What is Anglicanism?

As the crisis in the Episcopal Church appears to be nearing a climax (but haven't we been saying this for years now?), one hears more and more virulent rhetoric on both sides. And the most common charge made by "reappraisers" and "reasserters" alike is that the other side has somehow betrayed what it means to be Anglican. These charges are made with great sincerity, and I think they are both correct--given the presuppositions with which each group is starting.

On the liberal ("reappraiser") side, the definition of Anglicanism is primarily methodological. Anglicanism is defined in terms of the "three-legged stool" of Scripture, reason, and tradition (a definition which I find either tritely obvious and common to all Christians, or completely ahistorical and false as a description of historic Anglicanism); or it is defined in terms of the independence of national churches (which I admit is a historic principle of Anglicanism, but which I believe has always been our Achilles' heel); or it is defined in terms of some vague principle of not being very assertive or confident about doctrine, and particularly not being fundamentalist (or anything that looks to a liberal Christian remotely like fundamentalism) in one's interpretation of Scripture. Obviously if Anglicanism is these things, then conservatives are betraying Anglicanism. That is to say, we do not believe that Scripture, tradition, and reason are equal and co-ordinate authorities for Christian doctrine (neither, of course, did Richard Hooker!). And we certainly treat doctrinal and Scriptural questions in a manner that seems too dogmatic and "fundamentalist" to the "reappraisers" (few if any American Episcopalians are anywhere near real fundamentalism, but by liberal standards many of us look fundamentalist). And it is certainly true that "reasserters" are becoming more and more convinced that the complete independence of national churches is fatal to any attempt to maintain a common Christian orthodoxy, and that we must have some structure of mutual accountability if Anglicanism is to be more than a gaggle of sectarian national churches each pursuing an agenda dictated by the local culture. (To the "reappraisers," I would hold up the Nigerian antigay legislation as an example of this--do you really think that Nigerian Christians should be allowed to support such legislation and still be part of the Anglican Communion? I don't.) Yes, this requires us to rethink the position taken by 16th-century Anglicans over against Rome. And apparently to some liberal Episcopalians this is the ultimate taboo. We cannot suggest that our spiritual ancestors might have been wrong in rejecting the concept of an international ecclesiastical authority. (Note--such a suggestion does not require us to accept every aspect of the RCC's understanding of that authority--papal infallibility, for instance. This is a common scare tactic used by liberals, and it's intellectually empty.) We can question every other doctrine of the English Reformation, but not this one. . . . .

Conservatives, on the other hand, see Anglicanism in terms of beliefs and liturgical practices. To "reasserters," it seems downright perverse to accuse people of being "un-Anglican" for wanting to develop new authority structures in order to defend traditional beliefs and practices. To conservatives, liberals appear to be fighting to keep the windowpanes intact while demolishing the building at its foundations.

Consider the very different way two retired bishops have been treated in the Episcopal Church. John Shelby Spong published "Twelve Theses" which rejected most of the things Christians have traditionally believed. He was never disciplined. But William Cox gets swift and speedy justice from the ecclesiastical courts for daring to administer the sacraments without the approval of the local bishop.

I have heard sermons in Episcopal churches implicitly comparing conservatives to the Pharisees of Jesus' day as described in the New Testament. But surely the privileging of questions of jurisdiction and canon over basic issues of faith and practice is as "Pharisaical" (in the traditional, pejorative Christian sense) as anything one can find on the conservative side.

That is not to say that the conservative flouting of canons is to be justified. There's something to the charge that the so-called "reasserters" are looking more and more like typical American Protestants out to start their own church. But they are doing this because the pursuit of theological, moral, and liturgical innovation by liberals has weakened or destroyed the hold of traditional Anglican structures and conventions on the volatile and individualistic minds of American Christians.

Thoughts on Tanzania

Since every other Anglican blog has naturally been holding forth for the past few weeks about the Primates' meeting in Tanzania, and since I'm trying to get back into blogging, here are my thoughts:

I am encouraged by the fact that the Anglican Communion appears to be holding together and that it is moving toward some kind of structure of authority and accountability. But I can't get away from the question raised by liberals on the one hand and Catholics on the other: on what basis does the Anglican Communion claim authority to decide controversial questions? We aren't the Church Universal. We are an incidental outgrowth of the British Empire. Not that God couldn't use the British Empire to form His Church (one could, after all, describe Catholicism--that is, historic Christianity excluding the Nestorians and Monophysites--as an outgrowth of the Roman Empire). But we don't claim to be the Church.

So while it's good that we're struggling toward being Church, soberly we know that we are at best one fragment of the Church. In other words, I can't really take much comfort from the victory of "my" side--if we are really winning--not only because I have become increasingly sensitive to the pain that such a victory would bring to the "losers," but also because the controversy itself awakens the basic ecclesiological doubts that gnaw at me as an Anglican.

And, of course, it's quite possible that the communique won't mean much anyway.

Lenten message from G. K. Chesterton

The two great parties in human affairs are only the party which sees life black against white, and the party which sees it white against black, the party which macerates and blackens itself with sacrifice because the background is full of the blaze of an universal mercy, and the party which crowns itself with flowers and lights itself with bridal torches because it stands against a black curtain of incalculable night. The revellers are old, and the monks are young. It was the monks who were the spendthrifts of happiness, and we who are its misers.

On Tuesday I was old--I ate pancakes and sausage.

For the past four days I have been learning slowly, painfully, haltingly to be young.
Every morning of Lent, if we are willing to receive the grace offered us, the winged messengers of repentance come to us from the fiery mountains of the sun and place in our mouths the fruit that takes away a little of our age. And when we have become as young as the child born yesterday, we will be ready for the dance of Easter.

The real problem with the "Christian Right"

The catchphrase on the Left these days (and among many who see themselves as moderate) is "theocracy." Allegedly, conservative Christians are pushing for an explicitly Christian government ruled by Biblical law, in which those who offend Christian codes of belief or ethics will be persecuted. These claims are supported by copious citations from the more extreme writings of the small group of conservative Protestants known as "Reconstructionists," who are in fact working toward an explicitly Christian society based on what they see as Biblical law (although they admit that this probably won't happen for centuries at best). The easy way to respond to this claims is to point out the huge diversity of belief within the "Christian Right," and the minority status of strict Reconstructionists. Still, it does seem to be true that Reconstructionists have influenced some of the presuppositions of the broader "Christian Right," much as (in an earlier "red scare") hardline Communists exercised a certain influence over a much broader community of left-leaning intellectuals.

I would like to propose a more radical thesis than a simple denial that most conservative Protestants are going to the "extreme" of theocracy. Theocracy is not in any sense the logical outcome of what passes for the conservative Protestant political agenda. It is not even (despite their own claims!) the true position of the Reconstructionists.

No, the problem with the Christian Right is not that they are too theocratic. It is that they are not theocratic enough. It's not that they reject the separation of church and state, but that they have bought into a particularly vicious form of that particular piece of Enlightenment propaganda. And this is true even of the dreaded Reconstructionists.

I came to this conclusion while reading Greg Bahnsen's contribution to the anthology "Law and Gospel: Five Views." This is part of a series of books on various topics of interest to evangelicals, in which representatives of different perspectives (Reformed, Arminian, dispensationalist, etc.) offer alternative views and criticize each other's contributions. Bahnsen (recognized as one of the more thoughtful and moderate reconstructionists) rejects explicitly the claim that reconstructionists deny separation of church and state. According to Bahnsen, church and state are to be sharply distinguished according to their proper function. The Church is to teach doctrine, care for the poor, and proclaim the Gospel, while the state is to maintain order and punish the wicked. The state thus has a purely "negative" function of restraining human wickedness (according to God's Law) and dare not overstep these bounds.

Bahnsen explicitly contrasts his position to that of Richard Mouw, accusing Mouw of violating true church-state separation by advocating that the government engage in legislation on behalf of the poor (I haven't read the work by Mouw to which Bahnsen was responding, so I'm relying on Bahnsen's no doubt biased summary). This is not theocracy--Mouw is closer in this respect to true Biblical theocracy than Bahnsen (though of course Bahnsen claims that the Bible is on his side).

The problem with religion in American politics is not theocracy. The problem is that two different (but equally faithless) versions of church-state separation are being peddled by demagogues on the left and right respectively. The left doesn't want society to have any truck with Christian values that clash with the expression of individual freedom. The right doesn't want to have any truck with Christian values that clash with patriotism and capitalism and law and order and the nuclear family. Both are denying some part of the Gospel. The answer to both is not theocracy per se but an unashamed proclamation of what the Puritans (of whom the Reconstructionists would claim to be heirs) would call the "crown rights of King Jesus" and what Catholics used to call "the social reign of Christ the King." This doesn't mean what either the Puritans or traditional Catholics thought it meant, because both were too influenced by the world in their definition of kingship. Christ's reign is always a reign of the Cross. The reign of Christ may mean, for instance, that English-speakers cease to be dominant in the United States because our King has told us that in showing hospitality to the poor and needy we are serving Him. It may mean that we lose the "war on terror" because winning it would mean acting in a way unworthy of the Christ who refused to call legions of angels to defend Him. It may mean that married couples are unable to keep up a lifestyle suited to their education because doing so would mean neglecting their duties as parents (potential or actual).

