As Juan observes about history not being objective fact but a story continuously retold to make sense of our present and future, so too custom is an ever-changing guide to the Christian life. The community is continuously retelling it to find both the continuity and the creativity she needs. I find the best model for how this is done in Acts.
“Those who welcomed Peter’s message were baptized…They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” (Read the entire passage in Acts 2: 42-47.)
The fellowship described in that First Church is what I mean by community. The baptized gather around a meal to converse about what it mans to follow Jesus, and they check what they think by the teaching of the apostles who were there during the ministry and the resurrection.
The challenge is how to do this in our time. We have made the Church more and more an institution with leaders who control it as managers control corporations. We defer to them as the experts who are the only ones who know the true Word of God. However, when we find they fail to speak to our real life, we simply cut and paste what they say, trying to find something that relates to the lives we live.
Some of this stems from being uncomfortable with conversing with people who are unlike us. We have been taught to be tolerate by never speaking about religion or politics.
Perhaps the first thing we have to do is acknowledge until the Kingdom comes we shall always have diversity in the Church. That is what we are about, bringing together the disparate. The glory of the Bible is it retains all the differences of opinion from the ancient past. The prophets insisted the Word of God was about ethics; the priests believed ritual deserved that spot; the kings just asked us to accept their word as God’s; and the scribes, well the scribes played the role for which lawyers are ridiculed in our day. They took no positions; they simply pretended to analyze old absolute laws.
We see the same thing in the New Testament as the Church preserved four versions of the Gospel rather than one. Paul was obviously constantly calling for unity, because his churches lacked it. And Jesus himself never asked us to adopt one definition of how things are. When asked to define something, he always told a story that began with “It is something like this…” and then went on “On the other hand, it is something like this as well…”
The second thing we have to do is make sure we have plenty of small groups in our churches where people can converse honestly. Many say the secret to the growth of mega-churches is their building community around small groups.
Next week I’ll like to suggest some ways we can involve the community in the decision-making of our churches.
Finding myself on vacation, I plan to be more anecdotal in the next couple weeks. Well, perhaps it has to do with more than my vacation. I think we have come to where we truly live our lives. That means speaking of experience more than theology.
When I want to check whether an inspiration is really God’s Word, I begin by asking my wife. It is not that she is infallible, but she shares my faith and knows our situation. If I am still not sure, I check with the rest of the family and my trusted friends. I might do that in casual conversation or more organized groups, such as Sunday School classes or theological seminars.
This is one way the community that Paul described as the Body of Christ helps me hear God’s Word. We so often use the term to describe one of the elements in the Communion meal that we forget it primarily refers to the people who gather to share that meal. Jesus speaks of this role played by the community when he promised to be present when two or three gather in his name.
The Church has usually agreed that the ultimate way we test an individual charisma is how it plays out in the Body of Christ. That does not mean the majority rules or that we need to form a consensus. God can certainly speak a special message to an individual.
It also does not mean the community operates without taking into consideration the other parts of the tradition, such as canon, creed, custom, ceremony, and clergy. However, in most cases if the community rejects the inspiration, it is suspect. Even Pope Benedict in a former life wrote that the individual conscience remains the ultimate standard.
Some warn this concept is dangerous, because it leads to “relativism” and “situational ethics”. They argue it enables secular society to determine God’s Word. In fact, some sophisticated theologians say Christianity should never claim to be relative. My response has always been what good is it if it does not relate to the people, time, and place of my real life.
One of those theologians recently published an article about how he has changed his mind. He wrote when looking back over many decades he finds his theological developments followed his life experiences. He then traced them by referring to national and world events. My wife, realist and sometimes cynic, laughed with a “told you so” She had always observed his work reflected his life experiences, no matter how much he claimed to be objective and even absolute. With another laugh she observed he still was not being totally honest with himself, because the experiences that marked his development had more to do with the events in the life of his daughter that of the nation.
That rings true for me. I find the Holy Spirit has often led me through my relationships to new insights that I identify with God’s Word. I am sure one reason I feel as I do about homosexuality is because so many of my dear friends have homosexual children. Come to think of it, this is exactly the way the Holy Spirit operated throughout the Acts of the Apostles in opening baptism to Gentiles and Europeans. It led in new directions by providing new experiences.
Tags: Body of Christ, Community, Life Experiences, Relativism, Situational Ethics
We often overlook how ceremony determines what we regard as God’s Word. We learn a great deal of our Christianity by using the liturgy every week and reliving the Church Year annually. This ritual establishes the habits of the heart by which Christians live, sometimes unconsciously; and comes to serve as one of the standards we use in discerning what is the God’s Word.
The weekly liturgy passes on proven tradition, but also provides a means for modifying these customs. It’s probably a good thing that people respond very cautiously and sometimes angrily to the changes. By questioning new translations of the Lord’s Prayer, a new three- year cycle of assigned readings, or the use of modern music, they are attempting to separate good and bad tradition.
