While the headline on the CoE site” England remains a faithful nation” is perhaps a stretch, it is encouraging to see the numbers on the loud atheist minority compared with the fiction of public opinion. Quoting from the CoE site:”The death of Christian England has been greatly exaggerated. Despite a decade of nay saying and campaigning by atheist commentators and groups, six out of ten people in England self-identify as Christians”…”Doubtless, campaigning atheist organisations will attempt to minimise the significance of the majority figures for faith and Christianity. In fact, these figures draw attention to the free ride that had been given to these bodies whose total membership would barely fill half of Old Trafford. For instance there are an estimated 28,000 members of British Humanist Association – the same membership as Union of Catholic Mothers, whilst the National Secular Society has an estimated 5,000 – the same as the British Sausage Appreciation Society.” Neither number comes close to the apparent number of Jedi roaming the UK.

Worth looking into in some more detail are two issues that will influence the religion question. First, the number of younger people who were not as interested in completing the census form. This seems to be a fairly widespread problem among the younger population. This is obviously crucial for determining the direction of religion in the UK. Actual data on these demographics were not helped by the “Jedi campaign” where seven people per thousand wrote “Jedi” in the “other religion” box, some 390,000 in total.

UPDATE…

Well, it looks like we DO have a new Archbishop of Canterbury.

On March 21st, Justin Welby will be enthroned at Canterbury Cathedral.

The announcement was made this morning and the popular opinion was correct, the recently installed Bishop of Durham, the former oil exec Justin Welby. He is a relative newcomer, and not much is know about his stance on several key issues. People that know him from before and after he took Holy orders are not surprised at his election, and competent seems like a universal description of +Welby.

He has been described as more conservative than Rowan Williams, but is also in favor of women’s ordination. It seems like there is not as much clarity on his views regarding human sexuality and marriage. There has been a bit of bother about his being from Eton but on the other hand, he chose to leave big oil and follow a vocation after the death of his daughter. This seems to indicate that his values are in the right place. We do have indications that while conservative, He is also a negotiator and peacemaker of some significant experience, having traveled often to Africa and even been in some physical danger. These traites could well serve to make him an effective leader of the CoE and the worldwide Anglican communion.

While information is still a bit scarce, a short interview from his appointment to Durham last year, and a radio piece from BBC provide a good bit of background info. Those of us in the USA are especially interested in how the next Archbishop of Canterbury deals with the nature of communion with TEC and former TEC parishes. Hopefully, he selects good advisors on canon law and is as quick a study as early reports seem to indicate.

Thanks be to God and let’s continue to pray for ++Welby and his new role which carries such a burdon of leadership in these troubled and dangerous times.

Ier concile oecuménique de Constantinople (381)

What does it mean to be an Anglican? How is this distinct from other forms of  ecclesiology? Why does this matter? Well, unless you are throughly postmodern, terms have meanings. In the US, the province of the Anglican communion is called the Episcopal church. This very name seems to have a pretty strong connection with episcopacy, that is with Bishops. In fact, seventy five percent of Christianity today functions in a episcopal type structure with Bishops. These are largely composed of Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican communions. They each claim to preserve the historic episcopate which inherently means that the Holy Spirit directs the catholic church through her bishops individually and jointly.

Historically, bishops function as the main ecclesiological authority in a given location. This structure has sometimes expanded to include archbishops, and in the Roman communion, the primacy of the Roman see. America termed her Anglican church Episcopal because it valued the diocesan bishop as the cheif ecclesiological authority. Being very independent minded after just removing themselves from monarchial rule, they called the bishop who organizes the provincial meetings the “Presiding bishop.” This term reflects that the office is not a “metropolitan”, that is someone with archbishop like authority. Why is this so? Because the bishops are Anglican by virtue of their letter of invitation to the Lambeth meetings, called by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Without this, you are not part of the Anglican communion.

In distinction to this, the membership in the Episcopal Church in America is a voluntary organization. Why? Because there IS no Metropolitan to whom communion must be preserved,  just an elected officer who organizes and oversees the national conventions.

Granted, there is much confusion on this topic of late, and many who think that the church is subject to anyone clever enough to reinvent the rules. This thinking would deny any reason to listen to either Canterbury, or the historic episcopate, or the ecumenical canons.  What are these canons we speak of? Well, there is in fact, another authority higher than a bishop, and this is an ecumenical council of bishops. In fact, the more ecumenical, the more historically binding the decrees. This idea is catholicism at its best. While an individual bishop may err, the Holy Sprit works out restoring and preserving the church through time in the community of bishops. This is especially evident in the case of the seven ecumenical councils of the Church, where a truly catholic voice is heard and we acknowledge this when we recite the Nicene creed every week. We do not invent the faith, it is given to us. We do not choose what to confess, we confess what the church has taught, what has been handed down from Christ, to his apostles, and to the bishops they select to run the churches. This is what makes the church truly catholic, and also demonstrates that the councils of bishops that met during the conciliar period are considered as normative today. If then, the Holy Spirit works in the Church through councils, not only are the creeds and confessions authoritative  but also its canons.

