When I read about Christian thinkers talking about how we have go back on modernity and return to some kind of more medieval religion I think about how totally unprepared most Western Christians – especially evangelicals – would be for this kind of shift. A friend of mine related a story about how an evangelist in the Middle East was conversing with a Muslim man. The man expressed a desire to convert but told the evangelist he would have to go home and tell his family first. “What if you get hit by a bus?!” or something to that effect was the evangelist’s reply. The man was baffled because, as he saw it, he was the head of his household and he knew he was not making a personal choice but one that would affect his entire family – his religious identity was not personal but familial/communal.
This reminded me of my current favourite book, A Secular Age in which Charles Taylor lays out the development of, well, today’s secular age out of medieval Latin Christianity. The portrait of medieval Christianity that Taylor creates is one where religion is experienced – as with virtually all other aspects of identity as part of a community. No one is primarily an individual, rather everyone lives in relationship, everyone is a son or a father or a member of so-and-so parish or working the land of this noble granted by that duke. In this world, everyone’s destiny is seen as linked, failure by all members of the community to partake of this or that religious practice was seen as harming the entire community.
The mutation and disintegration of many of these forms in what we imagine as the West has, in some cases, been transfered (either by colonialism or Western economic and cultural hegemony) to many parts of the rest of the world. In the case of the Muslim-majority parts of the Middle East though (outside of Turkey possibly) religion is still experienced as part of a community/family and not often individually. Now I suppose that one could press a member of one of these communities to see religion as a purely personal/individual matter and not one of family and community, but this would mean accomplishing a sort of dual conversion. The evangelist (and for these purposes, this could be an evangelist for any religious view) converting someone to the idea of religion-as-personal choice and then converting them to whatever religion was being promoted.
So what we end up with here is a group of Christians in the West pining for the good old pre-modern days of medieval religion while another group of Western Christians abroad try to get people to buy into more modern modes of belief in order to convert them.
Relative to all the things that I’ve gone through during my short time on this earth, a disproportionate amount of suffering in my life has been due to the ongoing presence of doubt and uncertainty in my life. I seem to constantly go from one problem to the next, and have been doing so ever since I realized that religion was something I ought to be seriously thinking about (rather than just drifting through).
One quote that has comforted me now and again is the following from Madeleine L’Engle:
Those who believe they believe in God but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God himself.
I feel like one of the things that I often come across is evidence that previous epochs were often not as great as we sometimes think them to be. I feel like I could start cobbling together such posts under a title like the one above. Anyway, cast your mind back to the 1500s, ah, the era into which Shakespeare was born, what a civilized time! Here’s a sample from etiquette books of the 16th Century, as recounted by Charles Taylor:
“Early books of etiquette admonish people not to blow their nose on the table cloth. A book of 1558 tells us that it is ‘not a very fine habit’, when one comes across excrement in the street to point it out to another, and hold it up for him to smell. People are told not to defecate in public places. Clearly we are in an age whose standards in this regard are far removed from our own.”
They didn’t really show that in Shakespeare in Love or Elizabeth, did they?
A thought:
Is the real issue between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism not an absolute sola fide (since at least some Reformed thinkers affirmed a final judgment of some kind according to works) or an imputation of Christ’s active obedience (since many Protestants, even Calvinists, did not and do not affirm such a doctrine), but rather that justification is (a) forensic rather than dynamic, (b) by grace (i.e., incorporating forgiveness) rather than according to strict merit, and (c) can be known as a present status that will carry on into eternity (though not necessarily with infallible certainty, since most Protestants have historically not affirmed that is possible)?
I can’t see why any of the concerns that “TR’s” have (or, Martin Luther might have had) with a presentation of justification like the “FV” or NT Wright give would not be met if they affirmed those three conditions, which both of the latter parties do. And I think it is taken for granted by the vast majority of Paul scholars that on those counts, Luther was right in his reading of Paul. So what is all the fuss about?
Recently we discussed the possibility of a secular state, and I suggested at the possible limitations of the practicality of a “secular” state. I’d like to expand a bit more positively on the topic with this post.
