Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site sphinx.UChicago.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!gary 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