Sub Ratione Dei

The Conversion of Conversion (and the Need to Convert it Back Again)

Review of Alan Kreider, The Change of Conversion and the Origin of Christendom, Wipf and Stock, (2007). 126pp. ISBN: 9781556353932.

The branch of Christianity within which most could answer (or at least invent an answer) to the question “when were you saved?”; Salvation was seen as an one time deal (if you're interested while I can't remember the exact date it was in November 1990). In this small historical survey of the changing understanding of conversion in the first six centuries of Church History Alan Kreider, who is Professor of Church History and Mission at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, shows that this was certainly not how the Church's salvation-story began.

Conversion in early Christianity was an intense and prolonged process, Kreider notes that the catechumenate took take upwards of three years to complete before one could even be admitted to the eucharist. The defining principle is summarised in one of the oft-cited biblical passages used in the catechism of new (would be) believers, in this case as relayed by Origen: “For who of all believers does not know the words of Isaiah [and Micah]? ... And he [God] shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords in to ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation neither shall they learn war any more” (P. 27). In short, in the Church's rigorous initiation process it sought to teach initiates the necessity of following in the ethic of Jesus; hence the emphasis that to belong one not only had to belief right, but also behave right (hence the reason that one could not be a member of military and also a member of the Church). And then, – gradually, – Christendom happened. This emphasis on the countercultural ethic of Jesus and the Church's witness to it changed as, after Constantine, the Church entered into a position of power and with this the process of Christian Initiation gradually changes and conversion is separated from catechesis for if everyone is Christian what need is there to learn about it. By the end of the 6^th century Kreider shows that there had been a sea-change in how conversion was understood: “Conversion, which had made Christians into distinctive people – resident aliens – now was something that made people ordinary, not resident aliens but simply residents” (P. 90).

In 1999 the late Robert E Webber wrote a book (Ancient-Future Faith) that sought to re-imagine contemporary faith in a creative dialogue with traditional mainly patristic theology. The Change of Conversion and the Origin of Christendom can I think serve a similar purpose. We are living in an age of declining church membership and the breaking down of the vestiges of Christendom. Unlike some I believe this is a positive phenomena. It is an opportunity to re-imagine a Christianity that again seeks to be resident aliens in this world witnessing in real ways and local communities to the peace of Christ. And as some no longer know of this Christianity of which we speak this is an opportunity in dialogue with our resident alien ancestors to reimagine what it means to be converted by renouncing the way of the sword (and the way of Christendom) and instead beating the swords into ploughshares.

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Heresies and Homilectics

Review of Ben Quash and Michael Ward (Eds.), Heresies and How to Avoid Them: Why it Matters What Christians Believe, SPCK, (2007). ISBN: 9781598560138.

Maybe it's just the type of Churches I attend but I have never sat in church of a Sunday morning and heard a sermon on why, for example, Pelagius and Arius got it wrong. Perhaps part of the reason is because Peterhouse Chapel at Cambridge University have been hoarding these as this book began life as a series of sermons preached there during one academic term. As individual essays that began as sermons it will not come as a suprise that one does not find a detailed exposition of the various heresies discussed, nonetheless, they do offer an impressive snapshot of the issues involved in these heresies and suggest ways in which this affects theChurch today. Heresies and How to Avoid Them is split into two sections. In part one the main christological heresies of the early church are discussed, namely Arianism, Docetism, Nestorianism, Eutychianism, Adoptionism and Theopaschitism. In part two subject matter turns toward ecclesiogical heresies and also includes a broader historical range with essays on Marcionism, Donatism, Pelagianism, Gnosticism, the Heresy of the Free Spirit and Biblical Trinitarianism (which needless to say the editors do not think is actually a heresy!). As with any collection of essays there is something of a mix in quality, in my view the stand-out contribution in this collection is Denys Turner's "The heresy of the Free Spirit: Are there two kinds of Christian, those with divine wills and those with human wills?" Aside from being an excellent brief introduction to this heresy Turner brings to the fore in a way that other contributors do not (despite a few platitudes to the contrary) the political and moral power of heresy as a reforming power in the church and the lover of Christ and Church that motivates this, even if the outcome is less than noble. This book is essentially a devotional one and the authors do make a lot of good points. However, despite the rave comments other theo-bloggers have made I was somewhat underwhelmed by the outcome. There is a African proverb "until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter". Despite the conciliatory words this is still very much the problem I have with this book. With the possible exception of Theopaschitism and a sympathy -although still disagreement - with the Donatist position I am on the side of orthodoxy throughout the book but there is no emphasis (surprisingly given the inclusion of the ecclesiological heresies) of orthopraxy; and in my view this failure ranks right up with Arianism et al as a challenge to the Church's proclamation of God's salvation.

