Category: History

The Spirit and the Magisterium

On November 9, 2023

In Church, History, Traditionalistic exegesis

These are my half-formed thoughts as I seek to understand the Spirit’s authority in the church.

When Paul’s ministry and authority is questioned, he does not rely on the voice of the church or the Magisterium. Instead he appeals to the Spirit, ” The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.”

Paul does appeal to tradition and to the voice of the church and to his apostolic authority, but passage above demonstrates that one of his main appeals is to a shared Spirit that testifies to his message. This is a spirit he shares with Apollos so that both are counted as servants of Christ and are not to be pitted against one another.

Similarly in 1st Thessalonians, Paul attributes the willingness of the Thessalonians to hear him to a shared Spirit. “Because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.” Later he adds, “And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of god, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.”

As protestants we do hold to a Magisterium, a tradition that speaks authoritatively into our lives. Many protestants deny this and act as if tradition has no authority, but this comes from fools who have no thought. If we believe in One God and one Spirit, who speaks the truth, then when this Spirit speaks through men who also have the Spirit, we also ought to listen, especially, when many who also share the Spirit respect and love these men and repeat their words through the Spirit themselves. Perhaps it is has more fuzzy lines than the Eastern Orthodox or the Roman Catholic Magisterium, though it has a clear center, that being the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed. I am not convinced that it has more fuzzy lines, however, because of the number of interpretations and just the amount of doctrine that counts as tradition in those two churches.

Yet alongside this we hold to the work of the Spirit. Christ has promised to be with us by his Spirit. Christ has promised that Christ will guide us in all truth. A Magisterium without the Spirit and Word as a norming norm will eventually quench the Spirit’s work of unity. Any church that simply appeals to the authority of the church without also appealing to a shared Spirit that illuminates that word in each one of us and is the ultimate judge of each heart is obscuring that important work and is itself undermining the Magisterium of the church. They too become fools without thought.

Further, if we fail to receive those who share in the Spirit, becoming judges that go beyond what is clear in the word of God, we also undermine the work of the Spirit.

“And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.”

Live Peaceably with All?

By James

On July 5, 2022

In Church, Freedom, Hermeneutics, History, Holiness, The Basics, Witness

Another contextual clue to Paul’s teaching in Romans 13 is the words that come almost immediately before Romans 13, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” The call to submit to the Roman civil magistrate is part of the call to “live peaceably with all.” Our living peaceably with all depends on our ability to obey God; to live according to our calling before him. We are to honor God before men.

What does it mean, “if possible, as far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all?” There are a lot of ways to apply those words to today. Does that mean we are to do everything for the sake of peace?

A good understanding of these words begins with an understanding of the church’s mission. The mission of the church, the mission of Christ, informs what it means to live peaceably with all. Our goal is nothing less than the reconciliation of all things to Christ. The church’s work in fulfilling that mission can bring times we are offensive to the world around us. In fact, says the scriptures, “to those who are perishing we are the smell of death.” Jesus says, “the world will hate you as they hated me.” This is a reality, but within that Paul wants us to work our best to live peaceably with all, including the civil magistrate, as much as possible.

But when the magistrate interferes with the mission of the church whether in her worship or in her call to love one another, the church is called to stand up to the civil magistrate. But even so, she does not do this in a way that is malicious, angry, or threatening. She does this in a way that continues to keep the peace, recognizes the importance of law and order, and seeks the city’s good.

The good of the city is our ultimate goal. It is a good that is defined by the gospel of Jesus Christ. This good has two aspects. First, the righteousness and order of Jesus Christ: those in Christ and out of Christ have two different value systems. We want to bring the value system of Christ to the world as a whole.

The second aspect of this good is how it defines our resistance of evil in this world. Or we might say how we seek to bring Christ’s value system into our world’s value system. It is a spiritual war, not a physical one, which we fight. We do not seek to destroy our enemies. No, we love our enemies and aim to transform them by putting away our desire for vengeance and ultimately seeking their good. We seek peace with our enemies by continuing to do what is good, thus heaping burning coals on his head. This action is all according to the law of love and in line with Christ’s act of obedience to our Father in heaven.

