Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site cbscc.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!cbsck!cbscc!pmd
From: pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul Dubuc)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Contemporary Theology and its flight from the church.
Message-ID: <5764@cbscc.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 20-Aug-85 09:40:19 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbscc.5764
Posted: Tue Aug 20 09:40:19 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 24-Aug-85 01:48:32 EDT
References: <1008@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories , Columbus
Lines: 50


Well, I've known some who have paid their dues in seminary and
I'm glad to say that they don't all indulge in the inellectual
snobbery that Gary does.  I've never seen a better example of a
modern day Pharasee.  The gaurdians of truth are those who have
paid their dues in the study of modern theology.  Salvation belongs
to the "educated".  And people chide fundamentalists for acting
like they have a corner on spiritual truth!  Pigheadedness seems
respectable if you've studied at the right seminary.

Gary likens the craft of theology to secular professions like
law and medicine.  I suppose we should have a requirement that
ministers be licensed by the state too?  Doctors and lawyers deal
with fairly objective and technical goals with regard to their
clients.  Apparently Gary views the obtaining of knowledge of God in
a similar light.  Could you describe that goal, Gary?  I don't think
you'll get much help from Schleiermacher there.  You seem
to espouse ideas similar to those of Harvey Cox in "The Secular
City" but also seem to fall into the trap (Cox himself warned about)
of championing "secularism".  (Cox distinguised between the terms
"secular" and "secularism"; maybe not too adaquately).

One thing I couldn't figure out about Cox's book is:  What use
does the secular city have for secular theologians?  Cox seems to
have spent all his time importing theology into the secular world.
Surely "secular man" can get along fine without the theological trappings.

The only use I can see that secular society has for secular theology
is clerical hedge against the criticism of more conservative Christians
like the fundamentalists and evangelicals.  The liberal "secular"
theologians are the flatterers of secular society and society does
not exile its flatterers.  Once the usefulness of the clerical hedge
is past, however, I'd expect secular theology to quickly fade from
existance itself.  It's basis for authority is in secular society
itself.  It has no basis for authority from which it may criticize
that society that I can see.

Adults, for all their maturity, often learn important lessons
from their children.  So it is that I find some of the most
"theologically crude" Christians display more evidence of having
internalized the character of Christ than the most learned
theologians.  As long as today's modern theologians act as if their
heady knowlege is all that applies to the biblical concept of
truth, they are going to fail to learn some important lessons.  Truth
has as much to do with personal integrity (of God or persons) as
it does with true or false propositions, maybe even more so.

-- 

Paul Dubuc 	cbscc!pmd