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The Princely Principle

Review of Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, Penguin, (2003[1513]).

Machiavelli was a Florentine diplomat but, with the fall of the republic and the ascension to power of the Medici he lost his post because Machiavelli worked to maintain Florence's Republican credentials. The Prince is, in part, an attempt by Machiavelli at damage limitation and try to secure a future for himself in the new administration. However, as Machiavelli himself concedes, there was a flaw in his obsequiousness which he tried to mitigate against in his opening letter to Lorenzo de Medici:

I hope it will [not] be considered presumptuous for a man of low and humble status to dare discuss and lay down the law about how princes should rule (p. 3-4).

I am not aware that de Medici ever commented as to whether he did in fact consider Machiavelli's action presumptuous; however, the fact that Machiavelli never worked in Medici's employ again suggest that he did and one is tempted to think that given the fact that Machiavelli's thesis is that the prince is of a different character to us mere mortals then he was right to do so for in the very act of writing the book Machiavelli has to a certain extent undercut his own argument. While Machiavelli's immediate aims were unfulfilled The Prince has become one of the key texts of modern political theory. If truth be told I was perhaps expecting a little more from this book given the regularity with which Machiavelli is cited, although evidently often by those who have not read Machiavelli himself. Although not strictly separated as such there are two emphases in the text. The first, which will appeal to military strategists, is a series of observations of maintaining power over a newly obtained territory and the means by which the prince should do this. The second is an examination of the prince's relationship to the aristocracy, other neighbouring princes, the military, and the general population. What ties all these different constituencies together is the calculated disavowal of ethics. Back in 1997 the new UK Foreign Secretary Robin Cook Robin Cook launched a new ethical foreign policy; at the time I remember being impressed. In it Cook promised that

Our foreign policy must have an ethical dimension and must support the demands of other peoples for the democratic rights on which we insist for ourselves. The Labour Government will put human rights at the heart of our foreign policy

A centrepiece of Machiavelli's argument is that there is not, from the Prince's perspective a necessary correlation between ethics and politics. As Anthony Grafton summarises in the introduction Machiavelli argued that "the prince could not be constrained by the demands of normal morality if he hoped to do his job properly ... Politics must have its own rules" (p. xxiii-xxiv). On the face of it, Cook et al were charting a new way from that envisaged by Machiavelli, however, on closer reflection they played a Machiavellian political strategy masterfully, the Iraq war being symptomatic of this (although, to be fair, it should be remembered that Cook resigned from the Cabinet over this issue). Machiavelli argues that the prince, even if privately generous and virtuous must always be prepared to politically divorce this ethical framework from political praxis and, as Machiavelli notes one of the best ways to be allowed to do this - for the Prince's power is never absolute, hence the need for wile - is to play on the moral virtues of those who could stop them. Accumulate natural resources while preaching freedom and peace; praise justice while undermining international law, etc. I do not like what I read, but over 500 years since it was first published The Prince strikes me as an extremely perceptive book. It is not that the leader should be wholly self-serving - for, contrary to some characterisations that is not Machiavelli's argument but if one is to succeed in the community of nations (I use success in the normal sense and not as a statement of personal approval) then ethics should be subservient to power. We may hope for the day when that is not so but at present it is the world in which we live.

Related Links: Online version of Machiavelli's The Prince

The Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy's Article on Machiavelli. 

A Scholars & Rogues review of the book.

Theology Books and the Christian Ghetto

It is well known that much "Contemporary Christian Music" (CCM) essentially operates as a Christian ghetto.  Here's one reminisce (see previous link):

The music though, was always marketed to us “just like Led Zeppelin, or Jethro Tull, but its about Jesus, man!”  We lapped it up, rejoicing every time a mainstream musician like BJ Thomas or Bob Dylan “accepted Jesus” and came into our increasingly isolated little bubble, until their record sales improved and they left.

