I’ve got a new post up at the Cafe–but regualrs here have already seen the meat of it. It’s a lightly edited version of the piece below on imminence, transcendence, and the place of guitars in worship.
Unfortunately, after reading over the copy again, I now have “Gather Us In” stuck in my head…
The other night, I read Lil’ H a title we picked up from the library this past weekend: Dora Saves Mermaid Kingdom.
***Warning: Spoilers Ahead!***
Well, as much as there can be surprises and spoilers in a Dora book… :-D
In this particular work, our intrepid bilingual heroine assists mermaids whose kingdom is imperiled by a mean octopus who dumps trash in the ocean. The mermaid princess tries to get a magic wishing crown to set things to right but is captured by the mean octopus. Dora finds the crown, transforms into a mermaid, and uses the magic wish power in an attempt to clean up the kingdom. The wish is not entirely successful, so she gathers her mermaid friends to clean things up. She then saves the mermaid princess and the octopus is left covered in his own filth.
There were two things here I liked:
Overall, however, the book left me a bit annoyed… The offense? green-washing. The perpetrators? The entertainment industry with the collusion of the latte liberal set.
The take-away message for little children is not a bad one: trash doesn’t belong in our oceans; we need to clean up trash when we see it even if we didn’t put it there.
The take-away for parents and anyone old enough to see through the paper-thin allegory is what bothers me: we are righteous when we raise children’s consciousness about environmental issues; we are righteous in our disdain for greedy corporate interests (obviously played in this case by the trash-dumping octopus).
This message and this way of framing the debate and the moral meaning is a common one from the left-leaning entertainment industry. The theme of righteous good guy taking on illegal and unprincipled corporate trash dumpers is a staple of both action films (I’m thinking, for example, of an unfortunate Steven Segal movie here among others) and children’s material (I believe this was the central conflict in the cute penguin movie “Happy Feet” from a few years back). It’s one favored by latte liberals, but I find it fundamentally flawed. Yes, our kids need to hear environmental messages but this one misses a much more important and much deeper issue.
In a lull in the conversation about Lil’ G’s school day last night at dinner, I brought up the book. We talked for a little bit about two simple questions:
An obvious answer here is: the same place.
Who’s the real villain in this story? Is it the octopus (yes, certainly), or is it also the people who consume “disposable” items that are in turn thrown away for the octopus and his ilk to dump willy-nilly?
Latte liberals and the entertainment industry like the idea that trash shouldn’t be dumped in the environment. Not in the oceans, not in our forests–not even in our landfills. And there’s much to commend this. But they pass in silence over the deeper and more fundamental issue: We are the ones who generate the trash that gets dumped. The key isn’t bashing an easy and obvious target–those greedy corporate interests (thankfully the lattes were paid for by bartering hand-woven organically-grown hemp items; God forbid our latte-sippin’ superiors actually work for corporate employers…)–rather the key is raising awareness about what we do and how our unthinking acts of consumption and disposal cause the problem in the first place.
So I asked Lil’ G what Dora and her friends could do to reduce their trash. She told me (quite earnestly) that they need to do more recycling and composting. M then explained that this why we pack her lunch in her lunch box in washable containers rather than “disposable” bags and juice-boxes. (Yes, I’m indulging in some smug self-righteousness here…) That’s the message that I’d like to see the entertainment industry take up–but, hey, they too are an industry that depends on consumption and disposable content for their survival.
One of our new family rituals here is morning composting time. Before G gets on the bus for kindergarten, we take take our accumulated food scraps out to the compost pile, bury them, water the pile if needed, and check in on our small contingent of herbs. (I’ve got bugs in my basil and yellowing on my lavender; too, our compost pile has acquired a small swarm of fruit-flies—something’s not right in our method….)
So, last night for bedtime after reading about Princess Jasmine we read a nice children’s book (with great watercolors) on composting, Compost! Growing Gardens from your Garbage by Linda Glaser. My favorite part was the way Lil’ H kept interrupting me as I read: “Hey! I do dat! I compost!”
I noted today’s Daily Episcopalian shortly after perusing the great comments on Third Millennium Catholic’s call for a new Lux Mundi. What struck me (and makes in appearance in the comment I left at the Cafe) is that this Anglican conflict of ours is so often presented by the talking heads as an either/or: either Liberal Christianity or conservative Reformed evangelicalism. But there are so many more options out there.
The main problem with the present options is what Third Mill Catholic brings up in the comments: There is not to my knowledge a sound version of orthodox theology that adequately and systemically engages current science. Most Liberal Protestantism deals with it by retreating from it; most conservative evangelicalism deals with it by ignoring it. And yet—nature, creation, incarnate reality are bound up with the heart of the Christian proclamation.
I don’t know the answer, but in thinking through the options—and in the interest of presenting options, I thought I’d resurrect an old post from three years ago that addresses some of these issues:
So, in an
earlier post I discussed some of the historical and exegetical issues
surrounding the formation of the creeds. However, stating the origins
of a thing and discussing its current applications are two different
things. To summarize briefly, the creeds were developed to serve as a
meta-narrative that located the key parts of the Faith by securing a
literal meaning to select portions of biblical narrative, specifically
parts in question by heretical groups. Fast-forward 2,000 years and
here we are today… [One quick procedural point: When I think of the
creeds my first thought is of the Apostles’ Creed rather than the
Nicene. Thus, it’s the one I work off of instinctively.]
