A Lutheran critique of open source theology

I emailed Charles St-Onge (pastor of St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Ridley Park, PA) originally because he has a link to Open Source Theology on his personal website with the tagline: ‘Desperate post-moderns trying to rediscover theology. Would be funny, if it weren’t sad.’ Since I have personally had very little interaction with mainstream opinion over the emerging or postmodern church agenda, I thought it might be interesting to hear why he considers it so misguided. He has made a number of thoughtful points in response i) to the general principle of an ‘open source theology’ and ii) to the first seven paragraphs in the suggested outline of an emerging theology. I have added my own response to his comments but I have a rather poor understanding of Lutheranism and others may want to contribute to the discussion.

Charles: Perhaps the tagline on my site is a little harsh, but your response certainly indicates that it provokes a response! I guess my first reaction would be that “open source’s” starting point is far too subjective to end up with anything other than more sectarianism and further fracturing and splintering of an already fractured and splintered Christian community. (Note, for example, the result of Thomas Campbell’s attempts to unify American Christianity.

Andrew: Your concern is entirely legitimate and I accept that a process like open source theology is bound to entail a degree of subjectivity and a risk of divisiveness. But there are a couple of things that I would say in defence of this process:

1. What you label as ‘subjectivity’ I would rather characterize as the engagement of a broad spectrum of people in a serious conversation about what it means to be Christian and church in the world. What excites me about this whole emerging church thing is that it has got people thinking again about what they believe. But this conversation is not taking place in isolation from either theological traditions or mainstream scholarship – on the contrary, it is (at least, should be) a conversation with them.

2. The divisions are there anyway. Rightly or wrongly there is considerable unhappiness with the dominant forms of evangelicalism, some of which you yourself have voiced. Perhaps we make matters worse by attempting to rethink our theology from the bottom up, but many people are looking for a way to recover confidence in their belief system, and simply repeating the old formulae is not an option for them. The problem is not so much that postmoderns believe different things as that they think differently – which is why it has become so important to rethink the basis and content of faith. In fact, this different way of thinking is arguably a force against sectarianism. Postmodern Christians are less conscious of ideological/theological boundaries, more inclined to interact with and draw upon other traditions, and perhaps crucially less confident that they have got all the answers.

Charles: Some further thoughts, based on your “Outline of An Emerging Theology”.

Andrew: I should underline the fact that this is my outline of an emerging theology. It is no more than a contribution to the conversation. Others will see things very differently. In time I may also come to see things differently. That is why it’s a conversation.

1. There will be less need to have recourse to a doctrine of inerrancy in order to safeguard Christian truth. We will develop an approach to Scripture that is both critical and committed. We will find more honest ways to manage the beliefs and ideas that determine the Christian worldview.

Charles: Traditionally, where one has started one’s theological discourse has revealed the foundations on which one wishes to build. Only later Protestants, who distanced themselves from the tradition of the church and the ancients by their cry of “sola scriptura!” have landed in this Biblicism. The church’s traditional Christ-centered hermeneutic was lost, and replaced with a “bible as guidebook/rulebook” mentality. A truly catholic faith seeks to speak of Christ first, who is revealed in Scripture to be sure, but who is the goal and author of all Scripture (see Scaer, D.P., ‘“All Theology Is Christology”: How Does Every Passage of Scripture Reveal Christ?’).

Andrew: We don’t seem to be very far apart on this one. My comment certainly presupposes a particular polemic and reflects the fact that to a large extent the emerging church phenomenon is driven by a reaction against a narrow conservative hermeneutic. I would have a problem with both the biblicist and the Christ-centred reading if I felt that they led to distortions in the reading of the text. That is not to the exclusion of a theologically determined hermeneutic; but I do think that we have sometimes preserved the authority of scripture at the expense of intellectual integrity. For an example of how a christological hermeneutic may obscure and distort the meaning of the text, have a look at these notes on Matthew’s use of the Immanuel prophecy in Isaiah.

