Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site umcp-cs.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!petrus!bellcore!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!umcp-cs!mangoe From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) Newsgroups: net.religion.christian Subject: Re: Contemporary Theology and its flight from the church. Message-ID: <1324@umcp-cs.UUCP> Date: Wed, 21-Aug-85 23:37:48 EDT Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.1324 Posted: Wed Aug 21 23:37:48 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 24-Aug-85 18:10:48 EDT References: <1008@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD Lines: 128 In article <1008@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> Gary w Buchholz writes: > 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 ? This analogy doesn't inpress me. I think a much better analogy would be to mathematics or composition. People in general need to know very little about medicine or law; arithmetic and grammar they use every day. People live their religion every day, whatever they know of it. > 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 ? On the day when the only theology of Jesus is one which belongs only to theologians and priests, on that day, Christianity will cease to exist. One thing which is becoming clear to me is that Gary's A/theology quite explicitly denies an old Protestant doctrine: the preisthood of all believers. This comes quite in the face of all the mystics through the years who called directly to God, and (to their ears) were answered. If Jesus has any real power in the world, then there is no surer death for him than binding him up in an elite of disbelievers. > 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 ? Which church? and which theologians? Does Chicago not listen to Boston? or Duke? or Sewanee? or Canterbury? > 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 theology> > ...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. Soren Kierkegaard attacked the church in much the same way, on much the same grounds; yet he embraced the reality of Jesus and the Bible. The words of Schleiermacher sound to me to be perilously close to those of an intellectual snob. > 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 ? YES! It sounds very much like the justifications of Libertarianism. Everything is worked out very neatly, with great faith and confidence. And yet, even with my very distant exposure to poverty and need, the whole thing feels unreal to me. I get the feeling that the proponents have no feeling for the common people their schemes would affect. I get this same feeling from much of modern theology. > 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". How unfortunate that the body lives without our volition or knowledge, unlike our religious life, which perforce must be forcibly bound up in our wills. > 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. They are much more like writers who must write, even though they have no hope of writing Shakespeare. Liveing is something the body does, regardless of our understanding. Religion is something we must will ourselves, and so is dependent upon our understanding. The a/religion Gary is talking about seems destined to wither and fall off of the church, because it is no religion at all for anyone who cannot afford the luxury of seminary. > 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. Those of you who read the Gospels should not need to be reminded of Jesus' attacks upon the scribes. I think Gary might want to reconsider who is the unmarked tomb. Charley Wingate The wind blows where it pleases....