Category Archives: Ecclesial

Sanctorum Communio, The Communion of the Saints and being catholic Thinkers

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A week ago today I was in a funky mood, and wrote a blog post called Doubting the Theologians and Biblical Interpretation. I was lamenting what I see as undue license being given to theologians or biblical exegetes in our reading of the text of Holy Scripture; I still have this concern (the whole reader response hermeneutic). Someone I’ve known through blogging and Facebook over the communionsaintsyears, David Guretzki, professor of theology at Briercrest College in Canada, and Barth scholar, made a comment. He wrote:

Bobby, what if you instead thought of these authors as part (even if not the only) communion of the saints? We do not read scripture as individuals, but as the Church–of which these doctors of the Church are a gift (charism). The Protestant evangelical way of reading Scripture assumes perspecuity (clarity) available to all–that is its strength. But its weakness is that it too often has degenerated into a non-ecclesial way of reading scripture. It is precisely other voices that keeps us from hearing only the echoes of our own thoughts and subjectivities imposed upon scripture. The problem, of course, is that we are too often too selective of the voices we listen to. The danger is not that we read Barth or Aquinas or Augustine, but that we are too apt ONLY to read Barth, Aquinas, or Augustine (or Calvin or Luther, etc. etc.) and thus keep reconfirming too often our own subjectivities and biases.

At the moment I wrote that post I, frankly, wasn’t in the mood to hear much, I was just in a total venting mode. But what David wrote is something I whole-heartedly agree with and have pushed myself here at this blog and other blogs of mine over the last many years. What David wrote points up something that I think everyone needs to be cognizant of; we need to avail ourselves, as the body of Christ, to what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called the sanctorum communio, or what Guretzki called the communion of the saints (the English). If we don’t avail ourselves of these various voices we will fall into the trap that Guretzki rightly alerts us to; we might only hear “echoes of our own thoughts and subjectivities” and impose that “upon scripture.”

This actually dovetails with my last post. If we close the circle too tightly, we might only gather teachers around us who always and only reinforce our own subjectivities. The principle of what Gurtezki is getting at is that we need to be open to the whole tradition of the church, and remove ourselves from self-imposed echo-chambers. We need to read Holy Scripture with the communion of the saints. Clearly we are finite time and space bound creatures, and so that in and of itself is going to delimit how many voices we can open ourselves up to. And of course we don’t want to be so open that our brains fall out; we want to be open critically. But we do want to do catholic theology, and be participants in the whole tradition of the church.

We all have our favorite teachers, even teachers who are strewn throughout the history of the church; that’s natural, we are going to be drawn to certain teachers and theologians for one reason or the other. Obviously, I am drawn to Thomas F. Torrance, Karl Barth, and John Calvin; but I have also learned from so many in the history of interpretation. We just want to be open enough that, indeed, we are actually participating in the communion of the saints that Christ himself has gifted us with in his body.

What I think this entails, though, and this gets back to my last post, is that as Christians we want to identify the reality that Christ has given teachers to his church in every century and period of his church; and he continues to (Ephesians 4). Truly, we need to be critical and discerning, but we shouldn’t limit ourselves to the idea that there are “holy centuries” in the communion of the saints, in the church. We should understand that God in Christ can, has and does break into every century of his church; we should understand that God can speak through modern metaphysics as clearly and perspicaciously as he can through medieval metaphysics. The reality is that all metaphysics used to help supply a grammar for theological discourse must be evangelized and reified in and by the concrete ground of God’s Triune life in Jesus Christ.

A Psychology of Fear: Evangelicals and Fear of the Theologian in Their Midst

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I am going to speak from personal experience in this post; it will be something of a reflection on what I am calling a psychology of fear in evangelical Christianity (and my reference for ‘evangelical’ will be a sub-set within that sub-culture itself).

I have grown up in the evangelical church in North America my whole life. My dad is a retired Conservative Baptist Pastor, and so I was involved in evangelical ministry right from the very beginning of my life. The Lord has used the evangelical ‘tradition’ in my life in untold ways; for the good, for the positive. He has used this tradition to inculcate in me a love of Scripture, and the scholaridea that intimacy with God is what it means to be a child of God. Evangelicalism has a heartwarming trajectory, even a pietistic (in a healthy way) sense about its spirituality. These are some positives of the evangelical tradition, and I would be remiss if I did not share them; I still consider myself an evangelical Christian and fellowship with other evangelical Christians.

