Entries in Life

This is only a small aside from Cox's chapter on the Bible: "Meet Rocky, Maggie, and Barry".  For the most part, I find this chapter fairly un-controversial -- which is not to say that people aren't going to argue with him, just that I don't feel the need to.

But the one thing I stood out was at the bottom of page 159 where he says: But here "faith" is once again debased into accepting as true something for which you have no evidence.

The problem is that this is exactly how the word "faith" has been used for centuries -- at least since the author of Hebrews wrote: Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, proof of things not seen.

So what Hebrews calls "faith", Cox calls "debased".  No wonder I've been struggling with The Future of Faith so much: he's re-defining a clearly understood term and expecting everyone to play along.  I imagine I'm not the only one confused.

Since I couldn't get to sleep, I read some more of Cox's Future of Faith.  Since I have read through most of his take on the early church (which I found especially hard to swallow -- because of where he chose to put his emphasis and the frame that he used to present the history), I found the reading much easier.

Perhaps it was also because I decided to read it as a Cox's spiritual autobiography rather than, as the title suggests, a grand vision for how people of faith should live.

Since, in these later chapters, I don't feel the need to argue with him, I found myself agreeing with his assessment of where Christians are, for the most part, and where they need to go.  As I read about his encounter with Ratzinger in "No Lunch with the Prefect", I found myself agreeing with his vision for the role the papacy could play in Christianity.

He clearly doesn't understand the inertia of social systems -- at one point he seems to expect the Catholic church to make a dramatic course change because we now "know" that Peter himself didn't teach Apostolic succession, though almost all of his successors did.  And his claim to "understand" fundamentalism because he spent a couple of semesters in college in <a href="http://www.intervarsity.org/">IVCF</a> is pretty shaky (though, he is right that he probably understands it better than those who lack even that exposure).

But in these later chapters I find that I'm agreeing with him a lot more than in the earlier chapters.  I don't like his view of history and I think he could benefit from some more exposure to Eastern Christianity, but when it comes to where Christianity is at present, I don't think he is far off.

 

John Gorezen had some great questions on the last reflections post that I did and I finally posted some answers. Hopefully this post will provide for further discussion.

Spiritual autobiography

The more I read of Cox's book, the more I have to conclude that this book is more a picture of Cox's own spiritual development rather than any grand vision of what the “Future of Faith” holds. Nothing convinces me more of this (so far) than chapter titled “The Road Runner and the Gospel of Thomas”.

The first hint comes when he says, at the top of page 56, that “Christianity is no longer a ‘Western’ religion. … Its vital centers now lie in Asia, Africa and Latin America.” (emphasis mine)

First, this ignores that Latin America is called “Latin” because it was Christianized by Europeans and the people living there now — the Christians living there now — are the descendants of Europeans and Native Americans. I suppose he gets past this problem with the insertion of “vital” but, there, too, he ignores the vital centers of Eastern Christianity: Constantinople (Asia minor) and then Moscow (Asia) were the “Romes” of the East until the 20th century. For a historical background of the church in the East, I recommend Lars Brownworth's 12 Byzantine Rulers series of lectures in podcast form.

The Ethiopian and Egyptian churches continue to be vital centers of Christianity in Africa. I could even argue that, since the people of the Egyptian church are not the majority religion in that country that they have more in common with the early Church. For more on the spirituality of these churches, I can recommend Speaking of Faith's Preserving Words and Worlds program. It provides some insight into native African Christianity's long and lively tradition (as well as that of the Turkish Christian minority).

Again, it looks like Cox seems oblivious to any Christianity that doesn't have deep roots in the West or that was born of the West's missionary movements. But if we see this book as Cox's spiritual autobiography rather then as his view of the “Future of Faith”, we can certainly forgive him.
 

Three Changes

Cox outlines three changes that happened since he was in seminary. I was born and have lived entirely after all of these changes, so I see their impact in a completely different way than Cox.

The changes he sees are 1) The understanding that Christianity was not as intellectually unified as he was first taught, 2) “Apostolic Succession” didn't come directly from the twelve apostles and 3) the influence of the Roman Empire on the early Christians was enormous.

The third item, the influence of the empire, is the least surprising to me. Cox claims that the church “softened [its] attitude toward the Roman Empire from passive resistance to docile subservience; then they tried to suggest that the Christian movement had been made up of loyal subjects of the divine emperor from the beginning.”

I find this sort of slander against the post-Constantinian church revolting. One needs to look no further than early post-Constantinian bishops like St. Nicolas (yes, that St. Nick) and St. Chrysostom. In fact, if we look at Chrysostom's “Two Homilies on Eutropius” we can quickly see that as the Archbishop of Constantinople (Rome of the East) he was no toady of the government or its emperor despite being appointed by the Emperor.

