This post is connect to the slowly emerging theology thing that I’m up to…

One of the deeply formative parts of growing up Lutheran was the weekly use of the Brief Order for Confession and Forgiveness out of the Lutheran Book of Worship. Most every Sunday of my theologically aware life I heard 1 John used as a call to confession: “If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves, but if we confess our sin, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The reflection caused by this verse on human sin, our recognition of it and our practices of deception are at the center of my theological anthropology. One of the enduring marks and capacities of human sin is our astounding ability to deceive ourselves.

We commit some of our greatest sins under the steadfast conviction that we are right and that we do the will of God.

We can conceive of the most ingenious ways to absolve ourselves of wrong. One of the most chilling books I read in seminary was The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide which looks at how doctors—some of whom were personally kind to the inmates intheir death camps—were psychologically able to do what they did in the name of medicine.

Based on this text, the works of John Cassian, the sayings of the  Desert Fathers and my own life experience, I’ve come to the conviction that the intellectual mind is not and cannot be relied upon as an objective judge of motives.  Given the time and the desire, we can justify almost anything to ourselves.

We need checks and balances, and that means a live community that is not enmeshed in our own reasoning processes. Even written guides are not entirely sufficient. Only real people will do—hence the Tradition’s insistence on a confessor and a spiritual director, people who—while they might be as enmeshed in their own deception as we are (though we hope not)—are not enmeshed in ours.

A preponderance of people, of course, is no guarantee that self-deception is not going on. Organizations don’t transcend human nature, they concentrate it. Organizations can be both much better than the people involved or much worse (or anywhere in between) due to this concentrating power. Organizations can perpetuate systems and logics of self-deception in the same way that individuals can. We’re all familiar with how this works through history’s familiar refrain: “I was just following orders.”

The impetus for this comes partly from my theology series and partly in relation to Dean Knisley’s post on an elevator pitch on the Gospel. (And please note that we’re shooting at two related but different objectives.)

Here it is:

Christianity is “about” participating in the very life of God through incorporation into the Body of Christ—mystically, sacramentally, and communally—which is evermore being transformed into the likeness and mind of Christ in thought, word, and deed.

(You can tell I’ve been reading Ephesians.)

A few notes here:

• “participation in the very life of God”: this is at the heart of it for me. We’re plugged into God’s being at his invitation.
• “incorporation”: I chose this word specifically because f the reinforcement of the concept in the Latin root.
• “Body of Christ—mystically”: Again, as in the first bullet this is supernatural “oogie-boogie” stuff here. That mustn’t be minimized or rationalized away.
• “Body of Christ—sacramentally”: We are joined to the Body through Baptism and our participation in it is deepened in and through the Eucharist. A sacramental church structure is necessarily required by this point.
• “Body of Christ—communally”: You can’t be a Christian by yourself. (Ephesians is leaking in here.) One of the fundamental images in the New Testament is Christ as the new Temple being built of living stones who are the individual believers. While individuals must be invested, this is not an individualistic endeavor.
• “which”: Building on the previous point, this relative pronoun does not modify an individual but modifies “Body of Christ” particularly in its communal manifestation. We as individuals are called to imitate Christ and to be transformed into the mind of Christ but not by ourselves or for our own sakes. This is where Ephesians 4 is so central for me: “…until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” We are only growing properly as individuals when our growth is benefiting the whole community.
• “being transformed into the likeness and mind of Christ”: This occurs through both natural and supernatural means. It means acquiring virtues through practice and habit as well as gifts of grace that are embraced and nurtured.
• “likeness and mind of Christ”: Normally I just use “mind of Christ” as shorthand for this, but that can be mistaken and misunderstood as being cerebrally focused. “Likeness” makes it clear that it is a full imitation that includes character and action, not just thought.
• “in thought, word, and deed”: Again, this emphasizes that the transformation of the whole community relates to our comprehensive ways of being in the world: what we think, what we say, what we do.

I’m going to try and turn now to the whole issue of theology. Namely, how can I consider myself a catholic Anglican and yet be in favor of the ordination of women and same-sex unions?

