by Dr. U » October 27th, 2007, 3:17 am
Hi all! I'm up to the wazoo in midterm exams and student essays, so haven't checked on this thread for awhile. Interesting stuff to read.
RusM, you're correct that I'm alluding to authorities besides the Bible. In fact, Karen, your post about the "three legged stool" of Scripture, tradition and reason I suspect fits where a lot of us beneficiaries of CSL probably fit. It's hard for me to think of any great Christians of any denomination that wouldn't be drawing on all three of those, and also the direct, tender guidance of the Holy Spirit in day-to-day ministry opportunities.
I love The Church! She's profoundly a paradox, the Kingdom of God both here and yet to come. That element of paradox is even one of the wonderful aspects of Orthodox theology I particularly appreciate. Jesus is the greatest paradox, fully God and fully human, perfect and yet made sin for us. The Bible is also a paradox, God-breathed, yet written down by imperfect, sinful people using human language and culture. And we ourselves as Christians are paradoxes, our sins paid for, but salvation still being worked out in our minds and behaviors, God's adopted children, but sometimes you'd never guess it from how we act.
So I do take Church Tradition and the accumulated teaching from 2,000 years very seriously. But none of our institutions have proven infallible, every one has sometimes needed correction, and has sometimes rejected it. That includes the O.C. What were they thinking, for example, when they called for all those pogroms on the Jews? Was there any one, or any way, that the O.C. leaders could or would have listened to at that time, who could have rebuked them, that they were burning the home of Jesus in those pogroms? Their faith in their own institution was so great that they were able to commit atrocities, and believe they were pleasing God. Or when the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church mutually excommunicated each other from the Body of Christ around 1000 AD?
It's easy to think of examples like these for every Christian denomination I'm aware of, and bad stuff can happen in little churches proud that they're "independent' of any denomination, too!
My point is that we ALL need to listen to each other carefully, as well dwelling in the Bible, including, as the Exiled New Englander noted, seeking to understand a text the way the readers would have, as best we can. The OC would be wise to listen to the Baptists, and the Baptists to the OC and etc, etc. If even Peter, one of Jesus' closest three apostles, and the man Roman Catholic Christians claim as the first Pope, had to be publically rebuked by Paul for ethnic bigotry (e.g., in Galatians), who are we to think we're immune from error? Lewis talks in several essays and books about the value of reading deeply from other time periods, and he modeled someone who also read books by Christians of many times and backgrounds. His correspondence in Latin with an Italian Roman Catholic priest is one of many fascinating examples. (I think it's out of print, but it's a worthwhile little book to track down. It has an English translation with the Latin.)
As a young Christian, I picked that up from Lewis between the lines, and it was one of the greatest gifts I believe I got from him, trying to learn from mature Christians of many backgrounds. It's really striking how the same Holy Spirit resonates across time and languages and cultures and types of churches, too. You can tell St. Augustine and St. Aquinas and St. Teresa and Bartolome de las Casas and Wesley and Luther and Aimee Semple McPherson and Corrie Ten Boom and John Wimber and etc., etc. all knew the same Jesus personally and profoundly, across many places and times. So, yes, RusM, I really do value Church Tradition, from the whole Church.
We have to keep coming back to the fact that all these Gentile churches are graftees into the root of Israel, and look at how Jesus related to the Jewish Covenant. If Jesus pronounced judgment on the Jerusalem Temple and the priesthood, which truly had detailed Scriptural instructions from God for many aspects, (unlike The Church, which really has few practical details given anywhere in the NT), why would we think any of our institutions above ever being in need of correction, no matter how old they might be? Or that what isn't clearly held to by all Christians, may not be essential after all? In that last category, I believe many of our institutional structures belong: whether a given church organization has a chain-of-command, or a board of peer leaders, or tries to operate democratically by vote, or waits for consensus. A good case can be made from Church History that the Holy Spirit has worked through all of those institutional structures at different times, when a church has been devoted to Christ, and there's been disasters with all of those, when peoples hearts are cold to Christ. The critical question is always whether Jesus is welcome.
I should share why I originally responded to this thread about "priestesses in the church": A couple summers ago, I had the opportunity to meet a woman who is an evangelist and church planter in a country that must remain unnamed. I was present at a brief meeting she had with some Christians committed to prayer and other types of support for her country. Conversion to Christ and baptism is legal grounds for death there. God has used her - and her husband, although she seems to be recognized by him and others as the senior leader in a Christian movement - to help guide many people to faith in Christ and quietly begin a network of churches. God has so far delivered her and her family from death, but the possibility is always there. This particular example is one of many indigenous churches God has raised up, that, like Paul's conversion, are God's doing, not church strategies. She illustrates why I believe we need to take more seriously that ALL Christians are priests, and even if we're in a church with people in the office of priest, work to break down the barrier between clergy and laity, so that people are more liberated to minister.
Oops - guests just arrived! Gotta go! I hope this has some edification value for the thread!
In Christ,
Dr. U, "orthodox with a small "o""