And, as to the influence of the Roman empire on the early church, I have always understood that the early church saw itself as directly opposed to the empire. Certainly the Diocletianic Persecution has always been known to the church and to say that anyone ever suggested those Christians were “loyal subjects of the divine emperor” flies in the face of a very ancient understanding of history.

The first and second points (intellectual unity of the early church and apostolic succession) don't seem that important to me. Whether or not Paul and the other Apostles thought that there was such a thing as apostolic succession seems less important to me than the continuity of the church. And a lack of intellectual unity among the early Christians isn't that surprising: they were persecuted and communication was difficult. If they weren't able to hold big councils for a couple hundred years to hash out there differences, then I'm not surprised they had some.

Historical Jesus and Mystical Christ

The last bit I want to comment on is the way Cox divides Jesus Christ into the “Historical Jesus” and “Mystical Christ” as a way to avoid believing in the Resurrection while still remaining Christian.

Once you've rejected the Creed and declared that “Modern” Christians just won't be able to accept some things that are in the Creed, I suppose the separation of the Historical Jesus from the Mystical Christ isn't a surprise.

But first, let's be clear about something. Early Christians who were not eyewitnesses to Jesus ministry were no more likely to believe in Jesus' resurrection than modern Christians are. The gospel of John tells us as much when Jesus says “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” That we've managed to convince ourselves that we're just more sophisticated than early Christians simply because they accepted this idea of the resurrection where we do not is silly.

It was a different time and, in many ways not something we can easily comprehend. But we can easily see in their writing and sermons, if we take a few minutes to look, that they struggled with the same things we struggle with.

Again, I come back to the Creed. If everyone easily accepted what they were told, there would be little need to communally recite the “I believe” of the Creed. It could be relegated to some esoteric bit of knowledge the priests just tell their congregants “Here is what you have to think.”

To put this, loosely, in terms of Freudian psychology, we recite “I believe” to remind ourselves of where we're headed, not as a reflection of what is going on in our id or ego at this moment, but of where our super-ego is trying to direct us. (I'm not sure that analogy is completely appropriate, but it feels close enough for now.)

After dismissing almost every mystical (i.e. any part that cannot be rationalized) aspect of the Creed — the Trinity, the Virgin birth, the resurrection of Christ — I'm left wondering why Cox even bothered writing this book.

It isn't as if these ideas about Christianity are new or that they compromise the “Future of Faith”. They've been around at least since the Enlightenment and before.

I've written enough for now. I hope to finish this book up in the next couple of weeks and post my final take then. In the meantime, I welcome your comments. And I'll try to respond more quickly.

I'm not planning on doing a posting for each chapter, but there was so much in the first part that I felt this was necessary. I wrote most of this up last week and discussed the first chapter with my peace-activist, Mennonite neighbor. When we met, he was preparing to protest the super-Zionist Johan Hagee's appearance here in Lancaster. Signs were laid out on his dining room table asking “What about the Christians in Palestine?” His point of view was invaluble in helping think about my reaction to Cox's book.

Preface

First, let me preface my comments by saying that I continue to be frustrated by Harvey Cox's apparent ignorance of Orthodox Christianity. I suspect that if I were to ask him, he would know more than this book reveals, but, so far, he seems to studiously ignore Orthodoxy if he knows of it. That, or he reflexivly lumps it with Roman Catholicism. Orthodoxy is distinct in many ways from Catholicism. In fact, there are some areas (which I'll talk more about as we go along) where Catholicism and Protestants have more in common with each other than they do with Orthodoxy.

Fundamentalism is Dying?

One of the first assertions that Cox made that seems premature to me is that fundamentalism is dying. The specific Chrstian Fundamenalist movement of the 20th century might be dying out. The word “Fundamentalism” has outgrown that particular usage, though, and grown to encompass any religious movement that has little room to acknowledge any truth outside itself. Fundamentalism in this sense is not dying out.

The most extreme examples of religious Fundamentalism can be still seen when Christians bomb abortion clinics, when a Muslim blows himself up, or when Orthodox Jewish “modesty patrols” burn down stores they don't like. And, less we restrict fundamentalism to “people of the book”, this same sort of fundamentalism can be seen in Hindu violence against Muslims or as Buddhists in Sri Lanka attack Muslims.

