Thomas C. Oden: An Interview

Here is an excerpt from an interesting interview with Thomas Oden by Ray Nothstine at the Acton Institute Powerblog. Nothstine asks Oden about Marxism and Oden describes his personal redemption from enslavement to Marxist ideology:

Obviously Marxist theology peaked in the 70s and 80s, to a large degree. Is liberation theology as a Marxist construct on the decline? And if so why?

Marxist praxis has been since the Gulag’s of Stalin, the Great Leap of Mao, and the poor economy and police state of Cuba. By the Berlin Wall it was intellectually caput. But theologians were late in recognizing its vulnerabilities. That is because they were far too indebted to the basic moral assumptions of modern consciousness: hedonic narcissism, absolute relativism, and naturalistic reductionism. The rapid decline of Marxist solutions was not recognized by many of its advocates, especially those in the knowledge class.

- snip -

I have a personal history of being slow to give up those illusions, but not as slow as many of my theological colleagues, still stuck in a pseudo-revolutionary dream. I was very deep into the socialist imagination until about forty years ago. I read a lot of Marx for 20 years before unmerited grace changed the direction of my life.

The Marxist vision of history is a deterministic one, an economic determinism that imagines it knows how history is going to turn out. It proved to be a very dangerous imagination. For Christians, the unfolding of universal history is guided by providence, but not so as to deny human choice. For a Marxist, that unfolding is due to an economic determinism which pits class against class. What you are trying to do in Marxism is raise the consciousness of the proletariat, in order that they will rebel against their oppressors. That basic model is easily seen analogously in most forms of liberation theology.

What I had to go through is a disillusionment of my Marxism. How did that happen? It happened by the recognition of the immense injustices created by Marxism. I’m talking about millions of people killed in Cambodia, one fourth of the population— a Marxist vision inspired in expatriate pseudo-intellectual salons in Paris.

When you actually look at the social consequences of Marxism, it is extremely hard to defend them. I found it harder and harder to defend them. The Marxist view of history is on the decline because it’s a historical failure. There are a few little pockets where it still pretends to be the future, as in Venezuela, which is mimicking Cuba. But look at Cuba. Cuba has already decided that communism doesn’t work after how many years now? Sixty sad ones. The Cubans are trying. They’re trying very hard, actually, to get their economy out of the box of a state operated system.

Nothstine also asks him about the future of the Methodist Church and he has some hard things to say about the bishops, the clergy and the Trustees of theological seminaries in particular. There is no doubt that that those in charge of maintaining theological orthodoxy in Protestantism have failed massively and unforgivably. The Church, as he says, goes on but the seminaries in general are a millstone around its neck weighing it down. The battle for orthodoxy is fought in the seminaries.

What an inspiration Tom Oden is for all who wish to be faithful to the faith once delivered!

N. T. Wright and Classical Orthodoxy

Yesterday, I ended my post on the two recent conferences (T4G and Wheaton) by commenting on William Evans' assessment of the weaknesses in N. T. Wright's theology as follows:

While I agree with Evans that Wright is an Evangelical who is trying to be biblical, it is somewhat ironic that an Anglican of all people should, in the end, have his high ecclesiology undercut by, of all things, that old Evangelical habit of biblicism. In the end, Wright may be a temptation for Evangelicals precisely because they recognize a kindred spirit at this very point. And that, it seems to me, is where the historically-oriented confessionalism of the Neo-Reformed becomes absolutely necessary if we are going to be faithful to the biblical Gospel.

In this post I want to unpack the meaning of these rather cryptic remarks a little bit. I've just been listening to Wright's lecture on historical Jesus studies from the Wheaton conference and I hit the pause button because Wright just said something that I find utterly astonishing. Before I tell you what it is, let me quote something else that William Evans wrote about Wright's response to his critics in the panel discussion earlier on the same day as this lecture.

