I’ve been tagged by David Keen with a rather good, if provocative meme.
List 5 doctrines that are taught within the Christian church that you believe to be deeply de-Christian.
There’s clearly some flexibility on the word “doctrine” here, to include some actual practices with ideological or theological implications. I shall try also to broaden my scope across the Church, and not confine it only to those parts I know best. I suspect we shall, as this meme develops, see some repetition.
1. The Immaculate Conception. This is the single most misguided development of Roman teaching. It takes a strong Augustinian line on grace, that God was always working to prepare Mary so that she could freely give her predestined “yes” to God, and distorts it into a heresy that removes Jesus from ordinary humanity. It gives the mother of God a lead-lined womb that insulates her son from the radioactive contamination of human sin, and removes him from us ordinary mortals, for it is no longer our humanity which he takes.
2. God hates sin. He may love you, but he hates sin even more, and unless you do exactly what he says (and only if you’re one of the lucky elect ones) you will burn for ever in eternal torment. God loves you, but he really, really hates sin. The concentration of the Church on God’s hatred of sin, and Augustine’s ghastly massa damnata theory of humanity, usually ends up implicitly denying the love of God, or at least demoting it to one of his less obvious characteristics.
3. Adjectivizing “Christian”. There are a few places where Christian may be a useful adjective: Christian Church (although nobody agrees which one that is), Christian Bible (although Christians disagree on its content) and Christian doctrine (although some Christians doctrine isn’t). Beyond those rather contested uses, it is a ghastly adjective: Christian art, Christian music, Christian books and bookshops, and so on. Sticking the adjective Christian in front of something does not make it good. In fact, it often signals the trite and trashy, and the triumph of tribalism over taste.
4. Social Trinitarianism. Well, not per se, but the way in which it increasingly gets talked about as a model for the Church’s communion. I am amazed at the number of people who in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century have suddenly developed detailed descriptions of the internal relationships of the Trinity, and insist that all we have to do is model the home life of our dear old God. We do not know this stuff. Some speculation may be prayerfully and theologically helpful. But blunt assertions about how the inner-Trinitarian life of the Godhead works are arrogant rubbish that totally destroys the mystery of God.
5. Justification by “faith”. Not the Pauline version, and not even the Lutheran version which is, of course, a complete misreading of Paul, and has at its worst fed not only anti-nomianism but a far more destructive anti-Semitism. No – the Pauline version is obviously right, and the Lutheran has helped a lot of people some of the time. What I have in mind here is the modern evangelical version exemplified by those who think Tom Wright is of the devil, or worse, catholic. In this version you are justified by having the right doctrine of justification. Being justified by the doctrine of justification by faith is a ghastly distortion that divides one Christian from another, and so is the precise opposite of the way Paul used his original doctrine to try to unite people across the Greek-Judahite divide.
Wow, it feels good to get that of my chest. And I did it all without a mention of Red-Letter Bibles (one of David’s per peeves). Then again, I have already railed against that abomination here and here, for example.
Anyway, it must be someone else’s turn. I tag Justin Lewis-Anthony, Maggi Dawn, Mike Whitenton, Scott Bailey and David Ker.
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nice one doug. A good list indeed. All recognisable too.
Wait, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception? By this do we include the doctrine of the Virgin Birth, or just the Roman doctrine that suggests Mary, too, is without sin?
Like Gary says: the immaculate conception is an entirely different doctrine to the Virgin Birth
Mine are a bit more US-Evangelical in scope and not quite “doctrinal”:
1. Jesus is a conservative (this is almost always completely centered on the “abortion issue” or, more ghastly, the working mentality that “God helps those who help themselves” which denies that Jesus came for the sick and weary-laden)
2. Jesus knew he was God/the “Son” as we now think of him in terms of the Trinity
3. God being “outside of time” (a troubling assumption which brings immense problems into play, such as the usefulness of prayer/petition, the existence of evil, the effectiveness of righteous living, etc.)
