Issues, etc. Achieves New Low
A friend sent me a link to a recent Issues, etc. podcast with the warning that I shouldn't listen to it while driving. Good advice. I often take "issue" with Pastor Wilkens, but it usually reflects different theological views. When he criticizes an Orthodox priest for failing to preach the crucifixion in a sermon, I understand that is based on his very narrow view of theology and his Lutheran perspective.
This time, however, he and his guest, Rev. Peter Bender, besides the usual doctrinal errors, actually go so far as to rewrite history, venture into amazing feats of illogic, and gloss over scriptural statements contrary to their position. I was utterly astounded.
History
Early on in the podcast, I heard Pastor Bender allude to the third ecumenical council as being the council where the filioque was added. I thought I had heard wrong. However, a few minutes later he speaks about the Third Ecumenical Council at Toledo. The problem with that is the Third Ecumenical Council happened at Ephesus. Far from changing the creed, there is a canon that some have actually read to mean that nobody is allowed to ever change the creed (such a reading is somewhat controversial, but is at the least a far cry from inserting new items). The word "Ecumenical" refers to universal (literally all the inhabited earth). That is, a council of all the churches. The council that Bender is referring to is the third council of Toledo, that is, the third of the local councils held at Toledo.
In fact, the addition of the filioque was entirely a Spanish thing. For centuries, there was no support for the addition among the Popes of Rome. In fact, even Pope Leo III, who famously crowned Charlemagne Holy Roman Emperor, was opposed to the addition:
Leo forbade the addition of "filioque" to the Nicene Creed which was added by Franks in Aachen in 809. He also ordered that the Nicene creed be engraved on silver tablets so that his conclusion might not be overturned in the future. He wrote «HAEC LEO POSUI AMORE ET CAUTELA ORTHODOXAE FIDEI» (I, Leo, put here for love and protection of orthodox faith)(VITA LEONIS, LIBER PONTIFICALIS (Ed.Duchene, TII, p.26)
Sola Scriptura?
Pastor Wilkens will be the first to shout "Sola Scriptura," but part of this episode was an exercise in anything but. He looks to a passage in John and says that this is the passage used to argue against the filioque:
But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
He's correct, in that this verse supports a non-filioque stance, and certainly does a wonderful eisegetical dance to disagree with it, but the key verse was the one that Pastor Bender quotes at the beginning of the podcast, but rushes the very end, as if embarrassed by what it says:
But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me.
Embarrassed he should be. For, of course we see that Scripture says that the Spirit proceeds from the Father. The Fathers of the council of Constantinople simply quoted scripture when they updated the Nicene Creed. If anyone is adhering to Sola Scriptura, then they are. Not the council of Toledo, not Luther, not Pastor Wilkens.
Logic Please
Clearly the funniest part is when Pastor Wilkens, always eager to poke Rome, asserts that the Eastern Orthodoxy has, as a result of not holding to the filioque, fallen into the error of extra-biblical revelation and the like, just like Rome. Leaving aside the issue of "extra-biblical" revelation, which is a blog entry all by itself, this statement is simply silly. Rome holds to the filioque. That was a primary reason for the break between Rome and the East. How is it that Rome fell into the same error even though they held to the filioque?
The other part of this, which should also be embarrassing to Pastor Wilkens, is he refers to someone who might have been Orthodox, or maybe just having an affinity for the Orthodox as saying that the denial of the filioque allows the Spirit freedom to do as he will within the Church. Frankly that sounds like something an Episcopalian might say. At any rate, we don't know who this person was, nor what qualifies them to speak on Orthodox theology. Then this statement is used to bang on the Orthodox Church. How pathetic.
Speaking of that Which they Do Not Know
Finally, I have to take issue with several comments made by both Wilkens and Bender. The first is that Christ is somehow not central in our liturgy. So let's start by briefly walking into our Church. First, we have the icon in the dome under which you stand as you approach for communion. Note Christ and the cross. I can't give you a good sense of scale, but this thing is huge. It is the inside of the big gold dome you can see from the freeway.
Of course, as we approach the altar we see this:
Of course there is Christ on the right. Then, although a little hard to see from this picture, is Christ on the Cross behind the altar. Then there is Christ and the Theotokos (by and large in Orthodox Iconography you don't see icons of the Theotokos without Christ, because she can't be who she is without him) - with Christ at the center, as he is and should be. Contrast this to a number of protestant churches I've been in where apparently the focal point of worship is either the choir or the pastor.