It's not the purpose of this post to say just what recognizing the Kingship of Christ will mean. Indeed, nothing is healthier for us right now than a vigorous intra-Christian debate over just what it means. I am privileged to teach at a Christian college where such a debate is going on (painful as that often is). But the possibility of such a debate is short-circuited when one side plays the "theocracy" card and the other plays the "secularism" card, each arguing that the other side should be ruled summarily out of court because it is not making a genuinely Christian argument at all.

Those who consider themselves the spiritual heirs of Martin Luther King, Jr., should be ashamed of accusing conservative Christians of theocracy simply because they have a different view of what the public implementation of Christian values looks like. The quarrel is not over whether religion should influence politics. The quarrel is always and only over how religion should influence politics and what kind of religion should do so. And the sooner that is acknowledged on all sides the sooner we can get on to the real debate.

Or rather debates--for the final irony here is that the accusation that one side is illegitimately bringing religion into politics violates the church-state barrier that really counts, namely the methodological one. People with religious convictions have every right to try to enact their beliefs into law, and their opponents have every right to fight them with all the weapons in the arsenal of democratic politics. And at the same time both sides also have the right to engage in a public theological debate as to the religious merits of their respective positions. But because this is not a country with an Established Church, the two debates are independent of each other (though not unconnected with each other). Recent attacks on the "theocracy" of the Christian Right (at least those launched by Christians such as Randall Balmer) ignore this. They claim to be defending democracy when in fact they are engaging in a particular theological debate running parallel to the political debate. Whether or not gay marriage should be recognized or abortion made illegal--these are both religious and political questions. As political questions, they should be decided by the proper instruments of democractic politics. But the question of which side Christians should take, and whether Christians qua Christians should care about these issues it all, is a specifically religious question and must be treated as such.

A better article on the same subject

I particularly like the point that the invasion of Iraq went astray in part because of its exclusively secular approach. A lot of people misinterpreted a perfectly normal (for any Christian) remark by Bush about seeking divine guidance as some sort of claim of divine inspiration for the invasion.

It's probably true that conservative Christianity leads to a rather dualistic mindset and thus tends to favor the demonization of enemies (this is one of the places where "conservative" and "orthodox" definitely don't mean the same thing). But the explicit reasons I hear from conservative Christians for their support of the war sound almost entirely secular to me. I don't think their problem is that their thinking is dominated by religion--the problem is exactly the opposite. They use Romans 13 to justify full support for whatever bloody actions the government may think necessary, and anyone who questions those actions is allegedly engaging in some sort of liberal utopianism that ignores human sinfulness.

In other words, the war in Iraq is not and has never been a holy war driven by Christianity. Like most modern wars, it's driven by perceived national self-interest, but it derives fuel from bad political theology that hands the job of moral reasoning over to the state, while lending the state's actions [purported] divine approval.

Interesting article on American Christianity

This report by the Council on Foreign Relations was published in the New York Times. It's a relatively fair account of American evangelicalism, though the tone (as one would expect) is patronizing, and there are some silly mistakes (such as the characterization of fundamentalism as "ultra-Calvinist"). At least they don't think that evangelicals are pushing for a theocracy, which seems to be a common belief on the left these days. This is something I've been thinking about a lot, especially with the appearance of Randall Balmer's book Thy Kingdom Come. Balmer unfortunately has put his seal of approval on this nonsense.

I'm hoping to get back into blogging now that things are settling down a bit, and I want to write on this topic as well as on my usual ecclesiological subjects. I agree that there are a lot of reasons to be concerned with the Christian Right. But criticism of conservative Christians as "theocrats" gets the problem exactly wrong, in my opinion. Of course there are the Reconstructionists/Dominionists, and undoubtedly they have provided some intellectual heft to the generally not very thoughtful conservative evangelical political movement. It's probably true that many conservative activists are more indebted to these ideas than they realize. But the same could have been said of hardline Communism in relation to the broader left-wing movement of the twentieth century. And of course just this was said by McCarthy. The same vicious rhetoric is being used on the left today--a new "red scare" (with far less basis in fact than the old one, IMHO) that like the paranoia of the fifties tars an entire wing of American society with the brush of hardline radicalism. (And actually even the Dominionists believe in a form of separation of church and state, contrary to liberal propaganda.)

This is perhaps just part of the game of democratic politics. We always make our opponents out to be more radical than they are, so that we can position ourselves as part of the mainstream. But in times of great social tension this polarizing game can become an extremely dangerous form of self-fulfilling prophecy. We use the alleged radicalism of our opponents as an excuse to become radical ourselves, and thus prompt our opponents to follow suit, turning them into the monsters we thought they were all along (and so justifying further extremism on our part).

The CFR article, for all its faults, avoids this approach. Perhaps this isn't as surprising as I think. I don't know the political composition of the CFR--it claims to be nonpartisan and this may be true. Ironically, I heard it mentioned a lot on right-wing Christian radio stations as I was growing up--they were of the opinion that it was part of a vast conspiracy to bring about the "New World Order." So it's good to see that they don't return the favor (except for the silly label of "ultra-Calvinism").

Evangelicals against Bush

Christianity Today reports that evangelical leaders including Franklin Graham and Rick Warren are criticizing the Bush administration's stance on North Korea. They call for open negotiations with North Korea rather than the current emphasis on containment.

How come? I thought evangelicals were supposed to be mindless toadies of the Bush administration. And of course we know that any humanitarian concern religious conservatives may display is a sham, because we're all just hungering for the end of the world.

How is helping the Koreans going to bring in the Apocalypse?

Lots of stuff has been happening

I have recently gotten a job at a college in Indiana (Huntington University), and the past few months have been largely taken up with getting a house, planning the move, etc. Hence my inactivity here. I do want to maintain this blog, however, and I hope to be more active in the future.

Reformanda vs. renovanda

Here I go again after another of my long lapses. I'm not going to become king of the blogosphere at this rate, but that's OK.

An online acquaintance of mine, Tim Enloe, asked me a few weeks ago to expand a remark I once made to the effect that the Church is not "semper reformanda" (always to be reformed) but rather "semper renovanda" (always to be renewed).

Here's what I mean by this.

"Semper reformanda" asserts that one must, from time to time, question the doctrines and structures that have already been established. They must be compared with Scripture (and/or previous non-Scriptural Christian tradition) and revised or even discarded as needed. The underlying assumption is that the Church progresses into a fuller understanding and experience of the faith by a continual process of questioning and reformulation. There's an intrinsic paradox here--on the one hand Scripture is the standard of perfection by which all tradition must be judged, while on the other hand a fully adult form of Christianity beckons from the future. Emphasize the first half of this paradox, and you have fundamentalism; emphasize the second, and you have liberalism. Mainstream, historic Protestantism stands in a fruitful tension between the two. Often, the Reformation of the 16th century takes a secondary place next to Scripture as the archetypal act of reform--in old-fashioned Protestant circles any attempt to "reform the reform" in the light of pre-Reformation traditions is likely to be met with outraged protest. Sometimes a similar status is given to the patristic era, or parts thereof; and sometimes even aspects of medieval Christianity are seen as important steps in the development of a fully mature, and hence fully reformed, Christianity (Anselm's atonement theology, for instance).

So the position I'm describing does not exclude a respect for the past and for tradition. In this it contrasts with the "restorationist" position which believes it can sweep away the past entirely and reconstruct the New Testament Church. (I'm sure my good friend thoughtspot is going to protest that this is a caricature, and maybe it is. I'll let thoughtspot make the case!) There's a lot to be said for the "semper reformanda" slogan. Clearly any orthodox form of Christianity must maintain Scripture as the norma normans, the ultimate standard that regulates all doctrine and practice. (And yes, that means that the Council of Trent is only orthodox insofar as it can be interpreted so as to allow Scripture to remain the norma normans.) And just as clearly, the Church does stray from time to time--even if it doesn't declare false dogmas, at the very least it tends to overemphasize one thing or another, or deemphasize some vital point of Christian discipleship, and has to be brought back.

Here's the question, though: does this re-centering of the Church around the Gospel take place primarily through the restructuring of institutions and the reformulation of dogmas? And does it involve the rejection of the past, even in a partial sense?

The "semper renovanda" position I'm arguing would answer no to both these questions. Yes, restructuring of doctrines and institutions is needed from time to time. But historically, these restructurings generally create as many problems as they solve. Real progress takes place, I believe, when Christians learn to live more deeply into what they have been given. Any restructuring necessary proceeds from this inner renewal, and when reformation works the other way around it doesn't work very well. Do away with the papacy and you deliver yourself into the hands of the civil government. Free the laity from priests and you subject them to the far worse tyranny of scholars. Reject indulgences and you wind up with a forensic doctrine of justification that describes Christ's redeeming work in terms of the same kind of account-book juggling engaged in by the indulgence sellers.

Insofar as the Reformation was a truly positive force in Christian history, it was a movement of evangelical renewal focused on the message of forgiveness through faith in Christ. But as Catholics are discovering today (Fr. Cantalemessa's sermon before the Pope a few months ago is the most striking example) , this is not necessarily incompatible with Catholicism. The evangelical message per se did not need to split the Church. (Indeed, David Bagchi and others have pointed out that the earliest opponents of Luther did not single his doctrine of justification out as heretical. Only after Luther had been announcing for years that justification by faith destroyed the structures of the Papacy did the champions of the Papacy start to believe him.)