It is from this space that I write this post, and make my observations; observations that are largely personal. There is a fear that permeates the evangelical sub-culture, it is a fear that is so deeply interwoven into the fabric of what it means to be evangelical that I would contend that most who are indeed evangelical have a hard time seeing it; for most evangelicals this ‘fear’ is as necessary as the air they breathe. In my experience, particularly because of my “intellectual” pre-disposition (or so I am often perceived), being a critical deep theological thinker is frowned upon. As I noted above a strength of evangelicalism is its warm-hearted piety towards God, but built into this is a fear of being too critically engaged, of being too theo-logical. There is a fear among evangelicals, of a certain stripe, that to do theology is to quench the Spirit. There is a fear that if theology or critical biblical study is elevated too much that ‘love of God’ (I Cor. 13) is jettisoned and thus theology and critical biblical studies mean nothing. It is this attitude that I think in many ways shapes the evangelical psychology, in certain environs in particular.

What is the effect of this then upon those of us within evangelicalism that are inclined towards thinking deeply and theologically; who might even be considered to be a “theologian?” At the very least there is a deep suspicion, and in a sense a shunning. People are afraid to talk about God with you because they fear that all you are about is nit-picky theological shibboleths that only egg-headed intellectuals query about; they fear that if they spend too much time with you they might end up like you and quench the true love of God and the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives (meaning the simple, emotional, mystical, experiential relationship they think equals ‘love’). And so in these circles the theologian instead of being looked at as a resource is looked at as a potential pariah; someone who might suck the life blood out of their spirituality—so they tend to shy away from people like that.

One sad consequence of this type of fear towards theologians in the evangelical’s midst is that these types of churches with this type of culture of fear end up losing, one way or the other, these types of Christian thinkers. The theological type will most likely abandon these types of churches for churches that are more intellectually accepting (which often times mean leaving the “evangelical” fold altogether for more mainline traditions), or even more sadly the theologian will shut-down, close up, and simply go through the motions of attending church, putting on a fake smile, and knowing their place—which for them, in such contexts, is nowhere.

Irony

The irony of this situation is that evangelicals who fit into this type of psychology of fear are biting the hands that have fed them. In other words, evangelicals are Protestants, and Protestants have a Bible reading ethic based upon some very deep theology. These types of evangelicals usually have a very high regard for the Bible, for all things Bible; but they don’t seem to be aware of where that regard came from. They seem to think that all of the spirituality that they have simply fell out of the heavens and landed in their lap. In other words for this type of evangelical there is no sense of church history, there is no connection to the communion of the saints; it is a very American religion, one that emphasizes me-and-my-Jesus/me-and-my-Bible. This type of evangelicalism does not recognize that they are just as much of a product of certain theological commitments as the theologian is in their midst; the difference is that the theologian wants to be critical about those and attempt to be counter-cultural and Christ concentrated counter the type of individualism that shapes so much of this type of evangelicalism.

But because evangelicals like this fear the theologian they in effect shut-down any critical possibility to be all that God in Christ would have them to be. They either end up shunning the theologian, or typically expelling the theologian in their midst by their attitudes of fear and suspicion.

I pray that evangelicals, those shaped by this psychology of fear might repent, and realize that God might’ve placed the theologian in their midst in order to be a source of edification rather than the stumbling block that so many of these evangelicals have come to think of the theologian as.

‘Vicariousness’ in TFT’s Theology illustrated by the Eucharist and Reported by Molnar: Against Dualistic Thinking in Salvation

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Here’s a post that I bet none of you have seen; it is from another blog of mine, probably around nine years old.

The following is going to be a long quote from Paul Molnar (the Roman Catholic😉 on Torrance’s theology. I want to quote this for those of you, especially, who are more prone towards a “classically” conceived Calvinism; or even a Roman Catholic perspective. In this piece I hope that you will get a feel for Torrance’s insistence upon a thoroughly Christ-centered, Spirit-centered approach that holyeucharisthe believes we must take if we are going to ground all of life and reality in life — viz. that we must “ground” all of life in Christ’s life (God’s life), or else we will fall into an array of theological problems. Let’s begin this quote:

What can be learned from Torrance’s emphasis on Christ’s high priestly mediation and his rejection of dualistic epistemology and ontology in understanding the Eucharist in a Trinitarian way? First, God gives himself to us in Jesus Christ; the Gift is identical with the Giver. If our understanding of God’s relation with the world is ‘damaged’ because of a dualistic perspective, then we will assume that God has not actually given himself within created time and space ‘but only something of himself through a created mediation’. A dualistic perspective actually divides the Gift from the Giver. The Catholic tendency focuses on the Gift in its concern for real presence, thought of ‘as inhering in the Eucharist as such’. The Protestant tendency focuses on ourselves as receivers over against the Giver. Torrance insists, against both of these tendencies, that because the Gift is identical with the Giver, God is immediately present in his own being and life through Jesus Christ; this self-giving ‘takes place in the Holy Spirit who is not just an emanation from God but the immediate presence and activity of God in his own divine Being, the Spirit of the Father and the Son . . . this is a real presence of Christ to us’.