We can look at the liturgy itself. Broken up into sections, we have the litanies, where every prayer is ended with "let us pray to the Lord... Lord, have mercy" or "Grant this O Lord". We have the antiphons, which now largely consist of hymns such as, "Save us O Son of God," and "Through the prayers of the Theotokos, Savior save us". Then we have the procession of the Gospels, the procession of the bread and wine, representing the funeral of our Lord (can you say crucifixion?), and of course the entire canon of Communion. To make the statements that these gentleman did indicates that clearly they have never been in an Orthodox Church, they have never read or observed our Liturgy or any of the multitude of prayer services. In other words, they lend support to Abraham Lincolns view that "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt." At the same time, while Christ takes a center role in our Liturgy, it is not to the detriment of the other two persons of the Trinity.
Pastor Wilkens also asserts that the Orthodox Church makes the interior life of the Trinity as the center of its theology, and thus does not focus on the Atoning work of Christ. Unfortunately, as I noted in a previous entry, its not that we don't focus on the Atoning work of Christ, its that Pastor Wilkens doesn't understand what that work accomplishes. If he did, then he'd realize that the interior life of the Trinity, and communion with that, is precisely what is made possible by Christ's incarnation, death, and resurrection. We do not parse Scripture trying to understand the most important part, or the most important part of Christ's life. Instead, we take the whole thing, being a gift from God, and treat it as such.
The problem with the filioque is that is changes the dynamic of the Trinity. Instead of 3 persons in one substance, you end up with the Father and the Son really be ing God, and the Holy Spirit as some sort of servant or perhaps merely a relationship between the two. No longer do you have the Spirit processing from the Father, and the Son being begotten of the Father. These relationships make the distinctions between the persons of the Trinity. If the spirit has the same relationship with the Father and the Son, then that distinction is blurred or eliminated. Confusion follows. You can read a brief assessment of some problems with the filioque here. For a deeper read, I would recommend this book.
I think that there are further consequences of the breakdown of the Trinity. Pastor Wilkens exemplifies that with his insistence that Christ must be first and foremost in worship. While it is true that it is through him that we see God, how did we get to a place where the other two persons of the Trinity are less important? Well personally I think it began in a little place called Toledo.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Alex, What is...?
9.West sent me a link the other day to this podcast from Issues, etc., a ministry formerly of the LCMS and now somewhat independent (at least of the official structure of the LCMS). The topic of the program was the history of a movement within Lutheranism known as Pietism, and its ongoing presence, at some level within the LCMS.
You can listen to the podcast for yourself, but it helps for me to define things a little bit first, or at least my understanding of things. Pietism was a movement that arose as a response to the perception that Luther was too focused on doctrine, and not interested in the Christian life. Ideally, the outcome would have been a blend of doctrine and praxis. However, given the way in which people tend to overcorrect, pietism led more toward practice over and generally against doctrine. The negative outcomes were numerous. For instance, one of the outcomes was that one's praxis became the standard by which the validity of your Christianity is to be judged. That is, real authentic Christians will have proper praxis, but nominal Christians won't. From an Orthodox perspective, there is some truth there, but at the same time, it is well understood within Orthodoxy that only God judges the state of the soul. What we don't know about other people's souls is substantial - and frankly for most of us only slightly less than what we know about our own.
Setting praxis against doctrine also has the result of creating a sort of religious universalism. If it is what we do - in particular caring for the poor, the sick, the prisoners - that is of primary, perhaps even exclusive, importance, then what we believe that leads us to the proper behavior is irrelevant. That is, quite frankly, the state of many mainline denominations in the U.S. today, which was part of the point of the Issues, etc. podcast. In fact, that disease had apparently spread to Russia in the 19th century. St. Brianchaninov gave a sermon that sounded positively Lutheran, pointing out that it is faith which saves. In this treatise, works are that which we do to enliven our faith. They are done in response to a divine command and thus are done out of faith. In other words, they are not indicative (Calvinism), nor merely expressive (Lutheranism, Baptist?), but serve to enlivening.
The underlying dilemma of Lutheranism that led to the rise of Pietism, is, I think, not "what saves us?", but rather "how are we saved?". That is, in fact, the question that really triggered the Reformation itself. Roman Catholicism had developed a theology that said that a priest (and ultimately the Pope) was entirely responsible for the remission of one's sins. If mortal sins remain unconfessed, then you are damned. If you go to confession and tell a priest about it, you are saved and go to heaven. This is a fairly simplistic rendering, but pretty accurate in practice (the whole punishment vs. guilt argument would take a blog entry to review). Of course this led to abuses, how could it not? Within the hands of the hierarchy of the Church rested ultimate power. Beyond the abuse problem, something doesn't quite feel right. You don't necessarily have to love one another, or care much for the things of God, provided you followed the numerous rules about what was and was not a mortal sin, and was sure to receive the Church's forgiveness for any such sins committed. That sounded so much like Pharisaism that the Reformers had to address it. That is, they had to address the how you get to heaven question.