In response to Richard Hays question about how his [i.e. Wright's] view of Jesus relates to the confessional history of the church, Evans describes Wright responding as follows:

He also claimed that he was not trying to find a Jesus behind the Gospel accounts, but rather to do justice to those accounts. In a rather telling comment, Wright then asserted that his account of Jesus is more true to the canonical witness than the confessions of the church!

So it seems that Wright is not only making the astonishing claim that the Protestant Churches from the 16th century on have all misunderstood Paul on justification and that the whole Reformation has just been one large mistake, and this, I might add, at a point in history when even Roman Catholic theologians have recognized the authentic insights into soteriology that were gained by the Reformers. What Protestants have said for 400 years is wrong, says Wright. This is why, by the way, many people have viewed Wright's theology as a bridge into the Roman Catholic Church insofar as it removes the necessity of making everything rise and fall on the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

But it gets worse. As Evans says above, Wright thinks that his account of Jesus is more true to the canonical than the confessions of the Church. And he is not talking here merely about Protestantism. He is talking about the Augustinian-Thomist tradition of the Western Church that is the foundation of both modern Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. But it gets even worse. He is actually talking about the creedal tradition (Apostles', Nicene, Chalcedonian) that comes out of the first five centuries and forms the basis for both the Churches of the East and those of the West.

In other words, Wright is saying that his reading of the Gospels utilizing the historical methods developed in the 18th century and refined through three quests for the historical Jesus has resulted in a new understanding of Jesus that is superior to that of the traditional Church. I just heard him say this in his lecture practically in so many words.

We should not view Wright as a crypto-Catholic at all. If anything, his viewpoint is more antithetical to that of Rome than it is to the Reformers. In actual fact, it would seem that Wright is picking up on one of two tendencies within the history of Protestantism, that is, on the skeptical and critical one as opposed to the genuinely reforming one.

The skeptical tendency is found in the early Luther and the Anabaptists and it begins with a strict biblicism that eventually degenerates through the employment of critical methods into a fragmented liberalism that is overwhelmed by the authority of individuals (eg. Bultmann, charismatic faith healers) or classes (eg. black liberationists, feminists). The genuinely reforming one is found in the later Luther and pre-eminently in Calvin and the Reformed tradition and it begins with a shared theological heritage and seeks to correct this heritage at certain points with better exegesis using the same methods of reading the Bible that were used in the pre-Reformation period (supplemented by humanistic methods coming out of the Renaissance) and resisting the historical-critical methods as they developed in the 17-18th centuries.

I see Wright as dangerous to Evangelicals precisely because of the many conservative conclusions he draws on so many topics, such as for example, the bodily resurrection of Jesus. But his deeply modern method of reading Scripture and his apparent disdain for the tradition he is sworn to uphold as a bishop is deeply worrying. You can bet that his pupils and followers will not, in all cases, be as conservative as he is. But that is not to say that Wright is consistently conservative on all matters. To the contrary, he is anything but on a significant number of theological issues. His low regard for the Trinitarian and Christological orthodox tradition is manifested in a number of theological and ethical positions that he adopts. But that is a topic for another post. Maybe tomorrow.

Homosexuality and Orthodoxy

Here is a video of a press conference (scroll down a ways to find the video) given by two orthodox bishops in The Episcopal Church, William Love and Peter Beckwith, after the disasterous votes last week to endorse active, unrepentant homosexuals for the office of bishop in spite of warnings from the Archbishop of Canterbury that doing so would split the Anglican Communion even further. They look devastated, especially Bishop Love of Albany.

But if you take the time to watch it, one of the points that is made effectively is that the issue is not really sex; it it is Christology and Scripture. This got me thinking about how best to frame the real issue plaguing most liberal Protestant denominations today, a major symptom of which is sexual permissiveness. How is the sex issue a symptom of the theological drift?

I came to the conclusion that to endorse homosexual behaviour as normal and good is to deny all three articles of the Creed.

If you look at the Apostles' Creed, you notice right away its Trinitarian character. Article one deals with God the Father, article two with God the Son and article three with God the Holy Spirit. It shocks me to think that the 90 + bishops of The Episcopal Church who voted for normalizing homosexuality recite the Creed every week. I find that difficult to imagine. Here is why.