I believe that there are good ways and bad ways to answer this question. I’m going to try and do it a good way but that necessarily (for me) translates to “long-winded”. (More on that below.) My goal here will not be to change anyone’s mind. Rather, I will try to lay out what I believe in I hope a consistent fashion. Whether it’s a convincing fashion will be left up to my readers…

Given my time constraints, this apologia will necessarily appear in little bits—hopefully bits that build upon one another. Once I reach what seems to be a satisfactory conclusion or run out of steam (perhaps the more likely alternative…),  I will attempt to weave them into a single statement. As such, what comes out here in these bits should be regarded as “provisional” and nowhere near “final” (Again—more on that below.)

First Bit

On Theology

I can’t conceive of theology as a single monolithic thing. Indeed, it’s impossible for it to be so. I define theology as our ways of interacting with God and how we relate to one another and the world in light of who God is and who we are.  As you can see, this definition isn’t just about thinking. It’s about acting as well. And—necessarily—feeling, and hoping, and assuming, and a whole bunch of other things rolled in there as well.

As I tell my students: everybody has a theology whether they’re aware of it or not. And I’ll suggest that much of our theology tends to remain in the realm of the unconscious and subconscious. We assume models and habits and frames of mind. Part of a good theological education is helping people examine their theologies and bring the main points to light for conscious reflection and deliberation, but even then there are swathes that I believe remain submerged.

The way I discussed this in preaching class is that people—especially seminarians—find themselves trying to operate out of at least two different sets of theologies which I refer to simply as “head theology” and “gut theology”. “Head theology” is what we carry in our conscious mind, especially those of us who have been taught theology in a conscious way. When you sit down to take a theology exam in seminary, “head theology” is what gets put on the page for professorial review. The way you answer a question at the church door or when you’re caught unaware in a hallway is more likely “gut theology”; it’s what just comes out… This theology, I’ll suggest, is more likely to be unconscious and subconscious. It’s the theology you’ve absorbed throughout your life from assimilating bits of liturgies and Sunday School classes and experiences and all the myriad moments that construct our lives of faith and sin. It tends to be less thought out, tends to be less internally cohesive, and tends to be more basic and primal to our person. Thus, an issue for preachers, especially novice ones but I’ve seen it in old experienced ones too, is when a sermon starts in “head theology” then drifts into “gut theology” and the beginning and end of the sermon find themselves in two entirely different places. The integrative goal of a theological education, then, is to bring to light at least the central core principles of one’s “gut theology”, to try and sort out the incorrect and toxic portions that don’t proclaim or that actively deny the Gospel, and to integrate the “head theology” pieces that are worth keeping. (For the record, toxic portions would include any that begin “God won’t/can’t love me because…”)

So what does this look like? It means when we learn about theology we hear lots of cool ideas. Some we discard upon examining them. Others, we really like the idea so we try and believe it. Some, we think we do. But only a certain number filter into that authentic place of subconscious cognition that is gut theology. I think the process of theological growth (related to but I think different from spiritual growth) is learning techniques to make our gut theologies every more consciously accessible and assimilating the truly important Gospel-bearing head bits into our guts.

It’s a process. I still marvel at how much of my gut theology is driven by Lutheran instincts despite having been an intentional and theologically aware Anglican for almost a decade.

Thus—I see theology on the level of the individual. So what about Christian theology? Or the theology of any particular church, sect or group?

Church Theologies

There are two ways to answer this question. One is to look at what “a church believes” which is to try and construct a picture of actual belief by taking the amalgam what all of its various members think, say, and do. We’ll short-hand this CT1 for convenience. The second is to look at what the church official declares as its beliefs. We’ll call this CT2.

When I talk about “church theology” I do it on the level of CT2, not CT1. I see the role of a church as drawing boundaries. They show the acceptable limits what what their given group will tolerate. Anything within those boundaries is fair game; anything outside of it is theology, put not proper and correct theology as taught by the group.

As far as Christian theology goes, I understand the boundaries of Christian faith to be described by the Nicene Creed, the Canon of Scripture, and Apostolic Succession. Unfortunately, there is disagreement between groups that understand themselves to be Christian about exactly what these mean. Personally, I take them to mean the Creed as understood literally, the Old and New Testaments including the Apocrypha, and the line of teaching of the faith that stretches back to the apostles. Thus in my potentially (but not necessarily) idiosyncratic reading, Baptists are in, Mormons are out.