Second, with respect to the Eucharistic sacrifice, the Offerer is identical with the Offering: what ‘the Incarnate Son offers to the Father on our behalf is his own human life which he took from us and assumed into unity with his divine life, his self-offering through the eternal Spirit of the Father’. Because the historical offering of his body on the cross is inherently one with himself as the Offerer, it is a once-and-for-all event which remains eternally valid. Understood dualistically, the Offerer and Offering are not finally one; ‘neither is his offering once and for all nor is it completely and sufficiently vicarious’. He becomes only a created intermediary and the offering is seen as a merely human offering so that no real mediation between God and creatures has taken place. Torrance insists that if Christ’s human priesthood is seen within a Nestorian or Apollinarian framework ‘then it becomes only a representative and no longer a vicarious priesthood, for it is no longer unique but only an exemplary form of our own’; thus it is no longer uniquely substitutionary.

This directs us to rely on ourselves ‘to effect our own “Pelagian” mediation with God by being our own priests and by offering to him our own sacrifices’. Even if this is done ‘for Christ’s sake’ and motivated by him, since it is not done ‘with him and in him we have no access through him into the immediate presence of God’. If, however, ‘Jesus Christ is himself both Priest and Victim, Offerer and Offering’ who has effected atoning reconciliation and so for ever ‘unites God and man in his one Person and as such coinheres with the Father and the Holy Spirit in the eternal Trinity, then, we participate in his self-consecration and self-offering to the Father and thus appear with him and in him and through him before the Majesty of God in worship, praise and adoration with no other sacrifice than the sacrifice of Christ Jesus our Mediator and High Priest’.

When the Church worships, praises and adores the Father through Jesus Christ, it is the self-offering and self-consecration of Jesus Christ ‘in our nature ascending to the Father from the Church in which he dwells through the Spirit;’ ‘it is Christ himself who worships, praises and adores the Father in and through his members’ shaping their prayers and conforming them in their communion in his body and blood.

T. F. Torrance’s achievement here is immense. By focusing on ‘God as Man’ rather than upon God in Man’, Torrance embraces a high Christology which concentrates on the humanity of the incarnate Son of God and a view of Eucharistic worship and life ‘in which the primacy is given to the priestly mediation of Jesus Christ’:

It is in fact the eternal life of the incarnate Son in us that ascends to the Father in our worship and prayer through, with and in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit. While they are our worship and prayer, in as much as we freely and fully participate in the Sonship of Christ and in the whole course of his filial obedience to the Father, they are derived from and rooted in a source beyond themselves, in the economic condescension and ascension of the Son of God. The movement of worship and prayer . . . is essentially correlative to the movement of the divine love and grace, from the Father, through the Son and in the Spirit.

This leads to a more unified soteirology which views incarnation and atonement as a single continuous movement of God’s redeeming love which accentuates Jesus Christ’s ‘God-manward and his man-Godward activity’. Focusing on Jesus’ vicarious humanity emphasizes that Christ has put himself in our place, experiencing our aliented human condition and healing it. Eucharistic anamnesis is no mere recollection of what Christ has done for us once for all, but a memorial which ‘according to his command’ and ‘through the Spirit is filled with the presence of Christ in the indivisible unity of all his vicarious work and his glorified Person’. . . .[1]

The vicarious point is a very important one for TFT, and his “Evangelical Calvinism.” I hope that you’ve found this quote from Molnar enlightening (I realize Molnar is controversial for some, nevertheless I find his thoughts here spot on, relative to highlighting TFT’s ‘theology of vicariousness’).

[1] Paul Metzger, ed., Paul Molnar, Trinitarian Soundings in Systematic Theology, 184-86.