Article One: "I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth."

This article expresses the doctrine of God as Father and the doctrine of creation. We are not random accidents of impersonal forces. We are creatures of a wise and loving Father. We are designed by God, as Scripture teaches clearly, to be male and female. I don't care what your views are on six-day creation or progressive creation or theistic evolution. The point is that if you no longer believe that men and women were designed by God for marriage and procreation, then you have denied the first article of the Creed. The mechanics of how God created are utterly beside the point. All Christians agree that He did create. And Genesis 1-2, Matthew 19 and Ephesians 5 are clearly unanimous in teaching that marriage is part of God's creational design.

Article Two: "And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. He descended into hell On the third day rose again from the dead, ascended to heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father almighty, thence he will come to judge the living and the dead;

This article is Christology. It teaches the virgin birth and death, descent into hell, resurrection, ascension and future second coming of Jesus Christ as historical facts (cf. the reference to Pilate). It teaches that Jesus now reigns as Lord. This is a basic thumbnail sketch of biblical and orthodoxy Christology as has been taught in the Church since the time of the first apostles. Jesus Christ is the God-Man who died for our sins and rose again trimphantly.

To believe in Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord is to believe in the need for humanity to be rescued from sin by the atoning death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus did something for us that we could never have done for ourselves. Therefore the Gospel preached by the early Church from the Day of Pentecost on was "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of you sins." (Acts 2:38)

The Episcopal Church, officially, no longer believes in preaching the biblical Gospel to homosexuals. But it is not really discrimination. Most of the clergy of that denomination, along with many other liberal Protestants of many denominations, no longer believe in the message of sin and salvation for anyone. They must think Peter just got it wrong on the Day of Pentecost and that the real message should be the social gospel or liberation theology. I think it is fair to say that the Millennium Development Goals define mission for The Episcopal Church. As the Presiding Bishop said in her opening address, the gospel of personal salvation is a heresy. From her vantage point it is, for she has moved beyond Christianity into a new liberal culture-religion.

Article Three: "I believe in the Holy Spirit . . . the forgiveness of sins, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Amen.

The Holy Spirit fills and empowers Christians for sanctification and discipleship. Christians know that homosexuals are not the only sinners; we are all sinners. All of us are lost apart from the incredibly generous grace and forgiveness of God offered in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The only one whose sin cannot be forgiven is the one who refuses to ask forgiveness, perhaps out of a conviction that he is not really a lost sinner in the first place. The Pelagianism of liberal Protestantism is the basis of a works righteousness that strives for a Christian life without the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. Since only the Spirit of God can help us overcome deepseated sins, to deny that such sins can be overcome is a denial of the Spirit.

Summary:
To call homosexuality (along with other sexual sins like fornication, adultery, divorce except for adultery, etc.) good is to deny all three articles of the Creed. It is deny the doctrine of creation, the doctrine of Christ's saving work in dying for our sins and the need for the power of the Holy Spirit. The split in the Anglican Communion (and other Protestant denominations) is not over trivial matters or even over questions of ethics. It is over the Gospel itself.

Orthodoxy is more than a matter of reciting the creeds in worship; it is a matter of believing them and living according to the Holy Scriptures out of which they arise. Our prayers should be with those orthodox members, clergy and bishops of The Episcopal Church who continue to stand for the biblical Gospel.

Modernity as a Heresy Revisited: A Clarification of Terms

A few weeks ago I posted a brief article on Michael Allen Gillespie's excellent book, The Theological Origins of Modernity, entitled: "Descartes' Understanding of Man." This post generated two posts of condemnation by Halden Doerge, the second of which generated 78 comments including some very interesting ones from Doug Harink and D. Stephen Long. The posts are entitled: "Why Modernity is not the Problem" and "Why Modernity is not a Christian Heresy" and can be found here.

One of the comments near the end tried to summarize what Halden's problem is with my post and said the following.