The creeds were formed in a different age with radically different
philosophical conceptions and scientific notions. They are based in a
foreign way of understanding literary documents and of conceptualizing
religious communities. They functioned in certain ways then, how do we
use them now? Have these categories changed too much for them to be
useful?
Intellectually, the biggest problem that I can see with using the
creeds in the modern church is a disconnect in worldviews, especially
the understanding of the physical world. The modern American worldview
is heavily conditioned by Western science and preeminently Newtonian
physics. (As cool as quantum physics may be, it hasn’t penetrated to
the daily assumptions of normal people yet and probably never will.)
The two most important point of this belief system in relation to the
creeds are these: 1) scientific theories are verified by observation of
reproducible data and 2) reliable science is predictive, which follows
logically from 1. That is to say, if I throw a quarter up in the air
one hundred times, I can be confident that it will come back down.
Furthermore, if I have a steady hand and a good eye, I can consistently
throw it in such a way that I can more or less describe its arc by
means of a mathematical equation. These assumptions form the bedrock of
our understanding of reality.
What does this have to do with the creeds? Just this: the majority
of the beliefs in the creed, especially those concerning the first two
persons of the Trinity, deal specifically with completely
non-reproducible, unpredictable events many of which contradict what we
know from our quotidian experience of reproducible data. Once again,
that’s to say, I know how babies are made and I know how dead bodies
act. The creeds fly in the face of that knowledge. Or, to push a
different edge, I don’t know how the world was created and will never
have the opportunity to observe the whole process again. And I don’t
know scientifically what it means to have a God-Man and how his body
would or would not share the same biochemical structures as the rest of
us. In other words, these events are not repeatable and we have no data
to prove or disprove the creedal statements except by analogy to
repeatable phenomena. We cannot directly access either the moment or
acts of creation or the resurrection. At least with creation we can
study what remains but even that can not answer questions of causes—it
will only demonstrate mechanisms.
The problem, then, is a conflict of worldviews. A literal
understanding of the creeds as they were originally intended to be
understood is in conflict with a modern scientific worldview. Now we
must ask what to do with this conflict.
In order to resolve the conflict and to achieve consistency of
thought, one worldview must win and supplant the other. Thus on one
hand we have those who pick the biblical/creedal worldview over the
scientific worldview. Young Earth Creationism, Intelligent Design, a
general suspicion that physical scientists are part of an atheistic
conspiracy against God and the Family seem to be the fruits of this
side. On the other hand are those who pick the scientific worldview
over the biblical/creedal worldview. And yes, this view has a long and
distinguished history in Western intellectual circles from the Deists
on forward to the likes of Bishop Spong and clergy who say the creeds
but confess to believing very little of them or taking them only in an
allegorical sense. Many if not most of the people in the seminaries
that I have attended or been around have been quite congenial to this
second view. But are these really our only options?
One of my favorite conceits in the Science Fiction movies of yore
was the preferred manner for the unarmed Space Hero to destroy the
Killer Robot hard on his heels. It’s easy enough to do—just yell out
some sort of conundrum (what rhymes with “orange”?)—and the Killer
Robot would lurch to a halt, smoke pouring out of convenient orifices.
Ever seen anyone try that when being pursued with a guy with a gun?
Didn’t think so. He might think about it for a second, shrug, and start
shooting…
My point is this: human beings live in a messy, contingent,
incarnational world. Things are always more complicated than they seem.
Humans are fully capable of working simultaneously within multiple and
conflicting worldviews. This came home to me most strongly when I first
read Bultmann’s classic Jesus Christ and Mythology as an undergrad; the same thought is expressed in his essay from this book. He writes:
Man’s knowledge and mastery of the world have advanced
to such an extent through science and technology that it is no longer
possible for anyone seriously to hold the New Testament view of the
world-in fact, there is no one who does. What meaning, for instance,
can we attach to such phrases in the creed as “descended into hell” or
“ascended into heaven”? We no longer believe in the three-storied
universe which the creeds take for granted. The only honest way of
reciting the creeds is to strip the mythological framework from the
truth they enshrine-that is, assuming that they contain any truth at
all, which is just the question that theology has to ask. No one who is
old enough to think for himself supposes that God lives in a local
heaven. There is no longer any heaven in the traditional sense of the
word. The same applies to hell in the sense of a mythical underworld
beneath our feet. And if this is so, the story of Christ’s descent into
hell and of his Ascension into heaven is done with. We can no longer
look for the return of the Son of Man on the clouds of heaven or hope
that the faithful will meet him in the air (I Thess. 4:15ff.). …
It is impossible to use electric light and the wireless
and to avail ourselves of modern medical and surgical discoveries, and
at the same time to believe in the New Testament world of spirits and
miracles.
My response on first reading the last line was to say…but we do. We
do and can believe in contradictory things at the same time. Smoke
doesn’t belch from anywhere—we may get confused in extreme cases of
overlap, but we can live quite comfortably using insights from a
pre-scientific Christian world view to those from a contradictory
Newtonian physics perspective mingled with those from a contradictory
quantum physics perspective to those of a Platonic universe.