Our ability to live peaceably with all depends on our ability to live according to the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Living according to the righteousness of Jesus Christ is not only about the things we don’t do, but also about the things we do. An example of the first might be where the government commands us to give a pinch of incense to Caesar or commands us to kill somebody who is innocent. An example of the second might be things that interfere with our worship or our call to love one another, basically anything that interferes with our three-fold office of prophet, priest, and king in Jesus Christ.

We must recognize that we have a duty toward the government as those who bear the sword for vengeance. According to this calling, they are to defend the righteous and condemn the wicked. We are called to give due honor, due obedience, and due monetary support, with regard to that calling. That is part of the righteousness and order of Christ. Some could argue that those things interfere with our ability to fulfill our duty as Christians, but they are also part of our duty as we seek the good of those in authority over us. Ideally, they also secure the peace and order of the community of God.

But when the civil magistrate begins to use its monopoly on force to deny or undermine our duties, then we ought to start to think through where we might owe obedience to God before we owe obedience to the government. I say start because there is an important place for patience and for conversation before action.

Here I want to discuss a bit the use of prudence in these things in making that decision about how best to respond to various types of tyranny. The very command “as much as it depends on you, be at peace with all men” assumes a call to prudence. Our goal is the peace of God, but at the same time, faithfulness can disturb the peace. Ahab calls Elijah “A troubler of Israel.” Zechariah 1 describes a type of peace that is not due to faithfulness but due to unfaithfulness. The Apostle Paul is accused of “turning the world upside down.” He too is a disturber of the peace.

So is it time to be an Elijah or a Paul, or is it time to be quiet and patient? How do we accomplish the goals of the kingdom in our station of life? Paul is not a revolutionary, he desires to transform from within. Just as the Spirit comes into a person and crucifies the flesh and brings to life the new man, so those moved by the Spirit transform from within society with deeds of love and mercy. We look to the Spirit to apply the wisdom of scripture in our current situation.

Part of this prudence is in recognizing your situation. If the evil done to you comes from those who are positioned over you, the response is different than to one who is your equal or under you. You owe greater honor and patience to the civil magistrate than to your average citizen because of the nature of their role in society. You will also have a different response as a pastor, plumber, farmer, policeman, or nurse. Each of those comes with varying factors of risk. It also matters whether you have dependents or not. Paul sees the importance of the work of providence in giving us each a different vocation in our lives. That is why he tells us in 1 Corinthians 7 to “Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him.”

Another part of that prudence is discerning what you are willing to risk or what hill you are willing to die on. The natural way of the Gentiles is to lord it over one another and we should expect that they will try to lord it over the church as well. The natural way of our hearts is to lord it over one another. Therefore, the first attitude toward the rise of tyranny is one of patience.

In terms of Covid, which is the apparent reason for writing these articles, I would argue that most Christians responded with patience. Still, beyond initial patience, Christians had different metrics for deciding when civil disobedience was necessary and different understandings of the severity of the pandemic, understandable because of the lack of open conversation about these things in the public square.

Yet even when we decide that it is necessary to ignore government mandates, we must still seek peace with all men as much as possible. That doesn’t mean we can’t be sarcastic or confront the authorities. After all, Christ gives us examples of precisely this type of action. But we must, in all this, prioritize mercy and justice. In all this, we must follow the way of Christ. “Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.” “Bless those who curse you,” says the Lord. God gives us this truth generally and this is where prudence and the leading of the Spirit come in. We’ll come to this more in our next article, where we will discuss resisting the government God’s way.

Review of the Maker vs. the Takers: What Jesus really said about Social Justice and Economics.

By James

On May 17, 2021

In economics, History

The Maker vs. the Takers really stands out among the books I read this year as one of the most interesting with a profoundly compelling thesis. The book is short and written in a simple style, but it contains much to ponder on in the face of the various ideologies that compete for space in our public square.

