RSSThe Elephant in the Room
This discussion has been nice and edifying in its own way, but it might be good at this point to just cut to the brass tacks. In the discussion on Christian liberty below, the question of abortion played a central role. This is not just because abortion is the quintessential moral issue of our day, but because abortion lies at the very heart of the problem of protestant/liberal conceptions of Christian liberty. Darryl’s first instinct was to say that abortion (as a policy matter for polititians, not having or performing one) was not within the realm of liberty. However, when pushed on it, he backed off in order to preserve a hard-line on liberty saying he would have to carefully consider arguments in favor of the Mario Cuomo type politician. If this is where this concept of liberty takes the good, traditionally minded Dr. Hart, I say watch out for where it will take weaker minded and souled men. The reason abortion is so central to this question is because modern conceptions of the liberty of conscience (largely enabled and spawned within and around 20th Century American protestantisms) developed, as Cardinal Pell has written, chiefly as a prop for sexual libertinism: “Why do people strain to accommodate absolute sexual freedom as a matter of conscience? Why does no one plead for the right to racism or sexism as a matter of conscience? Could it be because the liberal concept of conscience has been specially formulated in order to facilitate the sexual indiscipline that our culture upholds?”
Before everyone objects that they are not sexual libertines let me say two things: First, in most ways, it doesn’t matter whether one is personally libertine or not when one considers the origin and effect of the line he takes on liberty. If one does not consider these things, I think he is being duped and is likely naive and therefore somewhat dangerous (harsh words, I know). Second, Darryl’s statement below is somewhat haunting: But I am also convinced that a good church is only as healthy as its families and local community. If our congregations were not commuter entities, with Christians living during the week as anonymous consumers and workers, then maybe communities and families could supply some of the bonds and love that you want the church to yield. Ask yourself this: What is the single best defense against the kind of dislocation and alienation described? Answer: lots of kids early in life. In other words, the conditions lamented here are the direct and predictable fruit of another form of sexual libertinism which is just as much at the heart of protestant/modern/liberal ideas about liberty of conscience as is abortion.
Basic Premise: Until the protestant church begins to change its teaching on the subject of birth control (there is some hope that this might be happening), it is doomed. It doesn’t matter how many blogs, fancy philosophies, smart books, creeds, worldview schools we have, or anything else we might try. Someone asked for clarity. That’s about as distilled a statement as I can make.
If my argument is not persuasive enough on its own terms, and since this seems to be my day for quoting my friend Fr. Jape, I offer as exhibit one the pabalum that is currently being shilled on this subject from within the protestant fold (a hopeless attempt to hold both degraded notions of liberty together with the moral demands of chastity–can’t be done, won’t be done!).
At bottom, I think discussions like these which don’t grapple with the central problems and questions of generational fidelity are just so much hot air.
W.H. Chellis
April 19th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
I do not think that the confessional idea of Christian liberty is the problem so much as the fact that Christian liberty has been divorced from ethics. What is the ethical system which dominates among conservative Presbyterians? How do we think through ethical issues? Are our answers binding? I think the answer would have been clear for William Ames or William Perkins but not so clear for us.
Caleb Stegall
April 19th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Forgive me for always being the kid at the parade who points out that the horses aren’t wearing any clothes (or something like that), but c’mon Bill. If you are talking about the WCF, it incorporated the divorce of freedom of conscience from ethics into the system. Chapter 20.2: the Christain conscience is free from any commandment of men which is contrary to or differnent from scripture. This is basically how Darryl formulated it: freedom where the scripture is silent. However, scripture is no more an ethics treatise than it is a science book. Yes, the WCF says in 20.3 that men who practice sin under cover of liberty destroy it, which is true and right, however, we are left with precious little in the way of resources to determine what is ethical/sin in the first place. The Divines had the advantage of simply assuming a whole societal raft of ethics already in place due to centuries of Christian civilization. That bank account has long been in over-draft. In some ways, this sums up the paradox of every reformational/revolutionary “killing of the fathers.” The tendency to undermine the strength on which the original reforms were built.
W.H. Chellis
April 19th, 2007 at 9:00 pm
Chapter 20 must be balanced with the exposition of the 10 Commandments found in the Larger Catechism, no? Simply assumed from the “whole societal raft of ethics already in place?” I am not sure that is fair to our 16th and 17th Century theologians who expounded the law.
Caleb Stegall
April 19th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
Yes, however, “expounding the law” is in conflict with an articulation of Christian liberty which was largely used as a means of ignoring or combating certain previous unwanted expoundings of the law. The iconoclastic rationale always (or nearly always) circles round to bite those who pass from tearers down to expounders in their own turn.
GAS
April 20th, 2007 at 2:42 am
Basic Premise: Until the protestant church begins to change its teaching on the subject of birth control (there is some hope that this might be happening), it is doomed. It doesn’t matter how many blogs, fancy philosophies, smart books, creeds, worldview schools we have, or anything else we might try. Someone asked for clarity. That’s about as distilled a statement as I can make.