And well they should. The quality of the responses to recent posts makes clear our readers understand both the light and the dark sides of tradition. Check out this article in the National Catholic Report that Rita sent me for an example of how a misuse of tradition can distort our mission. I came to understand that in relationship to liturgy early in my ministry. Out of curiosity I marked in a Bible all the Gospel readings in the old one year-lectionary used by the liturgical churches. It immediately became clear that the passages omitted were overwhelmingly Jesus’ many, many words about money. Obviously there was some questionable judgment in establishing that hallowed tradition. It made sense to develop a new three-year cycle of readings that corrected this.
Remember I am trying to offer insight into how we “discern God’s voice. Are we hearing God, demons, or our own selfish ambitions?” (To use Juan’s words) I am observing, “The duty to thoughtfully pursue one’s course in life according to what is best (and often difficult), seems to get lost in a barrage of catchwords, slogans, peer-pressure inductions and politically motivated agendas. That, coupled with a frantic consumerism that equates wealth with happiness and sees possessions as assertion of self-worth, would seem to be antithetical to the principles of Christianity, born in austerity, grown in adversity and, with Luther, “Reformed” against such things as the ungodly accumulation of wealth by those sworn to holy poverty.”(To use Lupe’s words) I’m suggesting we sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously, use the interplay between canon, creed, custom, ceremony, clergy, and community to gain clarity. None of these alone are enough. Each operates as check and balance on the others.
You see these in our ritual. The liturgical churches give the clergy control of the Word and Sacraments, but also recognize it is the “work of the people” (community). It should always enable the laity to express themselves, reflecting their tastes rather than that of the clergy. Heavens, even today a number of the clergy prefer to do it all in Latin. Talk about the nonsense of tongue speaking. The ceremony also uses assigned lessons and the church year (canon) to prevent clergy from focusing only on their own opinion and tastes. It would be much more difficult for televangelists to use the same few texts all the time and to twist Christian truth if they used the classic worship patterns.
The critical question should be whether the liturgy proclaims the Gospel in word and action. For instance, it is far more important to share Paul’s concern that a Eucharist teaches participants to share their food (I Corinthians 11: 17-22) than to insist on a certain kind of music. The current argument about whether contemporary music is acceptable too often is about people’s tastes and fashions rather than Christian proclamation.
Next week I’ll go in another direction by looking at the role of the clergy.
Tags: Ceremony, Habits of the Heart., Liturgy, Means of Grace, Ritual
Bob and Juan’s comments have led me to change my schedule for examining how we determine if our inspirations are worthy to be judged God’s Word. Bob continues to remind us there is always going to be differences of opinion, especially in our time of radical democracy. Juan, representing thoughtful evangelicals who are pretty much ignored by Mainliners and Roman Catholics, reminds us the center of World Christianity has shifted from us to them, from the Northern to the Southern and the Western to the Eastern Hemispheres. He cautions, “My point is that not all peoples have a positive view of tradition and history, and they have good reason for it”. Lutherans should appreciate this, because their founder said much the same thing when he attacked Roman Catholic tradition, such as indulgences.
While wholly agreeing with Bob and Juan, I want to make sure we do not throw out the baby with the bathwater. I find studies showing the rise of modern technology coincides with the loss of tradition very disturbing. Some of this comes from the kind of short-sightedness President Kennedy demonstrated his 1962 Yale commencement address that called for educated people to leave behind “clashes of philosophy or ideology” that he labeled truisms, stereotypes, and clichés. He observed, “In our own time we must move on from the reassuring repetition of stale phrases to a new, difficult, but essential confrontation with reality.” He summed up this “realism” as recognizing all our problems have become “technical and administrative”. In an effort to be pragmatic, he denigrated all the wisdom of the past just as militant atheists do when they blame Christian tradition for all of our cultural conflicts. My son and I find when churches abandon all tradition, they run amok and fall prey to the dictatorial actions and unbiblical opinions of their charismatic leaders.
I think we have to be constantly separating good from bad tradition. We have to appreciate Juan’s reminder that tradition means Roman Catholic to Spanish American Evangelicals, but we must also worry about Americans who think Christian tradition means Americanism. I tremble when Sarah Palin chants, “We are only patriots who cling to our religion and guns”, especially when I hear televangelists echo her hour after hour, day after day. They demonize Obama as a socialist who might very well be the Antichrist. Their argument is being a Christian means you must be a capitalist and bear arms. Where did that come from?
The question becomes then how to separate the good from the bad, the wisdom from the self-serving ideology. While understanding with Bob that we are never going to find consensus, I still argue that we must always continue to use all parts of our tradition as checks and balances on the others. That includes non-biblical customs that have become long-established patterns of thought and behavior regulating our present practice. Sometimes we do these things, because “we have always done it this way”, but often we have always done it this way, because “it works”. These customs have become “habits of the heart” that are essential resources for discerning God’s Word. Often they represent innovations to which the Holy Spirit has led us as Jesus promised in John.
