I was thinking a bit more about the discussion of doubt at Camassia’s and Hugo’s places, and this occurred to me: It might be helpful to remember that (in most cases at least) doubt is neither a vice nor a virtue. I.e. in most cases we’re not to be blamed (or praised) for doubting, because it’s not under our control. For that matter, it’s not generally under our control (at least in any direct way) what we believe. What the implications are for the life of faith I’m not sure.
Category: Theology & Faith
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William Placher, RIP
The well-known teacher and theologian has died at the untimely age of 60. I only knew him through his books, but he was by all accounts a wonderful teacher and a good Christian man. He spent the vast majority of his career at tiny Wabash College in Indiana; as a leading light of Yale-style “postliberal” theology he undoubtedly could’ve moved to a “better” school if he’d wanted to. He was also a long-time contributor to the Christian Century; you can read a sampling of his work from CC archived at “Religion Online” (scroll down).
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Thought for the day
…theology, an enterprise that, despite the oftentimes homicidal urgency Christians attach to it, has yet to save anybody. What saves us is Jesus, and the way we lay hold of that salvation is by faith. And faith is something that […] I shall resolutely refuse to let mean anything other than trusting Jesus. It is simply saying yes to him rather than no. It is, at its root, a mere “uh-huh” to him personally. It does not necessarily involve any particular theological structure or formulation; it does not entail any particular degree of emotional fervor; and above all, it does not depend on any specific repertoire of good works–physical, mental, or moral. It’s just “Yes, Jesus,” till we die–just letting the power of his resurrection do, in our deaths, what it has already done in his. — Robert Farrar Capon, Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus, pp. 24-25.
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Mainline on the sidelines
Political theorist/theologian Charles Mathewes reviews a book on the public witness of the mainline and its decline. He makes what seems to me a crucial point: the ineffectiveness of much of the mainline is in large part a function of the fact that the denominational bureaucracies often don’t represent the people in the pews. And DC polciy makers know this. (The comparison with the Religious Right, Mathewes says, is instructive; politicians paid attention to Jerry Falwell because they knew he spoke for a large constituency.)
This points, according to Mathewes to a fundamental problem with the mainline denominations: they see themselves as speaking to the public at large rather than to the people in their congregations. Thus Christian formation is not a priority. This may be a legacy of the mainline’s former status as the de facto establishment; you didn’t need to form Christians when everyone was more or less Christian by default. (Or at least it could seem that way, but see, inter alia, the works of Søren Kierkegaard!)
Whatever you might want to say about the merits of that situation, though, it no longer obtains. Consequently, mainline churches need to be much more intentional about Christian formation. Incidentally, I don’t see this as meaning that the mainline should become more “conservative.” Rather that they should become more Christian. That means immersing its members in prayer, Bible study, Bible-based preaching, works of mercy, etc. The public witness of the churches would, then, grow organically out of this formation, rather than coming from top-down denominational diktats.
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Wishy-washy theological liberals
It’s a commonplace that even those who purport to take the entire Bible “literally” end up emphasizing certain passages and reinterpreting others.
Take, for instance, this story of a charismatic church in Loudon County, VA that appears to be taking on cult-like features centering around the iron-fisted leadership of its head pastor.
Among other things, members are told to cut ties with family members who don’t adhere to the church’s theology–even their own children.
And yet!
In his sermons, [Pastor Star] Scott teaches that his church is scripturally superior to others and views keeping people in the fold as a matter of their salvation. “Anything that’s other than a member in harmony has to be identified and expelled,” Scott preached in May 2007.
Don’t be afraid of “social services” if you throw rebellious children out of the house, he told the congregation in an earlier sermon, because “you obeyed God.” In an interview, he cited scriptures: “Deuteronomy says if your kid doesn’t follow your God, kill ’em. That’s what we do, but not physically. To us, you’re dead if you’re not serving our God,” he said.
Not physically kill them? What kind of liberal reductionist nonsense is that? Has he been reading Bultmann or something?
But seriously folks, stories like these make me appreciate liturgical churches, which are institutionally resistant to making the pastor’s personality the center of church life (not that there aren’t priests and pastors who try).
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Keith Ward at the National Cathedral
It was a gorgeous fall day here in DC, and we decided to enjoy it and take an outing to the Washington National Cathedral this morning for their Sunday forum. The guest, as it happens, was British theologian/philosopher Keith Ward, whose work I admire and have written about frequently here at ATR.
The format was a Q&A with the dean of the Cathedral about the relation between science and religion. Not much of it would have been new to anyone familiar with Ward’s books, especially Pascal’s Fire and his more recent one, The Big Questions in Science and Religion, but it was neat to see him discussing these issues in person. He came across as wise and engaging, but in a witty, self-effacing British way. Topics that were discussed included the so-called anthropic argument (the notion that the laws of nature are “fine-tuned” for the emergence of life), the relationship between religion and evolution, and the nature of the soul.
We stayed for the 11:15 Mass, at which Ward also preached. He preached on the lectionary reading from First Thessalonians about the Parousia and how we might understand it, given that we have in many ways a radically different worldview from St. Paul’s. Paul, it seems, expected the literal end of the world within his generation, at least at the time that he wrote First Thessalonians, something which obviously didn’t come to pass. So, do we simply throw out Paul’s views about the Second Coming and the Parousia?
Ward proposed that the deeper meaning of the passage is that each moment of our lives stands under the judgment of God, but because of Jesus’ work on the cross we are granted the possibility of forgiveness and unending life with–and in–God. In particular, Ward connected the image of Jesus coming on the clouds with the concept, important in the Old Testament, of the shekhinah, the cloud of the divine glory. Jesus, in his glorification, has been united to the divine life and through him we can be united to that life too.
What this life with God will look like is open to speculation, but Ward suggested that it would be a “re-embodiment” of our selves in a dimension of existence suffused with the divine presence. In other words, we shouldn’t expect Jesus to physically return to earth, but that all sentient life will be transfigured and caught up into the divine life in a world beyond this one. (To my delight he was clear that he thought redemption would extend to sentient members of the animal kingdom.)
I’ll admit that I don’t have well-formed or settled views about the Second Coming or the afterlife, but Ward’s position definitely appeals to me. He’s trying, it seems to me, to steer a course between an implausible biblical literalism on the one hand (e.g. the apocalypticism of Left Behind) and a reductionist liberalism that would reinterpret all talk of resurrection as symbolic of psychological or political change on the other. No doubt there’s a spectrum of positions one might take between those extremes, but is was definitely one of the more philosophically stimulating sermons I’ve heard in a while. (The rest of the service was pretty great too, with some gorgeous Anglican chant and hymns from the 1982 hymnal that I haven’t sung since we were in Boston.)
A Thinking Reed 