When I left the Lutheran church, I had a high level of concern over the fact that CT1 did not match CT2. That is, I met a lot of seminarians at the ELCA seminaries who were not Confessional Lutherans. (Far more were Liberal Protestants in ways that I didn’t think stayed within the Confessional boundaries.) But that’s not why I left; I left because I knew that I was outside those boundaries and I could not swear at my ordination to preach, teach, and uphold them if I didn’t believe. Granted, I wasn’t hugely outside, but it was enough so that it could have caused major friction with congregations I was called to serve and that’s no basis on which to build a ministry…

I can state what I think Episcopal theology is (the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral + the theologies embedded in the 1979 BCP), but Anglo-Catholic theology is a more tricky problem. In theory I like the notion that an Anglo-Catholic is one who holds the doctrine of the Undivided Church but has freedom in areas of discipline, but I can see gray areas in both a definition of what the Undivided Church’s doctrine might be and what is doctrine and what discipline. (I have no doubt this point will get returned to, possibly multiple times…)

I’m setting up, therefore, theology as an individual activity that must fall somewhere within the boundaries sketched by one’s ecclesial affiliation.

On the Individual and Personal Nature of Theology

Hmmm. Why all the emphasis on “the individual”, you wonder… Where’s this heading? With all of this talk of unconscious, subconscious, “gut theologies” et al. is this an attempt at an end-run around the notion of big-T-Truth? No, it’s not.

I do believe that there are objective truths. For instance, I believe that the creeds teach objective truths. However (and you knew there was going to be a however, didn’t you), our apprehension of these is by subjective means. These will vary to a greater or lesser degree based on the objective truth presented. It’s hard to get too subjective with “God exists” although some people will start diddling around with the meaning of “God”. I think we all get the same fundamental picture when we hear of God the Father, Creator of heaven and earth. There will necessarily different shades of meaning though for “father”, “creator” and even “heavens and earth” based on who we are, where we came from and what we were taught.

To my mind this isn’t fudge, this is a simple and straight-forward look at the reality that we deal with signs, symbols, metaphors, and images when we do theology and that language is only partly adequate to encompass discussion of the transcendent. If this makes me a wishy-washy relativist, then St Augustine is in the boat with me (See On Christian Doctrine).

What is more difficult and will definitely be revisited is our ability to distinguish and identify all relevant objective truths.

But no, a descent into relativism is not why I’m going the “individual” route. Rather, it’s because I think our personality has a rather large role in determining what our theology looks like, what we find credible and convincing, and what we don’t. What convinces me may not convince you. A personality requirement you hold for theology may not matter at all to me.

I could try and talk this out, but it’ll be simpler to give you an example by giving you a sense of how my personality interfaces with my theology.

My Theologically Pertinent Personality

Right at the top I’ll put these points have a significant bearing on my theological requirements:

• I have a moderate-trending-low need for theological certainty
• I have a high need for applicability
• If the applicability requirement is being met, I can tolerate a moderate amount of ambiguity
• I have a low tolerance for oversimplification

To come at this from a different direction, I like complex interlocking systems of thought that can produce clear principles for acting. Because I like a system that’s complex, I’m ok with it having a certain degree of provisionality that is subject to being revised upon a better understanding of the system or a constituent part.

My nature is fundamentally synthetic. That is, I’m always trying to gather as much data possible, then to construct models that fit the data as completely as possible. New inputs of data into the system require tweaking of the model. Life is data. Therefore no model of mine this side of the veil can ever or will ever be “final”.

This personality, then, has a bearing on how I “do” theology—and on the theology that comes out.

And I think that’s enough for this bit…

The English vicar and biblical scholar now blogging at clayboy (formerly of Metacatholic) has a brief but very worthwhile post that objects to the surrender of the term “humanist” to the agnostic/atheist camps.

I entirely agree that the term should not be surrendered.

I will say that there are some forms of Christianity that are not humanistic—I’m thinking of certain full-blown apocalyptic versions (see an earlier discussion of apocalypticism here)—but I’d argue that most versions that fall within modern mainline Protestant and Catholic theologies are indeed humanistic especially when viewed through an historical lens. I.e., there are movements today that may not seem humanistic at first blush—except when viewed against truly theocentric or apocalyptic systems from earlier days…