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Crying peace, peace, when there is no peace.

By Peter Sellick - posted Tuesday, 14 March 2017


Congregations in Protestant denomination are notorious for their diversity.

For example, both the Uniting Church in Australia and the Anglican Church host ministers and priests who are attached to some part of the spectrum between biblical fundamentalism (evangelicalism, I use the terms interchangeably) and liberalism. The difference between these two groups lies in how Scripture is read. While the evangelicals place emphasis on the bible being evidence that certain events actually occurred, liberals attempt to broker an understanding with modernity that would smooth the way into the Church. Nothing should be included in a worship service that could not easily be assimilated by the "man in the street".

Biblical fundamentalism has been described as Protestant Scholasticism because it mimics the logic chopping methods of Catholic Scholasticism only applied to biblical texts rather than canon law.

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Both of these movements are "modern" in that fundamentalism adheres to a positivistic reading of Scripture that owes much to the epistemology of the natural sciences and liberalism seeks not to offend people whose world-view is conditioned by the same natural sciences. Liberalism conforms itself to the world that surrounds it and loses the sharpness of the gospel that would turn the world on its head. Fundamentalism insists on biblical exegesis that is provided by modernity itself.

Thus both fundamentalism and liberalism are responses to Enlightenment thought, fundamentalism being seduced by its insistence on evidence and liberalism attempting to avoid scientific censure by reducing everything to metaphor. They are both therefore contextual theologies that live under the shadow of modernity.

On the face of it, Church organisations have come to some kind of understanding that respects both sides and often ordains ministers and priests from both sides of theology meanwhile congratulating itself on its tolerance and acceptance of other views.

However, behind the façade of tolerance there exists a tribalism that splits the church in two. Since in Protestant denominations the selection of priests and ministers is largely in the hands of the congregation, liberal congregations remain liberal and fundamentalist remain fundamentalist. The lines are drawn so tight that members of one camp may never experience worship in the other. Thus the accusation that Protestantism is schismatic is, under the covers, true.

However, there is only one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church whose foundation is the life, work, death and resurrection of the one Lord Jesus Christ. There is a unity in the Church that has been fought for through the ages. This is the task given to the discipline of theology with its long conversation with heresy.

This is not to say that in an ideal world in which the Church is a unity, Christians would be identically orthodox. Geoff Thompson makes the point that "there is an indisputable theological foundation for the diversity of the church which finds its unity in the faith provoked by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus." We can point to a variety of theological traditions in which this is the case. However, there is a difference between this kind of diversity and "the rhetorical appeal to a more generic principle of unity-in-diversity used as a tool for managing that diversity in the midst of ecclesiastical conflict."

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The danger here is that we give lip service to unity in the face of glaringly different theologies. The actual situation is that in private, there exists a great chasm, fixed.

The truth is that Protestant denominations are divided along fundamentalist and liberal lines, on how the bible is to be read, on the centrality of sacraments, on the source of morality and the Being of God.

This division is taken as the norm and anyone who protests that the Church be truly unified in its theology will receive the usual accusation of intolerance. It is obvious that we believe in tolerance more than we believe in unity.

Such an attitude would not be condoned in any other intellectual discipline. Imagine a trainee doctor informing his lecturers that he is adopting alternative medicine in the place of the set curriculum. Such a person would not be let loose on the public. The discipline of theology is just as exacting as any other but Protestant denominations happily ordain candidates for ministry who clearly do not have a grasp of central concepts. This is significant because it indicates that we do not think spiritual damage as important as physical damage.

I have focused on the divide between liberalism and fundamentalism because it is the most obvious divide. The reality is more complex and exacerbated by lazy theological education. These two camps are by no means the only contenders in the theological stakes. There are alternatives that arise out of a deeper scholarship that involves the reassessment of the Church Fathers and how modernity, in particular, has affected theological discourse. If I am right that both liberalism and fundamentalism live in the shadow of modernity then such a correction is overdue and very fruitful.

Such scholarly attempts may be found, for example, in the Radical Orthodoxy movement that has emerged from mostly British theologians. There is an attempt here to understand the traditions in a deeper fashion and to see how these traditions upset the church in our time. Roman Catholic theologians, following in the wake of Vatican II have also written theologies that have been cleansed from past mistakes and which define a more faithful understanding.

Perhaps never before has the Church been so in need of theological research and training. The solution to the schism in our parishes can only be addressed by heads of Churches and educators deciding on theological training that is critical of both liberalism and evangelicalism and forging a path towards standards that will not be compromised. After all, this is only to adopt the view that most of our educational institutions maintain. The Church must ask itself why theological education has so lost the plot and allowed personal theologies to survive the rigor of theological training.

Thompson describes the scholarly posture as iconoclastic by which he means that scholarly activity destroys the comfortable and easy assumptions of pious people. There is something amiss when theological students are unchanged by their education. Thompson quotes Nicholas Lash (a post Vatican II theologian): "all positive expression of faith in God, which cannot stand the strain of exposure to negativity, is suspected of illusion." By "negativity" Lash means the "experience of mortality, of loneliness and the loss of meaning; of all forms of physical and mental suffering; and the recognition of the sheer finitude, impermanence and ambiguity of all particular human achievement."

Thomson indicates that "the desire for faith insulated from ambiguity and directed to something objective and graspable is idolatry." When we look at evangelicalism and liberalism we see this writ large. Preachers make all kinds of promises from life after death for the faithful to a happy and secure marriage and safe family life. You name it and at some point it has been promised. It is no wonder critical thought outside the Church will no even bother with it.

To quote Lash again: "The critical dimension of the theological task is to be sought in the direction of the critique of idolatry – the stripping away of the veils of self-assurance by which we seek to protect our faces from exposure to the mystery of God." The Church of our time has largely domesticated the symbol of the cross. In our search for safety and assurance we forget that the one reliable image of God the gospels give us is of Jesus in despair and agony nailed to wood.

Unless the Church in all its forms reclaims the centre of the gospel then its decline will continue for it will continue to be seen as promising what it cannot give and comforting those who refuse to face the realities of human life. As the Church continues to decline there is much pressure to resort to simple theological pronouncements and tricks to "drum up some business." This must be named for what it is: idolatry.

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Quotations are from Geoff Thomson "Disturbing Much Disturbing many" Uniting Academic Press, Melbourne 2016.
Also Nicholas Lash "Theology on the Way to Emmaus" London SCM 1986.



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About the Author

Peter Sellick an Anglican deacon working in Perth with a background in the biological sciences.

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