I don't fault Luther for linking the evangelical message to a reform program. Reform was indeed needed. Indeed, I don't have the heart to blame Luther and the other early Reformers. I understand why they saw the Papacy as a foul parasite on the Church's life. I understand why they saw the material piety of the later Middle Ages as rank superstition. I understand why they thought true renewal could only come through sweeping away scholasticism and pilgrimages and all the paraphernalia of late medieval Catholicism. But I think history has proven them wrong. Indeed, some aspects of Catholicism began to creep back as early as the 1530s. Scholastic philosophy was entrenched once again in Protestantism by the later 16th century. The "tyranny" ascribed by the Reformers to the Papacy was nothing compared to the tyranny exercised by civil authorities over the Church--often because the Protestants had handed over control to the "magistrate."

This is why "semper reformanda" is a trap when it becomes the central program of the Church. Sweep the dust away and it will start settling again immediately. Dusting is one of the duties of life (though I do it far too seldom). But if we spend all our time dusting the house we will never enjoy it. And our problems will only get worse if we decide the furniture is bad every time it gets covered with dust. We'll bankrupt ourselves and fill our lives with chaos trying to get new furniture all the time. The sensible approach is to dust as needed and accept the fact that cleanliness will never be perfect. We need to _live_ in the house rather than always trying to make it perfectly clean.

Erec et Enide

In my last post I referred briefly to the medieval courtly romance "Erec et Enide," which I read this past year. I had intended to write a response to it on this blog some time ago, but never got around to doing so. Since I've brought it up, I might as well describe it in somewhat more detail, for those who were mystified by my brief reference to it yesterday.

Erec, the hero of the poem, is a young knight in King Arthur's court who becomes romantically involved with a poor (but "well-born") young woman, Enide, in the course of avenging an insult to Queen Guenevere. After defeating an arrogant knight in a tournament, Erec brings Enide back to the court and they are married. They have a rapturous wedding night and are clearly besotted with each other in every respect. Chretien emphasizes their complete equality, in social rank, in good looks, and in character. Their married life appears to be off to a good start--but their wedded bliss itself becomes a problem, because Erec has no further desire to do noble deeds and maintain his status as a valiant knight. This means that his vassals (he's a prince) don't win any glory (or booty) either, and they become restive. Enide realizes that she has ruined Erec's career, and she blames herself. Erec overhears her and becomes angry. (Chretien doesn't explain exactly why he is angry with her. Tennyson, in the Idylls of the King, has Erec--actually called Geraint in Tennyson's version--misunderstand Enide's words as a confession that she is in love with someone else. This is more plausible as a reason for his anger, but it is rather contrived and less psychologically subtle than Chretien's more mysterious version. I think it makes sense psychologically that Erec would make Enide the scapegoat for his own obsession with her, and that he would be provoked to do so by her obvious distress. He's sacrificed his career for her, so from his point of view the least she can do is be grateful. Footnote 27 of the online edition to which I've linked from the title of this post agrees with my interpretation, noting that the "jealousy" interpretation is found in the Mabinogion's version of the story. Since the hero of that version is called Geraint, that would seem to have been Tennyson's model, so I'm wrong in blaming Tennyson for what I find a less interesting spin on Erec's treatment of his wife.)

Erec rides off with Enide (much to her relief--she thinks he's going to abandon her at first) into the forest to have knightly adventures. Much of the rest of the poem consists of the usual knight-errant stuff--Erec fights off various marauding knights, evil giants, etc. But throughout these adventures, Enide repeatedly saves the day by warning Erec of approaching danger (against his explicit orders). This of course further wounds his pride--the point of the exercise is for him to demonstrate that marriage has not lessened his prowess in any way, and being dependent on his wife's scouting abilities spoils the whole thing.

At one point, Erec and Enide find hospitality with an apparently friendly count, who becomes enamored of Enide and offers to marry her and make her the lady of all his domains. Enide, of course, rejects his advances, even though he's being much nicer to her than Erec. The count then threatens to kill Erec if she doesn't give in to him, so Enide pretends to agree to his advances, asking him to come back later and overpower Erec. Then she warns Erec of the count's plans and they ride off together. The count comes after them with a large army, and once again Enide disobeys her husband and warns him that they are being pursued. Erec kills the count's foremost warrior and knocks the count off his horse, wounding him badly. The count comes to his senses (morally speaking) at this point, and praises Enide's cunning as well as her honor: "The lady who outwitted me is very honourable, prudent, and courteous."

Erec doesn't repent quite so quickly--it takes several more adventures before he can bring himself to "forgive" Enide for her criticism of him (i.e., her lament that she was causing him to lose his knightly honor). At the same time, he promises to return their relationship to that of lover and lady, in which the lady gives commands (in contrast to his imperious, indeed tyrannical behavior to her throughout their adventures): "From this time on for evermore, I offer myself to do your will just as I used to do before." Erec and Enide's trials thus end with Enide's complete triumph. Through her modest and loyal behavior, but also through her quick wits and her willingness to disobey her "lord" when necessary for his own good (though always with great reluctance), she has regained Erec's favor and put both him and her various would-be suitors to shame.

The poem doesn't end here. Erec and Enide have one final adventure, the "Joy of the Court." On his way back to King Arthur, they come to a castle where a knight named Mabonagrain waits in a garden with a beautiful lady. The knight challenges all who come into the garden to single combat, and up to this point he has defeated them all, killing them and putting their heads on poles. Erec, of course, defeats Mabonagrain after a suitably ferocious duel (bringing about the "Joy of the Court"). It turns out that the lady is a cousin of Enide's, who has made her lover promise to stay with her in the garden and kill every knight who came against him until a knight came who was able to defeat him. Mabonagrain and his lady have had a clandestine relationship--rather than asking for social sanction for their love they eloped from her father's court. Enide, in contrast, pointedly describes her relationship with Erec as a respectable courtship having the full approval of her family: "Fair cousin, he married me in such a way that my father knew all about it, and my mother was greatly pleased. All our relatives knew it and rejoiced over it, as they should do. Even the Count [Enide's uncle and the other woman's father] was glad. For he is so good a knight that better cannot be found, and he does not need to prove his honour and knighthood, and he is of very gentle birth: I do not think that any can be his equal. He loves me much, and I love him more, and our love cannot be greater. Never yet could I withhold my love from him, nor should I do so. For is not my lord the son of a king? For did he not take me when I was poor and naked? Through him has such honour come to me that never was any such vouchsafed to a poor helpless girl."

Mabonagrain and his lady are a foil to Erec and Enide. Their enclosed garden, complete with the rotting heads of good knights, is an image of romantic love turned in on itself, destructive both to the lovers and to their society (hence the rapturous "Joy" that follows Erec's defeat of Mabonagrain). "Erec and Enide" is a story about the social ramifications of erotic love. Erec's winning of Enide is only the beginning--the real conflict in the story is not between Erec and his various opponents in battle but between the couple's romantic relationship and Erec's social duties as a knight and a prince. Erec and Enide are model lovers because they are able to achieve happiness with each other without being false to their social duties.

If I've given the impression that Chretien is Jane Austen in chain mail, it's because that's the impression I received from reading the poem. I didn't expect it to read quite so much like a nineteenth-century novel. The experience has, I'm afraid, destroyed my already sagging confidence in the accuracy of Lewis's _Allegory of Love_ as an interpretation of medieval romance literature, and it's vastly increased my appreciation for the sophistication and wisdom of medieval culture.

Narnia in the Spotlight, Part 2

A more interesting critique of Narnia than Toynbee's (not focused on the movie, BTW) is the article "Prisoner of Narnia" by Adam Gopnik. Gopnik is himself a children's writer (his books sound interesting and I'd like to read one of them). He appreciates Lewis's imagination, but he clearly resents the fact that Lewis insisted on trying to "imprison" his marvellous fantasies within the "straitened and punitive morality of organized worship." The power of Lewis's fantasy, Gopnik argues, is that his imagination liberated him (if only partially) from his self-chosen dogmatic prison. Fantasy, in Gopnik's view, should exist in its own right. It is harmed rather than helped by being associated with any actual system of belief. It is an escape for Christians just as much as for materialists, since in Gopnik's reading Christianity is intrinsically hostile to myth and imagination.

Gopnik supports his claim by invoking none other than Lewis himself, in the _Allegory of Love_. Lewis argues that the writers of Renaissance romantic epics--Ariosto, Tasso, and Edmund Spenser--could exploit pagan mythology for imaginative purposes because it had been "disinfected of belief." Gopnik sees this as a brilliant insight into the nature of imaginative writing, an insight belied by Lewis's later attempt to "reinfect" his mythopoeitic imagination with Christian belief.

It's an ingenious argument, and I'd have to reread _Allegory_ in order to respond to it adequately. I read it more than ten years ago, and it shaped my views of medieval courtly love literature until quite recently. But the more actual medieval literature I read, the more I think that _Allegory_ is nearly as wrong-headed as it is brilliant. For instance, Lewis says that courtly love was intrinsically adulterous, incompatible with marriage (i.e., married people cannot possibly be courtly lovers of each other), and anti-Christian. Perhaps that's true in some original "ideal type" sense. But I'm not sure even about that. Erec and Eneide, the first known courtly romance of Chretien de Troyes (one of the earliest and greatest masters of the genre) is a romance about how courtly love relates to marriage. The hero and heroine fall in love and marry in the first part of the poem. Being married to one's lady does turn out to have some problems for a courtly lover--most notably that since you can stay in bed with her all day you have less incentive to do noble deeds in her honor. And later on Eneide's loyalty to her husband is tested when she encounters an amorous count who offers her the kind of courtly homage that Erec no longer gives her. But the conflict between courtly love and marriage is precisely what refutes Lewis's thesis. The two things are not kept in separate compartments. One does not drive out the other. The problem of the poem is how to relate them to each other successfully. And the far more Lewisian (though still not adulterous) courtly love couple who appear at the end of the story are presented as a dysfunctional foil to the (ultimately) successful relationship of Erec and Eneide.