 

Reformed Pubs, Evangelical Calvinists, and the Reformed Confessions

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Evangelical Calvinists such as myself are a confessional people, we are; seeing as we’re members of the Reformed faith, which is if anything else a confessional faith. Over these last couple of days I became, unfortunately, embroiled in a debate/discussion about a statement I made in the Reformed Pub. The Reformed Pub is an online forum/group within the confines of Facebook, and it boasts a membership of approximately 12,500 people (which is pretty massive for a FB group). It consists of, what I have observed, classically Reformed folk of both the Baptist as well as the
Beer-CigarsPresbyterian types; albeit there is a heavy strain of dominion theology as well as sabbatarianism that permeates this rarified online Reformed space. I became a member of the Reformed Pub a few weeks ago, and then after observing what I saw de-joined because it really was a bridge too far for my Reformed tastes. But being me, I joined back up maybe a couple of weeks ago, and sat idly by checking in on the Pub now and again. Well, last night I decided to post something on the fly, and off the top; it had to do with, you guessed it, the Reformed faith and the confessions. Unfortunately, after spending probably (and literally) four or five hours between last night and this morning debating, clarifying, and discussing my position it finally came to a head. One of my interlocutor’s seemed to be getting impatient with me and from what I could perceive made a snarky comment to me. So getting wild up I responded, not in kind at first (mind you I had about five hours of what I consider collegial debate with these guys previous), and provided more push back to this guy. But I let the moment get the best of me, and after I made the collegial response, I made a pretty low-blow snarky comment. This forum has moderators keeping tabs on all the discussions in the Pub, once I made my snarky comment in response to my interlocutor they both chimed in and told me I was out of line (of course they didn’t say anything to anyone else, except once, as I receive a barrage of comments, some not in the best of tone — in passive aggressive forms). Once that happened I decided to delete the whole post and comment threads associated with it; I resigned myself once more from the Pub; and have concluded that it is not a healthy place for me to be.

All of that is the background to the rest of this post. Unfortunately because I quickly deleted my original post from the Pub I don’t have, verbatim, my original statement about the Reformed confessions. But it went something like this:

The Reformed confessions were originally intended to be regional statements of faith made by local confessing Reformed Christians, and thus not intended to be universally binding statements for the church catholic. This is not to say that these confessions were at odds with the ecumenical council’s settlements; in fact they sought to complement the entailments provided for by the catholic and ecumenical pronouncements made about God’s life as Triune, and His life in the Son as both God and man in one person.

This comes close to the gist of my original post (although my wording here is even more explicit about what the entailments of the ecumenical settlements are). This statement set off a firestorm, which I really wasn’t ready for. The gist of the push back towards me was that the Reformed Confessions actually were intended to have catholic and universally binding force for all Protestant Christians. Further, that the Westminster Confession of Faith should be seen to be definitive for what it means to be Reformed for all Reformed Christians even today. Of course my point was that this just is not the case, and that there are Reformed Christians, like myself even, who repudiate, say, the metaphysics that fund the doctrine of God found in the WCF, as well as other loci like how grace and salvation are conceived (i.e. through substance metaphysics with all of its implications). The response to this (from the commenter who was really pushing back at me) was that if someone rejects the metaphysics of the WCF then they aren’t Reformed; further he responded that if “it ain’t broke then why fix it?” in reference to the Reformed confessions in general.

But all of this really missed the point of my original post (in a way); my original point was that the Reformed confessions, catechisms, creeds, and canons should be received in an ‘open-structured’ way rather than ‘closed.’ At this point in my commenting I offered a quote from our thesis 15 found in our Evangelical Calvinism book. The quote comes from Jack Stotts and it is this:

The Reformed sector of the Protestant Reformation is one that holds to what can be called an “open” rather than a “closed” confessional tradition. A closed tradition holds to a particular statement of beliefs to be adequate for all times and places. An open tradition anticipates that what has been confessed in a formally adopted confession takes its place in a confessional lineup, preceded by statements from the past and expectant of more to come as times and circumstances change. Thus, the Reformed tradition—itself a wide river with many currents—affirms that, for it, developing and adopting confessions is indeed an obligation, not an option. These contemporary confessions are recognized as extraordinarily important for a church’s integrity, identity, and faithfulness. But they are also acknowledged to be relative to particular times and places. This “occasional” nature of a Reformed confession is as well a reminder that statements of faith are always subordinate in authority to scripture.[1]

My respondent looked for dirt, and for his money found what he was looking for. He let everyone know that Stotts is a liberal PCUSA theologian who contributed to the current state the PCUSA is in, particularly with reference to how homosexuality is viewed and even applauded and encouraged. I responded back that it is a genetic fallacy to attempt to marginalize the substance of Stott’s quote by referring to his personal affiliations and views (one way or the other).