"Clearly Halden is concerned, at least on some key level, with the politics effected (or perhaps at the heart of) a certain discursive strategy: whereby an opposition to modernity functions to present Christendom (as what is prior to modernity) and modernity as the only two games in town.”

Halden then quoted this statement and said: "Thanks, Dan. This is quite well put."

So we have a starting point for discussion here. Halden's problem is that he thinks that by calling Modernity a Christian heresy, I am setting up a choice between Chrisendom and Modernity: Choose One! This is so far off from what I was intending to say that it means that clearly there has been a breakdown in communication. Halden and I are not using words to meant the same things. We may well disagree dramatically about Jesus and the Gospel, (or maybe agree), but it would take a lot of terminological clarification to be sure one way or the other.

Christendom - Halden uses this word pejoratively exclusively. He apparently thinks there should never have been a Christendom. The fact that Christendom arose at all is proof positive that the Church had fallen into compromise and true discipleship had been overshadowed by worldliness. I would now use "Christendom" in a more neutral way that I did in my book, Rethinking Christ and Culture, to mean the geographical location where most people are Christian. Christendom need not necessarily imply Constantinianism. (Se below.)

Constantinianism - Halden does not use this word. He does not need to because it for him appears to be synonomous with Christendom. I disagree. I understand "Constantinianism" to be an eschatological heresy first identified by Yoder. (See my: The Politics of the Cross, ch. 6.) Constantinianism is the false doctrine that Christ's future kingdom can be brought into existence here and now by human effort and does not need to await the Second Coming. This heresy allows the Church to over-identify itself with a particular human government or ideology and sanctify it. This leads to utopianism, totalitarianism and ecclesial compromise with violence. I would not say that Christendom necessarily needs to be Constantinian, although it is a constant temptation.

Orthodoxy - I never mentioned either Constantinianism or Christendom in my post, but Halden seems to hear "Christendom" when I say "Orthodoxy." This is deeply concerning to me. Tolstoy took this approach to the limit when he says that one must choose between the Nicene Creed and the Sermon on the Mount: one have one or the other but not both. Is that true? Or is it exactly the opposite of the truth? I contend that one can never have the Sermon on the Mount without the Nicene Creed. One can have a bland form of liberal tolerance, yes, but not the radical discipleship of the Sermon on the Mount without orthodoxy. (If Jesus was just a man and he said what Matt. 5-7 says he said - then he was insane.)

I would not deny that the concept of orthodoxy was misused in Christendom as a tool of oppression. The Church should have stuck to excommunication and not become complicit in killing heretics. There should have been religious freedom. But the abuse does not negate the proper use (Aquinas). Orthodox doctrine is still essential to the Church, its abuse in Christiandom notwithstanding. Christians too are sinners and will abuse everything holy: sacraments, church office, canon law, tithes, music - you name it! We cannot drop everything that has been abused or there would be no Christianity left.

Heresy - I used the term "heresy" in its precise, technical, theological sense. A heresy is a twisting of a true doctrine either by over-emphasizing one aspect of the truth at the expense of other aspects or by over rationalizing the mystery. Contrary to Halden's concerns, "heresy" can never be completely "the other." On the other hand, he goes too far in implying (without actually saying so) that true doctrine "generates" heresy. No: sinners generate heresy, not by faithfully handing on true doctrine (orthodoxy), but by twisting and distorting it.

So Orthodoxy can be used under the guidence of the Holy Spirit to discern truth from error, to correct false teaching and to guard the purity of the Gospel the Church is charged to preach. Orthodoxy can be radical! It can take us back to the roots of our faith. Orthodoxy can condemn deviations from tradition that distort the biblical narrative centering on Jesus Christ.

Of course nominalism arose out of the Medieval Church and of course many orthodox ideas were in the mix of concepts used by Occam and others. It didn't drop out of the sky. It wasn't imported from India. But heresy is always a twisting of truth. Strictly speaking, that which is completely "other" (such as Hinduism or pre-Christian paganism) can never be heretical. Only a Christian doctrine twisted or over-rationalized can be heresy. And that is what the nominalist view of God turned out to be. As one commentator noted, nominalism is not itself a heresy (which is not to say it could not be wrong) but applied to certain doctrines (God and man in this case) it can lead to heresy. And it did.