Specifically speaking as an American Pragmatist, I go with the
worldview that works. When I’m in “installing computer components”
mode, I’m all Newtonian physics. When I’m in “playing cards” mode, I’m
all about quantum physics and probability mechanics [which with my
pop-scientific knowledge may explain why I don’t play cards for money
;-D]. When I wonder about my salvation, I go pre-scientific all the
way.
How does this make me neither schizophrenic nor intellectually
inconsistent? Because I’m not hegemonic about any of my worldviews. I
think that they are all models that serve to describe certain
aspects of reality from certain perspectives. If I was wondering where
a quarter would go if I threw it with a certain velocity at a certain
trajectory, I feel confident that Newtonian physics could describe the
arc for me and, furthermore, that chaos theory could give me the
probability that the Newtonian equation would prove incorrect. These
equations are not reality, though; they map it and offer a way to
understand it especially when I approach it with certain questions. I
don’t think that any of these worldviews offer all of the answers to
any apprehension of reality and that gives me the freedom to switch
between them when I need to.
So—where does that get me with the creeds? I believe the creeds
literally. Scientifically, I can’t tell you how they work. I have no
idea how to model the Ascension mathematically—which is the part that
ties my logical brain into the worst knot. It also doesn’t bother me
that much. As the only humanities guy in a family of hard scientists I
take the sciences seriously. I also know their down-side when they are
taken as a philosophical system; they offer only an empirical
materialism of cause and effect. It’s the epicureans redivivus.
I find them lacking in power. And maybe power is the point. In living
between worldviews I have found a certain amount of power in a
scientific worldview, the kind of power that confirms its truth. I can
calculate events and have the events turn out a certain way. I have
found the beauty of equations replicated in microscopic corners of the
world. But the same is also true of the religious, pre-scientific
worldview; I have experienced the power of the resurrection in my life,
of the communion of the saints, and God as creator in ways that verify
their truth. While the scientific worldview has power in its realm it
cannot touch the spiritual side of my life the way that the creedal
truths do. (And the same holds true the other way–science offers far
more compelling arguments in the realm of things material.)
As a result when in the field of personal belief I experience a
conflict between the creedal worldview and the scientific worldview, I
go with the creeds. I cannot explain them scientifically, I cannot
explain the mechanics of the Trinity but I believe it and I believe
that it matters for how I live and move in the world. One of the
reasons that I allow the creeds to trump science too is because of
hope. I hope that there is more to life and existence than empirical
materialism. Faith in the creeds allows a belief in the mundus plenior,
a world where reality cannot be bounded only by what can be weighed and
measured. There are wonders in the world that our science does not
explain. Maybe some day it will but even if it does it will not
diminish my belief in something beyond the purely physical.
In short, I’m proposing an active cognitive dissonance. Not an
unthinking one that does not recognize the conflict between worldviews,
but one that both notes it and appreciates that all of our worldviews
are reductionistic models of a reality that we can never completely
quantify or wrap our heads around. Call it a creative contradiction.
So, what do you think? Does it work?
And now, a response to the Scotist’s latest writing on the proper regard for the Ever-blessed Virgin Mary…
Once again, the issue at hand is whether awarding the BVM the title of “co-redemptrix” should be held dogmatically by Anglicans. He is arguing for; I am arguing against. In this latest post he starts to address my previous rebuttal in numbered sections; I shall start with him, and add section numbers as it seems appropriate.
I.
I had suggested that the notion of Mary as “co-redemptrix” might be a novelty and asked for citations from the Church Fathers (typically defined as Westerns up through Bede or Easterners up through John of Damascus, though an alternate Anglican definition is the Fathers of the first 5 centuries [yes, Bonaventure is right out…]). In reply, the Scotist provides a handful of quotes. My overall impression of them is that they tell us that great reverence was afforded the Mother of God and that she played an indispensable role in salvation history. I do not find in them, however, the notion of “co-redemptrix”. Let’s look at a few…
His first two are perhaps his best and strongest; they’re both from Irenaeus. Irenaeus was a great champion of and a well-spoken advocate for the notion of recapitulation which was a central understanding of God’s actions in salvation from the time of St Paul.
Let me break this down as best I can: Romans 5 is a key text here. In the latter half of this chapter, Paul speaks of Adam and Jesus as type and antitype. That is, Adam was the one man who sinned through disobedience. His sin of disobedience brought death to all humanity. All humanity was therefore guilty of sin and deserving of death. Jesus the Christ, the sinless, the obedient, freely gave his own life up for death—but this went against the “rules”. He did not deserve death but the gift of his death, as it were, “broke the machine” subsequently freeing humanity from the curse and condemnation of their disobedience; this is accessed through baptism which is a joining into the death and resurrection of Christ by becoming joined into his mystical body (Rom 6).
Paul thus gives us an elegant chiastic sort of structure: one pivotal man (Adam) through his action (disobedience) produces a result for all humanity (death). By embracing that result (death) out of turn, another pivotal man–yet very God–(Jesus) through his action (obedience) produces a result for all humanity (life). It’s compelling in an intellectual kind of way. (I’m open to the notion that it’s less compelling through other forms of knowledge.)
This is also seen in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul’s resurrection chapter, where he gives us the wondrous passage that we use liturgically in Eastertide as the last part of the Pascha Nostrum:
Christ is risen from the dead, *
and become the first fruits of them that slept.
