An honest pursuit of God and ministry produces intimacy
Showing posts with label Community. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Community. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 23, 2024
Monday, January 22, 2024
Saturday, January 6, 2024
That Donatist Problem Today: The Elusive Search for the One Pure Church
I am thankful for the Reformation. I wouldn’t be an Anglican if this was not the case. Luther helped many understand that a baptized person earns no merit on their own before God per their religious busyness. He, with others, also exposed the way that the Roman Church of the day had made their tradition all-encompassing. Tradition had grown in such a way as to push Holy Scripture to the background, and thus, it was interpreted through the lenses of an extensively rigorous and religiously cultural bias. The Reformers sought to address this problem in part through what became “sola scriptura” and helped restore the primacy and importance of Holy Scripture in keeping with their Patristic forebearers who were “soaked in Scripture.”[1]
But as any careful investigator will note, the Reformers also went beyond Medieval abuses and encouraged certain Scriptural and theological errors of their own. While it is true that we do not merit our righteous status before God, it is also true that sanctification IS still a part of our salvation as evidenced overwhelmingly in Holy Scripture:
“Sanctification is not ‘Christian living’ removed somehow from the gospel message and our salvation. Sanctification is a work of the Holy Spirit as He continues to develop holiness in our lives as we open our hearts to our Lord Jesus Christ and seek our triune God.”[2]
Through Luther’s influence, a theology also arose that taught that salvation could occur outside of the Covenant Community of God, the Church of Jesus Christ (in contrast with Patristic assumptions even before Cyprian). A cavalcade of Reformers (and the later Pietists) followed suit taking the theology of a personal salvation to an unscriptural extreme. Salvation for Protestants thus became “my salvation outside of the church” (aka, me and Jesus) instead of my personal salvation inside and with the church in keeping with the scriptural teaching of being “the bride of Christ.” I submit that these would have been surprising and extremely foreign ideas to the framers meeting at the Council of Nicaea in 325. I also submit that those attending Nicaea would have assumed the primacy of scripture (Suprema-scriptura) along with the important place of tradition in keeping, finding, and applying the truth.
In our search for holiness, it is easy to go beyond what is true and right, becoming more impressed with our current insights than our position in finite time and space allow. As history reveals, over-reactions theologically can create their own heresies and cause lasting damage to the Church of Jesus Christ. Spiritual humility and scriptural discernment are disciplines that must be pursued; they do not come easily and need to be done in community.
Holiness or Grace?
During the persecution of Christians by Emperor Diocletian, there were some Bishops who cowered under threat allowing both holy books as well as their copies of Holy Scripture to be destroyed. Following the persecution, many of these Bishops returned to their posts. Around 311 A.D./C.E. the Bishop of Carthage was consecrated by one of these traditores (traitor Bishops). The Bishops in Numidia found this untenable, consecrated a rival bishop, and brought their appeal to the unified Catholic church. The initial investigation did not support the desires of these Donatists (named after a later champion of their cause), nor did a later Synod. In the end, they were opposed continuously by the entirety of the church. The Catholic church in the 4th Century believed that the unworthiness of any minister did not invalidate the sacramental rites. As Augustine wrote, Christ was the true minister of the sacraments of the church.
In the end, the Donatists separated themselves from the Western Catholic Church and declared themselves to be the true church. They were extremely rigorous and proclaimed a desire for the “true holiness” of the saints. They saw themselves as the pure church, while others were suspect. Any Catholic coming into a Donatist parish were required to be “re-baptized.” Any of this sound familiar?
In our search for holiness, it is easy to lay aside a thoughtful and collective grace. In our search for grace, it is easy to lay aside the tough love and the courage it takes to pursue and encourage holiness. The history of the church is resplendent with cases that engage the harmful extremes. Over-reaction is easy, communal and thoughtful courage is hard.
Faithfulness will always demand prophetic pushback when those leading a church are in conflict with Holy Scripture and historic Christian orthodoxy. In our desire to be faithful, it is also easy to begin to develop a “two-dimensional” approach to holiness and faithfulness. We can decide that those who are not on “our team” are now the bad guys, and those on our team are the truly blessed, Spirit-led, good guys. This is a narrative that is far too common among many priests and bishops in break-off Anglican churches, who act as if there is no more faithfulness left in The Episcopal Church. It is also common with bishops and priests in The Episcopal Church who act as if it is acceptable to impatiently strong-arm new and innovative theology and morality, with little sensitivity to the worldwide Anglican Communion in the process; to insist on an individualistic, modernistic, and post-modernistic superiority which shows little historic humility and the complexities involved with being finite while engaging the infinite through time and space.
“Frodo: 'It's a pity Bilbo didn't kill Gollum when he had the chance.'
Gandalf: 'Pity? It is pity that stayed Bilbo's hand. Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends. My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play in it, for good or evil, before this is over. The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many.'
49 John answered, “Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he does not follow with us.” 50 But Jesus said to him, “Do not stop him; for whoever is not against you is for you.”
Our God’s character and reality are NOT relative to someone’s (or group’s) individual desires and opinions. However, beyond the clear teaching of Holy Scripture and our Historical Creedal orthodoxy, there is much that the “one holy catholic and apostolic church” is less certain and agreed upon (especially in the application of truth in any culture!). May our desire for holiness be bathed in thoughtful grace, and may our grace not bend regarding that which is eternal and transcendent.
God never abandoned his often-apostate Children of Israel, nor did he enable or placate their wickedness. It is only through these largely rebellious Covenant people that we now have our Messiah and Salvation. Let us be hesitant to decide for God when he has finally discarded his Church. Do we not now as Anglicans understand that Luther was wrong to deem the entirety of the Roman Catholic Church as Apostate in his day?
Starting and Ending Points
I am not discounting the importance of seeking after and engaging holiness. However, I am submitting in the strongest possible terms that “revisionism” in history and theology is not just a progressive problem, but a clear conservative problem as well. If we believe that we have the inalienable right to make up our version of Christianity based on our personal and cultural experiences, then we will continue in conflict with the ways of the Triune God of Christianity and the majority of the unified church of Jesus Christ before the 11 century. (And yes, this includes we of an Anglo-Catholic ilk with our penchant at times to worry more about the minutia of "rending our clothing" than the "rending of our hearts". They need go hand in hand, and only the Spirit transforms a willing heart. The sacrament and liturgy can be spurned by the rebellious).
This conflict is exacerbated by an individualism that continually takes the name of the Holy Spirit in vain to support a-historic and anti-intellectual laziness when it comes to the interpretation of Holy Scripture. It is right and good to believe in the illumination of the Holy Spirit; however, this does not mean that our thoughts and feelings while praying or reading Holy Scripture are from God. We are the church together in accountability to Holy Scripture and our informing tradition. You and I are never the centers of any world…EVER.
The above thoughts do not remove either the mystery or the existential realities involved with seeking or submitting to the one true God, while at the same time, doing so in community with the church. However, our Christian heritage does position our Triune God as the “prime mover” of all that is…including redemption. Our God is not the god whom many Modern worshippers desire. He is not a god that will coalesce with our ever-burgeoning opinions so he can garner our attention, worship, and service.
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