4. The “institutional church” is heretical or “missing the point” of Christianity (encompassing other thoughts that deny apostolic succession, catholicity, etc.)
5. Christians should be in agreement on everything.
Eric, I think you’ll find Immaculate Conception is a totally separate doctrine to Virgin Birth.
Doug, thanks for the “Justification by Faith” – maybe “Justification by the right belief in Justification by Faith” is more accurate?
That would be more accurate – but a bit wordy
When I first saw The Immaculate Conception, I thought Virgin Birth. But then I realized my mistake. It made for a funny two seconds or so.
I am not sure “God hates sin” is a good way of titling this concern. The failure to address God’s hatred, not the preaching of it, is what is deeply de-Christian. To say “God hates sin, but he loves the sinner” is to promote a false dichotomy and to privileged one over the other. As the Psalmist phrases it, “The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers” (Ps 5:5). God does hate sin, and thus he hates the one who commits sin. God’s sin is righteous enmity and does not preclude his love which is relational and covenantal. Perhaps this is what you are saying–the confusion that arises between pitting love and hate against each other–but it seems to come down too hard on hate and to suggest that whatever intrinsic loving qualities God possesses are more important or God-like than his hatred.
God’s *hatred* is righteous enmity . . .
That seems a bit proof-texty to me. I’m sure something does need to be said about God’s opposition to evil. But I stand by what I say here as well.
Oh, good list!
Had a ’study day’ yesterday, in which a senior cleric based team-building exercises on social trinitarianism: the Trinity as team! I hate it when doctrine becomes a cheap management gimmick.
Apart from that one: I wish more people would complain about Immaculate Conception, the love-person/hate-sin thing is callous psychological trick used to make you feel warm and caring while condemning someone to hell, and ‘Christian Britain’ needs to be binned. Last of all, I wonder if those who believe what is actually justification by dogma realise how terribly Catholic they’re being!
Thanks for the tag. I’ll take it on but I sincerely don’t know what “de-Christian” means. Is this a buzz term that I’ve missed out here in the wilds of Africa?
It’s not my nomenclature, but I took it to mean the same as un-Christian. Look forward to your choices
The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception does not remove Jesus from ordinary humanity. You read more into it than is warranted. The reason given for it is as follows…
We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, > by a singular grace and privilege < granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.
It is a gift from the Holy Trinity to Mary.
And hence insulates Jesus from the sinful nature of common humanity. I think I’m just calling it like it is: a piece of doctrinaire doctrinal incompetence that overturned the main thrust of the Christian tradition. The trouble is Pio Nono wouldn’t listen to his own theologians, and used dogmatic assertiveness to combat political weakness. In my view this doctrine was a bigger disaster than the later much more carefully worded semi-conciliar declaration of infallibility.
What a terrible way to get lead poisoning, as well.
In what way did this “singular grace and privilege” of being “preserved free from all stain of original sin” change her human nature, such that it would insulate Jesus from the sinful nature of common humanity?
It all depends on what you mean by the mysterious contraction known as Original Sin.
Rahner’s chapter on Sin in “Foundations..” is very helpful and also Ratzinger’s chapter on the Immaculate Conception in “Daughter Zion”.
I’m aware there are clever ways to try to obscure the disaster that this doctrine was. I just haven’t found them convincing. Repeat after St Gregory “What he did not assume, that he did not heal.”
“I’m aware there are clever ways to try to obscure the disaster that this doctrine was”
We call that the development of doctrine.
In a Q&A session with N.T Wright on the subject of New Creation and the Sacraments a few years back, he in a answer to a question about the Marian Dogmas objected to them primarily because he didn’t like the idea of one creature being privileged over another (He mentioned Paul).
That’s really the bone of contention.
I’m not objecting to the Marian dogmas generally, just this one. My bone of contention is as stated: Pius IX innovated something that theology before him rejected and theology after him has been rowing back from. That innovation serves to undermine the incarnation and is to be rejected.