Theologians tend to ignore economic commentary on the gospel. Unfortunately, that leaves that field wide open. It ends up dominated by the socialist version of Jesus. And Jesus’ words often seem to support the socialist agenda. What we, too often, ignore is the context of the gospels. Jerry Bowyer seeks to fill that hole by writing an economic history of Jesus.

Jerry Bowyer seeks to prove that Jesus’ primary critique of wealth is in the context of those who take wealth. While in Galilee, Jesus tends not to focus on the problem of wealth in the same way. However, as he comes closer to Jerusalem, Jesus’ emphasizes the abuses of the wealthy.

Bowyer argues that this is because of the way the different areas are organized politically. The centralized, highly-taxed Judea is a place where the poor are ground into the dust. The wealthy are wealthy through taking from others. The decentralized entrepreneurial Galilee is where there is a burgeoning middle class. The wealthy are wealthy through producing goods for the market. Galileans have their own sins, but they are not accused of robbing widow’s houses as the Judeans are.

Bowyer seeks to prove this through a careful reading of the gospels themselves. He constantly notes where Jesus is speaking when he condemns wealth. One of his primary examples is Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount in Matthew vs. the Sermon on the Plain in Luke. These sermons, he argues, are probably two different versions of the stock material that Jesus used to teach people during his life. Jesus gives the Sermon on the Mount in Galilee. Here he has much less to say about wealth than the Sermon on the Plain, which he gives in Judea.

He backs this up with research in archeology and history. Archeology presents a compelling case that Galilee was surprisingly well off in the first century A.D. It was home to a great deal of entrepreneurship and industry that made it what we would call middle class. Jesus himself probably grew up in that context. The carpentry of his father Joseph was likely in great demand because of a building boom in a town close to Nazareth. The entrepreneurial and productive Galilee is in contrast to Jerusalem, which though much more wealthy than Galilee, also exhibited far more significant disparity between wealth and poverty.

Bowyer also pays attention to the history books, pointing out how the Judean elite used certain systemic practices in temple worship to plunder a population in Judea that was already highly taxed. Perhaps most interesting is how he demonstrates the economic aspect of the crucifixion of Christ. He points out that there was a financial crash that probably happened shortly before Christ’s crucifixion. A friend of Pontius Pilate’s was held responsible for that economic crash. Therefore the Jews are able to convince the usually anti-Semitic Pilate to do their dirty work of killing Jesus.

The book is well-researched and full of information. Although it would be nice to see more footnotes, just for the sake of digging into the various sources that Jerry Bowyer is using. However, Bowyer does aim the book at a popular audience. Some could question a couple of claims and I’ve seen certain claims challenged in other sources, but the book’s effect is cumulative. Bowyer is able to bring a wide swathe of evidence from the gospels to support the picture he paints of Jesus.

I highly recommend “The Makers vs. the Takers.” It is a book for everybody. As a Pastor, I enjoy how it brings a fresh and concrete reality to the gospels. Jesus is not just concerned about the next world, but he is very concerned about the abuse of power and the treatment of his children in this world.

A Typology of Hyper-Calvinism

By James

On November 3, 2017

In History, Reformed Theology

It is my belief that Hyper-Calvinism is more common than many Calvinists and Reformed folks are willing to admit. However, I should admit that I define Hyper-Calvinism more broadly that most Calvinists. Hyper-Calvinism is anything that distorts the positive claims of the Canons of Dordt. Basically, Hyper-Calvinism distorts the sovereignty of God. I want to identify a number of ways that Reformed people have twisted Calvinism. They twist it into something that would be unrecognizable to those who defended this system. Here is a Typology of Hyper-Calvinism.