I’ve gone back and forth on the issue of pacifism on this blog, and currently I’m not a pacifist (though I see that a lot of criticisms some pacifists, like Hauerwas and Cavanaugh, make of the modern political system are very valid). For Christians who agree with me, there is no excuse for avoiding deep reflection on the interface of our religion and our politics, since our religion does not allow us to consider politics, even violent politics, completely out of bounds.
Granted these two points (i.e., secularism is impractical, Christianity does not prohibit involvement in the judgments of the state), the spectre of theocracy is not in principle avoidable. I think all Christians nowadays would recognize there have been severe abuses of state power in the name of Christian religion, and thus would not agree that just any arrangement of religion and state would be a good idea. What would be most helpful is guidance from God about politics.
At this point, for those of a traditional evangelical, Catholic or Orthodox strain, appeal will probably eventually be made to the Old Testament as a possible basis for political ethics (this has been done frequently in the history of the Church; one excellent volume summarizing the history of Christian political thought is From Irenaeus to Grotius: A Sourcebook in Christian Political Thought by Oliver and Joan Lockwood O’Donovan, which summarizes the history from the beginning of the post-apostolic church up until the beginning of the modern era (with Hugo Grotius)). In recent theology, this has been attempted by different groups and theologians: Reconstructionism (and other Reformed thinkers, including significantly the Kuyperian tradition), the Moral Majority, liberation theology, Christopher Wright, Oliver O’Donovan, and others.
There are various possible objections to this procedure, but I think the most pressing one for modern (postmodern?) citizens is the issue of religious freedom: if we grant that as Christians the OT in some way provides an ethical standard for modern states, does this imply that morality requires the end of religious freedom? As I said above, I think the vast majority of modern Christians would not want to go there. But the serious question is: does this method force us to anyway?
I think, helpfully, the answer is no. The most succinct and helpful explanation of why I have found recently has come from two thinkers: Vern Poythress and Oliver O’Donovan.
First, Poythress argues in his book, The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses:
Deut. 13:1-18 instructs Israel on how to deal with false prophecy and seduction to false worship in its midst. A false prophet is to be put to death (13:5). Even if a member of your own family entices you to false worship, that person is not to be spared (verses 6-11). If a whole city goes astray into idolatry, the city is to be destroyed (verses 12-18). The guilty city is destroyed in the same way that the Israelites destroyed the Canaanite cities when they entered the land of Canaan: nothing at all is left (Deut. 13:15-17; exactly as in Deut. 7:2; 20:16-18; Josh. 6:21). The people are especially warned to keep away from the “cursed” things (Deut. 13:17; 7:26; Josh. 6:18). The special word herem (חרם) is used in these cases signifying items “consecrated to God for destruction.”
How are the general principles of just recompense operative here? First of all, the city committed to false worship is sinning against God. This sin like all other sins deserves destruction in hell. Those who attempt to destroy God will themselves be destroyed. But as usual, this type of observation does not help us to understand how the Israelite recompense for this crime differs from the recompense for any other crime. We should therefore ask the question whether any human beings are injured in addition to the direct insult against God. The passage itself indicates that a “detestable thing has been done among you” (verse 14), suggesting that the people are polluted by the idolatry among them. The related verses concerning small-scale rebellion have a similar note: “so you shall purge the evil from the midst of you” (verse 5); “all Israel shall hear, and fear, and never again do any such wickedness as this among you” (verse 11). The city becomes a “whole burnt offering” (verse 16), which certainly suggests that a purification is taking place in the process.
We conclude, then, that the city engaging in false worship has committed an offense against Israel, not merely against God. False worship within the land of Palestine pollutes the people. As in the case of theft and other crimes, the proper recompense involves two aspects. (1) Restoration: the guilty city is responsible to restore Israel to purity; and (2) punishment: the guilty city is to suffer the same penalty in the reverse direction. The destruction of the city accomplishes both aspects simultaneously. First, the city functions as a whole burnt offering (verse 16). Those who offer the offering, namely the people of Israel, are purified by the act of offering. This act not only removes the evil from among them but also signifies a penal substitution: the city bears the penalty that otherwise Israel would bear. Second, since the city has polluted Israel, Israel must in reverse fashion pollute the city. Since the city has already suffered a first radical pollution by its act of idolatry, the only way for Israel to bring further pollution on it is by utter destruction. Cases dealing with individuals rather than whole cities involved in false worship (verses 1-11) are to be understood along the same lines. The discussion is less elaborate, but we can assume that the same principles are operative.