David
What purpose does Immaculate Conception serve? What would have happened, in your opinion, if Mary wasn’t Immaculately Conceived?
Isn’t it really a useless doctrine as far as the nature of Jesus is concerned? It really only serves to heighten Mary’s esteem, not Christ’s.
I agree with Terri (and thanks to the others for setting me straight about the difference between the Immaculate Conception and the Virgin Birth – I hoped that was the case).
If the Immaculate Conception seeks to suggest that Mary (like Christ) was without sin, what does that accomplish? It removes Jesus from the lineage of sin (which the gospel genealogists refuse to do), and thereby separates him from humanity. I find it hard to imagine that he and Mary are in a little Holy Huddle (without, presumably, Joseph, which brings up the lack of doctrine surrounding the Holy Surrogate Father) – is not one of the core understandings of the divinity of Christ that he did not sin? Would not then Mary need to be sinless as well (instead of “merely” ‘blessed’ as her psalm indicates)?
The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception as regards the Incarnation complicates the matter no more than the Doctrine of the Trinity as understood either before or after the definition at Nicaea vis-à-vis the Incarnation.
It serves to undermine a particular understanding of what original sin in fact is, and let’s not forget that the aforementioned has itself been developed over time. Why should we leave the very mysterious doctrine of Original Sin back in the 16th Century and not continue to make sense of it?
I think the Dogma helps us to better understand sin.
Ratzinger says that…
“The essence of sin can only be understood in an anthropology of relation, not by looking at an isolated human being”
“Original sin is not an assertion about a natural deficiency in or concerning man, but a statement about a relationship that can be meaningfully formulated only in the context of the God-Man relation”
Were she not preserved from the defect (Whatever it is), I do not think the Incarnation would (Not could) have taken place.
Just as God chose to create other beings prior to and higher than ourselves, we call them “Angels”, so God chose Mary.
David you’re still not going to change my mind here. I agree, however, both with your quote from Ratzinger, and with your idea that we shouldn’t leave the dogma of original sin back in the 16th century – see my attempt to move it forward here
“Were she not preserved from the defect (Whatever it is), I do not think the Incarnation would (Not could) have taken place.”
I still don’t understand this. Can you explain in more detail? Why wouldn’t it have taken place? Are you saying Mary would never have consented to bear the Messiah if she weren’t Immaculately Conceived, or are you saying that the Messiah would never live within a “stained” vessel?
“Just as God chose to create other beings prior to and higher than ourselves, we call them “Angels”, so God chose Mary.”
As a Protestant I can’t read this without shuddering. So Jesus was a “little lower than the angels” but his mother wasn’t? I know that’s not exactly your point, but that’s what comes to my mind.
If God could consent to inhabit human flesh and live on a sinful, dusty planet for 30-odd years….why could He not endure 9 months in an imperfect human?
Say what you will, but the belief seems to have been around for a while.
Origen:
This Virgin Mother of the Only-begotten of God is called Mary, worthy of God, immaculate of the immaculate, one of the one (Homily 1 [A.D. 244]).
Hippolytus:
He [Jesus] was the ark formed of incorruptible wood. For by this is signified that His tabernacle [Mary] was exempt from defilement and corruption (Orat. In Illud, Dominus pascit me, in Gallandi, Bibl. Patrum, II, 496 ante [A.D. 235]).
Ephraim the Syrian:
You alone and your Mother are more beautiful than any others, for there is neither blemish in you nor any stains upon your Mother. Who of my children can compare in beauty to these? (Nisibene Hymns 27:8 [A. D. 361]).
Ambrose of Milan:
Come, then, and search out your sheep, not through your servants or hired men, but do it yourself. Lift me up bodily and in the flesh, which is fallen in Adam. Lift me up not from Sarah but from Mary, a Virgin not only undefiled but a Virgin whom grace had made inviolate, free of every stain of sin (Commentary on Psalm 118:22-30 [A.D. 387]).