Missional Hyper-Calvinism or Traditional Hyper-Calvinism: This is what most people think of when they think of Hyper-Calvinism. This is the belief that God will save his elect with or without us. The result is that they question the use of mission work. This attitude faced William Carey when he expressed the desire to go as a missionary to India. The story is told that an old Calvinist confronted him. He told him that God would save the elect in India without his help. Ultimately this undermines the call of the divines at Dordt to remember that God uses means (CoD III/IV.17).
Predestinarian Hyper-Calvinism: This form of Hyper-Calvinism posits a strict parallel between God’s predestination of the elect and His predestination of the reprobate. It ignores the Canons’ language of “choosing” the elect and “passing over” the reprobate, (CoD I.7, 15). The language of the Canons teaches us that the decree of election and the decree of reprobation are accomplished in a different way. Predestinarian Hyper-Calvinism denies this. This is a particularly pernicious error because it undermines the character of our God.
Ecclesial Hyper-Calvinism: This form of Hyper-Calvinism holds that God makes a covenant only with the elect and denies or empties God’s covenant with the baptized. (The fact is, there are many explanations of what it means that God makes a covenant with the baptized. I argue that a broad variety of answers still belong to Calvinism proper. It is those who deny that God covenants with babies or empties the covenant of baptism by saying that God only covenants with elect babies that are guilty of this error. see my definition of covenant here.) It tends to diminish the importance of sacraments as marks of the people of God and treats them only as aids to devotion. Further, It tends to deny that children of believers should be treated as Christians. The Reformed Baptist position is a form of this error. The emphasize God’s covenant with the elect to the point that they try to make the number of the baptized and the number of the elect the same. This form of Hyper-Calvinism doesn’t directly contradict the Canons of Dordt, but it does tend to undermine its assurances to those whose children die in infancy (CoD I.17) and its declaration that sacraments are means of grace (CoD III/IV.17).
Hyper-Assurance Hyper-Calvinism: This form of Hyper-Calvinism demands full assurance of election before you can be certain of your election and before you can be certain you are actually a member of Christ’s body. The Canons of Dordt clearly proclaims the gospel of full assurance (CoD V.9). The Spirit gives us this grace. It does not claim that you need that full assurance to be saved. Instead, the Canons encourage us to use the means of grace to deal with this lack of assurance (CoD V.14). In fact, this position directly contradicts the Canons, which claims that the elect vary in their assurance in their lifetimes (CoD V.11).
Hyper-Grace or Antinomian Hyper-Calvinism: This form of Hyper Calvinism puts all the weight on God’s irresistible grace in converting the soul. Man can sit back after salvation and the good works will come. The responsibility of man to live out his salvation in fear and trembling is ignored or even denied. This contradicts the call of the Canons to persevere (CoD V.13,14).
Hyper-Depravity Hyper-Calvinism: This form of Hyper-Calvinism emphasizes the total depravity of man. Man can do no good before God. It tends to undermine or deny that the saved man can please God. Ultimately it denies the power of God in regenerating the will of man and the new life that he gives him. (CoD V.16)
Hyper-Glory or Hyper-Sovereignty Hyper-Calvinism: I use the term Hyper-Glory because this is the result of a false type of piety, which thinks that the glory of God is a zero-sum game. God gets all the glory and nobody else gets any. Rather, when God gets all the glory, he is generous that glory and shares it with his saints. By the term Hyper-Sovereignty, I refer to a sort of fatalism or Stoicism. You might hear, “We should be happy with whatever God does. We need to receive it as God’s will.” There is a sense where we can’t really take joy in life. They forget that God’s own son sweat blood, while he pleaded with God to “Let this cup pass.” He didn’t receive the cross stoically or fatalistically. The working out of God’s plan of salvation is more complicated than we are willing to admit. This is another form of Hyper-Calvinism that does not directly contradict the Canons of Dordt. However, it does contradict the tenor of that piece of work.

Some hold to one of these errors. Many more hold to a combination of these errors.

Many will be quick to point out that many errors in Calvinism share space with the errors of Jacobus Arminius as well. We can think of neonomianism for example. This is the idea that Christ came and justified us through faith and we need to add good works, alongside Christ’s work, in order to reach final justification. This is an error. However, the point of this post is to demonstrate a certain category of errors. Namely, how people misuse the truth of God’s absolute sovereignty, while claiming to defend it.