True, Erec and Eneide is a very early courtly romance, but that's the point. Lewis says that the attempt to reconcile courtly love with marriage came much later, and if I remember correctly he attributes it to Protestantism (though I think he acknowledges that it's prefigured in Chaucer--at least I hope he does). But what we find in Chaucer's "Franklin's Tale," or even in Spenser, is not radically different (it seems to me) from what we find in Chretien.

I'm not sure that Lewis's argument about Renaissance mythological poetry fares much better. After all, the pagan gods were invoked in a very similar way throughout medieval literature. (Erwin Panovsky--at least I think that's who it was--in an article I once read on Renaissance art made the point that what was new in the Renaissance was the combination of pagan themes and classical style; both of these things had occurred separately at various points throughout the Middle Ages.) How does poetry "spread its wings" less freely in Chaucer's "Knight's Tale" than in Tasso or Ariosto? And Spenser's use of pagan mythology is wound together with a copious use of Christian imagery. Lewis argues that since Spenser is a Protestant, this use of Catholic imagery is equally part of the "machinery" and is not related to Spenser's actual beliefs. But I don't think it's that simple. Protestant though Spenser was, he is clearly drawing on a tradition of Christian chivalry that he thinks has a very real relevance for Elizabethan courtiers. And I'd argue that the same is true of his use of pagan imagery. Spenser doesn't worship pagan gods, but he does believe in the realities symbolized by the "Garden of Adonis" in book 3 of the Faerie Queene. (Lewis, I should add, does not suggest otherwise.)

Insofar as the Renaissance writers do use pagan imagery purely for its own sake with no relationship to what they actually believe, I think that it weakens their art. I tend to agree with Tolkien to some extent that there is something very flimsy and superficial about much of the mythological machinery in Renaissance poetry (and still more so in the 17th and 18th centuries). Where Renaissance mythological writing is strongest--as in Spenser--it is strong precisely because it is trying to bring pagan and Christian (and, in Spenser, Catholic and Protestant) visions of life together rather than keeping them in separate compartments.

All of this is to say that insofar as Lewis and Gopnik agree, Lewis is wrong. And he was wrong on a lot of points in the Allegory of Love precisely because he was only recently converted and still suffered from his pre-conversion habit of keeping truth and imagination separate. (I'm not just talking about Christian truth here, but reality of all sorts. Lewis admitted after his experience with Joy, for instance, that he had been wrong in the "Allegory" when he treated courtly love as a purely literary construct. Gopnik makes a great deal of Joy's impact on Lewis. But part of that impact was the final erasure of the schizophrenia which Gopnik rejoices to discover in _Allegory_.) This was the subject of Lewis's "Great War" with Owen Barfield in the 1920s. Gopnik is absolutely right in suggesting that for Lewis Christianity was an escape from that separation. But Lewis was not guilty of "bad conscience" in trying to bring truth and imagination back together. Rather, he was struggling toward imaginative maturity--that complete fusion of intellect and intuition which his youthful atheism had made impossible.

Owen Barfield's criticism of Lewis is far more insightful than Gopnik's, I think. Barfield claimed that Lewis refused to discuss the subject matter of the "Great War" after his conversion and showed signs of great emotional distress when Barfield tried to bring the matter up. Certainly the relationship of imagination and truth continued to be a sore spot for Lewis. Insofar as the _Chronicles_ are too didactic (and naturally, as a Christian, I find this to be the case far less often than Gopnik does), it's because Lewis had not yet fully achieved that maturity. Few of us ever do. But _Till We Have Faces_ (didactic as it is) comes even closer than _Narnia_, I think. And there's reason to think that Lewis was still struggling with the issue at the end of his life.

Among the papers found after Lewis's death was the beginning of a novel set after the fall of Troy. Lewis took as his starting point a Greek tradition that the "real" Helen had never gone to Troy at all. Rather, a simulacrum of her had suffered and aged through the long years of the siege, while the real woman remained in Egypt, magically preserved in all her beauty to be reclaimed by her husband after the war. Lewis's manuscript ends with Menelaus face to face with the dilemma: which is the real Helen? The faded, middle-aged woman whom he found at Troy, or the radiant vision presented to him by the Egyptian priests?

This is the dilemma that we all face, not only in religion but in love, in work, in every aspect of our lives. Gopnik makes a great deal of the contrast between the magical world of Lewis's imagination and the humdrum reality of Christian church life. (To people like myself who came to Anglicanism from low-church evangelicalism, Gopnik's apparent contempt for Anglicanism as a source for imagination and beauty seems extremely odd. But Gopnik may be on target here as regards Lewis; Lewis showed little appreciation for liturgy and usually describes his experiences of church-going as more of a cross to be borne than anything else.) But the local church is important precisely because it is here that the magical world we encounter in imagination invades the world of our daily lives. In bread and wine, in hymns sung by creaky voices, in uncomfortable pews and sermons of varying quality, in the reading of a Scripture that took shape over centuries in the gritty heart of sordid human history--it is then that I hear the gulls crying over Cair Paravel, and feel on my face the air of Narnia on a midwinter night. (These are two of the moments Gopnik singles out as particularly beautiful in the _Chronicles_.)

Gopnik's division between imagination and mundane reality is poisonous. It is the easy way out, a way made increasingly easy by the proliferation of technological shortcuts to the world of imagination. Sex and religion and adventure--they are all only a click away. To bring our deepest longings into the world of daily life is a constant struggle--precisely the struggle to "keep one's belief going" which Gopnik observes and mocks in Lewis's letters. It is, as Steve Taylor remarked (paraphrasing Flannery O'Connor), "harder to believe than not to." The easy way is to "toss away the cloak that you should have mended." But this is not only true for Christians. It is true for every relationship, every achievement, every genuinely human act. To be human is to bring image and reality together. That is what we were made for, hanging in agony between heaven and earth, between angels and beasts. Lewis continues to be relevant, continues to delight and enrage, because he was a bold and articulate modern spokesman for this classical view of human nature--a view at once truly pagan and truly Christian.

Narnia in the Spotlight, Part 1

It's been a long while since I've blogged, as happens from time to time. I keep intending to blog more regularly, but it's probably best not to make promises!

I have been meaning to post a review of the Narnia movie for a while. By now most folks have said their say, and there' s little to add. There were certainly things one could object to, but the main effect the movie had on me was to remind me just how central Narnia has been to my life and to the way I view the world. The Chronicles of Narnia have done a lot to keep me a Christian. My concept of God is shaped in large measure by Aslan. And my uneasiness with most conventional political positions in contemporary society derives in part from my intuition that a really healthy culture would look a lot like Narnia. In the absence of an Old Narnian Party, I generally find myself saying "a pox on all your houses."

One of the most amusing (though also irritating) aspects of the attention Narnia has been getting in the media is the response from secularist critics, mostly British, who are clearly outraged by the fact that anyone still takes Lewis seriously. What these critics lack in numbers they make up for in shrillness--and, it must be said, in the ability to articulate their views in a pungent manner. Probably the most notorious of these reviews is the one by Polly Toynbee in the Guardian. The vitriol of British secularism often baffles me. Secular Americans express paranoia about the "Christian right," but generally seem to have less sheer hatred of religion itself. I can't think of an American to match Richard Dawkins, Philip Pullman, or Christopher Hitchens (though Hitchens comes closest since he's lived in the U.S. for years). British secularists wax eloquent about the historical evils of Christianity, and certainly there's plenty in European history to cause them to do so. But after all, this stuff happened hundreds of years ago, and much that is nasty has occurred since for which Christianity is not (at least not primarily) responsible. The atrocities of the 20th century were driven for the most part by secular ideologies (though there are people who try to tell the story differently). The real villain of modern European history has been the secular state, not the Church. Yet somehow British public opinion seems to have become convinced that religion is responsible for everything bad in Western culture from Constantine to Margaret Thatcher. And since British intellectuals are, on the whole, less restricted by canons of courtesy and political correctness than their American counterparts, they pull no punches in saying this. I find the outspokenness of British secularists admirable. But the cogency of what they have to say doesn't match the vigor and (I believe) honesty with which they say it.

Toynbee is sickened by the idea of sacrifice. Well not really. It's OK for Arthurian heroes and people in prisoner-of-war camps to give up their lives for others. But not for Jesus. We didn't ask him to. What that really means is that, in Toynbee's view, we don't need salvation. Jesus performed an unwanted service. The Church has been dinning into our heads that we should be frightfully grateful for being saved, when there is nothing to be saved from. She doesn't say this, but this appears to be the gist of her remarks about the evil nuns who tormented her mother by saying that not eating greens drove nails into Jesus' body. Edmund, she says, is made "to blame for everything."

I think here we see the reason why British secular intellectuals are so obsessed with the evils of Christianity, even though (as they proudly proclaim) the influence of Christianity seems to be diminishing rapidly in Britain. If the evils of past and present can be blamed on a sinister, unnatural institution that has warped people's minds, then we don't need to look within. Making Christianity a scapegoat for social evils is a brilliantly self-affirming practice. We are bad because we have been warped by Christianity (and other, related institutions of the Bad Old Days, such as the monarchy), which means that we are not inherently bad, and so don't need Christianity.