Gregory Nazianzen:
He was conceived by the virgin, who had been first purified by the Spirit in soul and body; for, as it was fitting that childbearing should receive its share of honor, so it was necessary that virginity should receive even greater honor (Sermon 38 [d. A.D. 390]).
Augustine:
We must except the Holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom I wish to raise no question when it touches the subject of sins, out of honor to the Lord; for from Him we know what abundance of grace for overcoming sin in every particular was conferred upon her who had the merit to conceive and bear Him who undoubtedly had no sin (Nature and Grace 36:42 [A.D. 415]).
Theodotus of Ancrya:
A virgin, innocent, spotless, free of all defect, untouched, unsullied, holy in soul and body, like a lily sprouting among thorns (Homily 6:11[ante A.D. 446]).
Proclus of Constantinople:
As He formed her without any stain of her own, so He proceeded from her contracting no stain (Homily 1[ante A.D. 446]).
Jacob of Sarug:
[T]he very fact that God has elected her proves that none was ever holier than Mary, if any stain had disfigured her soul, if any other virgin had been purer and holier, God would have selected her and rejected Mary[ante A.D. 521].
Peace,
John
Well, thanks for that catena which does show some more (and more flowery) support for similar ideas than I was aware of – but I’m not convinced they say the same thing as the later doctrine. Nor are the Orthodox Churches, which give more weight than any of us to the patristic tradition.
I think the dialectic running through the Bible between pairs of brothers began not with Cain and Abel but rather with Adam and Eve. It begins not with the preference (Election) of the younger brother with less of a share and thus freedom in the family over the elder brother/s (Joseph and his brothers), no, instead the reversal of values begins with the bringing into being of Eve to serve Adam, to be, as it were, the “hinge of salvation” prior to the Incarnation.
Eve stands for a “Redeemable” humanity, a nature whose life (In Woman) remains, persists and reaches out in anticipation of a second chance. Mary is the promise in person, the “May?” in all of us. She is the Doctrine of Justification in person (Unmerited love bestowed), the one (For us all) for whom the Incarnate Love of God created the Universe. She is on the receiving end of the Beatitudes. This the Lord demonstrated by, as it were, proposing to her, us.
Mary as the “Yes” of humanity is the reason for the Incarnation.
It is in the nature of God to choose Mary.
David, I really don’t think I understand this at all, but in so far as I might do so, I disagree profoundly, both because the reason for the incarnation is to be found in God’s initiative, and because your phrasing downplays any sense that God freely chooses to act. The Augustinian currently occupying Peter’s chair, would, I suspect, be horrified.
She is the fulfilment of the dialectic in person, and not just a metaphysical link.
Of course, it’s a gift.
A couple of notes on this list, which, if one were persuaded by it, would lead to the conclusion that only non-RC, non-evangelical, and especially, only non-Calvinist Christians are anywhere near the kingdom of God.
(1) That was my reader-response reaction to the doctrine until I looked at the question in greater depth. At the very least, one must say that the doctrine has a very different valence in contemporary Catholic teaching (for example, in the Catechism).
(2) How pleasant it must be to be able to pin this tail on the donkey of Augustine. Intellectual honesty, however, might lead to the conclusion that the teaching goes back to Jesus (e.g., Matthew 7:13-14).
(3) I don’t see this. Sure, most art, music, and literature, including theology, to which the label “Christian” is appended, to borrow a phrase from Augustine, might very well be understood through the lens of a massa damnata theory of human culture. But some of it will last. Future generations will still look at, listen to, and read a portion of what passes for contemporary Christian cultural production.
(4) I think I agree. However, I would wish to exclude from criticism a lot of excellent work being done in precisely this field. Moltmann, Jungel, etc.
(5) Tom Wright, of course, is an evangelical hero. The evangelical segment of Christianity reads his work or (in North America) publishes his work with the greatest assiduity. For the very same reason, no segment of Christianity takes his theses with greater seriousness, to the point of engaging critically with the substance.