It also includes using the canon and creeds to test these customs. In the past we have done this in the debates over purgatory, the intercession of saints, celibacy, and male priests. We have to continue with customs we take for granted such as everyone of our political and social positions, our institutional organization, our denominationalism, and our liturgy. Often these are what divide the Church rather than our differing biblical interpretations. I still think this demands advocating a strong Theology of the Cross I find in the canon, even though many of you disagree. I don’t know any other way to free Christianity from Western culture.
Next week I’ll look at one of the customs that provokes a lot of conflict in our day, the cult with its liturgy and music.
Tags: Americanism, Custom, Tradition
With all the focus on the Bible (canon) we often pass over how the creeds go even further in determining what is and what is not the Word of God. In some ways the canon is like the Constitution and the creeds like the Bill of Rights. The early Church kept adding phrases to the Apostles’ Creed to resolve conflicts that developed. The Nicene and Athanasian Creeds were written in the fourth century to settle disputes over major doctrines.
The creeds also establish priorities for the way we read the canon. For instance, they adopt a Trinitarian understanding of God that is not completely explicit in the canon. They also emphasize the New over the Old Testament and the Gospel over the letters. Even more they make clear we are to understand the Gospels proclaim Jesus is God whose critical actions are his Passion and Resurrection rather than his miracles and teachings.
At the same time, I do not think the creeds demand complete agreement on every last item. Like the canon and Lord’s Prayer they are primarily tools for worship that express the views and practices around which the community can comfortably gather. I always am uneasy about people who feel they can not be baptized or share the Communion meal, because they do not rigidly believe certain rigid interpretations of every last phrase in the creeds.
In fact, this is one of the most common problems in writing modern creeds. Groups use them to champion their understanding of a doctrine as if it is the “one and only” way to be a Christian. For instance, we sometimes forget that American Fundamentalism is a modern creed based on the 12 volumes sent to every U.S. religious leader in 1909 by two wealthy oilmen, Lyman and Milton Stewart. This creed insists Christians must not only believe 1) that the Bible is inspired by God, but also that every last word is inerrant, 2) that Jesus is divine but also that the essential proof of this is his virginal biological birth, 3) that Jesus died for our sins but also that this is must be explained by the substitution atonement theory that claims God demanded someone had to be punished for humanity’s sin, 4) that God raised Jesus in a bodily resurrection but also that this includes his literal return on the Mount of Olives in the Second Coming, and 5) that miracles appear in the Bible but also that you must accept the objective reality of everyone of them.
Clearly the canon and the creeds help us determine if an inspiration is really God’s Word by providing standards we can use. At the same time, I think it is very important we see these standards have a great deal of flexibility so they can be relevant even 2000 years after their writing. So far the most frequent concern expressed by readers of this study has been the need to appreciate how God’s Word applies to particular times and places. These readers talk of the need for the faith to help people live their lives in the real world. Preserving this flexibility built into canon and creed goes a long way in addressing their concern.
Next week I’ll take a look at how other parts of the tradition play their role.
Tags: Creed, Fundamentalism
The early church’s most obvious standard for controlling charisma is the canon or Bible. She approved certain sacred writings as norms for judging other versions of God’s Word. When I read how much the excluded gospels move from the fantastic to the bizarre, I appreciate her wisdom.
Most people seem to believe the books of the canon are our only sacred writings. It is probably more accurate to describe them as the foundational texts that can be used to evaluate if others have any sacred worth. Canon means a kind of “yard stick” It measures things.
A problem develops if we regard the canon alone as God’s Word. Perhaps unintentionally we act as if God spoke 2000 years ago and then went silent. “Bible-believers” seem to do this when they make the canon the object of their faith rather than the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
This problem has been exacerbated in our time, because many people accept a fundamentalist understanding that ignores the canon’s nature and function. They give each word equal weight, relinquishing any means to resolve the different traditions and contradictory teachings in the 66 books. We all, including Satan himself, can cite scripture for our purposes. Indeed, right thinking people can disagree when reading the same passage.
In addition, the scientific mindset of our time has difficulty dealing with religious mystery that is ambiguous by nature. Demanding precision, a one and only” interpretation, it does not know how handle Jesus’ counsel to use love as the spirit of the law in confronting new problems. If we regard the Bible as a guide book offering specific directions, then we are helpless if it does not address contemporary issues. Many take this stance, claiming we have no right to address any problem that does not appear in the Bible.
All of this is compounded by the electronic media that uses texts in a very fluid fashion, encouraging a cut and paste mentality that reads the canon in terms of “what works for me”. Bible-believers can be as selective as anyone else when they use portions to buttress their own preconceived opinions. Many observe that this mentality has led to customized and even consumer- centered religion.