What would it take to overturn a canon decreed by an ecumenical council before the East/West schism in 1054, or the Protestant Reformation? Another truly ecumenical council?

Let us therefore listen to our fathers. Let us be slow to correct or accuse bishops. Let those who bring accusations be tested themselves, as to their life, conduct and doctrine. Then, if these are found to be in keeping with the faith of the Church, proper investigations ensue with fear and the desire for unity and healing as paramount motives. Be afraid, because whatever the issue, it is not as bad as rending the body of Christ. May the fear of God produce a wise discernment in how His Bishops are brought under accusation. Let us read and heed the canon of Constantinople on this:

First Council of Constantinople

Second Ecumanical Council (381)

Canon 6:

There are many who are bent on confusing and overturning the good order of the church and so fabricate, out of hatred and a wish to slander, certain accusations against orthodox

bishops in charge of churches. Their intention is none other than to blacken priests’ reputations and to stir up trouble among peace-loving laity.

For this reason the sacred synod of bishops assembled at Constantinople has decided not to admit accusers without prior examination, and not to allow everyone to bring accusations against church administrators —If the charge brought against the bishop is of an ecclesiastical kind, then the characters of those making it should be examined, in the first place to stop heretics bringing charges against orthodox bishops in matters of an ecclesiastical kind.

(We define “heretics” as those who have been previously banned from the church and also those later anathematised by ourselves: and in addition those who claim to confess a faith that is sound, but who have seceded and hold assemblies in rivalry with the bishops who are in communion with us.) In the second place, persons previously condemned and expelled from the church for whatever reason, or those excommunicated either from the clerical or lay rank, are not to be permitted to accuse a bishop until they have first purged their own crime. Similarly, those who are already accused are not permitted to accuse a bishop or other clerics until they have proved their own innocence of the crimes with which they are charged.

But if persons who are neither heretics nor excommunicates, nor such as have been previously condemned or accused of some transgression or other, claim that they have some ecclesiastical charge to make against the bishop, the sacred synod commands that such persons should first lay the accusations before all the bishops of the province and prove before them the crimes committed by the bishop in the case. If it emerges that the bishops of the province are not able to correct the crimes laid at the bishop’s door, then a higher synod of the bishops of that diocese, convoked to hear this case, must be approached, and the accusers are not to lay their accusations before it until they have given a written promise to submit to equal penalties should they be found guilty of making false accusations against the accused bishop, when the matter is investigated.

If anyone shows contempt of the prescriptions regarding the above matters and presumes to bother either the ears of the emperor or the courts of the secular authorities, or to dishonour all the diocesan bishops and trouble an ecumenical synod, there is to be no question whatever of allowing such a person to bring accusations forward, because he has made a mockery of the canons and violated the good order of the church.

(C) KAREN L. KING 2012)

I know, I know, another article about this story, but wait a tic and bear with me. This is not so much about a little square peice of parchment as it is about defining the real argument. It is important to know where the disagreement is in order to properly engage it, and not lose the main argument by granting your opponents assumptions, then piddeling over details. This I offer, is what many of the responses to this fragment have done.

Now, there have been amazingly fast responses by Bock, Wallace, Watson and others. These have provided helpful information about the nature of New Testament Studies, Textual Criticism and so fourth in hopes that Jane Q. Reader will be assured that there is no reason doubt her faith.

It is also amazing to note how fast empty speculation travels when the content is something salacious to the Christian faith. Such is the case with Dr. Kings presentation at a coptic conference–– not typically covered by the news. The media was very well coordinated with this timely release, note the rapidity of the conversation about Kings article being published, as well as the Smithsonian’s broadcast show about this find. Evangelicals have been quick to respond, but often these responses focus on the text itself with little address of the argument behind the presentation. Heck, Dr. King herself says that she is not arguing that this document proves Jesus had a wife. If however, this is not the thrust of her argument then what is?

The Real Argument Located

Who’s “gospel” is this and why should we consider it Christian? In a rare snippet of editorial precision in the media, Cynthia Bourgeault says in her Washington Post article:

But what this new discovery does do is to provide additional confirmation for a body of evidence already mounting from those other recently discovered early Christian sacred texts—specifically, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, and the Gospel of Philip—that a group of very early Christians remember a version of their history quite different from what eventually became the officially sanctioned story.