It never dawned on us that the reason to listen to Ian Anderson and John Fischer was the same; that they were competent artists with something to say.

For some of course who delight in the "security" of the sacred-secular split CCM this is precisely the point of CCM and the reason for its niche status but ultimately I agree with the previously linked post, it is little more than an "isolated little bubble".

Which brings me to theology books, or, more specifically theology bookstores. Now I know that with the still ongoing SPCK saga still ongoing criticising the christian bookshop may not be the best timing, but since when do bloggers need to me diplomats?

There are certain types of christian bookshop that specialise in the christian ghetto, I am thinking for example of the Catholic Truth Society and those evangelical shops that stock nothing but Banner of Truth titles, but that is not necessarily the norm.

Yesterday I spent half an hour or so browsing a Wesley Owen shop (who are also evidently experiencing problems) and it is clear that in intent it is not seeking to be a ghetto, although it is not a patch on the old SPCK shop in Chester. Within the theology section there is a broad range of (Protestant) literature ranging (from memory) from the liberal Paul Badham (who always gave me crappy marks when second marking essays on my MA) to the evangelical Alister Mcgrath. Given that the Badham text was promoting euthanasia as a legitimate Christian position it seems clear to me that STL (Wesley Owen parent company) are not afraid to challenge and expand christian horizons. So, my question is why the exclusive focus on Christian theology? Are we to assume that the Christian seeking to develop her knowledge of a particular area of christian thought would never deign to lower themselves to reading a text by a non-christian?

Seriously, on the shelves I encountered a fair few responses to Dawkins and, flicking through at least some seemed serious and substantial. So, would it really hurt to stock the God Delusion itself and perhaps Eagleton's Reason, Faith, and Revolution. With all the texts on social justice and the church wouldn't it be beneficial to have a little Amartya Sen (for example). Perhaps a Hume text or two could sit aside Swinburne's latest tome? Since when has the christian study of theology (banner of truth types notwithstanding) been conducted without reference (i.e, actually reading) critical texts - the answer of course is never. So why do the Christian bookshop, whose mandate is to resource this study, operate as a de facto christian ghetto?

My point is not to suggest that we turn the christian bookshop into a humanities resource centre. I go to these bookshops rather than, say,  a Waterstones because I want to look at theology books and a good range rather than just the McGrath and Karen Armstrong Waterstones and the like tend to stock. But surely, the aim of the christian theology bookseller is to promote christian theology which relies on critical reflection outside its borders rather than promote the work of individual christian authors. Or, to put it another way, if Christian booksellers insist on shoving Dawkin rebuttals down our throats it's only fair to enable one to consider the source in tandem, You might say I advocate the ad fontes approach to christian bookshops (who'd of thought the reformation would come to Dawkin's defence!)

Or am I wrong?

It ’ s a rookie mistake

It's a story re-told many a time by politicians grown cynical after years of office to be confronted by the words they uttered in the idealistic youth and now live up to all they previously opposed.

Such U-turns it appears are not confined to the world of politics. Earlier today I was reading Martin Luther's Sermon on his return to Wittenburg on March 10, 1522:

In short, I will preach it, teach it, write it, but I will constrain no man by force, for faith must come freely without compulsion. I opposed indulgences and all the papists, but never with force. I simply taught, preached, and wrote God's word; otherwise I did nothing ... I did nothing; the Word did everything. Had I desired to forment trouble, I could have brought great bloodshed upon Germany ... but what good would it have been? Mere fool's play ... What do you suppose is Satan's thought when one tries to do the thin by kicking up a row? He sits back in hell and thinks: Oh, what a fine game the poor fools are up to now!
    in Ronald J Sider (Ed.), Karlstadt's Battle with Luther, p. 24.

This is Luther I remind you who a mere three years later in 1525 wrote that literary masterpiece (?) Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants calling on the Christian nobility to brutally suppress the peasant's revolt, (thank God he didn't desire to "forment trouble"). It's funny how you get more right wing as you get older isn't it?