For since by man came death, *
by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, *
even so in Christ shall all be made alive. Alleluia.
Irenaeus takes up this theme which he calls “recapitulation” and makes it explicit. Another key place where the Fathers found it was in the Temptation narrative in the Gospels. As his very first public act (in the Synoptics…) Jesus is tempted by Satan in the desert–just as Adam was in the garden… John Cassian and all those after him (especially Gregory the Great who popularized it) understood the three core temptations of gluttony, pride, and avarice to be the same as before; Adam was bested by these in garden, Jesus triumphed over them in the wilderness. [I’ll have to see if they all get this from Irenaeus…] The devil’s hold suffered a fatal set-back even then—the rest of Christ’s ministry accelerated the unfolding result achieving its great climax in the crucifixion and resurrection.
So—what does all this have to do with Mary? Because as Paul sees Christ as the New Adam, Irenaeus explores the notion of Mary as the New Eve.
As Eve sinned through disobedience, refusing and ignoring the command of God, this primal disobedience in the garden was reversed by Mary in the Annunciation. In Mary’s acceptance, in her obedience to God, Eve’s initial curse was undone. As Jesus “rolls-back” Adam’s disobedience, so does Mary “roll-back” Eve’s. Thus, to the degree that both Adam and Eve were participants in humanity’s primordial sin, so both Jesus and Mary factor into its overcoming.
This notion of recapitulation, therefore, is—as I see it—the single best case for arguing the Immaculate Conception and therefore Mary as “co-redemptrix”. That having been said, I’m still not convinced that this overcoming of original sin requires an immaculate conception or necessarily makes Mary a true “co-redemptrix”. Yes, true obedience to God is an act directly contrary to original sin, but—as we believe and as the Fathers testify—God’s grace strengthens us to overcome this sin; original sin itself is cleansed in Baptism and as we cleave to the Spirit received in Baptism and open ourselves to its work in our wills and ways it nerves us to reject sin and to love, fear, and trust God as we ought.
The central question for me, then, is origin and volition: was the choice of obedience at the annunciation Mary’s free, “unaided” will, or was it her choice assisted and inspired by the Spirit already at work in her life? I can’t see it any other way than the second. To my way of thinking, even Mary’s “yes” was at God’s initiative through grace. It was surely not a coerced “yes”, but the prime mover for the action, its true origin, was in God and not Mary herself.
Moving right along…
The Jerome quote—part of a defense of virginity—is more of the same.
I believe the other two are as well, but I profess and plead my ignorance of the Later Greek Fathers.
Augustine—that one looks intriguing; I’ll have to hunt it down…
Origen—wow, this one would be a clincher—if Origen said what the Scotist said he said… He got tripped up on grammar here. The referent of the sentence is John, the beloved disciple, the one who leaned his head on the breast of Jesus and who [at the foot of the cross] received Mary as his mother from Jesus. The point that Origen is making is that this John is the one most qualified to write the deepest and most penetrating of the gospels because he was the most intimate with Jesus—not because he received the ability to understand Jesus through his mother.
So, this showing has promise particularly in the case of recapitulation but, as the Scotist admits, nothing here seals the deal.
[As a sidenote, you keep referring to the “fifth Marian dogma”. I’m assuming you are using this to refer to the “co-redemptix” notion. Where does this numbering come from—and what are the other four?]
II.
I brought up earlier the conjunction of topics found in Vatcian II’s Lumen Gentium, where it produced a statement on both the Church/ecclesial bodies and the BVM and I suggested that elevating Marian doctrines to the point of dogma without understanding the wider implications was a dangerous business. This point the Scotist concedes. I do want to say a little more about it, though…
Theologically, I’m fairly conservative. One of the reasons that I am conservative is because I fear the consequences of hasty change to any part of the Church’s central proclamation because none of it is truly independent. It’s an interconnected web, a seamless garment. This always proved to be one of the eye-opening moments for the students in my Church Year class—and we generally hit it when we got to what I affectionately refer to as the Goth Triduum—Halloween, All Saints, and All Souls. These days—and the problem of the Protestant co-opting of All Saints as All Souls—can’t be understood without understanding the Church’s theology of death, of the communion of the saints, of Baptism. For many of them, that discussion was their first glimpse of the web of theological connections that is orthodox Christian thought; playing with one part affects everything around it and linked to it by thousands of years of speculation, meditation, and life experience of the reality of the Living God.
III.
Moving along, the Scotist addresses my distinction between doctrine and dogma. This, as far as I’m concerned, is why this is worth fighting over. Doctrine is what may be held; dogma is what must be held. To put it another way, it’s possible to have a doctrinally minimalist Christianity and to still have it recognizable as orthodox Christianity. For example, it’s possible to lop off many of the doctrines and practices relating to the saints and the sacraments and still be “Christian” as described by the Scriptures and the Creeds.
I think it’s a lot more fulfilling and a lot more fun to have these, but I’ll recognize Reformed and Baptist folk as fellow members of the mystical Body even if they don’t sing the right antiphons on the Benedictus for the feast of St Ethelreda. But “dogma” means that it must be held in order for it to be a valid Christianity. A “dogma” is the kind of thing that if you went, in the Spirit, to an orthodox mother and father who died before its establishment and asked, “Hey, do you believe X”, they’d respond, “Well, of course—but that’s so obvious we’ve never had to say it…”
Would the great Baptist, would the great Reformed, forebearers respond this way in regard to the BVM as “co-redemptrix”—and are you prepared to cut them off from the Body of Christ if they answer in the negative on that account?