The Reformation’s Two Paths of Memory

By James

On October 31, 2017

In History

I believe that there are two legitimate ways of looking at the Reformation. These two ways create different paths for honoring the Reformation. Further, these paths produce different memories of the Reformation. These two paths of memory are the root cause of many of the fights we have in Protestantism over the memory of the Reformation. Many understand the reformation primarily as a re-vivification of witness to the authority of scripture. Others understand the Reformation primarily as a socio-political phenomenon.

The Reformation as a re-vivification of witness to the authority of scripture:

God used the reformers to remind his people of the authority of his word, the uniquness of Christ, and the inexpressibility of his grace. When people think of the Reformation in this way, the naturally emphasize God’s work. God displayed his glory in the work of the reformers. Further, the reformation gave people the assurance of salvation again. It gave people Christ. The Church had hidden Christ behind saints and indulgences. The Reformation opened that veil. God, through the reformers, told the people when they heard the scriptures preached they heard Christ speaking. When they ate bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper they communed with Christ.

If that is what the celebration of the reformation is about then we don’t do enough. We should be reminding ourselves again and again about what God re-taught his church in the reformation. He re-taught because he had already taught it to his church in the scriptures. We should be endlessly thankful, that God showed his grace to a church that was suppressing his truth in unrighteousness. God calls us to exuberant celebration over these moments of great salvation in history. You can look in the Bible how God called his people to celebrate their departure from Egypt in the book of Exodus. God called his people to celebration again for their rescue from the machinations of Haman in the book of Esther. If God called the Jews to a celebration, we should celebrate as well.

The reason we don’t do enough is simply in the fact that we have forgotten what God taught us in the reformation. We have forgotten the glory of his word and we have forgotten the grace of his sacraments. The Reformation500 is a welcome reminder.

But their is also another path of memory.

The Reformation as a socio-political phenomenon or we might say a historical phenomenon:

Here the celebration is much more mixed because it is focussed on human actors and their imperfect actions. We still celebrate the good the Reformation produced. As the reformed believed, living faith produces good works and those good works benefit ourselves and our neighbor. The Reformation produced a lot of spiritual good. The reformation produced a lot of social good. We should celebrate this.

But the Reformation also brought certain emphases to the fore that had unintended consequences. Of course, it’s hard as a historian to prove cause and effect. To some extent its guesswork, especially when we are looking at social phenomenon, not only written texts. I believe that it is reasonable to say that the Reformation moved the centre toward some anabaptistic emphases, such as individualistic interpretation and the de-sacralization of the sacraments.

You can see this in the distortion of the solas that is so common today. Sola Scriptura often means that scripture is the only authority, not the only unquestioned authority. Sola Gratia means I don’t have to work out my salvation with fear and trembling, rather than God works even that fear and trembling in me. Sola Fide means only faith is necessary for my salvation and leaves no place for the works that flow from true faith. We could go on. What I offer here does not exhaust the way the solas are corrupted.

This was only acerbated by fights between the reformers themselves. This does not mean that this was in any way the position of reformers such as Calvin or Luther, or their heirs. It does mean that we need to celebrate the Reformation in a way that guards against the excesses of our own day and with the knowledge that our fathers in the faith were fallible men.

This is to view the Reformation as the work of men, not the work of God. If we unconditionally celebrated the Reformation only according to the first pattern of memory, we wouldn’t have so many naysayers who point out some of the bad things the reformation produced.

Conclusion.

Unfortunately, these two paths of memory are conflated and tend to create conflict. There are those who have no desire to seperate the two paths and tend to sanctify everything the Reformation produced intentionally or otherwise as good. Some ignore the first path and refuse to celebrate the Reformation. There are many in the middle who confuse their friends’ use of the word “Reformation” with their preferred path of memory. I hope that my post is helpful for sorting those misunderstandings out.

As for me, I celebrate the reformation according to the first path.God used the Reformation to once again, in a unique and powerful way, remind people of the gift of grace, Christ, that he reveals in his word. The first path is more important, quite simply because, it is God’s perspective. Secondarily, I conditionally celebrate the second path, the Reformation is something that produced unparalleled spiritual and social good; but I do so cautiously.