Yet more Volf

In the penultimate paragraph of the main part of Volf's work comes this gem:

So why do so many of us take the "sword" into our hands so readily? Why do we visit vengeance upon our enemies when we should be inspired by the cross, forgive? Because we really don't identify with the deep conviction of the faith we embrace? Because we hold onto a godliness emptied of substance, to a faith that dribbled away as it was passed on to us? Because we subscribe to a thinned-out civil religion in which the God of Jesus Christ is just a semi-transparent garment covering the nakedness of the fierce goddess "the Nation"? Because we serve the god called "the Self", and therefore shamelessly take from the giving and forgiving God, and then equally shamelessly take from our neighbours and pursue them with vengeance when they've dared to take anything from us?

Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge, 224.

Bonhoeffer and South Africa

John W De Gruchy, Bonhoeffer and South Africa: Theology in Dialogue, Eerdmans, 1984.

De Gruchy is a provocative writer who has recently written some good works on democracy and theology. I am pretty sure that in the mid 1980s this books would have been even more provacative.

Within history there is the "Hitler effect" whereby all leaders are compared to hitler and, consequently, the comparison is trivialised (one of the most recent is the Obama = Hitler nonsense). There is I think an analogous "Bonhoeffer effect" (normally taken as shorthand for the Confessing Church. A multitude of challenges a cause for declaring the status confessionis. However, the South African apertheid is probably one of the few post-war cases where such rhetoric is justified.

De Gruchy book is an attempt to justify the comparison. In doing so he presents a reasonable introduction to Bonhoeffer's political theology. However, the most interesting aspect is De Gruchy's analysis of the Reformed Church's (then current) theology under apartheid which often represented a defence of apartheid either overtly or by omission. It is a telling example of theology in the service of injustice.

The book is now dated and consequently I'm not sure it is of much use to the general reader. However, it is an interesting historical snapshot of the response of Churches to ethical challenges.

Elsewhere ...

Bonhoeffer the Martyr?

On David Nutt

It's a digression from the usual subject matter but I want to take a little time looking at the David Nutt story that seems to be running and running. Professor David Nutt was, until recently the chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), in effect the Government's chief scientific advisor on drugs policy. If the Guardian is to be believed the story can be summarised thus:

Professor David Nutt, the government's chief drug adviser, has been sacked a day after claiming that ecstasy and LSD were less dangerous than alcohol.

Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary, put forward the following rationale for the decision:

"Professor Nutt was not sacked for his views, which I respect but disagree with," he writes. "He was asked to go because he cannot be both a government adviser and a campaigner against government policy."

The story has been rumbling on and today it has been confirmed that two ACMD council members have resigned with rumours that a mass resignation may follow shortly.The story surprised and angered me to the extent that I was about to write a letter of complaint to my MP on the matter.

However, a little research later and I am somewhat less inclined to make Nutt a martyr.

In recent years the UK has seen Cannabis reclassified from a class C to a class B drug in 2002. Then, last year in Cannabis was again reclassified back to a class C drug, despite the advice against the move by ACMD. Although accepting that cannabis use may cause increased liklihood of psychosis the link was not a strong one. Scientifically speaking, in terms of the medical risk to the individual user, Nutt maintained that Cannabis use was safer than alchohol and tobacco, both of which a legal drugs. The finding, which is hardly unique, certainly raises questions regarding the evidential basis for the reclassification.

If the main thrust of the media's presentation is to be believed this is what Nutt said. If he had I'd currently be writing my letter to my MP for the sacking. For Nutt would have been sacked solely for relaying scientific evidence, as is his duty to do, which, it so happens, would on its own suggest a drugs policy at variance with the one instituted.

But in the article that sparked the issue  it is clear that Nutt went much further than this. He criticised the precautionary principle rationale Jacqui Smith (Johnson's predecessor) put forward in Parliament on grounds other than medical evidence. There are other issues involved in drugs policy other than just the medical risk to users - all of which quite reasonably can feed into a government policy. Of course, Nutt is free to disagree, but he may not do so publicly (on this one matter) while he held the office he did. The tradition of public service impartiality is an important one, and Nutt trangressed that line. Of course, now he has the limelight and is free from restraint he may, and I suspect will, tell the Government exactly why he thinks its so wrong.

