on world religions, give talks on the subject of Judaism and Islam and so forth at their monthly meetings, etc. Good vibes, for the most part. But… I got the “It will be so awesome (I’m thankful that I didn’t hear “wicked awesome”…) to hear someone talk about Judaism and these other religions from a Christian perspective. This is sooooo what we need!”

Wellllll….. I’m not sure how to take this. Or rather, I know exactly how I’m supposed to take this, and it kinda scares me a little bit. See, in the various circles I’m in (specifically the homeschooling one here), when the subject of world religions comes up at all, it’s always in the form of comparative apologetics. Religion X is compared with Christian doctrine and theological formulations (not Christian history, not phenomenology, symbolic imagery and iconography, ritual practices, and so on, unless it can be contrasted with Christian”orthodox” theology, doctrine, and practice), and the result of these comparisons and contrasts is as one would expect in sectarian education: We’ve got it right, and they’re off-base.

Ehhhhhh. That’s not what’s happening for this. But I feel the pressure from a demographic that is significant in the life of my family. I am there to introduce Judaism as a vibrant, living, beautiful religious faith and tradition to non-academics. I am not there to proselytize, criticize, denigrate, or even simply point out how Judaism differs from Christianity. To those informed in either tradition, the differences between them will be transparent. In fact, I have no plans to even mention Christianity except in historical context, and since this is only an hour, it will pretty much be a passing mention as a first century Jewish sect. (Rather like Josephus does in his work, actually.) Any real discussion of Judaism vis a vis Christianity will take place during the open Q+A session after the talk.

To the extent that, as Christian, this presentation will be “a Christian perspective” on a world religion, I think that Christians will - or should - recognize much in the Jewish concepts of God, the Book, and Israel. I strongly believe that serious interfaith dialog absolutely has to begin with establishing commonalities between them. I am making these the focus. And this is the aspect that I can envision frustrating my Christian, apologetically-oriented homeschooling folks potentially in the room. Evangelicals typically emphasize difference, and indeed are often afraid of having similarities in religion even pointed out, let alone discussed and engaged.

Not that there’s any shortage of “Christian perspectives” on world religions. They’re a dime a dozen, and in fact this has been going on in “orientalist” scholarship for several centuries. It’s easy enough to find. What I think makes this so exciting for these folks is the idea that it’s one of their own, someone they trust, and who they regard as being a competent authority on the subject, who is doing it. I’m more likely, perhaps, to be taken seriously than, say, a rabbi coming in to do exactly the same talk. So I welcome the opportunity. I just hope that the bridges that these types of events can potentially construct, that I seek to build, are open to everyone, and that others don’t plant a funny-looking old man demanding answers to the “questions three” before allowing others, who do not share their perspective, to cross.

Just came across this, in the latest Orion Magazine:

Doctrine

I love the church
of the osprey, simple
adoration, no haggling
over the body, the blood,
whether water sprinkled
from talons or immersed
in the river saves us,
whether ascension
is metaphor or literal,
because, of course,
it’s both: wings crooked,
all the angels crying out,
rising up from nests
made of sticks
and sunlight.

- Todd Davis

Indeed. It sounds like it could have come right out of Aldo Leopold or something.

Good grief. I’d have to say that, after this article, I’m going to agree with the rabbi quoted at the end: “We have to fear not for the fate of the biblical Moses, but for the fate of science.” Indeed, if this is what scientists find to do with their time, then only God can save the planet after all.