This is the real argument put forward by King. This is a popular narrative in contemporary scholarship that arises out of several academic feilds who share and promote the same view, one that does indeed have “great explainitory power.”  Great explanatory power however, does not equate to truth. What this news story does I propose, is exactly what Dr. King wants. She wants this narritive not only promoted, but advanced in such a way as to undermine orthodox Christianity. Let me explain.Precisely, it is that anyone who self-identified as Christians in the first few hundred years of Christianity should be granted the title, and their view of Christianity should be considered equally valid. This is the great thing about our Dr. King. She is fairly straight forward about her agenda. In her book about her study of the Gnostic groups (some of which used the Gospel of Thomas related to this parchment), King writes

I am actually doing what I am critiquing: writing the origins and history of Gnosticism in order to ‘subvert the game’…So too, one way to conceptualize this study is to see it as an attempt to subvert the game of orthodoxy and heresy as it is played out in the academic field of religious studies” King, What is Gnosticism, 243–44.

The narrative in short, is that originally Christianity was very diverse and that different groups believed different things, and each one did their own thing. This is a really cool environment, especially if there is no Truth and any assertions of a capitol “T” Truth are just considered violent assaults on someone else. Pluralism is the highest value of man, and defining yourself as those Christians who come to be called ‘Orthodox’, against groups of the ‘other’ that you exclude is mean and un-pluralistic. With dirty politics like unto colonial imperialism, these ‘Orthodox’ eject the minority and take over power structures, and eventually destroy most of the documents of the oppressed people. This allows the victors to rewrite history and make themselves out to be ‘Saints’ and the others to be ‘Heretics’. This is a great theory unless of course, you hold that Christianity is actually true, and that Christ is truely according to his revelation, which was preserved in the Church despite the failings of men. If you hold THAT narrative, then King’s view is actually the one trying to rewrite history and convince an easily duped public of a different story. This little parchment everyone is discussing is textually associated with the Gospel of Thomas. How do these other “gospels” like the  Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, and the Gospel of Philip fit into the story? Well, I’m glad you asked. These documents are later writings from groups of people called Gnostics. The dominate theory explained above holds that these are the writings that were wrongfully excluded

The Real Argument Lost

Holding King’s view, and subscribing to this narrative means rejecting and discarding the the opposing narrative. This is where the true conflict lies. If you grant that the Gnostic groups are indeed Christian, then you introduce some pretty interesting and different views about God, Christ, Creation, Knowledge and a bunch of other things as well. Was Christ the son of God who is both human and divine, or is Christ the by-product of a lower deity who teaches man about a divine spark?
Granting the assumption of King and others, and even using their language of “Gnostic Christians” cedes the main point of contention. Can you say anything at all about who Christ is and by using the name of Christian warrant equal treatment for your teachings? If so, then Christianity is simply a term with no meaning. In fact, Christ is something for each person and group to define for themselves. If there is no ultimate truth, this is fine and dandy. But on the other hand, if there is a God who revels himself to man with some definition, as a triune God of Father, Son and Spirit, then you really are not free to muck about with this revelation. In fact, when Evangelical Scholars grant the term “Gnostic Christianity” they have instantly lost the battle, and are spinning academic wheels debating a tiny piece of parchment. I’m not saying we don’t study the parchment, but just let’s not cede the main point of contention from the start. Here again is a place we can learn from the Fathers who actually lived with these groups. How did they respond? They saw the faith as something once for all delivered by Christ to the saints, and preserved by the Spirit from the Apostles and Prophets, through the generations of faithful ministers in the Church, until Christ’s return. Irenaeus knew of these groups, and the alternate versions of the Christian narrative. He does not welcome every conflicting account as wonderful examples of diversity, but rather introduces five volumes that attempt to overthrow this “false knowledge” saying:

In as much as certain men have set the truth aside, and bring in lying words and vain genealogies, which, as the apostle says, ‘minister questions rather than godly edifying which is in faith,’ and by means of their craftily-constructed plausibilities draw away the minds of the inexperienced and take them captive, I have felt constrained, my dear friend, to compose the following treatise in order to expose and counteract their machinations. St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Adv. haer. I.p

So we have a choice, to listen to and adopt the narrative of the Weststar institue and its Fellows like Karen King, or to hear the narrative told from the perspective of the star that rises in the East, of the incarnation of God with us in Christ Jesus, whose only teaching regarding his bride is that she is the Church.