It would be easy to speculate about the historical roots of this attitude--the Tudor monarchy's brilliant move in blaming the Catholic Church (especially the religious orders) for the injustices of early modern society, creating in the process a more docile national church that would do what it wanted; Lockean empiricism with its fantasy of the "tabula rasa" morphing into the Enlightenment dream of the naturally virtuous human being corrupted by culture and tradition (given vivid and heart-warming life by 19th-century writers such as Dickens); or simply the strong cultural and political tradition in Britain of freedom as the art of being left alone. The British may be deferential to authority, but in my experience (I'm technically British myself but have lived in the U.S. since I was six, so my experience doesn't amount to a great deal) they don't trust it much. (This attitude was, in fact, shared by Lewis. One of the most grotesquely false notes of Toynbee's criticism of Narnia is her characterization of it as a "neo-fascist" society where authority is worshiped for its own sake. But more on that in a later post.) As Pullman shows so dramatically in His Dark Materials, Christianity is, or can be seen as, ultimate Authority. Toynbee is, it seems, angry with Christianity because it won't leave her alone. It tells her she needs a salvation for which she feels no need. It lays unwanted claim upon her life.

I don't mean this as a dismissive ad hominem. Toynbee presumably thinks she has good reasons for supposing Christianity false. That being the case, she's quite justified in being angry with its claims. But what's interesting is the way Toynbee and other opponents of Christianity make the claims themselves seem self-refuting. Toynbee objects that the notion of Christ taking on our sins is "repugnant." Presumably she thinks this because she doesn't accept the idea of sin, or because she thinks there is a better way of dealing with it. But she doesn't say that. (Nor does she have to, I hasten to add. I find her comments distasteful, but not unfair. Her review doesn't claim to be an argument against Christianity.) Apparently, in her world, the non-existence of sin can be taken for granted. But for those of us who find the concept of sin convincing as a description of the evil that we find (to our horror) existing within as well as around us, the idea of being saved from sin is anything but "repugnant."

My Christian name is Edwin, one of those wonderful Anglo-Saxon names revived by the Victorians but not particularly in fashion these days (I inherited it from my grandfather, who was named after his uncle). People have frequently called me "Edmund" by mistake. So I have a tendency to identify myself with Edmund. (I'm somewhat like him in personality too--if I were a great king I'd be a lot more likely to be called "the Just" than "the Magnificent.") And this, of course, is what Lewis wanted us to do (something the secular critics find brazenly manipulative). The treachery and cowardice and snivelling hunger for power that characterizes the "unconverted" Edmund is within us all. How we respond to Narnia depends, in large measure, on whether we are able to believe that.

In defence of Rowan Williams

++Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury, occupies one of the least enviable seats in Christendom at this moment. Arguably even the Pope might not want to trade places with him. When ++Williams was chosen as archbishop, the evangelicals in the C of E wore black armbands in protest. Just a few weeks ago, a poster on another blog denied that ++Williams was a Christian because of his speculation regarding the possible legitimacy of same sex relationships.

But the left is no kinder. Most recently, Williams' wise and eloquent responses to a question and answer session in Cairo (to which I linked in the title of this blog post) have incurred the wrath of a blogger named Anglican Scotist. Scotist is one of the more thought-provoking Anglican bloggers (at least in my limited acquaintance), and he is an eloquent and provocative defender of the recent policies of ECUSA. Scotist has repeatedly attacked conservative Episcopalians as right-wingers who have embraced an essentially fundamentalist hermeneutic. He has no use for any appeal to a "plain sense" of Scripture, and he argues that conservative Episcopalians are in fact "liberal individualists." In this latest post, however, Scotist has revealed his own deep commitment to liberal individualism, and even what could be called liberal fundamentalism (not as much of an oxymoron as it might appear).

Williams' central point (in the remarks to which Scotist takes exception) is that his private views as a theologian are not determinative of the Church's position. "The Church," Williams reminds us, "is not Williams' personal political party, or any particular person's." To this Scotist responds that the Church is the party of a particular person, Jesus Christ. Williams' deference to the Church is, Scotist argues, a deference to some other Church than the Church headed by Christ. The Church headed by Christ follows the mind of Christ, and this mind is not subject to the fickle whims of a "super-majority" (Scotist's term for what Williams calls a "consensus").

The problem with this, of course, is that such a Church is reduced in effect to the private judgment of individual Christians. If the individual Christian may know the mind of Christ directly and with certainty, then what becomes of the "epistemic humility" Scotist recently vaunted as a linch-pin of ECUSA's position (see Scotist's blog for Nov. 6)? If the individual Christian does not have certainty, but must act according to her best discernment of the mind of Christ (even if this contradicts the Church's consensus), then this amounts to liberal individualism of the most radical kind. I'm genuinely surprised by this argument coming from Scotist. Given Scotist's track record for brilliant and thought-provoking insights (with most of which I disagree!), he probably has a formidable rebuttal to this objection. But his recent posts seem (from my perspective) to contradict each other in the most direct manner possible.

If one claims to be a Catholic (as I believe Scotist does), and if one claims not to be a liberal individualist, then one surely must allow the community some role in one's decision-making. Yet this is exactly what Williams does, and exactly what Scotist's attack on Williams explicitly excludes. Williams says (rightly) that neither the Church of England, nor the Anglican Communion, nor the Christian Church as a whole today, nor the historic tradition of the Church supports the validity of same-sex (erotic) relationships. Scotist denounces Williams' deference to this combination of authorities as unfaithfulness to Christ. I challenge Scotist to tell me how one arrives at the mind of Christ without any reference to the consensus of the Christian community.

My understanding of Anglicanism--the understanding that drew me to Anglicanism and has kept me precariously Anglicanism in spite of my many misgivings--is that Anglicanism affirms catholicity as the consensus of the entire People of God, ordered visibly according to the historic polity of the Church (i.e., the threefold order of bishops, priests, and deacons) but not vesting authority in any particular institution or organ within the Church. Bishops do not have the authority to invent their own faith. Their responsibility is rather to lead God's people in discerning the mind of Christ on the basis of Scripture, interpreting Scripture through the lens of the Church's traditions but always remaining open to the possibility that Scripture may correct tradition.

This, it seems to me, is exactly the understanding of the Church that lies behind Williams' remarks at Cairo. Scotist speculates that Williams' "church" is led by "bishops" rather than by Christ. This is a particularly risible criticism, because Scotist's real beef with Williams is that Williams refuses to act as if he is the head of the Church. We long for bishops who will act with modesty and humility, and when we get one we revile him! Williams knows that neither he nor any other bishop, nor any caucus of bishops, is the head of the Church. As Scotist affirms, Jesus Christ is the only head of the Church. But Christ speaks to and through the actual, visible, organized, sinful, fallible community of Christians existing throughout space and time. To hear Christ means to hear the Church--not because the Church is infallible and not because it does not need to be challenged by prophetic voices, but because in the end prophetic voices are validated by the wisdom of the entire People of God. As a theologian, Williams has challenged Christians to think more carefully about many issues, including same-sex relationships. But as a bishop, he no longer has the freedom to voice his own views but rather those of the entire body of Anglican believers (with respectful attention to the broader community of believers throughout time and space) engaged in the common task of discerning the mind of Christ.

Scotist's attack on Williams is the cheapest form of fundamentalist polemic. Scotist assumes (like a good fundamentalist) that the mind of Christ can only be known by an individual, and he dismisses the consensus of Christ's Body over against the pristine intuitions of the lonely believer. This is the only way I see to read Scotist's argument. Without such an appeal to radical individualism, he has no case. (I'm sure Scotist will accuse me of caricaturing his position, and indeed I'm being deliberately provocative in reponse to his equally provocative attack on the Archbishop. I hope to draw from him one of his usual eloquent and thought-provoking arguments, and I await such an argument eagerly.)

I don't deny that it is possible for a moral issue to appear to the conscience with such clarity that one can no longer defer even to the consensus of the Church. (I'm dubious that this has been the case as often in the history of the Church as many would claim. The abolition of slavery, for instance, did not contradict anything in the Church's historic teaching as far as I can see, although that teaching had not gone nearly far enough in condemning slavery.) Whether a bishop in such circumstances should press his/her understanding of the issue or should rather step down and resume a purely prophetic role is something I'm in no position to decide. But clearly Williams does not see the legitimacy of sexual relationships between members of the same sex as a matter of such complete moral clarity.

This brings us to Scotist's specific criticism of Williams' remarks about same-sex relationships. Williams distinguishes implicitly between respect for gay people (which is a self-evident moral duty of the first importance) and approval of sexual relationships between members of the same sex (which he regards as something not yet supported by the consensus of the Church). Scotist denies that such a separation is possible:

What kind of viscious abstraction conceives a human person apart from the love of that person, that designs to separate person and character? Can this be done with the divine persons without violence? How can we abstract the homosexual from the love in which that homosexual lives his or her life? Yet this is what Williams would have us do in consigning their love to mere sin while prescinding from demeaning them--the person left over after the sinful love is removed is somehow pristine and whole.