While the Scotist says: “There is no reason, as an Anglican and an Episcopalian, I have to convert him and others to belief in the fifth dogma as dogmatic, however desirable conversion would be” he is, in fact, mistaken: that’s exactly what dogma means. If he wants to talk about “co-redemptrix” as a doctrine, then he’d be absolutely correct and I’d have no problem with his decision.
Dogma is the fighting word here.
He closes by borrowing a notion from Rahner, the anonymous Christian, and suggests that there may be anonymous Marians. I hate to say it, but this completely rubs me the wrong way. If a roshi told me that I was an anonymous Buddhist, or if I were told by an imam that I was an anonymous Muslim, I’d thank them nicely for their complement of my character but feel a bit annoyed at their condescension. To be told that I am acceptable to the degree to which I participate in their system of belief while not knowing it strikes me as a bit patronizing.
In conclusion, then, I thank the Scotist for his latest effort. I receive with gladness his nice package of patristic quotes and commend the doctrine of recapitulation to you for your consideration. However, I find nothing here that persuades me that the BVM as “co-redemptrix” belongs at the level of dogma. Rather I am persuaded by his use of the term, that the Scotist is improperly using the term, equating doctrine with dogma, when historically and theologically dogma is not equivalent but refers to a mandatory rather than optional doctrine.
Whilst poking around websites of churches in my new area (with some helpful pointers from Brian M…) I came across this very nice write-up an a rule of life from an Anglican perspective.
I say “from an Anglican perspective” because it properly begins with the rhythms of Mass and Office shaped around classical prayerbook spirituality, then proceeds from there.
M and I have been talking for a while about a family rule; I’ve been thinking more and more about a personal rule that fits inside of the former. (Actually–that’s one of our key findings so far—a family rule needs to have the openness to embrace different personal rules within it.)
We’ve both been hitting the gym a lot more since our move (more on that later) and I was confronted quite sharply yesterday. I set the treadmill for 35 minutes and about halfway through said to myself, “you know, I’ll just do 30 today…” To be completely honest the change wasn’t because I was hurting, it wasn’t because I couldn’t or shouldn’t do—it was because it was hard and I didn’t want to do. Then it hit me: I’m a physical fitness sarabaite! (I figure that since we’ve joined the Y I no longer fall under “gyrovague”…)
I need a rule and perhaps a session with a decent trainer to help me get it set up—and with the electronic tracking system I know that the trainer can log on at anytime and check my fidelity…
As with my physical fitness, so with my spiritual fitness…
A rule, a spiritual director: both good things—and a new start in a new place is the best possible time to get it going.
This is a response to David E in his comment on the last post. I started a comment but it got out of hand, so here it is in an expanded form.
Read here on the St Louis Jesuits. As the first adopters of vernacular music in a vernacular idiom for Roman Catholic worship, the music of the St Louis Jesuits holds an appeal (and a disdain) for some not based on its musical or theological properties. For what it’s worth, I think the musical and theological qualities of much of this repertoire is rather limited. However, it is of immense symbolic importance, especially for Roman or Rome-leaning people (like some progressive Anglo-Catholics) of a certain age (read: Baby-Boomers) who were coming of age in the Vatican II years and its aftermath. That is, their attachment to the music is due to what it represents–the American Catholic Church getting to do things its way , a new generation literally getting its voice heard and overturning old ways of doing things. Now that a new “new generation” is rising, certain elements are in classic back-lash mode and despise SLJ music for precisely the reasons their parents loved it. I’ll admit to having one foot in this camp.
To avoid dwelling in knee-jerk generational generalizations, I’d rather cut to what I see as the real reason why this is a fight and/or why a fight exists–and should exist.
It’s not really about guitars and folk songs or not-guitars and not-folk songs, rather what lies at the center of the argument (as I see it) is competing notions of immanence and transcendence and their place in divine worship. Should church music sound like secular music? Why or why not? Speaking personally, I like guitars quite a lot whether it is in classic country or the virtuosity of Van Halen, Hendrix, Gibbons, Morelli or others. But that doesn’t mean I want to hear that style of music in church. (I mentioned this briefly in my critique of a U2charist we attended a while back.) I generally don’t like American Folk Revival music from the 60’s and 70’s anyway; I especially don’t want to hear that style in church.
For me, it’s too immanent; I crave something more transcendent. Some have argued that people can generally be grouped as Platonists or Aristotelians. That is, they either have a sense of reality as something “out there” or of reality as something “really here” intimately bound up with daily mundanities. I intuit that the same is true of spirituality. Some find their connection with God as the God who is immanent and bound up in the holiness of quotidian mundane life. Others find that connection in the God of the transcendent who is “out there” and Other and speaks a word of challenge against what we think is our mundane life.
Both sorts can learn from each other; both sorts need to learn from each other. But a basic orientation one way or the other will still endure.
I’m the second kind. I’m a Platonist by natural inclination. I find God “out there” and in the transcendent and in the different and in the things that shocking me out of my business-as-usual way of living and, through those experiences, can find God and the Hoy in the mundane and the everyday in the ways that I can identify God shocking and surprising me towards transcendence.
