Rebecca Lyman, Church History professor at Church Divinity School out in Berkeley, has written a piece, "Tradition without orthodoxy" (if I remember correctly, this, or something like it, was originally a longer article in the Anglican Theological Review). The gist: the same ol' same ol'. There is no objective truth, just our particular take on it. There is no Church, there's only human gatherings, and anyone who claims to make true statements about God is, well, an oppressor and murderer. I normally don't waste my time with this useless tripe. But I thought I'd at least illustrate how empty it is.
Historically, "orthodoxy" emerged from the 2nd century to the 5th century as a powerful means of ensuring identity and truth in the midst of sectarian conflict and state persecution. Diversity is not denied in orthodoxy, but it is disciplined by hierarchy. "Orthodoxy" ordered the "traditions," i.e., the oral and written stories about Jesus, and tested the "authority" of individuals who claimed to be "apostolic." I am not sure the varied urban centers of Christian mission needed "orthodoxy" to survive. Orthodoxy flowered, I believe, because within Roman culture itself unity and diversity were threatening spiritual and political issues. The yearning for a unity on a human scale to match the transcendent God and the perfect peaceful order of the cosmos was shared by many. If tradition is the "passing on" of faith or story, orthodoxy is the codification of a certain telling of the story -- what may be included, what must be left out.Thus, ancient "orthodoxy" thrived, I believe, not merely because of imperial power -- it would be nice to blame it all on politics -- but because its transcendent, hierarchical ordering mirrored the hopes of the urban patriarchal churches to stabilize human experience and mediate the divine mystery. Because everyone believed in an underlying Platonic unity, the few, fragile words of the creeds -- themselves the products of compromise -- were enforced as the necessary signifier of the higher One. Orthodoxy, defined as eternal and unchanging, ensured differing classes, races, places and even theological opinions held together on earth as it was held together in heaven. Heresy was rebellion against God and the community, a willful destruction of saving truth.
Yep. Nothing new here. Reconstituted Feuerbach and Freud. Orthodoxy is nothing but the reification of our human hopes and desires. And that is just so divisive. And no, when the Gospels have Jesus saying, "I came not to bring peace but a sword," and talked about dividing family members from one another, well, he didn't really say that. Or if he did, he meant it the way Dr. Lyman means it: Orthodox oppressors will be divided from the "true Christians" who are all about process and exploration and diversity. (Gosh! They sound just like twenty-first century postmoderns! Go figure!)
But if the old orthodoxy was little more than wish fulfillment, then how is Dr. Lyman's own read not her own wishes writ large? Oh, sorry. How oppressive of me. So very Enlightenment. So very binary.
The problem with this theological picture, of course, is history -- I have yet to find one willful heretic; most "wrong" people were struggling with new questions of belief and practice. Yet, to preserve the unchanging transcendent truth, "orthodoxy" must lie about motivation or content and create the "dead wrong" to highlight its "living truth." As one scholar, now bishop, said to me, "It doesn't matter historically what the heretics actually taught -- it is all a foil to create orthodoxy."
Well if orthodoxy is the reification of human hopes and dreams, then Dr. Lyman's little soliloquy here is the reification of Cartesian doubt. Those poor heretics. They were just asking questions. Ain't no harm in that. No, it's all about struggle, exploration, and yes the adventure of ideas!
It is interesting, though, how the "scholar-bishop" can sift through such falsified history to see that between the lines and underneath the text (written in invisible ink?) it's all propoganda and self-justification. Is this a sort of omniscience the rest of Christianity did not and does not share? Methinks they're reading history as Rorschach tests. They only see what they themselves want to see. And since they oppose orthodox beliefs, it makes them feel so much better to romanticize the heretics (as a reciprocal reaction against their claims against the orthodox to have demonized them).
Orthodoxy, therefore, as a social and spiritual discourse fulfilled a unifying, but ultimately deadening role: The complexity of categories and transcendent authority promoted either passivity or rebellion. The violent enforcement of orthodoxy in Christian history is the necessary consequence of seeing an institution as the agent and protector of transcendent truth. Let us be clear. This righteous violence is not merely unfortunate, it is a blasphemy, the replacing of God by the church.
So, orthodoxy created its own heretics? Well, of course. I should have seen that one. But why couldn't one read history the other way, that heresy gave rise to orthodoxy? In which case, instead of orthodoxy being blamed for oppressing heretics, heretics are blamed for creating their own oppression? I mean, when a drunk driver crashes into a tree, we don't blame it on the alcohol, do we? Yep, I like that "provisional" reading of history better: the heretics are responsible for their own troubles. They'd better become adult and own up to their own actions and the consequences of those actions.
(Hey, I like this game. It's fun.)
Embracing our world as human beings means accepting our particular contingent being -- imperfect and provisional as our theology must also be. It means respect and acceptance for eventual disagreement and the mess of negotiation which frees all voices to speak.
But wouldn't the assertion that our theology is imperfect and provisional be a claim that itself is provisional, and could be set aside by those of us who have come to the conclusion that orthodox (or, Orthodox) theology is indeed, transcendent and timeless?
What a sticky wicket. Dr. Lyman's truth is imperfect and provisional, so she has nothing to say to my truth which is objective and universal, transcendent and unchanging. How could she gainsay me otherwise? She's already admitted she doesn't know a thing, poor thing, about theology. On what basis can she really claim that my Orthodoxy is all about killing dissent and dissenters? That's the way she reads history. But that reading is provisional. I think I'll change the reading for what suits me in my own personal journey of exploration and adventure.
It's interesting, though: Dr. Lyman only refers to the life and death of Jesus. No mention of resurrection and ascension. And of course "church" is the human institution over against God. What sort of gospel does Dr. Lyman preach, one wonders?
But we nonetheless wish her well on her search.
(via Pontifications)
Posted by Clifton at May 3, 2005 11:24 AM | TrackBack