But I want to press this “open” rather than “closed” confessional tradition. Those in the Reformed pub represent quite well the sentiment of the classically Reformed tradition in general; it is a mood of Reformed theology that is more concerned with repristinating the past rather than reformulating and/or reforming it (semper reformanda) per the reality of Holy Scripture, who of course is Jesus Christ. The classically Reformed, largely, are driven by ecclesiocentric identity, as far as posture and hermeneutic, rather than christocentric identity; at least insofar as they approach their usage and deployment of the Reformed confessions as boundary markers. But as Karl Barth rightly notes it is this mood that we currently find in the classically Reformed that is at odds with the reality of confession making within the spirit of the Reformed faith. Barth writes (in one of my favorite books from him The Theology of the Reformed Confessions):

The tendency toward confessional unity of these particular Reformed churches is, on the other hand, [Barth is contrasting the Reformed tradition with the Lutheran, which he argues that the latter seeks to achieve ecclesial unity by their singular adherence to the Augsburg confession as a catholic document that stands against heresies near and far] weak in its development. We remember that the section of the Formula of Concord already cited begins with the sentence: “Fundamental, enduring unity (concordia) in the church requires above all else (primo … necessarium omnino) a clear and binding summary and form (forma et quasi typus) in which a general summary of teaching is drawn together from God’s Word, to which the churches that hold the true Christian religion confess their adherence” (M 568). From a Reformed point of view, one can only say No; such a formula and pattern of doctrine may well be very nice and desirable, but it is certainly not that which is “required above all else” for an accord. That which is “required above all else” is that the doctrine of the church everywhere and constantly be grounded upon Holy Scripture, which defines not the confessional unity but the confessional freedom of the particular churches in their relationships to each other. That was one of the first things that Luther noticed in his opponents from the Alps: the unconcerned lack of uniformity in their formulations, which was a sign for him that their doctrine was of Satan (End. 5,294). “The Holy Ghost is a God of unity and grants one meaning, foundation, and doctrine” (53,362). In the sixteenth century, the Reformed were scornfully described as “Confessionists” [“Confessionistae”] because of their many personal, local, and national confessions, and they were quite content to be such. How easy it would have been for Calvin to install a normative Reformed confession, possibly written by him, in the circles and countries open to his influence. But he never sought after such a thing. The fact that he imposed the Gallican Confession of 1559 on the French was not an act of the “pope from Geneva,” as he was called, but rather a fraternal and friendly form of help from church to church. He wrote a catechism, but we find his most loyal adherents—John Knox, John à Lasco, and Caspar Olevianus—all writing their own confessions and catechisms as a matter of course.[2]

Barth would think it is quite ironic that my interlocutors, the classically Reformed in the Reformed Pub and elsewhere, would attempt to use the Reformed confessions as a basis for ecclesial unity and identity rather than statements attempting to freely profess and confess the Gospel and its implications as disclosed in Holy Scripture. Yet, this is what I was up against in the Reformed Pub the last two days, and what so many who are Reformed in the sense that I am are faced with as well.

Surely, just as my interlocutors wiped Stotts away with one fell PCUSA swipe they would wipe Barth away with one fell arch-heretic/neo-orthodox swipe. Be that as it may to do so is not to engage with the material and substantive critiques and developments presented by either Stotts or Barth in regard to the reality and development of the Reformed confessions.

Nevertheless, as evangelical Calvinists we most certainly work from within the ‘open structured’ conception of the confessions (per Stotts), and we see as their regulative reality, Jesus Christ (per Barth) as attested to in Holy Scripture. It is always reforming for the evangelical Calvinists, not always repristinating; it is Jesus Christ as the unitive reality of the church, He alone is her bene esse and the confessions speak after Him, and after Scripture both de jure and de facto! Semper reformanda!

 

[1] Jack Stotts in Rohls, Reformed Confessions, xi.

[2] Karl Barth, The Theology of the Reformed Confessions, translated and annotated by Darrell L. Guder and Judith J. Guder (Louisville/London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), 12-13 [brackets mine].

The Apocalyptic Eucharist as the Reality that Unites the Churches Under the Primacy of Jesus: T Torrance

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The following (well the indented section that is following; the first three paragraphs are my introduction and thoughts on what Torrance has written to Florovsky as transcribed by Baker) comes from Matthew Baker’s tommytorrancetranscription of a personal correspondence that took place between Fr. Georges Florovsky and Thomas F. Torrance.*

I want to highlight an aspect of Thomas Torrance’s theology by quoting this lengthy section of this particular letter from Torrance to Florovsky. What is at stake is an undertaking wherein Torrance and Florovsky were seeking ecumenical dialogue, and to do so between the Eastern Orthodox and Reformed church that Torrance dutifully represented in his homeland of Scotland.

