51ka0d0GNNLI am continuing with my chapter-by-chapter, essay-by-essay review of Good Disagreement?  Previously:

N. T. Wright. Big fan.  I’ve been exploring the depths of his perspective for some time now.  In this contribution to Good Disagreement? he not only delivers his insights into the broader framework for conflict, he actually applies it to the issues at hand.  Are sexual ethics a matter for indifference in the church?  Wright’s answer is a resounding “no”.

Wright identifies a “double stress” in the current problems: an apparent tension between “unity” and “holiness.”  For Wright this is only an appearance because “properly understood, they do not form a paradox, pulling in opposite directions… they actually reinforce one another.” (p67).  I suspect those who would differ from him on sexual ethics would also resolve the tension; but for a different understanding of ‘holiness.’  The tension exists when there is need to agree to disagree.

For matters of adiaphora, (so-called “things indifferent), this tension is resolvable in charity – significant charity!  Speaking of Paul’s appeal at the end of Romans, Wright offers:

He does not here ask the different groups to give up their practices; merely not to judge one another where differences exist.  As Paul well knew (though we sometimes forget), this is actually just as large a step, if not larger, than a change in practice itself.  …That is, of course, why the apparently innocuous “live and let live” proposals for reform are the real crunch, as most reforming groups know well. (pp76-77)

I love this summation of how the tensions of adiaphora are to be handled:  “Messiah-people will make demands on one another’s charity; they must not make demands on one another’s conscience.” (p77).  And similarly:

…the subtle rule of adiaphora is about as different from a modern doctrine of “tolerance” as can be imagined. “Tolerance” is not simply a low-grade version of “love”; in some senses, it is its opposite, as “tolerance” can imply a distancing, a wave from the other side of the street, rather than the rich embrace of “the sibling for whom the Messiah died. (p81)

I think I was saying something similar earlier about the danger of mere “conversation” being the stuff of theological strangers.

For issues that are not indifferent, the “live and let live” tension is simply not tenable. They are matters which define and undergird the unity, rather than those which are worked out in the charity of unity.  On such matters the difference is not simply a tension, it is a chasm.

To discern, therefore, the scope of what is adiaphora we must come to where Wright begins, to his understanding of Paul’s “vision for the church.”  Here we have straight-down-the-line New Perspectives ecclesiology.  In fact, for those getting into the New Perspectives, this chapter is not a bad introduction.  The detail does not need rehearsing here and he is explicit about his conclusions:

Certain things are indifferent because…

The divine intervention, as Paul saw it, unveiled in the messianic events concerning Jesus, was to create a single worldwide family; and therefore any practices that functioned as symbols dividing different ethnic groups could not be maintained as absolutes within this single family. (p70)

Certain things are not indifferent because…

This divine intervention…. was that this single family would… embody, represent, and carry forward the plan of “new creation”, the plan which had been the intention for Israel from the beginning; and that therefore any practices that belonged to the dehumanizing, anti-creation world of sin and death could likewise not be maintained within this new-creation family. (p70)

And this is where Wright picks his side.

Now, others would use these categories on their side.  For some, I’m sure, the church’s traditional view of homosexuality is “dehumanizing” and therefore the correction of that through the blessing of same-sex relationships etc. is a matter of necessity, and is not adiaphora.  Despite the protestations of some (I think particularly of Loveday Alexander’s declared intentions that I heard recently) it is clear that the current disagreements are much more than letting some getting on with what they want to do; it’s each side seeing the gospel denied in the other.  I cannot see how, if “live and let live” is the outcome of the shared conversations, we will have done much more than prove the insipidity of the identity we have left in common.

Wright’s basis for his position enters right into that ecclesial identity, and the call on the church to embody both new covenant and new creation:

In terms of creation and new creation, the new creation retrieves and fulfils the intention for the original creation, in which the coming together of heaven and earth is reflected in the coming together of male and female.  This vision of the original creative purpose was retained by Israel, the covenant people, the “bride” of YHWH, and the strong sexual ethic which resulted formed a noticeable mark of distinction between the Jewish people and the wider world. (p71)

Paul insists that the markers which distinguish Jew from Gentile are no longer relevant in the new, messianic dispensation; but the Jewish-style worship of the One God, and the human male/female life which reflects that creational monotheism, is radically reinforced. (p72)

The line he draws around the adiaphora clearly rebuts the tired argument by which critics of the church’s position play the “why aren’t you obeying the whole law?” card.