And, for the record, in my opinion cannabis should have remained a category C drug and I pretty agree with all the points raised in Nutt's paper. 

Elsewhere ...

Mark Reckons ...

The Resurrection - Geza Vermes

  Geza Vermes, The Resurrection, Penguin, (2008).

It probably doesn't help that this, evidently the fourth of a number of popular book written on the historical jesus is the first book of Vermes I have read. Based on the experience it may well not be the last.

In an enjoyable romp through evolution jewish tradition, second testament sources and the evidence of the early christians Vermes tries to make sense of how the development of the idea of Jesus' resurrection and the centrality of the doctrine in Christian thought. As regards historicity Vermes makes clear that "not even a credulous non-believer is likely to be persuaded by the various reports of the resurrection; they convince only the already converted" (p. 142). The Resurrection is a brief summary why Vermes believes this to be so.

The idea of resurrection, Vermes argues, while not unprecedented was a marginal belief in Jewish thought. Moreover, the treatment in the synoptic gospels do tend to have this unexpected character with a few prophecies inserted after the fact. In an interview on the book Vermes summarises the thesis

"Yet if you look at what Jesus actually said, then you get a different picture. If he did talk about the resurrection, he forgot to write it down; so it's more likely he didn't. And if he did, then why did his resurrection come as such a surprise to the apostles? No one said, 'Of course, Jesus said it would be like this' when his tomb was found to be empty; even Mary Magdalene assumed that someone must have moved the body. Nobody's reactions correspond to the expectation of a resurrection."

While it may be arguable, considered from a synoptic viewpoint that the resurrection was an interpolation after the fact the message of the texts themselves are not fatally damaged. Not so, the Pauline letters. It is Paul who forthrightly asserts that the whole of the divine salvific plan rests on the historicity of Jesus' resurrection (1 Cor 15: 12-18). Vermes then follows that view that Paul is to be considered the founder of Christianity. In his conclusion to his relatively brief survey of Paul he more or less says as much:

whereas the idea of resurrection lay at the periphery of the preaching of Jesus, based on the idea of the kingdom of God, St Paul turned it into the centrepiece of his mystical  and theological vision, which was soon to become quasi-identical with the essence of the Christian message (p. 130).

It is at this point that Vermes' argument began to irk me a little. For one, given the suggestion that Paul fundamentally changed the nature of the nascent Christian movement by making central what was once peripheral it seems remarkable to me that Vermes only spent 9 pages on Pauline Christianity. More importantly however, although Vermes was likely always likely to annoy some I have a suspicion Vermes has gone out of his way to be too nice. The issue is surely if is Paul that invents the theological significance of the resurrection the Christianity how is this to be explained? Is it a case of mass delusion or intentional deception on paul's part. Although most likely a controversial topic, particularly given the book's release over the Easter period it is surely integral to the topic at hand, namely how the idea of resurrection began as a marginal facet of Jewish tradition but was to become the cornerstone for Christian faith. Given that the Pauline letters mostly pre-date the gospels (if I remember my NT history correctly) this question is surely all the more important because there can be no doctrinal evolution from the synoptics to the Pauline letters.

In closing, Vermes covers the the possible ground for alternative explanations for the empty tomb. Here,  Vermes helps out some evangelical apologists by dismissing all alternatives as to why the tomb may have been empty. Of course, the other alternative - that Jesus died and corporeally rose from the dead - is likewise jettisoned.  So, what is one to make of the resurrection, a resurrection that Vermes all but states is (materially) non-historical?  In closing Vermes offers the "Jesus lives in the hearts of men" response which seems to me the ultimate cop-out as it is here presented but i'm probably going to put up a post on this aspect in the near future so I won't dwell on it here.

I am pretty sure that those who have studied biblical studies will find anything new here but for dabblers such as myself this is a succinct and engaging book. I read it in one sitting so it may be a good choice for the next long journey you have to take on public transport.  

Elsewhere ....

James Crossley on Vermes and A N Wilson

Review by Tracts for the Times

Targumen on the Vermes Article

A Christian T Shirt I might (possibly) wear ...

This T-Shirt from Letters from Kamp Krusty is awesome.

 

HT Exploring Our Matrix.