What is theologically insightful in this is Torrance’s emphasis upon the Eucharist as being the reality that ought to apocalyptically bind all of the branches of the Christian churches together (i.e. not just Rome, not just the Greeks, not just the Reformed, etc.). As you will read below, you will see how Torrance has a theology of Ascension informing his conception of the binding and apocalyptic reality of the Eucharist itself. As you will read, you will observe that Torrance believed that the uniting factor present in the Eucharist is the reality mediated in and through it, something that does not pronounce a word of judgment or reconciliation grounded in the ecclesia itself; but instead mediating the very reality of Christ himself into the presence of his seven churches (e.g. Revelation) as representative of all instances of his church. And this, for Torrance, the Eucharist, was conferred upon God’s people immediately at the Holy Ascension signifying his primacy over all of creation, but in particular, his people in his church[es]. Jesus, for Torrance, is the Eschatos, the first and the last word of judgment and reconciliation over his people. This is not something or some-reality that the churches can manage or control, but this is something instituted in Christ’s blood (of the New Covenant), given life in the resurrection, and constantly in-breaking (apocalyptic) as his churches, out of obedience to him, participate koinonially around his broken body, and shed blood. This is the reality that binds all of his people together, no matter what nation, tribe or tongue, or denomination (under the rubric of his orthodox life).

Okay, so the above is my take on what Torrance has written to Florovsky. You read it, and tell me what you think. And tell me if you agree with Torrance about the apocalyptic reality and power and place of the Eucharist; do you think it has the purchase to provide for the kind of ecumenicism that Torrance hoped for (Florovsky did not in the final analysis)?

Beechgrove Manse,

39 Forest Road,

Jan. 25, 1950

My dear Professor Florovsky,

I am ready to understand the theological significance of defection from a united Eucharist, behind which there is a certain theological earnestness and sincerity so often lacking in those who are not very pained at our divisions; but ultimately refusal of intercommunion can only mean for me a lack of trust in the opus Dei in the Eucharist and a fear that it is not so powerful as to overcome our mistakes and heal our divisions, and bring medicine to our mortal strifes. If the real presence of the Lord, the Son of Man, the Eschatos, the Lamb of God, is with us in the Eucharist, as I most firmly believe it is, then I am ready to put the Lord and Head of the Church before Church Order, before Doctrine, before Tradition. All our Church Order and Doctrine come as the result of the charismata given us by the Lord of the Church in his Ascension-gifts; but, says Paul, even these charismata will pass away, though faith, hope, and love will remain. Even the Ämter[1] of the Church, as Eugen Walter of Freiburg says in a recent powerful book (Das Kommen des Herrn – R.C.!)[2], will pass away before the apocalypse of the New Creation which is absolutely one with the risen Body of the Saviour.[3]

This is the notion that the Reformed Church takes seriously, the Lordship of the Real Presence in the Church, and not the domestication of the Real presence to be the manipulable tool of Church history and ecclesiastical orders that are necessarily fraught with the misunderstandings of this passing world. The Reformation stands for a Christological correction of the doctrine of the Church and sacraments in accordance with the principles of Nicaea and Chalcedon, which was NEVER carried out anywhere until a beginning was made at the Reformation. This is what it means to put on the wedding garment for the Marriage Supper of the Lamb – “not being conformed to this world but being transformed by the renewing of the mind . . . Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,” etc.[4] But there is no need to say all this to you, for as a Biblical theologian you will agree with it.[5] Our divisions come however where we arrest some particular doctrine and freeze it a special point, and refuse for [?] pride or prejudice or history to carry this doctrine critically through the whole pleroma of our Church life and thought and practice. This may be painful to you, but I submit that as we look over at the Catholic sections of the Church, conscious though we may be that we have yet to reform ourselves anew in areas where we became deficient through defection at the Reformation, there are areas in the Catholic Churches where a refusal to submit to self-correction in terms of the great Christological Councils is the greatest stumbling block to reunion.

One of the burning points here is where Church Order concerns the Eucharist. You are right to put your finger on this point! I do wish I could spend several days with you going over all the relevant passages in the Scriptures and the Fathers of the first four centuries on these matters – that is the only way to come to a closer understanding, is it not?[6]

*The following footnotes are transcribed directly from Matthew Baker’s transcription of the above section of the letter that he has offered for us in his Participatio vol. 4, pg. 287-323 essay highlighting the correspondence that took place between Fr. Georges Floroskvy and Thomas F. Torrance. The numeration of the footnotes does not correlate to the original essay offered by Baker due to transcriptional edits made by me.

