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From: gary@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (gary w buchholz)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Contemporary Theology and its flight from the church.
Message-ID: <1008@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 18-Aug-85 23:12:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: sphinx.1008
Posted: Sun Aug 18 23:12:27 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 20-Aug-85 21:51:21 EDT
Organization: U. Chicago - Computation Center
Lines: 140

>
>From: rjb@akgua.UUCP (R.J. Brown [Bob])

>Gary concludes his long and learned essay trashing confessional
>theology as follows:

>>Christianity will survive but only in popular form in church backyards
>>at ice-cream socials and rummage sales - in short, in purely social
>>forms and contexts.  The historic theological tradition is elsewhere
>>wanting nothing to do with ice-cream or used clothes.  To "us" the
>>former is "heresy", worse, it is apathy, and still worse it is a
>>denial, betrayal and noncommitment to the historic Christian tradition
>>post-Reformation.  Secular theologians in the modern world are the true
>>inheritors of historic Christian theological tradition.
>>

>I think you're painting a stereotype that has validity for some of the
>stale and dead churches and denominations. 

    I would want to treat theology as any other academic discipline and
    as such, the discipline does not allow "just anyone" to "walk in
    off the street" and participate as a full member.  The price of
    admission is much higher than that.

    How many years does one attend medical school before one is qualified
    to be a doctor ?  How many years of study does it take to pass the
    bar and become a lawyer ?  Is theology any different ?  Christian
    theology has a 2000 year history - is this any less a body of
    knowledge and tradition than either medicine or law ?

    What is the church ?  An association of "doctors" that never went to
    medical school, or "lawyers" that never attended law school ?  How
    can they claim for themselves these 'titles' having never devoted
    any serious study to those disciplines that would allow them to
    rightfully claim these titles for themselves ?

    The church is a paradox.  It is an association of people calling
    themselves doctors and lawyers selling snake oil and rhetoric.  Is
    it any wonder why professional theological societies want nothing
    to do with the church ?

    Is this anything new ?  Not at all.  In 1806 Friedrich
    Schleiermacher(called the father of modern theology) in his book 
    "On Religion: speeches to its cultured despisers" in defense of the
    Christian religion *against* the church writes this: (p 157-58)

"...This at least is certain, that all truely religious men, as many as
there ever have been, ... have all known how to estimate the church,
commonly so-called, at about its true value, which is to say, not
particularly high.
   ... is very far from being a society of religious men.
It is only an association of persons who are but seeking religion, and
it seems to me natural that, in almost every respect, it should be the
counterpart of the true church 
  ...They  cannot be spoken of as wishing to complete
their religion... for if they had any religion of their own, it would,
by necessity of its nature, show itself in some way...  They exercise
no reaction because they are capable of none; and they can only be
incapable because they have no religion.... I would say that they are
negatively religious, and press in great crowds to the few points where
they suspect the positive principle of religion... In entire passivity
they simply suffer the impressions on their organs.
  ...In few words this is the history of their religious life and the
character of the  social inclination that runs through it.  Not
religion, but a little sense for it, and a painful, lamentably
fruitless endeavor to reach it, are all that can be ascribed even to
the best of them, even those who show both spirit and zeal"

    What S. writes here in 1806 as regards the relation of
    theology/theologians to the church is reflected throughout the
    theological tradition to the present day.  My quote of Altizer as
    regards a church theology being impossible and the impossibility of
    returning to the bible is simply the latest instantiation of S.
    remarks here articulated by the (theological) tradition in 1985.


    It's simply a matter of paying dues.  People in church don't pay the
    "dues" that professional theologians think they ought to pay and
    therefore professional theology wants nothing to do with the church
    and those people therein that *call themselves* "Christians".

    Do you blame them ?

>However, the social scope...
>that you present is rather limited.  The sick are being healed, the
>hungry are being fed, the naked clothed, the prisoners visited, ...,

    If you are sick, seek a secular doctor (preferably one who has
    gone to medical school).  Secular rock music feeds the hungry.
    Secular humanists will visit the prisoners.

>and the Good News is being preached.

    But having no effect in getting people out of church into theology
    schools, divinity schools, or seminary.  You all still sit there
    and "suffer impressions on your organs".  Whats the problem ?

>Yes, there is some time for ice cream too.

   I'll pass.  Thats not a criticism of ice-cream but the company.

>I admonish you Gary that you walk humbly with your
>treasure of knowledge ( you do indeed exhibit great intellectual
>skill).  The lessons for today are "Pride goes before destruction and
>a haughty spirit before a fall." and "God resists the proud but gives
>grace to the humble."

   Don't make total ignorance of the historic Christian theological 
   tradition a Christian virtue.  One can be proud and have a haughty
   spirit if one is in possession of the tradition and can move the 
   Christian symbols with ease.

>Or does God even fit into Post-Everything Theology ??

   The successor discipline to traditional theology does have a name.
   The name is written thus ->   A/theology
   It is a triple-play on words and situates the problem precisely.
   The question of post-modern theological thought is the status of
   the boundry signified by the "/'.

>Bob Brown {...ihnp4!akgua!rjb}

   In all honesty I must say that the church looks as silly to 
   professional theology as it would look to the AMA if a group
   of people having no medical education whatsoever were to meet
   on a weekly basis to chart the future course of "medicine".

   What these "doctors" perceive as "medicine" is, by the 
   standards of the profession, no more medicine than witchcraft
   and voodoo magic practiced by witchdoctors.  The extrapolation
   of the analogy to Christianity and the church are exact.

   If you have no theological talent - then don't bother.  As in
   the case of medicine, the profession is best served by eliminating
   those people who show no promise.  To paraphrase Schleiermacher, the
   church is the site of those who "wanting to be" have utterly failed.


  Gary