As a result, I want my worship to be transcendentally oriented. I want it to help me get in connection with the God “out there” so that I can learn the feel, the touch, the taste of the Other and transcendent God in order that I might recognize that same God in my daily eating, breathing, and moving. Chant is to the ear what incense is to the nose what stained glass and icons are to the eye: culturally conditioned signs of the transcendent but—cutting through the culturally-based significance—vehicles that truly assist me to touch the face of God.
That’s why I don’t want guitars in my service.
And that’s why I understand that other people want them—and need them.
The other side is that I sang for a couple of years in seminary in a Catholic Mass choir that did Marty Haugen’s Mass of Creation with a guitar front-center. (i know; most rad-trads hate Haugen—I don’t. I think its better than a lot of the alternatives [especially Metho-Baptists worship settings ones I’ve experienced].) I’ve served and preached at folk services. I’ve even led with guitar in hand a Taize-style service with guitar and recorder.
Yes, there can be a place for the guitar. Yes, it can be done well, reverently, worshipfully.
But it’s not my taste. And when I’m choosing a congregation where I worship—especially given the recognition that as the spouse of a priest or if I become a priest myself I will not have any choice in the matter—I will choose a service without guitars.
Shout-out to bls for the spelling corrections… ;-)
Looking for a new church home here has been…an experience. We’ve look at three churches over the past three Sundays. The first two were standard middle-of-the-road broad church parishes. The bonus was that we knew folks at both and our friends preached both weeks, giving good, strong, biblically and theologically grounded sermons. It’s just–the liturgy wasn’t quite what we prefer. Nothing *wrong* with it, it just didn’t fit with who we are.
So last Sunday we explored the self-proclaimed Anglo-Catholic parish in the area.
Oh my.
My first sign that we might be in for a time was when I spotted a guitar on a stand next to the priest’s seat. I was afraid it would get picked up and utilized in a kitschy St. Louis Jesuits type number during the offertory or communion.
It didn’t.
No—it got used during the sermon.
And the congregation was made to sing along as the priest strummed a southern gospel song. And the sermon was best described as “here are some things I thought were interesting that I encountered last week”. While a few of them weren’t bad not only did they not cohere—this went on for over a half hour…
It went down-hill from there.
Confession and other bits from Rite III. Uninformed liturgical cherry-picking of liturgical gestures during the Eucharist. The feared St Louis Jesuit numbers during the communing of the faithful. Etc.
There was earnest discussion in the car on the way home of attending at the convent…
Given child-care and children’s education concerns, though, we’ll probably head to one of the broad church parishes for now.
The Anglican Scotist put forward some thoughts on how Anglicans can share the wealth of Marian reflection with our protestant brethren. It has occasioned some thoughtful reflections from Christopher as well as a few dribbles from me. In his latest round, the Scotist takes issue with my comments, arranging them under three headings. I shall deal with these in turn.
I.
The Scotist takes issue with my deployment of the early history of devotion to the BVM. He argues that the origins of devotional practice need not have a major bearing on the shape of doctrines concerning the same person, especially as they develop over time. I would agree with the Scotist in principle. I do think, though, that had a doctrine this major been held by the universal church, it would have left its mark in the history of devotion—and that’s where I’m lacking the evidence.
I prefer to take what I consider a Vincentian view of the development of doctrine that is, there is a fundamental body of truth handed over at the time of the apostles. As time as progressed, as errors have emerged, as problems have arisen, we have elaborated on truths already contained within that fundamental body. To use the metaphor, we have added detail and flesh to the body—not an extra arm or leg.
The reason I point to the early devotion to the BVM is that I see “co-redemptrix” as a fairly major step. Is it indeed contained within the original body of truth in nascent form? Since I do not find it in the fist-millennium forms with which I am familiar, I do regard it with suspicion. Show me the evidence, Scotist, that this was held by the undivided Church, and I’ll be happy to consider it more deeply.
I’ll happily hold to the high view of Mary contained in, say, Bede’s Homily I.3 on the Annunciation. He indeed affirms that the BVM dwelt in a special state with regard to sin when he writes:
“The power of the Most High overshadowed the blessed mother of God because when the Holy Spirit filled her heart, he tempered for her every surge of fleshly concupiscence, he thoroughly cleansed her from temporal desires, and with heavenly gifts he sanctified her mind along with her body.”
However, I just as surely agree with him when a few lines later he states:
“Indeed, we human beings are all conceived in iniquity and born in moral faults; however by God’s granting it, as many of us are preordained to eternal life as are reborn out of water and the Holy Spirit. In truth, our Redeemer alone, who deigned to become incarnate for us, was thereupon born holy because he was conceived without iniquity. He was born the Son of God since he was conceived of a virgin through the working of the Holy Spirit.”
While holding the BVM in special esteem and regarding her as cleansed by sin—as we all are in Baptism when the Holy Spirit is bestowed on us, and it taking root in her perhaps more firmly and fully than in me—he denies the doctrine (currently held by the Romans as dogma) of the Immaculate Conception of the BVM that holds her guiltless of any taint of original sin.
II.