The differentiation he introduces has nothing to do with deciding that some parts of the Torah are good and to be retained (sexual ethics) and other parts are bad and to be abolished (food laws, circumcision and so on). That is not the point… Some parts of Torah – the parts which kept Israel separate from the Gentile world until the coming of the Messiah – have done their work and are now put to one side, not because they were bad but because they were good and have done their work. Other parts of Torah – the parts which pointed to the divine intention to renew the whole creation through Israel – are celebrated as being now at last within reach through Jesus and the Spirit.  The old has passed away; all things have become new – and the “new” includes the triumphant and celebratory recovery of the original created intention, not least for male and female in marriage. (p74)

There can be no good disagreement if the scope of adiaphora cannot be agreed to.  It is the very playing field upon which the charitable and constructive tussle of church life can occur.  Wright has provided, here, a thorough and thoughtful determination of the shape of that playing field; but the very same things have also determined which side he is playing on.  Those who “play on the other side” must also justify a field of play that is coherent with their position. The danger of course is that the conversation is then cross-purposed: to extend the metaphor to breaking point, one side turns up to play football on a football field, and the other turns up with rugby kit across town; by what rules do the two engage?

Or, with more precision, the ongoing problem is outlined by these concluded remarks from Wright.  It’s a problem to which he offers no solution:

We of course, live in a world where, in the aftermath of the Enlightenment’s watering down of Reformation theology, many have reduced the faith to a set of abstract doctrines and a list of detached and apparently arbitrary rules, which “conservatives” then insist upon and “radicals” try to bend or merely ignore.  It is this framework itself which we have got wrong, resulting in dialogues of the deaf, or worse, the lobbing of angry verbal hand grenades over walls of incomprehension. (p82)

Next: Part 6: Good Disagreement and the Reformation by Ashley Null

51ka0d0GNNLI am continuing with my chapter-by-chapter, essay-by-essay review of Good Disagreement?  Previously:

It is simply a matter of honest observation that there is currently division in the church.  If there wasn’t then there would be no need for shared conversations and the like.  The question (I hesitate to call it an “open question” as there are clearly many for whom it is answered and closed) is as to the sort of division it is.  It’s a question that creates a predicament: in answering it we don’t find the way forward before we find out the harder reality of who we are, right now, in the present.

Michael Thompson, vice-principal of Ridley Hall, Cambridge, makes his contribution to Good Disagreement? by surveying the sorts of divisions that are described in the New Testament, and the disciplinary responses that they engender.  It is a good and helpful analysis which raises the right thoughts and espouses the correct attitudes.  But Thompson doesn’t, as I’m discovering is the way of this book, take us as far as applying these things to the current perturbations.

In simplistic terms, there are two sorts of division: inevitable and schismatic (to use my own terms).  Thompson picks up on the same point as Ian Paul that sometimes the “the gospel brings division” (p43):

…there is no indication that Jesus sought deliberately to divide his hearers; it was the inevitable result of a message which some joyfully accepted but others rejected or simply did not understand. (p44)

This gospel-based division, if you like, falls within the semantic range of the original word, schism.  But we have come to use the term schismatic in a narrower sense, in which the unity of the church is attacked or damaged by things such as false teaching and the failure to discipline immorality.

The point of application that is left for us is to consider is whether the current division(s) are of one sort or the other.  Neither option is particularly pleasant.

It may be that we are simply encountering the inevitable division that comes from the preaching of the gospel: the gospel as it is conceived by one side, is neither received nor understood by the other.  It is tempting to draw this conclusion; the depths of difference appear to run very deep, and are not simply isolated to one point of doctrine, but extend across the core of the worldviews in question.

