It seems to me that the church and her theologians spend an inordinate amount of time these days on the doctrine of inspiration. The idea that Scripture is inspired has, in fact, taken first place in the confessional statements of many churches (and seminaries for that matter), particularly those churches of the non-denominational/evangelical/megachurch variety. I find this odd, given that a doctrine of inspiration is not even present in the historic creeds; they, rather, all address the nature of the God who was revealed in Christ. To be sure, the Fathers believed that the Scriptures were inspired, they just did not feel the need to logically define how that mysterious process took place. In general, pre-moderns are much more comfortable with mystery than moderns are.
I suspect that the doctrine of inspiration has been so elevated in recent times because it has come under so much fire from more liberal (in the original sense of the word) sects of the church and those outside the church who hold a priori (or without even arguing for it) that such a doctrine is impossible. Thus, the great dividing line - what makes one a Christian or not - is shifted from what one believes in Christ (the historic definition) to what one believes about the inspiration of the Scriptures.
In one sense, this shift may be appropriate because unless one believes that the Scriptures indeed come from God, then one will not believe in the truth of the things which are said in them, and thus the entire faith crumbles. But in another sense, this shift is entirely inappropriate for it entails the addition of a creedal component that was not agreed upon by the Fathers when the church was still one entity; and, therefore, a creedal component which all parts of the church cannot agree upon. (Again, the church has always believed in the inspiration of her Scriptures, but not in the manner that it is defined by certain sects.) Moreover, this shift gives the disastrous impression of elevating belief in the inspiration of Scripture as the most important aspect of our faith.
Friends, this is simply not the case, and if this is how you have been taught, then you have been taught a faith that, at least in this respect, is in no way consistent with Christianity as passed on from the apostles. The truth is that the most important aspect of our faith, the aspect which Jesus came to earth to witness to is who God is. And all the creeds agree that God is Trinity - Father, Son, Holy Spirit - and, as such, a relational God who desires relation with his creation and will one day restore that creation to himself. All other creedal points - including the inspiration and authority of Scripture - flow out of this point. And as far as I know, you and I can agree on who God is without being completely in agreement on the nature of the word which tells us this. If the Fathers felt no need to define the great mystery of inspiration, I see no reason why we should.
Showing posts with label Tradition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tradition. Show all posts
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Saturday, March 10, 2007
The Relevant Tradition
From the earliest days of the church, two seemingly paradoxical characteristics have marked the Christian faith: 1) an abiding concern for tradition and finding one's identity and story in the community that has gone before; and 2) an abiding concern for spreading the gospel to peoples and cultures who have never heard it before. These characteristics, equally important, have often been the source of tension, for the question always arises: how does one make the faith relevant and understandable to new generations and cultures without sacrificing what is distinctive about that faith?
There have been times when the church has succeeded in the struggle. The New Testament writers are the prime example. Their beloved tradition, the tradition and story out of which Christianity grew, was the story of Israel. And as the pages of the NT reveal, this story was fully embraced and carried on by the first Christians. The church, in struggling to identify herself, looked back into her tradition. Thus, Peter, writing to his church of Gentile converts says this: "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession . . ." (1 Pet 2:9). These four images are lifted straight from Israel's Scriptures, former descriptions of Israel now applied to the church.
Yet the NT writers, in looking back to tradition, were not imprisoned by it. After all, the language of Israel's Scriptures was Hebrew, but no common person (least of all the Gentiles) knew how to read Hebrew. Thus, the NT is written in Greek, the language that everyone knew. These tradition filled documents, full of imagery garnered from Israel's story, is presented to the people in a new medium, one which they were able to understand and, as a result, the Gospel spread quickly in those first generations. When Greek fell out of use in the West in the second and third centuries, the Scriptures were translated once again into the common language (Latin).
Unfortunately, there have also been times when the church has failed at this struggle. For centuries in the middle ages, the church kept the Scriptures locked away from the people by refusing to allow it to be translated from Latin (though no common person read or spoke Latin by this time). Church leaders had begun to confuse its tradition (the story of the Scriptures) with the form of that story, the Latin language. And incredibly, it persecuted those first brave souls who dared to translate the Latin Bible into the common language.
In our generation, it is evident that the same struggle goes on. While language might not be the focal point, the question remains vital: how do we make the faith understandable without losing its content. While the church in the middle ages erred on the side of tradition (thus failing to make it understandable to the people), I fear that many in our generation have erred on the other side. There are many examples today of those who would remove everything distinctive about the Christian faith so as to make it more attractive. A few examples:
1) The Old Testament is often hidden away as the dirty little secret. Instead of going to the effort of understanding what actually was happening in those pages, many preachers just skip over it and preach solely from the New Testament, if even that. But the loss of the Old Testament is the loss of a significant part of our story. In fact, the early Christians would have found a Christian faith without the Old Testament unintelligible. If we knew our story better, I suspect we would feel the same way.