Rules for Progress

By James

On August 6, 2017

In Applied Hermeneutics, education, History, Progress

Note: I defend progress in this piece. However, I thoroughly reject the beliefs of most of those who understand themselves as progressives. I do not believe that their beliefs are progressive. In general, they are regressive, not progressive. I would argue that I present here a true progressivism, based on God’s word, not on man’s understanding of progress.

Progress is necessary. God wants the church to grow in the understanding of his righteousness and his holiness. However, this truth is easily twisted. Churches use it in order to excuse themselves for contradicting what is clear in the word of God. We see this in those who argue for women in office and those who argue that homosexual relationships are a legitimate expression of human love. We need guidelines in order to differentiate between what is progressive and what is retrogressive. I offer a few below.

Inscripturation: There is no real progress without a deep understanding of the scriptures. The first rule of progress is: study and contemplate the scriptures. God does not contradict himself, for he speaks with authority and truth. We cannot progress without the scriptures. God and his word are the source of all truth as well as a deeper understanding of that truth.
Tradition: If we cannot ignore the scriptures, we cannot ignore the tradition of scriptural interpretation. Argument after argument has been given concerning various passages. Our bit of “progress” may repeat the mistakes of the past. It may repeat the heresies of the past. In order to move forward, we must have a deep understanding and appreciation of the past. For those who want to progress this can be hard to do. Anti-progressive forces tend to love tradition to a fault. The tendency, then, is to ignore tradition. This does not excuse anyone from this guideline, however. To ignore it is not only dangerous yourself but to those around you.
Humility: Humility is all important. The one who wants to teach must learn. Sit at the feet of those around you who have been given knowledge. You need humility in order learn from the Scriptures and from tradition. Ultimately you need humility before God. When you have humility before God you will have humility before the teachers he has raised up in your life. Jesus asks that you become as a little child. Only little children have the continual ability to learn.
Patience: You have your argument ready. You have studied and contemplated the scriptures and you have immersed yourself in tradition. Now you must be patient. People aren’t ready to change at a moment’s notice. Further, you might be wrong. Better men than you of me have been wrong before. Remember the words of the Psalmist. “Wait on the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.”

Conversation with the Fathers 2: Denying the Role of Reason.

By James

On May 18, 2017

In Hermeneutics, History, Traditionalistic exegesis, Uncategorized

I believe that conversation with the fathers of the faith is under attack.

I want to note three different ways the conversation has come under attack. I believe that each way ultimately undermines the role of reason in responding to the authority of scripture. They undermine the role of reason because they lose the possibility of having a conversation about the meaning of scripture with fellow saints.

The first attack comes from rationalists. They are more popularly known as liberal Christians. The rationalists attack this understanding by exalting human reason. Human reason is the ultimate authority, not scripture. They deny the singular authority of scripture. In this way scripture just becomes one of the many voices that leads us to truth. Rather than a discussion about a firm revelation, we have a discussion that guesses at what might have been revealed. Because there is no firm authority your guess is as good as mine.

Conversation concerning scripture comes under attack because there is no shared “center” for conversation. There is no foundation for conversation Because conversation is under attack, reason also comes under attack. To understand this, we need to understand the purpose of reason. Reason is a tool to persuade one another. If you do not have a foundation upon which to rest your reason you will have no ability to persuade another person of your view. In this way, reason is lost in interpreting the scriptures.

Consider a discussion on Genesis 1. Rationalists often reject what Genesis 1 contains because it does not fit their experience. Or maybe because a God like God could not have created the world in that way. Suddenly they begin to find whatever they want in Genesis 1.

Another attack comes from Christian radical individualism. In this view, the individual reader becomes the most important interpreter of scripture. Conversation with fellow saints both of the past and of the present is lost because “me and my Bible” are the most important pair out there. The problems with this understanding are well documented today, in part because this understanding is very common in North America.

