A Thinking Reed

Sir, I knew Martin Luther, and you’re no Martin Luther

Written by

Lee M.

in

Pastor Frontz and Camassia have both been discussing Catholic-turned-Episcopalian priest and guru of “Creation Spirituality” Matthew Fox’s new “95 theses” which he recently posted to the cathedral door in Wittenberg (what is it with these revisionist Episcopalians and their self-important Luther impersonations?).

Some of Fox’s theses are silly, some are eminently debatable, some are just politically correct bromides, but the thing that I’ve always wondered about folks like Fox and Spong is why, if the Christian Church is as despicable as they say it is, would they want anything to do with it? For them it seems to be a near-continuous history of imperialism, militarism, sexism, partriarchy, homophobia, punitive Father-god worship, exploitiation, abuse of the environment, etc. etc.

I mean, if it’s that bad wouldn’t it make more sense just to start over from scratch?

Comments

4 responses to “Sir, I knew Martin Luther, and you’re no Martin Luther”

  1. Chip Frontz

    The thing is, Lee, IMO they are trying to start over from scratch. They just need established church forms to leech on to in order to give their “movements” legitimacy. After all, the business they’re doing is all linked to “progressive” movements in established churches.

    A more charitable interpretation might be that they truly believe they are acting in the spirit of the Protestant Reformation – note that behind all of their arguments is an argument against authority from the outside (in their cases: Catholics, fundamentalists).

    Or perhaps they don’t start a new church because their beliefs, like the original Gnosticism, resemble Christianity enough to be confused with it, even by themselves.

    Reply
  2. Joshie

    You have a good point Lee. I think another angle is that they may feel a need to have a platform from which to launch their pompous pontifications.

    If they go off and start their own sect (its not like its never been done before) they loose the ability to be heard by a larger audience and to annoy a large group of people. Instead they would just have a bunch of like minded people gathered around them, which, to their credit, they at least claim they don’t want.

    They also pictures themselves as gadflies a la Socrates or the Cynics and to be a gadfly one needs to be around a large group of people who will find such a fly annoying. If they go off and form their Unitied Church of Pretending Like Questions First Posed in the Eighteenth Century are Shocking and New (UCPLQFPECSN), then they can no longer annoy all those people. That would leave them lost and purposeless. Plus nobody when join this church except them.

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  3. Camassia

    I remember this came up a year or two ago when Jonathan Marlowe wondered why Spong doesn’t just become a Unitarian. A Spong fan (who no longer blogs, apparently) who belongs to the UCC said he didn’t want to become Unitarian because UUs are not focused on Jesus, and Jesus is still how he knows God.

    I think two other factors may be in play here. One, every person I know with this sort of theology feels damaged by their religious background (you can see the anger at conservative Catholicism seething in Fox’s theses), and so it’s not enough to just take off and do their own thing; they feel bound to fix the original problem, as they see it. Relatedly, I also sense a bit of the liberal rule that it’s OK to criticize your own religion but intolerant to proselytize. If Fox became one of those Hindus who are into Jesus (yes, Jesus is also a Hindu saint), he would be trying to foist his own religion on believers in another one, which for the left is a big no-no.

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  4. Marcus

    Starting with chip and ending with Camassia, everybody said what I was going to say.

    Oh, well.

    Nice post, Lee.

    Reply

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