While most of us would find this violent sort of fundamentalism foreign, there is a “soft” fundamentalism — a doorway fundamentalism — with completely understandable roots that appeals to a large number of people. These are people of faith living in community. They bond together because they have a common understanding of their faith. This fundamentalism, like the movement that began in the early 20th century, is a reaction to those who, in the eyes of the fundamentlists, want to diminish the “truth” their story, and replace it with a morality tale.

This soft fundamentalism, reactionary in nature, is a opposed to the pragmatism of modern approaches to religion — as a moralistic, humanistic way of living. And, since one of our first instincts (as Cox notes in his second chapter) is to objectify people we do not identify with — especially those we see as dangerous, this soft fundamentlism can lead to violence. Once you've objectified someone, it isn't hard to accept violence towards that person.

Just as Cox notes that people were premature in predicting the death of God and religion, predicting the death of fundamentalism is premature. As long as people continue to take their scriptures seriously, there will be religious fundamentalists. And, as long as Christians use a “Just War” theory, there will be violent Christian fundamentalists.

Morality vs Ethereal

Which brings us to what Cox thinks is the reason people remain religious now. From page 2:

“People turn to religion more for support in their efforts to live in this world and make it better, and less to prepare for the next.”

Here Cox provides two different points of view as to the purpose of religion. These are his answers to why people are religious: essentially, Morality or fear of death

But both of these are completely man- and self-centered. As the narrator of “The Gurus” (another book I'm currently reading) notes, these approaches leave people who are searching for deep spirituality wandering. Some are drawn to the more morally ambiguous Hinduism (as in “The Gurus”, for example) because they are looking for an experience with the divine now rather than the promise of the divine later or guidance on how to live now.

It is these people, the ones who are not simply satisfied with morality, who aren't cowed by fear of death, and who posess enough spiritual curiousity to look outside their culture, who Cox doesn't even seem to see.

People looking for morality don't need religion. While Christianity certainly provides a unique paradigm for building a moral life, that is not the purpose of Christianity. Even escape from an unprovable, but horrific, after-death torment in Hell is not the “why” of Christianity (though you wouldn't know it from a pass through the Hell House). Jesus himself said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.'”

In quoting the Psalms (“I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”), Jesus was reminding his listeners that following a code of conduct wasn't what was important. Framing Christianity's purpose as a, or sometimes, the only means of conveying morality is just another reason to dismiss it. Being moral, following the Golden Rule, etc, doesn't require faith, belief or even religion.

Faith vs Belief

Cox defines “Faith” is an individual experience while “Belief” is (generally speaking) the corporate expression. He sees us turning to an “Age of Spirit” that is more similar to the first 300 years of Christianity (the “Age of Faith”) than the “Age of Belief” that we're just now leaving. While I'll agree that the first 300 or so years of Christianity was unique, I think categorizing the past 50 years as an era just as distinctive as that initial period is just silly.

But I also think he makes too much of this difference between “faith” and “belief”. Another way to explain how Cox differentiates these two concepts is to think of faith is as a person's experience of awe, of wonder, and a “sense that behind anything that can be experienced this is something that our minds cannot grasp” (to quote Einstein, as Cox does). Belief, on the other hand, Cox defines as dogma that has its origin in religious institutions. Most emblematic of what Christianity has to offer as belief, in this sense, would be the Nicene Creed.

Cox, in quoting Rober Wuthrow, says we're “replacing explicit creeds and doctrines with implicit norms devised by the group.” (Emphasis his.)

For non-, or should I say, anti-creedal Christians, the problem of the Creed is that doesn't address what Jesus told us to do or what he did. This is absolutely true. So the Creed has been replaced in some Christian circles with the ambiguous, subjective question: What Would Jesus Do?

Let me be clear that this is not a bad question. But it should not be used as a criteria for who is “in” or “out”.

And this is what is happening whether we use the Creed or social norms (e.g. “Christians don't smoke”, “Christians don't dance”, “Christians aren't gay”). We're defining an identity. The Creed does not demand any standard of behavior from people, but simply says you're “in” or “out” by what you claim to believe. Its an explicit standard with little to no room for subjectivity. As an added bonus it has remained the same, worldwide, for almost 1700 years.

Implicit norms, however, change with culture. They vary from place to place and time to time. A tee-totalling Baptist from America, for example, might have trouble recognising an imbibing German Baptist as Christian because of his implicit understanding of how a Christian acts.

A Creed is a means of identification. It is how a group defines itself. Profess the creed, and it doesn't matter if your a smoker or gay.

Doubt

Now, where does doubt come into play here?

Cox rightly identifies the existance of doubt as an area that has been dealt with poorly in the past. Fundamentalist Christians, especially, make it seem as if doubt is a sign that something is wrong with your Christianity.