[1] German: “offices,” “orders.”

[2] “R.C.”: Roman Catholic. Walter’s study Das Kommen des Herrn (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1948-1950) was published in two volumes: Die endzeitgemässe Haltung des Christen nach den Briefen der heiligen Apostel Paulus und Petrus (1948); II. Die eschatologische Situation nach den synoptischen Evangelien (1947).

[3]  Torrance notably does not address here the apostolic thrones still to be found in  the kingdom of God (Matt. 19:28; Lk. 22:30; Rev. 20:4), of which the ancient Orthodox liturgical synthronon of bishop and presbyters is an eschatological image.

[4] Romans 12:2; Philippians 2:5.

[5] Note how Torrance’s regard for Florovsky as a “Biblical theologian” – quite a different perception than the one that obtains in recent criticisms of Florovsky and neopatristic theology among academicians in the Orthodox sphere.

[6] In his 1970 sermon “The Relevance of Orthodoxy,” reprinted in this issue of Participatio, Torrance reflected on his experience of precisely such common study of Scripture in the Faith and Order Commission on Christ and His Church and admitted: “Again and again  … when passages of the Bible were being interpreted by others – Professor Florovsky, for example – I had to take a new hard look at the Greek text of the New Testament to see whether it really did mean what he said, and again and again found that I had been misreading the New Testament because I had been looking at it through Presbyterian spectacles. Our conjoint discussion, to which we brought our several Church traditions and outlooks, enabled us in the give and take of criticism, to read what was actually written in the Bible and to interpret it as far as possible undistorted by this or that ecclesiastical tradition. I myself learned, I think, from the Orthodox more than from any other.”

The End of Protestantism? The ‘Word’ Says No!

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martinluthermiddleage

Peter Leithart, in case you missed it, recently wrote an article for First Things blog entitled: The End of Protestantism. It is essentially a rant about  how Protestantism should basically go away, and at least go back to its original form as a theological movement which was really part of a larger ground swell to reform the Catholic church from within. He thinks the form Protestantism took over the last 500 years, or so, has run its course, and that, again, we should, at the least, go back to a reform movement within Catholicism instead of without it. I can agree that there are definitely excesses (understatement) within what counts as Protestantism today; especially in North American evangelicalism, of which I am a member. But, clearly, there is also an excess in Leithart’s litany of rant points. [Since I only have about 5 minutes to write this post, this will be quick, literally]

What Leithart, in my view, misses, in spades, is that Protestantism could never, nor should ever really end. I know the popular conception is that the distinction between Catholics and Protestants is around salvation, and ‘faith alone’ issues. But I think, while it does involve some of that (especially in contrast with Tridentine theology), the primary distinction that is still thick, is that Protestants operate from a theology of the Word (sola scriptura), whereas Catholics operate from a theology of the Church. The viva vox Dei (the living voice of God) is accentuated, for the Protestant, in and through Scripture (and for some like me, a ‘theology of the Word’ takes threefold form); but for the Catholic ‘the living voice of God’ comes first through the magesterium of the Holy Church. I can see why Leithart sees no real need for, and thus an ostensible end for the need of Protestantism; if, as many Protestants do, you operate (at a functional level) from a theology of the Church as primary to a theology of the Word, then indeed, what is the point for Protestantism to continue to exist?

The point is, is that Protestants always have and always will see the Word as primary to the Church; and rightfully understood, the Word in its first reality is none other than Jesus Christ himself (John 1:1), of which Scripture becomes His speech declared in words (by the Holy Spirit’s administration) for His church. If we could really appreciate this, both Catholic and Protestant, I could see an end for Catholicism in the making more than for Protestantism.

The Fellowship of Presbyterians (ECO)

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Our new church, is associated with this group of Presbyterians (in the video); yet we remain part of the Presbyterian Church (USA) for the moment. You will notice that this group of Presbyterians (‘The Fellowship’) endorses ‘egalitarian ministry’, and to be honest, I endorse egalitarian ministry, even though I remain a convinced complementarian. I see the “office” of pastor reserved for males, but I see the “gifting” of pastor as cross-gendered; meaning that I believe females can function as “pastors,” but under (ultimately) the leadership of a “senior” (or nowadays “lead”) pastor who is a man. I see no difference—other than semantic—between what I just wrote, and what I have always held (and what most “conservative” American Evangelicals hold); that is I have never really had any problem with a female being involved in the leadership of the church (in whatever kind of associate role that is), it is just that we Evangelicals have labeled that as “directors” instead of “pastors”, but the function is the same, and the call and gifting is the same. Anyway, the video below is an introduction to a movement of Presbyterians who are coming out of the PC (USA) who they consider to be too socially (and thus theologically) liberal in many instances (but as I said, our church continues to maintain its PCUSA status):

A Shared Mission: The Fellowship of Presbyterians & ECO from Fellowship of Presbyterians on Vimeo.