The real elephant in the room is the Aristotelian/Thomistic natural law theory being expounded and that the conscience can be “incited” to good if developed and trained by reason. A tough sell amongst Calvinists I would say.Since, for Calvinists, the conscience enlightens the understanding and informs the will, and not the other way around, and in fact only serves in the negative to challenge the understanding and torment the will with no ability on its own to incite the good, any attempt to develop the conscience is a useless exercise.This is especially true in a restored (Christian) conscience, seeing that the conscience is the heart of faith in the light of a restored understanding and will, thus imposing man-made constructs only serves to enslave the restored conscience to its former position of negatively convicting instead of positively understanding.
stevez
April 24th, 2007 at 8:45 am
caleb said, “If this is where this concept of liberty takes the good, traditionally minded Dr. Hart, I say watch out for where it will take weaker minded and souled men.”
i would take not just hart’s argumentations on christian liberty specifically here but also his braoder arguments as that which must be “watched out for.” that said, what are you saying here, caleb? are you saying that unless one has the intellectual wherewithal of hart he ought not agree, or at least, be very wary of the argumentations? i wonder how close this may be to the judaizers saying, “paul, technically we get you; what you say makes sense, etc., etc. but to you who are weaker minded, watch out, this gospel is potentailly very dangerous. so dangerous, in fact, that we do well to erect some barriers to it and set up some caveats.” or perhaps what rome may have be known to have been said to the reformers: “yeah, what you say sure sounds really good. you certainly make some compelling points. and truth be told, i am with you. but it’s just too much. we brighter bulbs can take it, but we are going to anathematize you because, well, consider the laity. they are not as bright as those up here. and the gospel in the hands of not-so-bright-bulbs is very dangerous.”
signed,
a not-so-bright-bulb-who-is-compelled-by-the-gospel-in-general-and-the-hartian-argumenations-which-simply-seek-to-comport-with-the-gospel (prone and vulnerable to weaknesses as they may be in the hands of a fellow sinner).
Caleb Stegall
April 24th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Steve,
Of course that is what I am saying, though you put it in somewhat more transparent and overly-simplified terms (and add a condition–”intellectual wherewithal”–that I never endorsed). This is what the Church has ALWAYS said in order to enclose and mitigate the explosively gnostic elements of the gospel to a world in the time between times and to people who must make their lives in that world. The judaizers were not all wrong. James was not all wrong in his battles with Paul. Ask yourself why Luther, after all his revolutionary and violent rhetoric turned so suddenly on the very Peasants he had incited during the Peasant’s Revolt? Why did the Calvinists so strenuously oppress the anabaptists? I believe Darryl has made just this same argument (though wisely, in less transparent terms) in his dealings with Evangelicals. And rightly so. The church is in the business of “erecting barriers” to the gospel. The fundamental questions always concern: what barriers?
stevez
April 24th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
caleb,
i think you cleared up what my original question to you was.
i am now curious as to what you mean by saying that it is better to be less transparent in all this? i know what you mean by hart’s being perhaps more obscure…but i wonder why that is better?
Caleb Stegall
April 24th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Steve, shall we say that there are certain goods which can best be obtained by keeping the time honored conventions of discretion and the noble myth (as endorsed from Plato through to Bonhoeffer).
D Hart
April 25th, 2007 at 5:46 am
I am generally on board with Caleb’s understanding of procreation, real sex, and contraception. I am not persuaded that ending contraception would fix families and communities though. I could still see childless couples having real trouble conforming to community norms, but being forced to do so and eventually entering the bonds of love, if they didn’t have a car and a highway system that makes McMansions desirable and affordable. In other words, I think modernity’s woes are bigger than sex.
On the matter of Christian liberty, I have indeed said, as Caleb points out, that Christians (not the church) are at liberty where Scripture is silent. But that assertion implies and assumes the legitimate authority of parents, churches and states. So I may be at liberty to watch 20 hours of television a day — the Bible says nothing about it. But I’m not at liberty to disobey my dad who may not have biblical warrant but does have a big belt backing up his policy of no more than 1 hour a day. The Divines were clear about this regulated notion of Christian liberty even if contemporary Christians have become libertarian about it.
Caleb Stegall
April 25th, 2007 at 9:49 am
“I think modernity’s woes are bigger than sex.”
Too true. But if we could make only one change (realistic change–I’m not talking about banning the mechanical jacobin, or other desirable, though fanciful ideas), this is the one I would suggest.
Caleb Stegall
April 25th, 2007 at 11:21 am
“On the matter of Christian liberty, I have indeed said, as Caleb points out, that Christians (not the church) are at liberty where Scripture is silent. But that assertion implies and assumes the legitimate authority of parents, churches and states.”
Darryl, forgive me for pushing the matter, but how can the presumption of Christian liberty where scripture is silent assume the legitimate authority of the church? Your formulation leaves the church completely without authority on such matters. Of course, at bottom, the whole thing is based on the church, somewhere along the line, saying: “Because I said so!” Even determining what matters the scripture is silent on is a matter of appeal to some assumed authority, church, state, or individual conscience.
We might say that the whole problem is a result of John Locke calling Martin Luther’s bluff. Uh-oh. Game and rubber to the libertarians.
D Hart
April 25th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
“Your formulation leaves the church completely without authority on such matters.” That is a biting assertion, but I refuse to blink. I do not think the church has authority to regulate TV watching any more than she has authority to regulate beer in-take. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have authority. (sorry for the double negative.) Her power is to minister the Word and where Scripture speaks, the church can bind consciences as part of the yoke of Christ. But when Scripture is silent, Christians have liberty and are then beholden to parents and civil authorities.
I think this is where you and I finally disagree or at least where our discomfort with Protestantism and modernity separates. I can surely admit that a church with more authority is appealing — it would certainly give me more ammunition in responding to the good-natured barbs of my Roman Catholic colleagues. But the wisdom of such ecclesiastical authority — in areas where the Bible is silent — seems to go beyond the wisdom of our Lord who according to his good pleasure left his followers without much of a game plan for community- or civilization-building.
The limited authority of the church for which I argue may explain why I believe our churches can only be as healthy as the families and communities in which they minister.