In the coming weeks, I’ll examine how the canon serves us well when it is supplemented and balanced by creed, clergy, custom, ceremony, community. Even though it remains the most basic of these elements, we fool ourselves when we pretend anyone of us uses canon alone.
Tags: Bible, Bible-believers., Canon, Sacred Writing
Paul includes the “utterance” of wisdom and knowledge among the gifts of the Spirit or charismas (I Corinthians 12: 4-11). Over the years these have been described as just about any kind of direct inspiration- from a person feeling something inside her is saying to take a certain action- to a televison preacher claiming he received a “word of knowledge” from God demanding he promise his viewers they will be rewarded a hundredfold if they send seed money to his ministry- to first century prophets channeling God’s words to their congregations.
The inspiration of the Spirit is certainly basic for determining what we accept as God’s Word. However, when we depend on charisma alone, there is no way to determine which charisma is correct if two people claim God gave them contradictory messages. This has become a critical problem in our times for at least four reasons:
1) The radical democracy that permeates all areas of our society regards any standard that could help us make a decision as nothing more than individual opinion. Conflicts can be resolved by polling these opinions and going with the majority, but most Christians appreciate this does not always work in faith matters. God’s Word has seldom won popularity contests. They also find going with the majority can prohibit prophetic preaching, because critics can accuse the prophet of failing to reflect their parishioners’ views.
2) Authority has been replaced by celebrity that emphasizes image rather than substance and feeling rather than reason. The one who can buy the most exposure and speak the loudest and longest too often carries the majority.
3) Restorative Churches, such as the Pentecostal and Free Churches, have become very popular. They claim they return to the first century charisma and admit this means they reject all 2,000 years of tradition as corrupted. Many of their leaders believe their personal opinions represent God’s Word, because he has “anointed” them. Often they feature enthusiasm as tongue speaking that uses the language of the angels, prophecy that channels God’s message in the vernacular, and miracles. Because their celebrity leadership dominates television, our government often uses them to represent the Christian Church.
4) The power of other religions that insist their original inspirational level offers prescriptions for how modern society should operate. Islam and Mormonism resist any evolution from their original leaders and their writings. This position has led to cultural clashes.
The early Church faced very similar problems in regulating charisma. Now as then the question is how to follow Paul’s advice, “Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good” (I Thessalonians 5: 19- 21). We should not fear the innovations of the Spirit, but we also can not allow inspiration to be a card that trumps everything else. If we do that, we are left with a “what works for me” mentality.
The first century Church used canon, creed, clergy, custom, ceremony, and community in an appropriate balance to regulate charisma. Marlin suggests we add chronology, because we are always struggling with change and continuity. I’ll try to examine all of these in the coming weeks.
Tags: Celebrity, Charisma, Radical Democracy, Restorative Churches
Throughout our history the Church has determined what it accepts as the Word of God by balancing many elements of tradition: charisma, canon, creed, clergy, ceremony, custom, and community. She is constantly correcting the problems that develop when one or more of these gets out of balance. For instance, the Reformation attacked the Roman Church’s use of custom in a way that ignored the canon. Martin Luther tried to correct this by giving canon authority over custom. The problem was he, too, upset the balance by speaking of scripture “alone”.
Many of our modern problems stem from failing to appreciate the need for appropriate balance. Let’s take a few weeks to examine the problem. First, definitions are necessary.
Charisma: inspiration such as people feeling they are filled with God’s Spirit when they speak to either a one- time event or an ongoing issue.
Canon: the approved sacred writings from the past (The Bible) that are used as standards for judging claims for God’s Words in the present.
Creed: statements summarizing the very basic beliefs about God’s Word.
Custom: practices and teachings that have proved their value for a long time.
Clergy: officers given authority to proclaim and supervise God’s Word.
Ceremony: ritual that regularly repeats proven practices.
Community: the gathering of believers that Jesus defines as two or three gathered in his name.
If you understand these 7 “cs” work together, you can readily see the limitations of our modern denominations that limit our ability to speak God’s Word in unity. The Pentecostal churches promote undisciplined charisma, the Lutherans undisciplined canon, the Fundamentalists an undisciplined version of a modern creed, the Roman Catholics undisciplined clergy, the Episcopalians undisciplined ceremony, the Baptists undisciplined community, and everyone of us undisciplined custom.
Of course, my take is far, far too general. I simply want to emphasize that we have problems when we elevate one element of this tradition in a way that minimizes or ignores the others. My use of “undisciplined” simply points to this. I’ll get more precise about how each of these elements function in the coming weeks. Feel free to ask questions, make corrections, and expand my observation in the “comments”.
Tags: Canon, Ceremony, Charisma, Clergy, Community, Creed, Custom, Word of God
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