However, Cox seems to blame this problem on the nature of belief itself. He opposes doubt and belief:

Eliminating the spurious use of ‘belief' to define Christianity has another advantage. It recognizes that often people who call themselves ‘unbelievers' have episodic doubts about their unbelief. ‘Believers' go through similar swings.”

He even uses Mother Theresa's letters as evidence of this. And this is where he shows that he doesn't understand another facet of the usefulness of the Creed. During every mass that Mother Teresa attended, the Creed was recited. And, yes, she had her doubts. This was not a reason, however, not to recite the creed. One can recite the creed while struggling with doubt.

Perhaps the best expression of doubt and belief is found in Mark 9:24: “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” Cox's overly specialized re-definition of belief versus faith would require us to re-translate this.

In the same way, the use of creeds, the recitation of “I believe”, was never incompatible with doubt. By reciting the creed you're identifying yourself with fellow strugglers. “We're in this together, whether we're drinkers or tee-totallers; whether or not were Democrats or Republicans; liberals or conservatives; peaceniks or warmongers; gay or straight. We hold this in common and, in humility, admit our need for mercy and our hope for healing.”

“Age of the Spirit”

Finally Cox's claim about the Age of the Spirit and its opposition to the Age of Belief, really shows his lack of understanding of Orthodox Church and, perhaps, the Roman Catholic church.

[F]or centuries Christians have claimed that the Holy Spirit is just as divine as the other members of the Trinity. But, in
reality, the Spirit has most often been ignored or else feared as too unpredictable. — page 9

I can only point out that from what I've read about Monastic life and the Orthodox celebration of “Fools for Christ” there has always been a place in Orthodox life for the free expression of the Spirit. Just as “Aslan is not a tame lion”, God, through the Holy Spirit, isn't tame or predictable and never has been.

Monastics live in self-supporting communities apart from the hustle and bustle of “normal” life to allow more time to commune with the Spirit.

Fools, in the meantime, bring the Spirit directly into the hustle and bustle of “normal” life. They've suffered greatly as a result, but they're also respected by many as having distinctly spiritual insight.

Both of these approaches feel threatening to us, even in this modern “Age of the Spirit” that Cox claims we're in.

Finally, his claim that the Age of the Spirit looks to the future instead of the past seems disingenuous. For example, he makes several nostaligic comparisons to the Age of Faith when defining the Age of the Spirit. I would argue that looking towards the future is no better than looking towards the past. Neither is correct. We need to live now and focus on the present.

While I've been waiting for a copy of Cox's book to read, Father Stephen has posted an excerpt from Richard Wurmbrand’s With God in Solitary Confinement.

Jesus Himself thought unsystematically on the cross. He began with forgiveness; He spoke of a paradise in which even a robber had a place; then he despaired that perhaps there might be no place in paradise even for Him, the Son of God. He felt Himself forsaken. His thirst was so unbearable that He asked for water. Then He surrendered His spirit into His Father’s hand. But there followed no serenity, only a loud cry. Thank you for what you have been trying to teach me. I have the impression that you were only repeating, without much conviction, what others have taught you.

In this, we hear the echo of that oft-repeated axiom from the fourth century Orthodox monastic Evagrius of Pontus: A theologian is one who prays, and one who prays is a theologian.

In the West, we tend to be systematic about things, studying them, taking them apart and seeing how they all fit back together. But this is not living the Way. The Way operates on us, in us. The Way changes us.

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Where is the systematic theology in that? What is being fixed?

If we spend our time praying intead of worrying about re-forming this or that area of the church, this or that system of theology, we'll end up living The Way instead of trying to figure out the right form.

But we need form. We need structure. We create structures to provide a framework for living. Take away the structure, take away the Tradition and we'll create new ones. Jaraslov Pelikan (a late convert to Orthodoxy) observed

Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. Tradition lives in conversation with the past, while remembering where we are and when we are and that it is we who have to decide. Traditionalism supposes that nothing should ever be done for the first time, so all that is needed to solve any problem is to arrive at the supposedly unanimous testimony of this homogenized tradition.

At another time, he said “The only alternative to Tradition is bad tradition.”

And this is where we end up without creeds: with bad tradition. In fact, we end up re-formulating our thinking so much — re-creating our personal creed — that we don't have time to actually live it.

As Henry David Thoreau observed:

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.

This is why we have Tradition. First, because if we didn't have it, we would end up creating it anyway and, second, because we want to create deep mental paths. Where systematic theology failed us, Tradition offers a way out.