Halden is too quick to reduce everthing to politics when he says that Orthodoxy conjurs up images of coercive, violent Christendom for him. This is as reductionistic as what he opposes.

One last point: Halden tries to play off "Jesus" against "Orthodoxy" in his post and is rightly criticized for it by Harink and Long. I don't mean to pile on, but there is perhaps one more point to be mentioned here. The question that is begged in using "Jesus" to critique Christendom or Orthodoxy or whatever is "Which Jesus?" There are many concepts of Jesus floating around out there. Which Jesus is the basis for critique? I'm reading Harnak's History of Dogma right now. If Halden does not mean Harnack's Jesus, then what terminology (other than the terminology of the creeds, i.e. orthodoxy) can Halden turn to in order to clarify what he means by "Jesus?" Surely Harink is correct to say that my call "Back to Orthodoxy" in the end is the same as Halden's call "Back to Jesus." But if so, then why cannot Halden admit that Orthodoxy may function as a way of critiquing Christian unfaithfulness today?

I did not have the pure pagan or total non-Christian in my sights, but rather liberal Christianity as in The Episcopal Church. Now they are heretics and also as Constantinian as they come. They are so intertwined with the dominant culture of Modernity that they cannot even conceive of the Church standing against the destruction of marriage and the abandonment of the virtue of chastity. I would go further and say that their heresy even arises out of their Constantinianism because it is their desperate lust for "relevance" that drives their abandoment of communion with orthodox Christians.

Questioning the Faith or Questioning Endless Questioning? Williams versus Jenson

Archbishop Rowan Williams has always made me uneasy. It is hard to pin down exactly what is wrong but every time I read one of his essays, I feel like I need to give my head a shake and recall what I believe and why I believe it. His incessent, relentless questioning, decentering and deconstructing is not only found in his academic essays, but also in his episcopal letters, his newspaper columns and his sermons. It is as if his perception of the modern Western world and the Christian Church was that all around him were nothing but over-confident absolutists endlessly repeating the party slogans and needing desperately to be shaken out of their credulous, superstitious fixation on tradition. I guess that is why I often wonder what planet he just got in from.

Robert Jenson explains what is wrong with Williams' rhetoric in this incisive paragraph.

"As the essays succeed each other, [Rowan Williams's] fear of closure begins to seem far too obsessive to be truly helpful in the life of faith. The confession into which teaching is supposed to lead us begins, after all, "I believe …," not "I wonder about…." Is it really the chief proper use of dogma and other theology "to keep the essential questions alive," indefinitely to sustain puzzlement? Should dogmas and other theologoumena serve mostly to remind us of the problems they pretend to resolve? God is indeed a mystery, but between honor for the biblical God's specific mystery and the kind of endless semi-Socratic dialectic Williams often seems to commend, there is, I would have thought, some considerable difference. No doubt argument and perplexity are permanent in the church's thinking, and no doubt this is a good and necessary thing; so that stirring up stagnant conviction must indeed be one task of theology. But, e.g., the phrase just cited, "to keep the essential questions alive," occurs in an exposition of "the doctrine of Incarnation," and the fathers of Chalcedon and 2nd Constantinople themselves certainly thought they were settling certain essential questions, in such fashion that conflict about them should not thereafter legitimately trouble the church. Their answers, of course, posed further and again difficult questions, but to say that this also was a good thing -- as I do -- is a different point than the one Williams presses -- or anyway I think it is. Apophatic thinkers though they were, the fathers of the christological councils -- to stay with that instance -- did not suppose that the purpose of their formulations was to keep alive the debates that brought them to the meetings."

- from Lutheran Robert Jenson's review of Williams's book On Christian Theology (from the Summer 2002 number of the journal Pro Ecclesia).