Justification by faith in the Lutheran sense has a tremendous amount of kick left in it, as Oswald Bayer proves. Paul and Luther are soul mates in more than one way.
Obviously only non-Calvinists are anywhere near the kingdom of God
aseriously, just a couple of comments.
On (1) I’m still sticking to my guns on this one: I think there are some interesting “workrounds” – Gavin d’Costa’s trinitarian thought in Sexing the Trinity is an example. I have in mind a more populist and less theological aware adherence to the doctrine.
On (2) I have to say that Jesus seems to pull off the trick of loving sinners and hating sin. I’m not persuaded any of his followers have managed it, however.
If it was possible for God to preserve the Virgin Mary from sin without doing violence to her free will, why would it not be possible for him to do it for the rest of us as well, and thus preserve the world from all the misery that human wickedness has inflicted on it, lo these many years? and if it is possible, why would a loving God not do it?
Just asking.
Now that’s a good question
I’ll have another go.
Mary was preserved from the stain of original sin in order to display God’s graciousness on the pattern of the dialectic I mentioned in my last comment.
By “Promise” I meant that Mary’s body is the bearer of the renewed covenant.
By “Doctrine of Justification in Person” I meant that Mary is the one whose being has been penetrated by the unmerited love of God’s response in Jesus Christ.
Her “Faith” is a “Yes” to the end of a process in which she is the end at which a new beginning breaks through that had begun before the creation of the world and been anticipated already in the OT in terms of God breaking with convention again and again, lifting up the lowly and choosing the younger brother over the older brother etc.
God chose Mary, a finite creature, to show forth and communicate his glory.
Okay, I think I understand that now, but I think it places Mary where Paul (to give one example) places Christ.
For a very recent articulation of the doctrine of Immaculate Conception in history-of-salvation terms, go here:
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/10/do-whatever-he-tells-you-the-blessed-virgin-mary-in-christian-faith-and-life
Perhaps it goes a bit far to say that the doctrine regarding the Trinity is deeply unchristian. We ought to recognize the fact that most (perhaps all) of the big Christian Churches teach this doctrine. And it looks like a terrible thing to say that the major Christian Churches (and with them the vast majority of Christians)attach a great deal of importance to a doctrine that is false.
Personally I think that the doctrine regarding the Trinity is something that practically all Christians take for granted without understanding it and without connecting it with any practical consequences. With this I mean that as far I know there are no Churches which use prayers or hymns in which the word Trinity occurs. The word Trinity is not used in any Bible translations, not even once.
I do not believe in the Trinity because if Bible translations would use the word God both for the Father and for the Son they would become totally incomprehensible. In the Bible the Father and the Son are two distinct personalities. Their relationship is characterized by hierarchy: the Father commands and demands to be obeyed, the Son does what the Father tells him to do. He never expects his Father to obey Him.
Neither is there any passage in the Bible where the Father addresses his Son as his God.
Besides: all professional Bible scholars who can read the Bible books in their original languages agree that in the original texts (as they were written by the Bible writers) God has a name. Just as his Son has a name: Jesus Christ. God’s name is JHWH: in modern translations rendered as Jahweh or Jehovah.
To sum it all up: it is my personal view that the doctrine of the Trinity is not supported by anything that we can read in the Bible. Nor have I ever read an article or a book written by a theologian who wanted to defend this doctrine that I found convincing. Not to say that in most cases I really could not understand their way of reasoning and their way of writing.
But on the other hand I do not dare to go so far as to say that the major Christian Churches teach false unchristian doctrines.
The reason why I do not dare to go so far is that I cannot think of any reason why Christian Churches would tell their followers lies. On the other hand: I have never been able to think of any reason why they teach the doctrine of the Trinity. Like I said: there are no Biblical grounds to base this doctrine on. Neither are there any logical or philosophical or religious arguments to support it.
To me it is a sort of mystery. And a mystery that I experience as highly unpleasant.