[Here’s ‘The Fellowships’ website: click]

PCUSA and Thomas Torrance

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I have had some correspondence with the pastor of the church that we will be attending, Columbia Presbyterian Church, and I am totally encouraged!

  1. This pastor, as I have mentioned, earned an MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary. While he was attending there, Thomas Torrance was teaching classes there. Our new pastor (I don’t want to jump the gun too much here, but) actually had Thomas Torrance (and I’m assuming wife) into his house on more than one occasion where they spent time together. Anyway, Thomas Torrance was a personal mentor of the pastor of the church we will be attending.
  2. As I had also mentioned; this Presbyterian church we will be attending is a Presbyterian Church (USA), PCUSA, which has a spectrum of belief associated with it—most other Presbyterians would think that they are “Liberal.” But the good news is that the PCUSA is on a spectrum, and our new church is associated with the ECO (although it is still officially PCUSA), which is an Evangelical offshoot from the PCUSA. Anyway, they are conservative and Evangelical; and this really makes my day!

Anyway, I just thought I would provide an update for anyone interested. 🙂 Carry on.

John Calvin on the Church as the Classroom

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*Repost on John Calvin number five.

Before I get to Scottish Theology, let me ask you a question; do you think that John Calvin’s classical training as a humanist and the emphasis that he brought to the pulpit and church service by way of framing it as a ‘classroom’ was a healthy move or unhealthy for the church? As I recall, Steven Ozment, in his book The Age of Reform, makes this claim about Calvin and his ecclesiastical approach — that the ‘church service should be seen as a classroom’.

If this claim is true, and by no means do we “suffer” from doctrinal teaching today; but I would say, by-in-large, most of our churches are set up in a class-room style. Of course it wasn’t Calvin who invented exposition or teaching, in fact it is quite biblical; since anybody knows that good practice (orthopraxy) flows from ‘Biblically sound doctrine’ (orthodoxy). So maybe my question is misguided; maybe the rather isolated-individualistic church services that represent most of American Evangelicalism (and Reformed) can be blamed on just that — the ‘American psyche’ of Individualism. I just can’t help but wonder what impact Calvin had upon the church formation today; that is in regards to thinking of the church service as a ‘classroom’ instead of a ‘worship service’ where fellowship and communion around Christ and His Word is emphasized. Maybe Ozment is wrong.

My pondering stems from reflecting on I Corinthians 12 and the body life described therein. So many Christians are suffering, as we should be (or the Bible lied about it); yet I don’t see the cross having much play in our worship services today. If we are suffering (say like with cancer, or many other an ailment — physical-mental-or emotional), how is the church service and the time immediately following the service set up in a way where the body can be the body? How is the church service set up in a way that real communion around Jesus and the Word can happen in a way that “when one member of the body is suffering, all of the body suffers?” Is it because the church service is more like a ‘classroom’ that this isn’t happening, is it ‘American Individualism’, or am I just barking up the wrong tree, or something else?

Does John Calvin have any impact upon the way we do church today?

Moses, The Pope, and Evangelicals

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What do you think God thinks about John Piper? Some times, often times, I think we think that since certain pastors have huge followings; that this is a sign that somehow this particular preacher/teacher has been anointed of God in a special way. In the Calvary Chapel movement (a movement essentially founded by Chuck Smith out of Costa Mesa/Santa Ana, CA—I attended there for awhile), they follow what is known as the “Moses model;” wherein the senior (nowadays “lead”) pastor is known to have a special anointing of God on them and their ministry—much like Moses (this is a self conscious designation and model that is intentionally followed within many Calvary Chapels). The result is that if someone wanted to question a doctrinal point that someone like Chuck Smith might hold and articulate; then that person is not simply questioning the man, Chuck Smith. But that person is questioning God’s anointed (and thus God) himself! I think there is transference to this model of ministry (and theory of authority) along most of the continuum of what we know as Evangelical Christianity in America. I think John Piper has come to carry, for many, Moses’ anointing; so that if someone wants to question John Piper’s teaching, then that someone is now questioning God’s anointed and anointing. The Pope could be said to be someone who has Moses’ anointing too; couldn’t he?