2. The relocation of Jesus within the political-religious landscape of first century Judaism will generate a concrete and compelling narrative core for an emerging theology.

Charles: This is not the difficulty facing contemporary Christianity. The difficulty is relocating Christ within the Godhead. Nothing can be known of God apart from what is revealed in and through Christ. Contemporary Christianity, especially American Evangelicalism, has constructed a Christless theology, believing it can speak of God first and then Jesus of Nazareth second as a mere “Ultimate Guide”. The human is still left on their own. Jesus is God, and any theology that does not begin and end its words and praise with that phrase cannot be considered Christian.

Andrew: I would suggest that both tasks are necessary. I do not think we understand God better by misunderstanding the identity and purpose of the human Jesus and his relation to first-century Judaism. I appreciate your concerns about a ‘Christless theology’, but I think that in the long run we will arrive at a better grasp of the statement ‘Jesus is God’ if we take the difficult path of historical-criticism.

3. New Testament teaching about the end of the age and the ‘coming of the Son of man’ will be recentred on the period of crisis that saw the destruction of Jerusalem, the defeat of institutional Roman opposition to the church, and the emergence of an international people of God. This recentering of eschatology will have important implications not only for how we interpret heaven and hell but also for our understanding of the role of the church in the world.

Charles: Realized eschatology has come and gone and come again, and will pass away again too. The earliest martyrs, from James to Hus to modern missionaries, placed their hope in what was not yet seen (Romans 8:18-25). While seeing many of Christ’s prophecies fulfilled at the cross (the baptism with fire, the abomination that causes desolation, etc.) has its proponents, realized eschatology ultimately leads to a this-worldly socialist Gospel and cannot be reconciled to the New Testament witness. This world will hate us (John 15:19). We can’t make them like us by “being nice”. We can only proclaim Christ and search for the lost sheep still at large in the nations.

Andrew: I do not agree that an historically realized eschatology (I would rather avoid the term ‘realized eschatology’ but I don’t have a good alternative) necessarily leads to a ‘this-worldly socialist Gospel’. I think, rather, that it leads to mission – certainly with a ‘this-worldly’ orientation, but not to the exclusion of a witness to the reality of God and the need for redemption. The reading of New Testament eschatology presupposed here must obviously be decided on exegetical grounds and may in the end prove to be mistaken. But it offers a strong basis for the postmodern-Christian conviction that the missio dei entails more than saving lost sheep and herding them to heaven.

4. The ‘post-eschatological’ church will recover a sense of its place within both creation and human history. We will need to develop a corporate and individual spirituality that is both more holistic and more expansive.

Charles: Lutherans have charged the Reformed with distancing the church from both creation and human history for centuries. The Lutheran emphasis on God’s work through created, worldly means, and his meeting creation on their level as an incarnated God, has made true Lutheran spirituality more robustly holistic than that of the Protestant churches. The tacit acceptance of Calvin’s dictum that finite non est capax infinitum has relegated American Evangelicalism and generic Protestants to a non-corporeal “spiritism” (see Scaer, D.P., ‘Reformed Exegesis and Lutheran Sacraments: Worlds in Conflict’).

Andrew: I think a lot of postmodern believers would agree with you here, but it seems to me that this statement rather contradicts your previous objections to a realized eschatology. I certainly think we are looking for a ‘robustly holistic’ spirituality.

5. Salvation will be understood not as qualifying people for heaven but as incorporating those who are prepared to be disciples into a community which in all respects draws its identity and purpose from Christ as Lord. Jesus died so that not only Jews but also Gentiles might enjoy the life of the ‘age to come’, but this life is experienced now through the power of the Spirit in the context of a renewed covenant community.