The Scotist takes notice of something that I pointed to in my comments—the exegetical and theological connection between Mary and the Church. He sees nothing wrong with this connection and thinks that it bolsters his point. I don’t see anything wrong with the connection either—but it behooves him to tread quite a bit more careful when and where he does not see implications that he does not intend. The Roman Catholic Church takes this connection quite seriously. Indeed, the current edition of the catechism contains a subtitle: “Mary—Eschatological Icon of the Church” (preceding Para. 972). To what degree do the characteristics of the icon pertain to its object? What is resemblance and what reality? To put a finer point on it, the Second Vatican Council initially planned to produce a statement on the BVM. Indeed–it did so, but not as a separate statement. Rather, it was rolled into Lumen Gentium, the statement on the nature of the Church and its relationship with other “ecclesial bodies”. Do you think, then, that dogmas concerning Mary can be considered atomistically apart from their wider implications? What light, for instance, does the dogma of the Immaculate Conception throw upon the dogma of an infallible Church? I don’t know myself—I’m still working through it—but this is another reason for my calls for caution.
III.
The Scotist then attempts to answer my main issue. And does not. He does describe well the differences between Abraham and Mary—and I don’t disagree. He produces a nice reflection on seeing with the heart of Mary–again, I don’t disagree. But what he has produced here is a fine show of devotion—and does not support thereby why Anglicans should embrace Marian dogma. Because that’s the real sticking point.
Therefore, I’ll try to be more clear in this response than in the pat and lay out specifically my objection to his initial post, an objection still unanswered.
IV.
I’ll begin with a rough and ready definition: a doctrine is a belief that we hold about the faith; a dogma is a doctrine that we must hold about the faith. The Roman Catechism is more specific, defining it as “[truths], in a form obliging the Christian people to an irrevocable adherence of faith,…contained in divine Revelation or when it proposes, in a definitive way, truths having a necessary connection with these.” (para. 88). Therefore, dogmas are absolute and binding in a way that the more general term doctrine does not require. I am willing to identify and entertain the doctrines of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of the BVM; I reject them as dogma. That is, they do not have the same character as the dogmatic doctrines of the Incarnation, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection—or the identification of the BVM as Theotokos, the God-bearer.
The Scotist, in his original post, pushes for Anglo-Catholic reception and promulgation of the Roman doctrine-which-some-push-as-dogma of the BVM as “Co-Redemptrix”. As several of the quotes he provides make clear (especially that of JPII), this doctrine itself builds on the two prior Marian “dogmas”, most especially the Immaculate Conception. I contend that while these are interesting doctrines worthy of consideration, they are not true dogmas, they need not be held for one to hold the full faith of Christ Crucified—and neither is this newcomer. This is the bar the Scotist has set for himself with his own words. Perhaps he intends that we examine the doctrine—which I tend to regard as popular devotion gone awry—but this is not what he has said.
So much to do, so little time… I’m slowly working through a large backlog of things that have to get done, things I want to do now, things I may want to do in the future, and things that ought to be commented on. And yes, I’m delinquent on correspondence too—for those of you waiting on emails from me: they’re coming…
Part of the backlog involves dealing with some things that the Anglican Scotist has posted recently that I couldn’t get to due to the move(s). I’ll take the easiest first—Marian dogmas.
I treat this first because, to my mind, it’s the easiest to dispense with, and long-time readers probably already know where I’m going to go with it…
To my mind, the Scotist has once again confused devotion with doctrine. That is, yes, classically the English and Anglicans have held a high opinion of the Ever-blessed Virgin Mary and I see that as a good thing. However, why that would make us beholden to post-Scholastic doctrines with questionable roots in the Scriptures and in the tradition of the Undivided Church is beyond me. In contrast to his Scholastic/Post-Scholastic approach, I propose something much simpler and, well, a bit more early medieval…(big surprise there…)
As I’ve discussed before, Christian devotion to the saints is fundamentally about relationships and was originally modeled on social structures of Late Antiquity. (For those interested, I’m drawing on Peter Brown’s The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity. [Anastasia—what’s your take on this one?]) That is, patronage was what made the system work—getting things done, receiving justice, etc. was intimately related to who you knew in the hierarchy. Following the standard cross-cultural notion that things are above as below, “patron” saints were literally just that: folks you knew or had a special “in” with who would put in a good word to the King on your behalf. And, as we move more through Late Antiquity and enter the Early Medieval period, kings’ courts because notoriously dangerous places due to factional politics. A powerful man at court was constantly in danger of becoming too powerful; kings had to watch their backs against potential usurpers. As a result, even knowing somebody well placed was not always enough to guarantee your safety. However—there was one person at court who was safe, who would always be on the king’s side and have his ear (yes, we’re talking Latin not Byzantine here…): the king’s mother! Again, as below, so above… The Blessed Virgin Mary, as the Mother of the King, is always a good choice for an intercessor.
Thus, early devotion to the BVM as I see it was not fundamentally about doctrine. Yes, there certainly was doctrine about the BVM, but as Christopher notes, it was in relation to Christology.
The other important thing to note is something that the Scotist touches on briefly and, I think, without a full understanding of the inner workings of Marian devotion. Exegetically and then theologically, patristic and medieval sources understand Mary as the pre-eminent figure of the Church in Scripture. Mary represents the Church/Mary is the Church. I’ll give you a quick medieval exegetical for instance—look at medieval commentaries on the Song of Songs: One speaker is Christ, the other is, at turns, Mary , the Church, and the soul. There’s a fusion here that the SoS commentary tradition helped make insoluble. This fundamental connection has to understood to make full sense of Mary in the contemporary Roman Church. Without this connection, the logic seems less clear and more mysterious.