2) The names of God are being changed. Instead of Father, Son, Holy Spirit, many are opting for titles like "the Divine" or "Sophia." While the intent behind these name changes is not necessarily bad and often times good (namely the concern for the marginalization of women in a patriarchal faith), I am not sure that changing the names of God revealed in Scripture is the best way to go about this. After all, I believe that Jesus reveals God as primarily a Father and he is best understood in the terms of that Father-Son relationship. To lose this metaphor is to lose a significant part of a traditional understanding of God.
3) My brother tells me that there is a church in his town which is considering removing all crosses from their premises in order to make it a more welcoming environment. Here is a church who has forfeited too much of tradition to make the faith more attractive. But if the cross has to be removed to do this, my question is what story are they teaching, what story are they living. A faith without the cross is not Christian. (One wonders if there would have been more resistance to the removing of the American flag from that church.)
This struggle is a necessary one, for as Christians, we are a people who are defined by our story, by our past. And yet we are commissioned to take that story to the world, to the world that does not speak our language. How are we to do it?
There have been times when the church has succeeded in the struggle. The New Testament writers are the prime example. Their beloved tradition, the tradition and story out of which Christianity grew, was the story of Israel. And as the pages of the NT reveal, this story was fully embraced and carried on by the first Christians. The church, in struggling to identify herself, looked back into her tradition. Thus, Peter, writing to his church of Gentile converts says this: "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession . . ." (1 Pet 2:9). These four images are lifted straight from Israel's Scriptures, former descriptions of Israel now applied to the church.
Yet the NT writers, in looking back to tradition, were not imprisoned by it. After all, the language of Israel's Scriptures was Hebrew, but no common person (least of all the Gentiles) knew how to read Hebrew. Thus, the NT is written in Greek, the language that everyone knew. These tradition filled documents, full of imagery garnered from Israel's story, is presented to the people in a new medium, one which they were able to understand and, as a result, the Gospel spread quickly in those first generations. When Greek fell out of use in the West in the second and third centuries, the Scriptures were translated once again into the common language (Latin).
Unfortunately, there have also been times when the church has failed at this struggle. For centuries in the middle ages, the church kept the Scriptures locked away from the people by refusing to allow it to be translated from Latin (though no common person read or spoke Latin by this time). Church leaders had begun to confuse its tradition (the story of the Scriptures) with the form of that story, the Latin language. And incredibly, it persecuted those first brave souls who dared to translate the Latin Bible into the common language.
In our generation, it is evident that the same struggle goes on. While language might not be the focal point, the question remains vital: how do we make the faith understandable without losing its content. While the church in the middle ages erred on the side of tradition (thus failing to make it understandable to the people), I fear that many in our generation have erred on the other side. There are many examples today of those who would remove everything distinctive about the Christian faith so as to make it more attractive. A few examples:
1) The Old Testament is often hidden away as the dirty little secret. Instead of going to the effort of understanding what actually was happening in those pages, many preachers just skip over it and preach solely from the New Testament, if even that. But the loss of the Old Testament is the loss of a significant part of our story. In fact, the early Christians would have found a Christian faith without the Old Testament unintelligible. If we knew our story better, I suspect we would feel the same way.
2) The names of God are being changed. Instead of Father, Son, Holy Spirit, many are opting for titles like "the Divine" or "Sophia." While the intent behind these name changes is not necessarily bad and often times good (namely the concern for the marginalization of women in a patriarchal faith), I am not sure that changing the names of God revealed in Scripture is the best way to go about this. After all, I believe that Jesus reveals God as primarily a Father and he is best understood in the terms of that Father-Son relationship. To lose this metaphor is to lose a significant part of a traditional understanding of God.
3) My brother tells me that there is a church in his town which is considering removing all crosses from their premises in order to make it a more welcoming environment. Here is a church who has forfeited too much of tradition to make the faith more attractive. But if the cross has to be removed to do this, my question is what story are they teaching, what story are they living. A faith without the cross is not Christian. (One wonders if there would have been more resistance to the removing of the American flag from that church.)
This struggle is a necessary one, for as Christians, we are a people who are defined by our story, by our past. And yet we are commissioned to take that story to the world, to the world that does not speak our language. How are we to do it?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