Charles: Why not hold to the evangelical catholic (and Scriptural) understanding of redemption as the hoped for, but not yet completed, redemption of the whole created order of which Christ is the first-fruit? It was the denial of the “resurrection of the body” (our bodies, not necessarily Christ’s) that opened up generic Protestantism and Evangelicalism to the spiritualization of the after-life, which is the real problem it would seem you are trying to address. Sitting on clouds, eating Philly cream cheese, and all that.

Andrew: I do not deny the resurrection of the body. It seems to me, though, that much of the salvation language in the New Testament refers not to the final resurrection but to the incorporation of believers into the covenant people. The ‘age to come’ begins with the vindication of the Son of man, who receives the kingdom, and the outpouring of the eschatological Spirit. Whatever we may still look forward to, we have to take the present responsibility of the church very seriously. Christ died – and many others suffered and died in him – precisely so that the people of God might be a continuing and effective force in the world.

6. The purpose of the church is given in the covenant to Abraham: to be blessed by God, but on the basis of that to be a blessing to those outside the covenant. This purpose is fulfilled not primarily by bringing people into the covenant but by giving healing and justice and compassion to the world.

Charles: As a Christian, I believe the purpose of the church must be found in Christ! In the church, which is Christ’s body, through the Spirit’s work in preached word, in the washing of the water and Christ’s Spirit, and by the eating and drinking of Christ’s own body and blood, we who were enemies of God are being made into one unity. This church struggles and battles with principalities and powers in this world, both spirituality and in their physical manifestations, to the end that they will be with Christ in the world to come. The church is begun, sustained, and brought to fulfillment in and by Christ and is his work alone.

Andrew: Is there really a problem with formulating the purpose of the church in terms of the covenant with Abraham? Could we not say that it is precisely ‘in Christ’ that the people of God recovered its original identity and purpose? My question here is this: Is the mission of the church to be conceived solely as a matter of bringing people in, or of going out in order to bring people in? Or is there also a sense in which the very presence of the church in the world is a source of blessing to others? Do we give, love, have compassion, proclaim justice, pray, serve, only for the purpose of saving a person’s soul?

The way in which you characterize the purpose of the church is fine, but it has a defensive and embattled ring to it. Underlying it is a narrative of survival that makes good sense in situations of crisis – above all the eschatological crisis faced by Jesus’ followers. But I think it is a mistake to suppose that those conditions are universal. When the storm comes, we close the doors and windows and pray to God that we do not suffer too much damage. But our purpose is not simply to survive storms. When the storm passes, we get out and start working again. I suppose you could say that the church is going through a crisis at the moment, but in the UK at least it is a crisis not of opposition but of irrelevance.

7. A community that has a clear sense of its relationship to the one God and of its calling to serve the world, will affirm humanity’s natural instinct for God and for goodness outside the boundaries of the covenant. At the heart of the church there will always be the dynamic of forgiveness, worship and prayer. But in many respects it is what happens outside the church that will be more interesting, where the sacred and the secular overlap and become confused.

Charles: Humanity has a natural instinct for God, which it rejects, and for goodness, which it mostly rejects (Romans 1:21-25). So long as humanity (and even most so-called Christians!) insists on seeing itself as “good”, all is lost. Only when one looks to Christ for one’s only good and help can there be salvation (Matt. 19:16-30). The alternative is hypocrisy or despair.

Andrew: The problem, Charles, is that a lot of people find it very difficult to maintain that sort of perspective against the evidence of their own eyes. It is one thing to insist that we are reconciled to God solely on the basis of Christ’s atoning work; it is another to turn our backs on the world in disgust at its depravity. What the church has in Christ is a unique relationship to the Father – we are a ‘new creation’, ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people’. But is that really incompatible with the desire to affirm what is naturally good and life-giving in the world?

Charles: I would urge for further reading:

Veith, G.E., The Spirituality of the Cross
Parton, C.A., Defense Never Rests
Various authors, The Theology of the Cross for the 21st Century
Just, A., ‘Lutheran worship’