Are you a Jehovah’s witness, or are you simply badly mistaken?
Doug wrote: … but I’m not convinced they say the same thing as the later doctrine. Nor are the Orthodox Churches, which give more weight than any of us to the patristic tradition.
Hello Doug,
I’m not so sure that you can appeal to the Eastern Orthodox on this issue. At least, not from what I understand.
According to:
Casimir A. Kucharek’s The Byzantine-Slav Liturgy of St John Chrysostom (Allendale, NJ: Alleluia Press, 1971), pp. 354-7.
… from end to end of the Byzantine world, both Catholic and Orthodox greet the Mother of God as achrantos, “the immaculate, spotless one”, no less than eight times in the Divine Liturgy alone. But especially on the feast of her conception (December 9 in the Byzantine Church) is her immaculateness stressed: “This day, O faithful, from saintly parents begins to take being the spotless lamb, the most pure tabernacle, Mary …” (From the Office of Matins, the Third Ode of the Canon for the feast); “She is conceived … the only immaculate one” (From the Office of Matins, the Stanzas during the Seating, for the same feast); or “Having conceived the most pure dove, Anne filled …” (From the Office of Matins, the Sixth Ode of the Canon for the same feast).
No sin, no fault, not even the slightest, ever marred the perfect sanctity of this masterpiece of God’s creation. For hundreds of years, the Byzantine Church has believed this, prayed and honored Mary in this way. Centuries of sacred tradition stand behind this title. Even during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when some Western theologians doubted or denied the truth of her immaculate conception, Byzantine Catholic and Orthodox theologians unanimously taught it. Two of Thomas Aquinas’ most ardent disciples among the Greeks disagreed with him on one point only, his failure to admit the immaculate conception of the Mother of God. Demetrios Kydonios (fourteenth century) translated some of Aquinas’ works into Greek, but vehemently opposed Thomas’ views on the immaculate conception.
The Greek Orthodox Church’s belief in the immaculate conception continued unanimously until the fifteenth century, then many Greek theologians began to adopt the idea that Mary had been made immaculate at the moment of the Annunciation.* Among the Eastern Slavs, belief in the immaculate conception went undisturbed until the seventeenth century, when the Skrizhal (Book of Laws) appeared in Russia, and proposed what the Slavs considered the “novel” doctrine of the Greeks. The views proposed in the Skrizhal were branded as blasphemous, especially among the Staroviery (Old Believers), who maintained the ancient customs and beliefs, however small or inconsequential. This reaction confirms the ancient Byzantine and Slav tradition of the immaculate conception. Only after Pope Pius IX defined the dogma in 1854 did opposition to the doctrine solidify among most Orthodox theologians.** The Orthodox Church, however, has never made any definitive pronouncement on the matter. Its official position is rather a suspension of judgment than a true objection. When Patriarch Anthimos VII, for example, wrote his reply to Pope Leo XIII’s letter in 1895, and listed what he believed to be the errors of the Latins, he found no fault with their belief in the immaculate conception, but objected to the fact that the Pope had defined it.
* “Nicephorus Callixtus, however, expressed doubt during the fourteenth century [...], but the great Cabasilas’ (1371) teaching on the immaculate conception [...] still has great influence in the subsequent centuries. Perhaps even more influential was Patriarch [sic] Gregory Palamas (1446-1452), whose homilies on the Mother of God are second to none even today [...].
** “Most of them seem to have objected on the grounds that it was unnecessary to define it.”
Peace,
John
Thanks for sharing your learning. There is one significant difference that is not addressed by these quotations showing an Eastern belief in Mary’s immaculate nature: the Orthodox do not share the quasi-genetic sense of the transmission of original sin that the Western Church takes from Augustine, and therefore “immaculate” in the East doesn’t carry all of the same implications as “immaculate” in the West.
I tend to feel that if objections to the Western doctrine are good enough for St Thomas, they’re good enough for me.
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