The bottom line for me is this: Yes, Anglicans should honor Mary, giving her the veneration she is due. And, as is proper with veneration distinct from worship, all veneration of the created objects in the history of our redemption (the cross, the saints, etc.) ultimately point to the Uncreated, the classical Marian text being her words to the servants (read: us) at the wedding of Cana: “Do whatever he tell you” (John 2:2). She is the God-bearer. She is the perfect exemplar of those who wish God to grow within them—we hope spiritually for what she experienced physically. She is the exemplar of the contemplative spirit in the active life who “kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Luke 2:19) and whose soul was pierced by the sword (Luke 2:35), and yet lived in the world as a wife and mother. Too, she who was the bride of God is a symbol of the Church and participates in that mystery that we live under and fumble towards.
But does this mean we must embrace modern Roman dogmas in her regard, especially the contentious issue of “co-redemptrix”? I think not. Yes, our salvation comes through her as she bore the Christ and shared with him her humanity, but redemption proper is a function of the Uncreated Godhead. If she were to be “co-redemptrix” for her role, by extension the patriarchs must also become “co-redeemers” for their role in the unfolding of salvation according to both the flesh and the spirit. (And you won’t see the Roman church pushing for that anytime soon…) So, devotion to Mary? By all means. Scholastic dogmas of Mary? Unnecessary, I think. Illicit? No, I don’t think that either—but not required.
This post started as a comment and ballooned out of control… Anglicat is a conservative comrade who keeps us updated on Anglican doings in the Land of a Thousand Lakes (um yah yah!) and posted an exchange questioning the theology contained in a sermon by her bishop. Specifically, the question was whether his sermon on last Sunday’s text (the Canaanite woman) betrayed Arian tendencies.
While the bishop may be guilty of Christological errors (I’ve not seen the sermon) there’s not enough here to convict. Chalcedon says it’s a both/and, not an either/or. See–here’s the problem… Orthodoxy walks the line between Arianism and Docetism: the first, of, course being the notion that Jesus is a creation (perhaps the first, perhaps the best, but created none the less). The second is the notion that Jesus was, in fact so God that he only seemed (Grk: dokeo) human.
In my experience liberals will, consciously or not, not tend towards the first while conservatives often tend toward the second. One of the key problems with Docetism is that it leads to what Luther calls a Theology of Glory that fundamentally misses a Theology of the Cross (I’m thinking Heidelberg Disputation, nicht war?).
Whenever we get creeped out by an overly human Jesus—a Jesus who sweated, got stinky, took craps, etc.—we should fear that we’re wandering towards docetic territory.
I completely affirm Jesus’s full divinity. And I affirm his full humanity received through his ever-blessed mother. And that’s why I’m not ready to pounce on the bishop yet. If, as Holy Scripture affirms, Christ emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, did he access the divine foreknowledge within his divine nature or did he take the Incarnation seriously enough to truly set that aside in order to actually experience life as one of us? What I suggest in no way diminishes or compromises his nature, but instead explores the depths of his humility.
Speaking from where I sit (completely human), I don’t have foreknowledge. I don’t know how things will work out. I live in anxieties and hopes and consider these to be a fundamental part of what makes us humans human. I live in a body flawed by a fallen nature and hemmed by limitations of the flesh. The first is sin and is a defect caused by man’s disobedience; the second is not–it’s a by-product of created reality. The Incarnate Christ was without sin–but by its very definition Incarnation means accepting limitations. That is, created matter forces me to be localized in time and space. I sit in my basement; I can’t at the same time be standing outside because my physical body simply doesn’t allow it. (A resurrected body is an entirely different matter and is way outside the scope of this post…) So, what limitations came with the Incarnation as a consequence of taking on human flesh? Did Jesus choose to access the full knowledge of God proper to his divine nature or did he accept the limits of his senses and experience in line with the limitations of his human nature?
Where the rubber hits the road is the cross. Did Jesus know with complete certainty that God would raise him on the third day or does he provide us with the greatest example of faith—trust that God would fulfill his righteous promise? I as a frail human cling to the hope that Christ was acting in true faith, true hope, true love, and not as an actor who already has the full script and knows with certainty how it all comes out. A Jesus who knows with certainty that all he must endure is a day or so of pain, some rest, then the return to glorious splendor seems more docetic and less human to me than a man who—through trusting completely in God—faced torture and execution for what was good, true, and holy without certain knowledge of his exaltation.
All that is a long way to say this: Chalcedon gives us a Jesus who is completely human and completely divine. What did Jesus (fore)know and when did he know it? I don’t think Scripture tells us. My rule of thumb is that if the Scriptures, Creeds, and Councils don’t tell us, then we may acceptably hold positions that remain within those bounds, suitably guided by the writings of the Fathers. In that regard, I don’t personally have a problem with a “racist Jesus”. Indeed, I think I might even prefer a racist Jesus because the episode would once again reiterate the humility of our Master: a man sent from God (to use Johannine language–not denying his divinity…) who is willing to engage, listen to, and learn from an unclean foreign woman.