Scotist's position is incomprehensible unless he rejects entirely the Augustinian tradition that fallen human beings are characterized by distorted loves of various kinds. We are called to love and respect all human beings, gay or straight, without necessarily approving of all the forms in which they express love. Most of all, we are called to do this to ourselves. The crying shame and scandal of "conservative," heterosexual Christians today is our lack of self-examination concerning the many ways in which our own loves are disordered and distorted. And yes, of course traditional Christian teaching places a far larger burden on gays (i.e., persons who for whatever reason experience exclusively same-sex attraction) than on most others, at least with regard to sexual desire. This is something that we must not treat glibly, but must reconsider constantly and prayerfully. It is possible (in my view) that the traditional teaching is wrong in this respect. Certainly many aspects of Christian sexual teaching throughout the centuries have been mistaken (though again, I would say that the extent of this is often exaggerated; indeed, the Augustinian teaching of the taint placed by original sin on all sexual desire may have something to say to "conservative" Christians today who blithely assume that heterosexual desire between a husband and wife is entirely innocent). But the case must be made theologically. Unfortunately it cannot simply be reduced to the self-evident moral necessity of treating all persons with respect. This begs the question of whether same-sex desire is morally neutral (and hence ontologically good) or itself a distortion of sexual love as God intended it. Scotist's blanket claim that one cannot distinguish between a person and the way the person loves is simply indefensible. We do this all the time. Furthermore, Scotist also fails (or rather refuses) to distinguish between love and the sexual expression of love. Only the sexual expression is controversial. Love between men or between women is certainly not sinful in itself, and arguably one of the problems in this entire controversy is that same-sex friendship is no longer considered (by many) a form of love.

The obvious question to ask is whether I, as a heterosexual, would be willing to make these distinctions with regard to my own sexuality. Obviously, I don't think that this is in fact necessary. I think that my sexual desires are disordered in many ways, but I don't think that the fact that they are primarily ordered toward the opposite sex is one of those ways. So an affirmative answer that is purely hypothetical will not carry much conviction in the face of the actual experience of gay people. But for what it's worth, I can certainly give an affirmative answer to that question. When I read early Christian texts that condemn all sexual activity as in some way sinful, or even the relatively pro-marriage Augustine who regards all sexual desire as sinful, I disagree with these texts, but I do not think that they demean me as a person. I could imagine growing up under the influence of such texts and believing my sexuality to be fundamentally sinful. (Indeed, while I was always taught in principle that sex was a good creation of God, the practical teachings I received about sexuality growing up tended to convey the opposite impression--so to some extent this is not an imaginary exercise for me!) I would agree that such an experience is/would be damaging in many ways. But I certainly do not think that those who inculcate such a view fail to respect human beings as persons. Rather, they fail to understand the implications of human personhood correctly. (I would say the same of those who reject women's ordination but are not explicitly and directly misogynistic.) Again, it may be that Christians have traditionally failed to understand correctly the implications of human personhood for same-sex relationships. The speculations of theologians and the lived experience of gay people may yet teach us better. But if that is so, we must be taught how to integrate this new insight into what we already know in Christ about human personhood. We must be taught how the legitimacy of same-sex relationships flows from the essential givens of orthodox Christianity rather than conflicting with them.

In my view, this is what has happened/is happening with regards to women's ordination (though I must confess that there too there is hardly an "overwhelming consensus" among Christians today that the new understanding is correct). And of course there are many other issues on which the Church's position has developed or even changed significantly. In this process, the Church needs prophets who are willing to be condemned as heretics in order to lead us to a fuller understanding of the truth. But we also need bishops--that is to say, we need shepherds who keep us from following every tempting bypath suggested by the cultural norms of our particular place and time. Bishops are not, either individually or collectively, the head(s) of the Church. They do not need to lead every new trend. They do not need to be the guides into a bold new future. They exist as visible, personal links among local churches united by Christ but separated in space and time. Their task is to keep us faithful to the faith once delivered to the saints. Williams understands this; Scotist does not (or rather refuses to understand it).

I believe that it is something close to a miracle that a figure of Williams' wisdom and (as far as I can tell) holiness sits in the seat of Augustine of Canterbury during the present crisis. Williams has made and will make many mistakes. But his fundamental humility with regards to his own office is not one of them. On the contrary, it is what we desperately need (and so often sadly lack) in a bishop of the Catholic Church. Williams is condemned as a timeserving "politician" precisely because he refuses to be one. He offends everyone because he refuses to serve any party but Christ's. And thus, it is fitting (in an ironic sort of way) that Scotist should accuse him of failing to serve the Church whose head is Christ. If the Church as a whole does, some day, come to a new understanding of the legitimacy of same-sex relationships, the principled moderation of Williams will be one of the major factors in that change. He points the way toward a liberalism that does not simply put the stamp on the spirit of the age, and an orthodoxy that does not accept blindly the cultural assumptions of other ages. Somewhere in this radical balance, I believe, lies the true mind of Christ, and we the people of God must seek it together.

Priesthood of all believers

One of the central slogans that's come to be identified with the Reformation is the "priesthood of all believers." For a long time I found this phrase very off-putting, because I associated it with the radical denial of any hierarchy or sacramentality in the Church. In my experience, Protestants used the slogan to turn the Church into a religious counterpart to modern liberal democracy. And I was (and am) convinced that that's simply a sell-out to modern culture.

Furthermore, as I became more acquainted with modern Catholic theology, I realized that Catholics do not deny the priesthood of all believers. They see the relationship between the universal and ministerial priesthoods as a both/and rather than an either/or. This has been more clearly affirmed by Vatican II and post-Vatican-II theology, and while Catholics are still debating the exact direction this reaffirmation nees to take, it's clear that some form of the priesthood of all believers is orthodox Catholic teaching.

The two contemporary issues that have forced me to give traditional Protestant arguments more of a hearing are the sex abuse scandal and women's ordination. Women's ordination deserves a post of its own, and I'll address it later. For now I'll just leave you with this teaser: I think that the priesthood of all believers is the central issue in the women's ordination debate (as it takes shape in Catholic and high-church circles).

I don't want to get involved in the horribly complex and sensitive arguments surrounding the sex abuse scandals in the Catholic Church. Of course other churches have scandals of their own, and indeed all large care-giving institutions have some pretty horrible instances of abuse, and have a tendency to try to protect the good name of the institution even at the expense of those they are allegedly trying to serve.

But at the risk of being accused of anti-Catholic bias, I can't help but think that a culture of clericalism played a large role in giving the Catholic scandal its shape and scope. I see no way around the conclusion that most bishops saw priests as belonging to the "family" in a way that the victimized young people did not. The long history of church-state battles over jurisdiction in cases of clerical wrong-doing, going back to the Gregorian Reforms of the 11th century at least, shaped the episcopal response in ways that have proved disastrous for all concerned.

The Gregorian Reforms have a lot to be said in their defense. The early medieval Church was tied up in the structures of civil society in ways that severely hindered its ability to proclaim the Word of God and speak authoritatively to social evils. But the measures taken by the reformers widened the gap between clergy and laity and created a set of parallel ecclesiastical power structures that became prey to the same corruptions and temptations as the secular hierarchy (and some of their own).

The Protestant Reformation undid much of the work of the Gregorian Reforms and placed the Church squarely under the authority of the state--at least in Anglicanism and Lutheranism. In some ways this resulted in the worst of all possible situations, with the Established Church benefiting from the coercive force of the state but not having the power to act independently. The "priesthood of all believers" too often translated into the domination of the Church by those who ruled the world of the laity.

Nonetheless, the positive message of the Reformation in this regard was that all baptized Christians are fully members of the Church, and whatever relationship to civil society is possessed by baptized laity is also the lot of the clergy. I think the Anabaptists had some important insights into what that relationship should be, and that the rest of us should pay attention to what they have to say. But the principle as I've stated it is common to Anabaptists and "magisterial" Protestants. Too often we have not lived by this principle. You hear even Protestants talk about being "just laity." And at the same time, I agree that the priesthood of all believers is often translated into a religious equivalent of secular democracy.

The priesthood of all believers does not necessarily mean that the Church should model its polity on secular democracies--though some degree of democracy is desirable, I think, and I certainly cannot see that a top-down structure is uniquely holy either. Nor does it mean that all baptized Christians should be able to perform all sacramental functions (though I think it does mean that in cases of emergency any baptized Christian can do anything any other baptized Christian can do). Ordination is a sacred rite within the Church (I have no problems calling it a sacrament) which sets aside certain men (and, in the traditions in which I participate, women) to carry out certain special functions of the Body. I bow when the priest passes me in procession, because the priest is the bearer of a particular sacred function of the whole Body.

The priesthood of all believers, as I understand it, means this: that ordained clergy are particular organs within the Body, but are not in any sense more fully members of the Body than laity. I recognize that Catholics would be unlikely to disagree with this, but the structure and daily operation of the Catholic hierarchy gives the lie to such a claim, except in the most spiritualized way. The abuse scandals were simply the most glaring example of a clericalism that pervades the Catholic Church.

While the current Pope is in my opinion a very holy man and is unquestionably a brilliant theologian (perhaps the finest theologian now living), he has a rather spiritualized conception of the Church which paradoxically leaves the over-centralized bureaucracy of the Catholic Church in a position above criticism. Unquestionably he is right that a merely structural reform is useless. But I am driven to the conclusion that many of the traditional Protestant criticisms of Catholic clericalism are borne out by the facts. This is not simply an external, political critique. The Protestant claim is that a vital spiritual principle is compromised when the Church proceeds as if only the clergy count. Insofar as Catholic structures have been built on this attitude--and I think it's clear that they have--they must be reformed, precisely as a part of the genuine spiritual renewal for which the Pope calls so eloquently. To oppose structural reform to inner renewal as if they had nothing to do with each other is to fall into a spiritualism incompatible with orthodox Christianity.

