Re: Orthodoxy (was Re: Biblical Interpretation Reconsidered)

--- Michael Roberts <michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk>
wrote:
> Tomorrow we celebrate the birth of Christ. Why?
>
> What is the point if he was just a wandering
> semi-educated Jewish preacher?

Or one of many who claimed to be the Messiah. There
were many such who came to nasty ends at Roman hands
who claimed just that. Their followers, however,
never had the kind of "psychological experience"
Crossan wants to claim "naturally" occurred to have
them proclaim the crucified and dead Jesus as Lord and
Son of God. Indeed, the messages of all other
messiahs in late BC and early AD Palestine are very
different from the message of Jesus, another centrally
important reason for defending orthodoxy.

> Why if the VB is a myth, and the resurrection is the
> reflections of the
> early church and as Dominic Crossan argues stray
> dogs ate the body of Jesus?

Quite. Although, I would emphasize that the
resurrection is really the crucial (literally and
figuratively) event. I have thoroughly orthodox views
about the VB, but I don't think a VB without a
resurrection of Jesus by God the Father would not have
validated Jesus' ministry in the eyes of 1st century
Jews.

> Is Jesus the redeemer and saviour or just a very
> good godly teacher who
> inspires us to love?

Or to put it a different way, is Jesus the Risen,
living Lord, or is he a guy we should remember fondly
for urging us to be nice to one another (despite the
fact that some of the things he did and said do not
comport with modern views of being "nice").

> How do we answer those questions and it is clear
> that we can in a way which
> denies all effective Christian content. If we deny
> his divinity we also deny
> him as redeemer which is what Unitarians do. Erasmus
> Darwin described
> Unitarianism as a feather bed to catch a falling
> Christian. That is an apt
> remark as it often happens as Christians drift away
> (or are repelled by
> evangelical excesses) into either some kind of
> liberal Christianity which is
> weak on Redemption -e.g.. Peacocke, Spong etc or a
> general theism.

I think Spong and Peacocke are in very different
boats, but I have never met Peacocke, and I have only
read most of what he has in monograph form in print
and I never read a place where he denies the
resurrection (in DNA to Dean he seems to affirm it).
I think Peacocke's visceral aversion to
substitutionary atonement explains some of what makes
him seem weak on Redemption. But, the Eastern
Orthodox church doesn't focus on substitutionary
atonement at all, so I dont see a rejection of that
view as taking him outside of orthodoxy. Again,
unlike Spong.

> The problem is that some evangelicals try to prove
> too much and regard the
> gospels as a photograph and not 4 portraits, which
> are at times
> Impressionistic. An ultra-inerrant bible with a
> genetically perfect Jesus
> creates unbelief.

There is also the danger of putting the cart before
the horse. The Bible is important because it is a
collection of canonical christian documents.
Generations of christians followed Christ without a
New Testament canon.
 
> That will be enough handgrenades for Christmas eve.
>
> Michael
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "William Hamilton" <whamilton51@comcast.net>
> To: "Don Winterstein" <dfwinterstein@msn.com>>
>
>
> On Tuesday, December 23, 2003, at 04:53 AM, Don
> Winterstein wrote:
>
> > Are those Jesus Seminar scholars Christian? Some
> are certain to have
> > unorthodox views of Jesus. I don't believe that
> all such unorthodox
> > scholars are going to hell any more than I believe
> all Arians are
> > going to hell.

Leaving damnation aside which I think is another
matter entirely, christian orthodoxy *is* rather
broad. However, when one denies -- in their entirety
-- foundational aspects of the ecumenical creeds, one
has decided one is outside the Church, however defined
(unless defined to have no meaning at all). Note it
is different to say that one thinks that the meaning
of say Son of God is X as opposed to Y within
orthodoxy, but when one says, well the resurrection is
just a myth made up by people to convey that Jesus was
really a great guy or that Jesus is considered divine
because Constantine exerted political pressure at
Nicea to give Jesus the attributes of the Roman Sun
God, these are examples where one says I am not part
of the faith community of the Church that has those
creeds (IMHO they are also demonstrably incorrect
propositions).

>> In other words, I think it's
> possible to have saving
> > faith outside of orthodoxy. Orthodoxy affects only
> the mind; the
> > heart is more important.

I would disagree here. Orthodoxy, properly
understood, affects both the heart and the mind. How
can you proclaim Jesus as Lord when you think he was a
failed apocalyptic preacher who wasn't divinely
inspired, much less divine? That is both a rejection
of orthodoxy and a rejection of grace. Part of a
community of faith is increasing one's ability to
love, which is not always a rational exercise. I am
reminded of what I think is some of the wisdom of the
Eastern Orthodox church in this matter... According
to the words of St. Isaac the Syrian, "Except for
unceasing prayer we cannot draw near to God." And the
Orthodox make use of the Jesus prayer -- "Lord Jesus
Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me" -- in order that
" order that the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, in
descending into the depths of our hearts, may humble
the serpent of destruction, and save and enlighten the
soul." Now, while all this sounds a little odd to
rather rationalistic western european (or descendant)
protestants (of which I am one), it makes a lot of
sense to me the older I get. Taking one's self
outside of orthodoxy can have the effect of
eliminating the well-spring from whence one can
increase one's capacity to love, etc. Especially
since I think much of the language that those like
Crossan want to eliminate is utterly misunderstood by
them. It is, at a minimum, transformative language
and by stripping it out, they are stripping out a
possible source of their transformation. (Note, I
make no claims as to whether anyone's identification
as "christian" or anyone's participation in whichever
aspects of christian communities they participate
actually effect transformation or not -- I am
suggsting that it seems plausible to me that knocking
out elements of foundational orthodoxy can have the
potential to 1) miss the point, and 2) diminish the
resources available to one for transformation in ways
consonant with "orthodox" christian ideals -- leaving
aside the source of the transformation, e.g., Holy
Spirit).

Bill Hamilton wrote:

> So why is orthodoxy so important (if it is
> important)?
> I would answer that it's a means of guarding against
> drift. If a
> deviating belief is permitted, no matter how
> innocuous, another
> deviation can in principle be built on it, and after
> a few
> "generations" you have genuine heresy.

True, the gnostic "christianity" that had Jesus as a
spirit playing a joke on everyone by pretending to go
to the cross is in no shape or form the christianity
of the followers of Jesus after their experience of
His resurrection. The development of the canon to
prevent stories and ideas, however, pious or
well-motivated by whomever, is something we can be
thankful for as preventing the subversion of the
message of Jesus and His ministry which lead Him to
the cross and the validation of His ministry by the
resurrection.

> But are we
> trusting in Jesus
> Christ when we ruthlessly suppress all suspect
> beliefs? I suspect that
> the church -- the evangelical branch anyway -- has
> sacrificed
> intellectual progress in the pursuit of orthodoxy.

This is only true to the extent that we no longer
recognize the variety in understanding inherent in the
ecumenical creed and insist that a particular
sectarian position is the only correct one and the
only "christian" one, which is a problem that seems to
infest YEC.

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Received on Tue Dec 23 16:26:28 2003