Christianity and Other Religious Cultures

Jarsolav Pelikan

What does it mean when Christ is revealed, not only as the messiah, but God made flesh? This radical notion caused a seismic shift from the monotheism understood by the Jews and in distinction from the pluralism of the Greek and Roman pantheon. The question posed by much modern scholarship is do we understand this shift from the miraculous revelation of Christ, or from a creative appropriation of the surrounding culture? The (now) famous pagan Celsus charged Christians with falsifying the nativity story and argued for the impossibility of God assuming human flesh.¹

Part of this question has to do with the use of language. Judaism had no language to express philosophically what the witness of the early church claimed. Yet in the context where these early groups lived, a rich tradition of Greek philosophy contained the ideas and terms to express this newly understood revelation. Hellenism is often thought to be the source material for not just the expressions, but the ideas later described as essential Christianity.²

Another rich source for claims of Christian appropriation is from ancient Gnosticism in the early church. Various theories of gnostic influence include both sacramental practice, and syncretistic teachers like Clement of Alexandria, who reflects both Platonic and Gnostic influences.³ These historic shifts that reflect a real struggle of identity and expression present challenges to the argument that there was any essential Christianity that preceded later corruption. Walter Bauer famously argued that heresy came first, and “orthodoxy” is a later, development.⁴

This thesis has been widely accepted and used, even while refuted by many following works, including an immediate and devastating review by Walter Völker, which sadly was not translated into English.⁵ Although problematic in separate areas, and as an overall thesis, Bauer’s model had the benefit of great explanatory power, and is thus broadly accepted by adding qualifications like “generally correct.” Several of the contemporary theories of doctrinal development owe the foundations of their presuppositions to the works of Walter Bauer and Adolph von Harnack. These arguments are especially helpful in framing modern views of the early Church with proclivities towards colonial imperialism and social exclusivism.

Contemporary Theories of Doctrinal Development

History of doctrine has expanded as an academic category since Harnack’s influential work, and there are many sub-categories for the different assumptions, methods and styles which are being published. Bingham offers four high-level patterns of contemporary works on doctrinal development.⁶

Basically, these can be described as devolution, coalescing, trajectories, and hybridity. Adolf Harnak’s model is one of devolution, where original orthodoxy existed, but is quickly and continually corrupt. This model assumes monotheism and views an original “gospel” that is unchanging over time, if hidden by historical accretion. His counterparts in the history of religions school, reject any metaphysics and view development through human effort and achievement where an original disparity, coalesces into an authoritarian orthodoxy.⁷

This view is also represented in Bart Ehrman’s “Lost Christianities,” where following Bauer, the diversity is seen at the outset, but is crushed in the third century by the “proto-orthodox.”⁸ In the third view, there is an initial plurality of belief and practices that historically develop their own streams of doctrine. Koester notes for example “at the close of the first century we find at Ephesus several rivaling Christian groups (not several separate churches): the originally Pauline church, supported by the Qumran-influenced Paulinist who wrote Ephesians, but also represented the author of Luke-Acts who in his own way accommodated the tradition of the great Apostle to the expediencies of the church.”⁹

This was the situation pre-canon, and Koester sees the New Testament as even a “new theological departure.”¹⁰ Finally, there is the hybrid model, which seeks to appreciate different expressions without negative concepts that depreciate the “other.”¹¹ Both Koester and Lieu credit Walter Bauer for the ability to move past antiquated constructs like an original Christian identity. The question then should be asked, are these presuppositions and methods valuable when they contrast the self identity of the historical community? How is the “other” as members of a Christ following faith community being appreciated without divisive and polemical terminology?

Key Philosophical Shifts for Doctrinal Development

All of these models of doctrinal development share at least one thing in common. They all make certain philosophical presuppositions that establish boundaries for what can be considered as legitimate development. While the philosophic influences of Stoicism, Platonism, and Gnosticism on the early church receives detailed treatment, very little work has been done by historians regarding their own philosophical foundations. Historical-critical scholarship is rather construed as proceeding from no theological assumptions and following a method that is scientific and objective, only dealing with empirical evidence.¹²

Adopting an Aristotelian separation of subject matter from spiritual function, tends to deny both an initial deposit of faith, or any legitimate apostolic ecclesial function. Yet the belief that objective method is even possible, defined earlier modernism. Yet this perspective has been refuted by arguments from the philosophy of science for over sixty years.¹³ This disconnect between transcendent and natural is foreign to the reception history of Christianity, and creates a cognitive dissonance in understanding even the biblical writers and early church fathers themselves.¹⁴