If its merely a binary heaven or hell question, then you need to search Scriptures and build the decision tree. Western philosophy had developed two principles very useful in scientific exploration, Occam's Principle and the Principle of Parsimony. This pursuit to reduce questions to the simplest sometimes overlooked the possibility that the answers are more complex. Thus, there must be a simple yes or no formula to determine whether you are saved or not. Unfortunately, Scripture is interestingly contradictory if that is the type of answer you are looking for. On the one hand, you have St. Paul telling the believers that its not based on works but on faith that you are saved. To the Western medieval mind, faith is that which you believe. So, if you confess a belief, that is faith. On the other hand, we have the Lord himself telling us that people will be sent to the outer darkness based on their failure to do good works. So which is it? Well, the debate is now 500 years old and no answer seems to be in sight.
So, what if the wrong question has been asked for 500 years? The foundation of Western theology had been that the fall involved angering God and getting barred from heaven. Salvation lies in appeasing the angry God and so being permitted back into heaven. All Westerners agreed that Christ's sacrifice was the means of appeasing God. In that context, as well as from Scripture, the Reformers rightly understood that nothing we can do would ever compare with that. Purgatory, treasury of merits, punishment as opposed to damnation, all these things they could not buy. Not only is the Scriptural support a bit weak, but the abuses that grew out of this theology serve as condemnation of it as well.
The Orthodox Church holds to a different view of salvation. Although it will use the juridical model at times (after all, St. Paul did), she will use various other models as well, as they have Scriptural support. However, because the Church doesn't lock herself into one model, a fuller understanding of the meaning of salvation is forthcoming. Essentially this understanding is that salvation is a restoration of man, a healing. Human nature is healed - having been assumed by Christ - and now, once again, man can look forward to communion with God. By communion, we do not mean just fellowship, as the word koinonia is often translated, but rather theosis, or the partaking of the divine nature. With this in view, then the works that St. Paul and Christ focus so much energy on, make sense. Christ's work on the cross, and his resurrection, are what healed human nature. Because of Christ, that which was impossible before, is possible now, becoming more like God, so that we can truly commune with Him.
Why should we want to become more like God? Isn't the question the same, how do I get to heaven? The Orthodox would answer by saying, you may get to heaven, but will you want to be there? Orthodoxy understands God to be every present and filling all things. There is no place where God isn't. Because of that, everywhere is heaven. The problem is, if you are not sufficiently purified, God, the pillar of fire, will be painful to be near. That is the definition of hell. This is what St. Brianchaninov meant when he referred to the enlivening of our faith. Our good works take our belief and help us to be alive - to grow. Note that without the correct belief we cannot move in the right direction, but without our works we could not get there at all.
This deeper understanding of salvation serves to explain the apparent contradiction in Scripture between faith and works. Had Luther, in rejecting Rome, looked to the East, then the Pietist movement would arguably never have appeared on the scene.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Its Safer to Be A Terrorist in Afghanistan than a Baby
In Obama's first week he has made life easier for foreign terrorists and harder for babies in foreign countries. Yep, that's change I can believe in.
For the record, I would be glad for scaling back some of the interrogation techniques. But the juxtaposition of the two executive orders should give everyone pause, and I don't think it really does.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Presidential Proclamation
National Sanctity of Human Life Day, 2009
A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America
All human life is a gift from our Creator that is sacred, unique, and worthy of protection. On National Sanctity of Human Life Day, our country recognizes that each person, including every person waiting to be born, has a special place and purpose in this world. We also underscore our dedication to heeding this message of conscience by speaking up for the weak and voiceless among us.
The most basic duty of government is to protect the life of the innocent. My Administration has been committed to building a culture of life by vigorously promoting adoption and parental notification laws, opposing Federal funding for abortions overseas, encouraging teen abstinence, and funding crisis pregnancy programs. In 2002, I was honored to sign into law the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which extends legal protection to children who survive an abortion attempt. I signed legislation in 2003 to ban the cruel practice of partial-birth abortion, and that law represents our commitment to building a culture of life in America. Also, I was proud to sign the Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004, which allows authorities to charge a person who causes death or injury to a child in the womb with a separate offense in addition to any charges relating to the mother.
America is a caring Nation, and our values should guide us as we harness the gifts of science. In our zeal for new treatments and cures, we must never abandon our fundamental morals. We can achieve the great breakthroughs we all seek with reverence for the gift of life.
The sanctity of life is written in the hearts of all men and women. On this day and throughout the year, we aspire to build a society in which every child is welcome in life and protected in law. We also encourage more of our fellow Americans to join our just and noble cause. History tells us that with a cause rooted in our deepest principles and appealing to the best instincts of our citizens, we will prevail.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim January 18, 2009, as National Sanctity of Human Life Day. I call upon all Americans to recognize this day with appropriate ceremonies and to underscore our commitment to respecting and protecting the life and dignity of every human being.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this fifteenth day of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-third.
GEORGE W. BUSH