The way forward, part 4: Self-selection


A unification scheme of the kind I am talking about will not work for some categories of participants. I expect them to opt out once they see what is going on. I think these people will soon show themselves to the door:


  • Those who cannot love Christians of other backgrounds of tradition or ethnicity.
  • Those repudiating traditional ideas of holiness or purity, as, for example, those who revise Christianity's sexual ethics.
  • Those denying historical Christianity's view of the nature of God, to substitute an essentially different understanding of who God is.


There are some other groups that will have trouble adapting to the new stream of thinking in Christendom, but I think they will adapt after some struggle, and end up working along with the rest of us. I refer to those attached to some point of dogma not accepted by all as an essential of the faith, and who are able only with great difficulty to tolerate other Christians who see that point as nonessential or even mistaken. These people will think something important is being denied, but there is a better way to look at it. They have a new and wider opportunity to make their point, more people to expose to their opinion, when they interact with Christians of other denominations. There is now a distinction between an essential belief and a beneficial practice that is nonessential. They can stick around and attempt to persuade by setting a good example that their ways are wholesome, helping the believer in his spiritual progress, and do no violence to the faith's essence. What they must give up is teaching their pet doctrine as a requirement for all. Whether they rise to the challenge we shall see.

In writing before about this, I used for my main example my own favorable view of some Charismatic Renewal manifestations such as tongues for prayer, and words of wisdom and of knowledge. Some people who undeniably are Christian believers, though, take all that to be nonsense or worse. I do not suppose it is my right to insist they take me seriously.

More about that, and other similar cases where believers find each other at odds over deeply held nonessentials, such as saints' relics and aerial toll-houses, can be found here and here.

I do not see this kind of unification as a drive toward the lowest common denominator, but an opportunity for us really to encounter stances we have formerly rejected without firsthand knowledge of what and who it is we have rejected. We may learn useful things from others, or we may become more moderate in our objections to others' practices. It will work for those willing to grant that there may be some valid or at least plausible Christian viewpoints they do not share. To those without that willingness, of course, the whole enterprise will seem useless.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reality, fantasy and ecumenism

By Charles Marsh Recent conversations online and off have shown me something very curious. Some of what I believe to be Christian verity some other Christians take to be mere fantasy. They are cessationists and I am not . According to them, the things that I believe about tongues and prophecy and words of wisdom and of knowledge are sheer moonshine. So while in some churches I am thought orthodox enough, in others I am regarded as delusional or something rather like it. There are other matters in which, in like manner, some Christians view certain beliefs of other Christians as no better than free imagination, runaway fantasy or perhaps something worse: damaging falsehoods not harmless nuttiness. I admit to being somewhat dismayed by other Christians' newspaper novenas and Facebook prayer schemes. I do not think that is how prayer works. Their idea seems to be that if you repeat such and such a prayer x times, or republish it or "like" it or retweet it, then you w...
Read more

Science versus religion is a phony issue

By Charles Marsh The problem is that science, well suited to look at repeatable events, is at a loss about singular ones.  Some people suppose that science trumps religion, that a modern understanding of the world through science renders religious understandings obsolete. Some others suppose that religious understanding can be used to refute science. Both views are wrong. Science is rooted in philosophical naturalism. That is the stance that says we will explain what we see without reference to supernatural agencies. Science describes what happens without recourse to explanations involving angels, demons, gods, fairy godmothers, humors, vapors or ghosts. Acting on this basis, science has done a great deal of good. It has gotten rid of superstitions about what causes disease, where insects come from and a good many other misunderstandings. Notice that science is morally neutral. The same disciplines that give us vaccines and disease prevention can as...
Read more

What is a "Francisism"?

The first time I used the word I used it in attempting to explain some of Pope Francis's headline-grabbing remarks. This is what I said: This strikes me as another one of those Francisisms that generates lots of good press for Francis and then is walked back via more careful statements by others in the Church. I have remarked before on his tendency to do things like this. But it was not the first time I had encountered the concept. My remarks on this habit of Francis's go back a couple of years, to the early days of his pontificate. Francis tends to make sweeping-sounding statements that sound nearly un-Catholic in their generosity, toward gays, socialists, atheists, Lutherans and others. But when the statements are unpacked in light of Catholic faith and practice, they do not mean all that they seem to suggest. The statements are narrowly and logically true in some sense but really say less than they seem at first to say. Before I coined the word I wrote Pope Franc...
Read more