Pelikan demonstrates the well established critique of objectivity when he writes that there is “no such thing as an uninterpreted fact and that therefore an exegesis free of presuppositions is impossible.”¹⁵ Further, the claim that scientific method removes subjective bias like privileging self claims is refuted by Kuhn, who gives a detailed description of how community and presuppositions influence theory choice in all practice of science.¹⁶

Academically, the move past modernist certainties has been acknowledged in some areas of the humanities like literature and history. Yet in biblical studies and the history of Christian doctrine, orthodoxy and its presuppositions represents the current heresy and thus have little voice. Köstenberger suggests that the serious challenges presented against what he now terms the Bauer-Ehrman thesis have become paradigmatic because it “resonates profoundly with the intellectual and cultural climate in the West at the beginning of the twenty-first century.”¹⁷

Recognizing our own limits and cultural situatedness, at least moves conflicting models into a discussion where the traditional views can be heard with new appreciation. In the next post we will look with new appreciation at the earlier constructs for doctrinal development, and surprising find that they allow for development and diversity within a congruent unity.

Contemporary Views and Challenges of Doctrinal Development

Harnack Defined “History of Dogma”

What does it mean to say that Doctrine has developed? Well, academically, doctrinal development really became its own area of study when Adolph von Harnack built upon the historical work of Ferdinand Christian Baur, based on the philosophy of Hegel, combined with the theology of Ritschl.¹ Academic study attempts to answer the practical question of how the “faith once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3) could develop into later creeds and authoritative teachings or “dogma.” Harnack took a radical approach that went to the heart of the question of diversity and development, offering a theory of early hellenistic doctrinal accretion which provided great explanatory power to naturalistic theories.² Basically, his starting assumption is that Christianity failed right from the start because the earliest practioners came up with this crazy idea from Hellenistic culture that Jesus was both God and Man (Logos Christology).

The question of doctrinal development is a good and valid one. Key historical shifts do in fact happen when Christianity navigates between internal and external pressures, posing a challenge to our understanding of the continuity in the Christian faith. How these shifts are understood in light of our own philosophical and cultural contextualization is an important aspect that bears careful reflection when answering questions of legitimacy.

This is the key contention: Is Christianity a legitimate development from Judaism? When challenged by Gnostics, do Christians adapt Greek philosophical terms to describe what they believe, or do they cobble together something to believe that might win an argument with the opposition? Is it sometimes a bit of both?

Key Historical Shifts for Doctrinal Development

Challenges to Christianity as a legitimate development arise from the first proclamation that Christ was the messiah promised to the Jews. This announcement separated those who accepted it from those who did not, and both parties were claimants to the Judaic heritage and to the proper understanding of its scriptures. Christians claimed that Christ was the Logos, himself the reveler and the revelation.³ Justin argued that “those of the seed of Abraham who live according to the law, and do not believe in this Christ before death, shall likewise not be saved.”⁴ Ferdinand Christian Baur saw Christianity then as a Hegelian synthesis of this Jewish thesis represented by Peter, and the Greek antithesis argued by Paul.⁵

Thus philosophy influenced hermeneutics to establish an intertextual tension between what came to be called Pauline and Petrine communities. Is this a legitimate development? In more recent scholarship, Judith Lieu argues that early Christian identity was not based on a shared experience and practice, but primarily was a rhetorical construct to separate the Jews as “others” to validate Christian identity. It seems that there are a variety of solutions being offered to explain what happens in the formation of this new covenant community. Eschatological expectation is perhaps the second largest shift that scholars note when establishing theories of doctrinal development. The early Christians are seen to be anxiously awaiting the parousia, yet this unmet expectation causes a radical shift in both the identity and mission of the Church.⁶ In the next post, we will look at some more detail behind the philosophical shifts that underpin Historical Critical theories of doctrinal development, and then contrast this with the way the Church has understood it’s progress in an ongoing economy of redemption.

This quote is from Norbert Brox’s 1966 werk:

Offenbarung, Gnosis und gnostischer Mythos

Wahre Gnosis ist die Lehre der Apostel und das alte (Lehr-)System der Kirch auf der ganzen Welt und der Charakter des Leibes Christi nach der Nachfolge der Bischöfe, denen jene (die Apostel) die Kirche, die überall ist, übertrugen: sie (die wahre Gnosis) gelangte zu uns durch unverfälschte Bewahrung als vollständige Behandlung der Schriften, ohne einen Zusatz oder eine Kürzung zu dulden.

Here is my rough translation:

True Gnosis is the teaching of the Apostles and the old (teaching) system of the church throughout the world and the character of Christ’s body after the succession of bishops, which those (the Apostles), the church, which is everywhere, transferred: it (the true gnosis) arrived to permit us to complete treatment by pristine preservation of the Scriptures, without any addition or reduction.