All organs of the Body of Christ are mutually accountable to each other. This does not have to be embodied in institutions analogous to those of modern liberal democracy, but it does need to have some institutional embodiment, or it will become a piece of pious rhetoric.

Insight for the day from Wendell Berry

"There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places."

Thanks to la nouvelle theologie for the quote (the whole poem is over there).

For Dave Armstrong: on development and ecclesiology

Dave,

Here at last is my piece defending the development of Protestant ecclesiology, which I've been promising you for several years now. I've been sitting on it for nearly two years now--finishing it turned out to be easier and quicker than I'd anticipated. Perhaps I really will get a lot of things done now the dissertation ordeal is drawing to a close . . . .

This may not be exactly the kind of dialogue you want to have. That's OK. Writing this has helped me clarify my own views on many points. Here it is:

Newman’s Essay on Development has given Catholic apologists perhaps their favorite argument. Traditionally, the primary strategy of Protestant polemicists was to fend off the claim of “innovation” and revolt by pointing out the clear differences between Catholic teaching of their day and the teachings of the Fathers. The same tactic is employed by some conservative Protestants today—witness William Webster’s The Church of Rome at the Bar of History. Such Protestant polemicists are generally unwilling to question their own views in the light of the Fathers, but employ the argument of historical change negatively, to show that everyone believes differently from the Fathers and therefore that the argument from tradition has no weight against Protestantism.

Against this attack, the doctrine of development is the most effective response. Catholics usually have little difficulty showing that modern Catholic doctrine has important points of continuity with that of the early Church, and that patristic teaching contains many ideas that foreshadow later developments and can plausibly be argued to contain the principles of those later teachings. So for instance Irenaeus’s claim that Mary is the new Eve points toward the Immaculate Conception and other Martian doctrines, and Ignatius’s simple affirmation that Christians eat and drink Christ’s Body and Blood points toward transubstantiation. Furthermore, Catholics can show that Trinitarian Protestants also hold doctrines that have developed historically, and that the negative argument as employed by Webster and his predecessors can equally be used against orthodox Protestantism (and indeed antitrinitarians do use such arguments). So when used purely defensively, the argument from development is effective. If the claim is being made that the Immaculate Conception cannot be true because it is not taught in the early Church, then it is legitimate to point out that the kernel of the idea is found from very early on, and to appeal to a theory of development to account for the later doctrine. If Protestants claim that the Catholic claim of infallibility and authority is made void by the changes in its doctrine, then again, development is a valid and relevant concept to invoke.

But this is only part of the Protestant argument, and not the strongest or most important part. The main use of the “innovation” argument for Protestants is to level the playing field. It is a response to Catholic claims of Protestant innovation. And all too often Catholic apologists appear to be using a double standard—holding Protestants to a close, literal reading of patristic texts to support their position, while invoking “development” when similar arguments are turned against them. Because conservative Protestants have a tendency to think in fairly literal terms and to have a proof-texting approach to Scripture, this is both maddening and effective in an argument with them. Also, the more radical forms of Protestantism clearly are unjustifiable on the basis of Scripture. And finally, development can easily work in tandem with a claim to authority. The argument can be made that we should trust the historic, institutional Church to interpret Scripture rightly, and that the doctrine of development refutes claims that the Church has manifestly failed to do so. I myself would entirely agree with this argument. (Exactly where and how authority is to be located within the historic Church is another issue, about which my opinions waver and which I’d like to try to keep out of this discussion.)

I believe, however, that development is of limited usefulness as an argument against Protestantism, if abstracted from an appeal to authority. On a number of points, a good argument can be made for moderate, traditional Protestant teachings as developments of early Christian doctrine—the same kind of argument on which Catholics rely to justify their own developments. I am not arguing that Protestant doctrines are as clearly or explicitly found in the Fathers as their Catholic counterparts. In some cases that may be true, but that’s not what my argument rests on. Nor am I arguing here that the Protestant teachings are true. I am simply arguing that an appeal to antiquity, bolstered by a theory of development, does not conclusively refute all versions of Protestant teaching on several key points: ecclesiology, the authority of Scripture vs. tradition, and sacramental theology. I argue that no concept of development can be found that justifies Catholic developments without also justifying Protestant developments, unless one simply appeals to the decision-making power of the Church.

For now, I’m going to make this argument with respect to ecclesiology, particularly the doctrine of extra ecclesiam nulla salus and the various definitions of the limits of the Church on which that doctrine depends for its practical meaning. The Protestant ecclesiology I’m going to defend is one held by many orthodox, ecumenical members of mainline Protestant denominations today. Many of my colleagues and professors at Duke Divinity School, for instance, would hold some form of this view. The more traditionally-minded and intellectually sophisticated evangelicals (many of whom are in fact members of mainline denominations) would also hold something similar.

In this view, there is a visible universal Church made up of all local churches that hold to the Christian faith as divinely revealed. This faith is understood to consist in certain essential teachings, best summarized in the Creeds; in acceptance of Scripture as the divinely inspired source of Christian truth and life; the practice of the two sacraments of the Gospel, baptism and the Lord’s Supper; and the moral teachings of Scripture as summarized in the Ten Commandments. I’m aware that Catholics have many questions about how this list of essentials is arrived at, but I’m not concerned to defend this particular list here. I’m giving it only to provide some indication of what the Protestants I’m speaking of would think are the doctrinal limits of the visible Church. Any religious body that denies the divine inspiration of Scripture (as opposed to a particular theory thereof such as inerrancy), or doesn’t practice the two evangelical sacraments (again, as opposed to holding faulty theories about it); or denies a central creedal doctrine such as the Trinity, is not part of the Church and is not, theologically speaking, Christian. (I myself have found this hard to apply in certain places, such as Quakers or Oneness Pentecostals; but again some of my friends at Duke would be quite willing to apply it strictly and say that such people are not Christians.) People outside the Church may be saved, by being judged according to their light, or by baptism of desire, or by some way known only to God alone. But normatively speaking there is no salvation outside the Church.

Division within the Church is seen as tragic but inevitable as long as we live in a fallen world. The full visible unity of the Church will probably only occur at the coming of Christ, just as its members will only be completely holy then. We can however work toward that goal and get much closer to it than we are now. Division among Christians who hold to the essentials of the Faith, however, is seen as division within and not away from the Church, although the parties responsible for such division (in most historic splits this is held to be both parties, at least to some degree) are guilty of a serious sin against charity.

I argue that this way of understanding the Church, whether or not it is true, is defensible as a development from patristic ecclesiology in the same way as (even if not to the same degree as) the ecclesiology of Vatican II. Both ecclesiologies have major points of continuity with the teaching of the Fathers; both attempt to apply patristic principles to a very different set of circumstances; and both find themselves obliged to depart from some things accepted as true during the classic period of patristic theological activity.

I should probably summarize what I think Vatican II’s ecclesiology is, since we may differ on this point. As I understand it, Vatican II taught that the Catholic Church of the Creeds subsists uniquely in those churches in communion with the Pope, and that full participation in the Church is possible only for members of that visible body. Other Christians are still members of the Church, but in a more or less imperfect way. They are united to the Church by baptism, by much orthodox doctrine, by the Holy Scriptures (even if in truncated or interpolated form), and most of all by the grace of the Holy Spirit present among all who truly believe in Christ and endeavor to live a Christian life as best they know. The extent to which non-“Catholics” are united to the Church varies greatly, ranging from the separated Eastern Churches, who are “almost there,” over to non-sacramental or non-trinitarian forms of Protestantism.

The common roots of these two ecclesiologies lie (after the NT) in the second and third centuries of Christianity--the period in which certain people who believed in Christ were coming to see themselves as members of the “Catholic” Church, in opposition to other groups claiming to be Christian. These other groups fell initially into two main categories—on the one hand, those who denied basic elements of the deposit of faith (Marcionites, Valentinians, Sabellians, and later Arians), and on the other, those who separated from the “Catholic Church” on the grounds that it was insufficiently rigorous in its treatment of sinners or otherwise corrupt (Montanists, Novatianists, and eventually Donatists). As Newman has shown (this has been supported by later scholarship with very different ideological biases), early Christianity did not present the unified front of later legend, but was a bewildering chaos of sects not entirely unlike the Christian world today. Then, as now, one particular body of Christians claimed to be the true Church over against all the others (unlike the current situation, it appears that in the early Church all the other groups also made exclusive claims). The picture was not always clear-cut, of course. Some heretics remained within the body of the Church and their status was the subject of some debate (I’m thinking particularly of the Pelagians, a little later than the period I’m discussing). In other cases, such as St. Hippolytus, someone could form his own schismatic group, denounce the reigning Pope as a heretic, and nonetheless go down in history as a saint and martyr (it does appear that Hippolytus and the Pope were reconciled while in exile together). But by about the third century the teaching of “extra ecclesiam nulla salus” was clearly formulated by Cyprian. Here, if anywhere, one can find a solid Catholic affirmation of the unity of the visible Church and the complete illegitimacy of all schismatic bodies.

The problem, of course, is that Cyprian’s position was no sooner formulated than it was rejected by Rome. Rome insisted that Cyprian was wrong to deny the validity of heretical or schismatic baptism. By saying this, the Pope was taking the first step toward the ecclesiology formulated at Vatican II, which allows for varying degrees of membership in the one true Church. (Diane Kamer informs me that Fr. Stanley Jaki has made this argument.) But the Roman position appears, on the face of it, to be nonsense. If baptism is the sacrament of initiation into the Church, then how can a body separate from the Church possess valid baptism? Since the early Church did not want to affirm any kind of “branch theory”—or even the position of Vatican II—this presented a serious difficulty in Catholic ecclesiology for centuries.