If this is indeed what we are facing then the way forward is clear: good disagreement is not about discipline, but about persuasion, evangelism, and proclamation.  Indeed, we might say, that it is about “shared conversation.”  This is because this is not the division of brothers and sisters, it is the division that exists when one group has not and refuses to “buy in” to the other.  Good conversation is what theological strangers do.

So perhaps the other option applies: we are actually dealing with schismatic division.  This is also a tempting conclusion to draw.  Either side can readily think of the other as effectively heretical: that they are preaching a gospel that is, even if they are too polite to say it, from their perspective, false.  Thompson’s survey thoroughly shows how schismatic division in the New Testament coheres with false teaching and false teachers, fellow Christians who deny the gospel.

On this point I initially thought that Thompson had shown his colours, at least implicitly, as he applies Pauline rebuke to “…those who innovate at the expense of church unity, with a claim of being “prophetic”, and to those who lead others away from the church in response to such innovations.” (p46, emphasis mine).  But then I realised that even the progressive sides of this debate are seeking to claim historical ground, and accuse the traditionalists of the innovation.  Consider the recent interview with Ian Paul and Jeremy Pemburton (link) which, beyond the immediate considerations of an employment tribunal, has the progressive interlocutor appealing to one of the Thirty-Nine Articles.  Thompson’s consideration applies symmetrically.

If the response to the inevitable division of the gospel is persuasion; then the response to schismatic division is discipline.  Thompson’s consideration of church discipline is the most helpful part of his contribution.   Discipline is deliberate, and it can result in separation and exclusion; but it’s heart and motivation is restoration and re-unification.  It’s what you do when you have “bought into” the welfare of the other.  It’s a family mode of operation that appeals at beginning, middle, and end to the head of the family, which is Christ.  Thompson’s conclusion sums it up:

Biblical discipline is not punitive, but excludes in order to protect and aims to restore.  The practice of gracious and effective discipline of this kind, in the spirit in which Jesus called for it, is not often seen in the church today.  The risk of acting in anger rather than with love is great.  Equally dangerous, however, is to allow spiritual cancer to spread instead of confronting a threat to the entire community. (p60)

Thompson’s essay is the first in this book to make me seriously cogitate on the fundamental wisdom of the shared conversations process.  Does conversation, rather than discipline, connote that we are already such strangers to one another that we must interact as such?  Is this logic our reality? :- The deeper the division, the more the road ahead looks like conversation and not discipline.  But the more it looks like conversation, the less we are actually invested in each other.

Mind you, it has also made me cogitate about some of the alternative approaches.  The conservative GAFCON Primates, for instance, want “repentance and discipline” on the table at the forthcoming meeting in January 2016.  Are they, by this, acknowledging fraternity, albeit a wounded one which requires addressing?  Similarly the litigious and disciplinary actions of TEC against churches and dioceses that are now part of ACNA presuppose by the attempt at accountability, a fraternity.  Consider how Thompson offers wisdom for determining the basis of interaction:

It is of course true that “by their fruits you shall know them”; the difficulty is when to measure the fruits.” (p52)… Within the church this means treating people with the “charitable assumption” that their profession to belong to Christ is true and encouraging them to live by it. (p52-53)

I find it hard to see “charitable assumption” being exercised on either side, yet the discipline they want presupposes a mutual belonging.  Perhaps if the Primate’s Meeting is simply a conversation then we will finally be sure of who we are to each other.

There is much more that can be gleaned from Thompson’s considerations.  His calling us to humility of Christ, and warning of “uninformed Christian zeal” (p47) is something that I should have emphasised more.  Similarly his unpacking of judgement ultimately ends in a deference to the judgement of Christ and it is worthy of a fuller exploration, by Thompson himself and by his readers.  Consider the constructive possibilities that could stem from this observation:

The seven churches in Revelation 2-3 are rebuked for serious error and called to repentance, but are not told to dissociate from each other, and Christians are not instructed to separate from them.  Rather it is Jesus Christ who will discipline… (p61)

It is insightful that he concludes with Romans 12: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.”

Next: Part 5: Pastoral Theology for Perplexing Topics: Paul and Adiaphora by Tom Wright

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