Loss of conversation leads to the loss of reason once again. Any reasonable argument can be rejected on the basis of my reading of scripture. Even though Christian radical individualism accepts the authority of scripture, it borrows from rationalism. Like rationalism, this individualism understands that its interpretive authority is primary.

Consider a discussion on the book of Revelation 11. The fact that there are two witnesses is unquestioned. The radical individualist will tenaciously hold to his interpretation of these two witnesses, even if he cannot support his understanding through well-reasoned arguments.

Finally, we come to traditionalism. At first, it doesn’t make sense that traditionalism would reject conversation with the fathers. Traditionalistic churches have a huge respect for the fathers. They certainly don’t reject the opinions of the fathers. Rather, they reject the conversation with the fathers. A well-reasoned argument can not overturn a well-established opinion. They never find Calvin wrong. John of Damascus is sublime on every point. Thomas Aquinas is absolutely rigorous in every doctrine he developed. They reject the tool of reason in discerning whether the fathers were right, partly right, or plain wrong on a certain issue.

Traditionalism is a plague to all Christians, but there are churches that mandate traditionalism in their confessional material. The result is silence before tradition, not conversation. One must repeat after the fathers or be silent.

A classic example here would be the doctrines that have accumulated around the Virgin Mary. Even though these have very little or even no support from scripture, they are treated as authoritative doctrine because certain fathers discerned teaching about Mary in certain scripture passages.

What I would prefer is a conversation. We are fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, sisters and brothers, discussing and seeking to discern the meaning of the Holy Book that God has given to us. This doesn’t mean we have to apply our reason to every issue, rather we use the reason that God has given to us unto those issues that the Spirit have led us to.

n.b. These categories are meant for a helpful overview. I believe that most denominations will have all the categories listed above, even though they may officially lean toward one of these understandings. This is true of individuals as well.

Are Christians idealists?

By James

On March 4, 2017

In Hermeneutics, History

When people get down to the business of deciding what to do, a divide tends to reveal itself. This is the divide between the realist and the idealist. The hard-headed realist is ready to do what’s necessary for the sake of his friends and family. He will choose the pragmatic option. He hold to the dictum, “the ends justify the means.” The idealist appeals to high-minded principles. It would seem that Christians are idealists because Christians desire to see real justice and real mercy in the world around us. Are we really just fighting for our ideals though? Are we pursuing a false Utopia?

I would argue that idealism and realism come together in Christ. Christ exemplified the ideal kingdom, that is, the kingdom of perfect righteousness that people long for and at the same time he lived in the harsh realism of this world. Christ was real. He walked and ate and drank. Christ showed the world that the kingdom of righteousness was something that was real and that it was something that was exemplified in his very real life. Christian idealism is historical, which means that it is not based on an idea but on a person. As Christians, we are fighting for the justice and mercy of that kingdom.

As people, however, we all live in really messed up situations. Is High-minded idealism really the right option for these situations? How do we combine our idealism with realism so that it is actually successful? Once again, Christ is the one who shows us how to cross this impasse. We cross it through our willingness to suffer. Through suffering, Christ showed the world that somebody could live according to their ideals. Now Christ was not living according to ideals but to the words of his Father in heaven. In particular, Christ suffered through his patience. He was constant in his patience toward his disciples, who had not fully grasped their calling to live for the sake of the kingdom of God.

Christians are realists in so far as they are patient with their brothers and sisters in Christ, as well as all their neighbors, as these fail in living according to the love and mercy of the kingdom. Christians are idealists, not in that they serve an idea, but in that they serve a person who exemplified the virtues fo the kingdom of God. This does not mean there are no hard choices. It does mean that we are willing to suffer for making the better choice.

Do You Believe in Progress?

By James

On February 18, 2017

In Hermeneutics, History

Is there a movement to history? Is the history of man a smooth journey to happiness and flourishing? Or is it bound to end in failure? How does history work? It’s hard to talk about the philosophy of history without talking about Hegel. Hegel thought that history was the self-realization of the spirit. This self-realization was defined by the struggle between a thesis (let’s say the work of priests and rituals; it could be anything) an antithesis (Let’s say philosophy and writing). The struggle would result in synthesis, meaning the problems between those two groups had been solved.