Augustine’s treatise on baptism against the Donatists is one of the most thorough attempts to deal with this difficulty. Augustine formulates an ingenious theory whereby baptism administered by Donatists initiates the convert into the true Church, only to be immediately nullified by the fact that the convert has (in that same act) joined a schismatic sect. The grace of baptism thus remains latent until the Donatist reconciles with the Catholic Church. This theory allows Augustine to separate the grace of baptism from the act of baptism itself, keeping the former the exclusive property of the Catholic Church.

Augustine’s position is, as far as I can tell, the standard position of Western Christendom until the Reformation. It allowed little if any hope for the salvation of schismatics and heretics, while nonetheless preserving the objectivity of the sacraments. During the Middle Ages, the major challenge to this ecclesiology was the reality of the East-West split. The fact that East and West were two separate churches seems to have dawned only gradually on both sides. But by the 13^th century there are plenty of treatises “against the Greeks,” which seem to hold (from the little I know of them) that the “Greeks” are schismatics in the full Augustinian sense. (I’m open to correction on this point.) Whether this was the official teaching of the Church I’m not sure. Some learned Catholic writers such as Louis Bouyer maintain that the two Churches were not necessarily seen as fully separate until the 19^th century—and he maintains that they are in fact one Church. There does appear to be a good deal of ambiguity about the Catholic position toward the Orthodox—and I’d argue that this was precisely because the Augustinian model didn’t fit the reality of the East-West split, and that something like the “Protestant ecclesiology” I’m defending was needed. (Bouyer’s position is in effect the “Protestant ecclesiology” except that it applies only to Catholics and Orthodox, not to Protestants.)

Eugenius V at the Council of Florence sums up the medieval Catholic tradition in a particularly uncompromising way. Florence’s Decree on the Jacobites (actually referring to the Copts) is worth studying because the situation of the “Jacobites” is in many respects similar to that of contemporary Protestants. That is to say, in the Copts the Catholic Church confronted a church that had been in schism for centuries—a church whose members in the 15^th century bore no direct responsibility for the schism of their ancestors. Yet Florence declares unequivocally that all members of such a church are damned if they do not unite with Rome before they die. (The one thing that gives me some pause here is that Eugenius speaks warmly of the zeal and piety of the Coptic Patriarch, and of the other eastern Patriarchs, and refers to Mother Church rejoicing that her “sons” were united. But I don’t think this implies that the Easterners in any way belonged to the Church, or were destined for salvation, before the reunion. Rather, they showed their genuine piety by the fact that they worked for reunion.)

Anti-Protestant polemic during and after the Reformation is forthrightly Augustinian—or even Cyprianic. Protestants are seen as in no way part of the Church, having completely separated themselves from it. Given the fact that many Protestants rejected the Catholic doctrine of baptism, Catholics in fact regarded Protestant baptism as dubious at best until the 20^th century. By the 19^th century, the Catholic Church was willing to grant that those Protestants who were “invincibly ignorant” could be saved, but I’m not aware of any expression of this view on the Catholic side during the 16^th and 17^th centuries. Indeed, in the late 17^th century one work of Protestant apologetics (a fictional dialogue between a “Papist” and a Protestant) presents the “Papist” as arguing that Catholicism is the safer choice because Catholics regard Protestants as necessarily damned, while Protestants do not reciprocate. The Protestant has to argue that while theoretically members of the Catholic Church can be saved, in fact the errors of Rome make this practically impossible. (I regret that I don’t have the reference to this—I came across it at Duke and did not write down the specific information. I believe it was by Richard Baxter but I could be mistaken on this point.) I think this is a reliable source (or would be if I could find the reference again) because the Protestant writer seems to regard the somewhat more inclusive Protestant view as a liability, and the alleged Catholic claim to be a dangerous argument the Papist would be likely to use. Thus, it’s unlikely that this is a misrepresentation of the contemporaneous Catholic position. But I’m sure there is better evidence one way or another. I’m just citing something that I happen to remember (without of course any illusion that this would pass muster in an academic context).

Meanwhile, Protestants themselves initially tended to adopt a more or less Augustinian ecclesiology themselves. As late as the end of the 17^th century, even a relatively irenic Lutheran like Philipp Jakob Spener could refer to Lutheranism as “the true Church out of which there is no salvation.” However, the divisions and confusions of Protestantism made this sort of position untenable for most Protestants fairly early. Contrary to what is commonly believed, the Protestants did not substitute an “invisible Church” for traditional claims concerning the visible Church. If we take Calvin as representative (he isn’t, exactly, but he is extremely influential) of classical Protestant thought on this point, we find that he affirms the visible Church to be our mother out of whom there is no salvation. Calvin, however, doesn’t identify the universal visible Church with an institution but with the sum of local churches where the Word is preached and the Sacraments are administered. This gave Protestants a good deal of flexibility—when it suited them, they could open the arms of brotherhood to Christians with whom they differed, while at other times taking a narrower view.

Modern ecumenism, then, was born from the practical realities of Christian division. The ecclesiology of Vatican II is a thoughtful and reasonable response to the reality of Christian piety among Protestants and to the development of Protestant ecumenism. But it is not, on the face of it, obviously continuous with patristic or medieval ecclesiology (with regard to EENS at least) in a way that Protestant ecclesiology (as I’ve defined it) is not. On the contrary, as my Duke colleague Roger Owens once pointed out to me, Protestants can maintain EENS more straightforwardly than Catholics.

Neither orthodox Catholics nor (most) Protestants maintain the strict Cyprianic view. Nor does Vatican II lend itself to Augustine’s view as originally expounded, although it builds on that position. We agree against Cyprian that validly baptized people exist in more than one Christian communion. And we agree against Augustine that such people may (while still being separated) receive grace from their baptisms and lead lives of Christian holiness. This is a major break from pre-Reformation ecclesiology.

Yes, ecumenical Protestants go further than Catholics inasmuch as we deny that the Church subsists fully and uniquely in any one communion. But we are more traditional than Catholics inasmuch as we hold that the Word and the Sacraments have no saving efficacy outside the bounds of the visible Church. You modify the traditional view by allowing that communities separated from the Church can receive grace from Word and Sacraments; we modify it by defining the visible Church as existing wherever the Word and Sacraments are present. Granted, Vatican II tries to avoid a break with the tradition by saying that separated communities have some degree of union with the Church. And some doctrine of degrees of communion is necessary for both ecclesiologies. Again, I’m not trying to compare which ecclesiology is more traditional as a whole. Rather, I’m saying that if we contradict the Tradition, then so do you. The only way (to borrow a metaphor from The Pilgrim’s Regress) that you can cross the drawbridge while keeping us from crossing it is to invoke authority to define just how much change constitutes a genuine break with Tradition.

I apologize for the length of this argumentmost of which dates from nearly two years ago. If I were starting from scratch now I’d keep it briefer. But here it is. Reply to it when and how you wish.

The dissertation is in the hands of the committee

My defense will take place on Oct. 17. Assuming all goes well, a major phase of my life will be over, and a great burden will be off my shoulders.

Now, presumeably, I can do all the things I've been putting off till the dissertation was done. I can write novels and poetry and blog every day and argue with Dave Armstrong and keep in touch with all my friends. . . .

Of course, I also have to find a full-time job!

But right now, while still very nervous about the defense, I do feel a great relief. I celebrated today by going to see the movie Serenity (I haven't darkened the doors of a movie theater for a while). I strongly recommend it. As with many movies (especially science fiction), the ending is not quite up to the promise of what has come before. (The same was true, for instance, of Minority Report.) But I still think it's one of the best science fiction movies I've ever seen. Like all the sf I really like, it's deeply theological. I suspect that Joss Whedon (the director) thinks he's made a movie that criticizes the religious right. But in fact he's made a great anti-Pelagian movie. The film is a robust condemnation of what the Catholic Catechism rather inaccurately calls millenialism--the belief that human effort can bring in the Kingdom. As the main villain (definitely one of the great movie villains of all time) puts it: "I believe in a better world; a world without sin."

Christians, of course, believe in a world without sin. (And thus I suspect that Whedon thinks he's attacking Christianity, or at least some forms of Christianity.) But we do not believe that social engineering will bring about such a world. And the history of Christian attempts to create a righteous society (along with the far more horrifying such attempts made by secularists, not to speak of Islamic examples) bear out the premise of Serenity that the result of any such endeavor is death and monstrous evil.

In its own way, Serenity can take its place alongside the Passion of the Christ as a way to introduce people to Christian ideas. Gibson's much-criticized Pilate could be an agent of Whedon's Alliance. (Or more accurately, the Alliance is the 26th-century equivalent of the Roman Empire.) When you are trying to create a peaceful world through force, you have no room for truth. You crucify it. When people see the brutality of the Passion and complain that Gibson doesn't show the reason for it, one answer might be, "Go watch Serenity." It's as good a way as any I know to start a discussion about the pervasive nature of sin and the inadequacy (far worse than inadequacy, in fact) of any political or social cure for human evil.

And it's just plain fun, for all its darkness. I laughed out loud repeatedly while watching it.

Note that this is not to say that the film doesn't contain some objectionable elements. There are always better ways to spend one's time. . . . But if you watch movies in general, then don't pass this one up.