The logic of the penalty against false worship in the OT was that of holy war, which is clearly distinguished from non-holy war by the things commanded of the Israelites (complete destruction versus restraints, etc.). Insofar as the church is not permitted to execute holy war, then, these laws do not apply in the present dispensation of history. And there are plenty of good reasons for thinking this is the case, many of which Poythress gives later in the same chapter quoted above (and in an index of the same book dealing with theonomy).
One of the ways I have understood the difference between the dispensation of the Torah and the current period in redemptive history, though, is as it was explained to me by Oliver O’Donovan: the Christian church now lives under the shadow of the final judgment, and thus there is no more room for political (in the sense of violent) judgment in the church. Excommunication is understood as a provisional witness to the final judgment, its provisionality being evident in the fact that its goal/hope is ultimately restoration, even though it clearly is meant to symbolize an irrevocable judgment. (This understanding of the relation of church to politics is found in four of O’Donovan’s books: Resurrection and Moral Order, The Bonds of Imperfection, The Desire of Nations, and The Ways of Judgment).
Another, perhaps simpler way to understand the relation of the current era to the era of the law is in the words of Paul in Ephesian 6:11-12s: “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the comsic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” Another simple way of understanding the difference could be found in Jesus’ words to Pilate in John 18:36. (I don’t think the “render unto Caesar” passage is as helpful as some make it out to be, since Jesus is most likely be ironic in many ways; he’s not intending to give plain teaching on the subject, but rather outsmarting those asking him a trick question.)
Thus, granting that this objection to the idea of OT-based political ethics can be met, I h0nestly wonder if there is any reason not to pursue in depth the kind of projects that people like the Reconstructionists, and in a different way people like Christopher Wright, have attempted. If God has given us revealed guidance about politics, why would we not listen?
From The Way of a Pilgrim:
So with the object of helping this brother and doing all I could to strengthen his faith, I took The Philokalia out of my knapsack. Turning to the 109th chapter of Isikhi, I read it to him. I set out to prove to him the uselessness and vanity of avoiding sin merely from fear of the tortures of hell. I told him that the soul could be freed from sinful thoughts only by guarding the mind and cleansing the heart, and that this could only be done by interior prayer. I added that according to the holy Fathers, one who performs saving works simply from the fear of hell follows the way of bondage, and he who does the same just in order to be rewarded with the kingdom of heaven follows the path of a bargainer with God. The one they call a slave, the other a hireling. But God wants us to come to Him as sons to their Father; He wants us to behave ourselves honorably from love for Him and zeal for His service; He wants us to find our happiness in uniting ourselves with Him in a saving union of mind and heart.
A while ago I commended the work of now-defunct indie band Royal City to the readership of this blog as sort of example of how Christian themes could be treated in music. The problem was at the time it was hard to actually hear anything of what Royal City sounded like on the internet. That’s different for now though as arrangements have now been made to release a rarities collection on Sufjan Steven’s Asthmatic Kitty label. In honour of this release, the curious can hear a streaming version of this collection here.
I came across an article in the Mop & Pail that seems to suggest that those want to restrict the religious expression of Muslim women in France are Muslim women themselves. The article mentions a prominent Muslim woman in Sarkozy’s cabinet calling for an outright ban. The same woman, Fadela Amara led the call for banning the hijab in schools and in some parts of the civil service. It appears that this debate is more than just secular state vs. Muslim minority since some in the Muslim community are apparently the driving force behind these types of restrictions on traditional dress.
The CBC reports that “Full-body gowns that are worn by the most conservative Muslim women have no place in France, President Nicolas Sarkozy said Monday.”
A comment like this makes me wonder: if the arguably most secular country in the North Atlantic world is in the business of making religious decisions, is the idea of disestablishment really practically possible?
And if it isn’t, is there really any better model for religion/state relations than the Treaty of Westphalia’s cuius regio, eius religio? (And it should be noted such a philosophy is logically consistent with a democratic state.)