His work gave birth to the discipline of philosophical history. Obviously, most of the people who listened to him didn’t believe that he had actually discovered the final truth. This was a discipline that tried to find principles for how history works. I want to explore some versions of philosophical history that are popular today or have been popular in the recent past. I want to suggest a Christian response with a Christian understanding of philosophical history. You might say, a Christian understanding of progress.

Popular understandings of progress.

While Hegel popularized idealist history, very few people have a similar understanding today. Idealist history focusses on the knowledge of spirit. philosophical history today is much more materialist. Materialist history focusses on the struggle between classes or between man and nature, not so much on ideas. It is good to know that there is a difference here, but it will not be important for the rest of our paper.

Many, maybe most, people today would unthinkingly hold to the “whig theory of history.” This is the idea that things will slowly and naturally progress throughout history. People will become more peaceful and open-minded. Innovations will continue to progress: slowly but surely raising the standard of living. New knowledge will be continually superseding old knowledge.

Contemporary activists, whether they fight for LGBT rights or women’s rights, hold to a similar understanding. They are, however, much more revolutionary in their methods. In the mind of these activists, the highest good is egalitarianism and the greatest enemy of the good life is exlusivism. They seem to believe that society will continually become more open to those that are different than themselves. We have seen huge strides against racism directed against African Americans; they want to see it again through their fight for other minorities.

Personal theories of progress

Like the egalitarians, Marx also saw revolution as a means toward the end of happiness. He argued for violent revolution. Marx saw the goal as the happy life of each person “working according to his ability and receiving according to his need.” In Marx’s mind, the thing that stood in the way was “property rights.”

It may initially seem funny to compare a libertarian like Rothbard with Marx. Rothbard is a defender of property-rights. But he himself sees a similarity in that he is fighting against the oppressive class. There is an oppressive class and an oppressed class. Rothbard is fighting against the old order of Europe Marx may be wrong on economic theory. He may be wrong on his use of the apparatus of the state in order to bring about revolution, but he sees the importance of revolution against the oppressing class. For Murray Rothbard, the ultimate goal is liberty, while the obstacle to that goal is the oppressor. The way forward is in continually standing against the tyrants of the day.

Christians and progress

In a way, Murray Rothbard comes the closest to what we might call a Christian view of progress. In the scriptures, there is a strong sense that we are moving toward liberty. The old order (in this case the order before Christ), is not necessarily evil, but it is something that we have grown out of. We can think of Paul in Galatians 4, speaking of the children of the Jerusalem above who were under a tutor at one point and now have grown up.

There is an evil old order as well. It lives alongside the other old order, which is the law. This is the the oppression of sin and death. It is the rule of what Augustine might call the libido dominandi, that is, the desire for power. That means that the desire to oppress men is in all of us. Christ brough about salvation by humbling the libido dominandi.

How does this apply politically? Christians understand that all men need to be delivered from that sin and death and that it begins with their own deliverance. Once delivered they need to keep putting to death their desire for power. Christ taught us how to attack that desire for power in ourselves and in others. Christ humbled himself. He took the same advice he gave his disciples in Matthew 18. He accounted himself as humble, just like a small child. Through humility, we undermine the structures of power by beginning with ourselves.

Christians disagree with Rothbard in two areas then. We disagree that there is an old order out there. That old order is in us. That is why revolutions will often lead to something worse than that which they were attacking in the first place. It follows that we also disagree with revolutions. Revolutions don’t deal with the desire for power that is in everybody.

Christians do believe in progress. Our goal is the freedom to practice the righteousness of Christ. The problem is our own complicity in enslaving others and enslaving ourselves. The means is the humility of Christ, which can only be accomplished by trusting in Christ. Christ is the only humble man and, as the one who has been resurrected and ascended to the right hand of God, he provides the means we have to fight against our own desire to control other people.