Energetic Procession on Issues, Etc.

07 July 2009

I have mentioned before that usually the fare served up at Energetic Procession is way over my head. I am afraid that left to my own abilities I would have been a first class heretic at the time of Arias or Nestorius. Nonetheless, every once in a while Perry publishes an article that actually reaches down to my limited level of understanding and this one also had me cheering "Bravo!"

The Lutheran radio program, Issues Etc., ran shows on June 1, 2 and 3 against Eastern Orthodoxy and recently Perry published his counter-arguments to the Issues Etc. "howler" fest. I have heard all the Lutheran arguments before. My former Lutheran pastor and I discussed many of them as I was considering Orthodoxy. But in some cases Perry points out the non-substantive nature of these arguments, in others he points out the underlying contradictions. It is disappointing to see his comments go unchallenged by the Lutherans. I'd be interested in seeing where the discussion would go should the arguments be extended further.

Below I have captured just a few of the points which I thought were handled exceptionally well:

In the first broadcast that I heard, Strength and Weaknesses there is the usual attempt to tar Orthodoxy with something very much alien to it, namely the Charismatic movement. The criticism made by Webber is that Charismatics and the Orthodox go to worship for the same thing, namely the attainment of a mystical experience rather than to be slain by the law and revived by the gospel... Furthermore, he speaks of the purpose of worship to be slain by the law and resurrected by the gospel. And here seems to me to a case of the pot calling the kettle black. For all the disparagement of a therapeutic approach and a desire for “experience” the Lutheran approach is no less therapeutic and motivated by a recapturing of that “experience” of condemnation and liberation as fostered by their schema. Good Lutheran preaching should use the law to re-create the existential crisis of absolute condemnation by the law that demands all and gives nothing and then supplying the existential release with a gospel that gives all and demands nothing. The value of the gospel lies specifically in its cathartic nature. Here Reformation preaching is no different than what its advocates despise. It is there to create an experience and is evaluated on its ability to do so.

I never looked at the Law/Gospel paradigm in such a way before but it is a paradigm of experience!

To change gears, Webber’s main thrust in this particular broadcast is that Lutherans wouldn’t be seeing significant clergy convert to Orthodoxy if Lutherans were more faithful to their Lutheranism. It is due to an infiltration of happy clappy worship and anti-sacramentalism that is its cause. The problem with this approach is that while it may be sufficient to motivate people to look elsewhere it not only ignores and leaves unenganged any particular arguments for Orthodoxy but is insufficient to explain why people choose Orthodoxy.

This to me is not a particularly novel assessment. I have thought the same thing for a long time. Happy Clappy may cause some dissatisfaction with where one is but it doesn't necessarily cause one to choose Orthodoxy over the Church of Christ denomination over Roman Catholicism over Anglo-Catholicism over...you name it. Dissatisfaction initiates the search but it does not drive the wagon. Those of us who have actually converted know this firsthand. It isn't the Happy Clappy that makes Lutherans become Orthodox. That explanation is just not substantive. It sounds reasonable but it is not the full Truth.

What Webber is doing is being anachronistic in the extreme by reading back the Lutheran protest against the Neo-semi-pelagianism of the Ockhamists back into East/West relations. This move also shows that Webber really isn’t familiar with Orthodox theology since its main focus as determinative is Christology rather than the “soteriological sideshows” that Protestants obsess about.

OK, now we start getting to a point in the article that makes me yearn for the simplicity of 3rd year Calculus...but I included it because there is something said here that I think is valuable to keep in mind. Someone once said that Orthodox theology begins with the question "Who is God?" while Lutheran theology begins with the question "How can I be saved?" It is a perspective that really should be acknowledged to help gain understanding of the Orthodox.

As he [Webber] sees it, the East’s answer to Pelagianism was due to a lack of a clear understanding of sin which motivated them to just “skip over” sin and forgiveness an go straight to union with God in terms of some kind of absorption and loss of self in the deity... In any case, according to Webber the goal or salvation consisted in “contemplation.”... Then there is the obvious inconsistency in his criticism. He can’t have it both ways. Either the goal in Orthodoxy is escape from reason into a “mystical experience” (in which case the exact and exacting words of the liturgy shouldn’t matter at all) or the goal is rational contemplation. Which is it? This inconsistency never seems to dawn on Webber.

Whoops!

Then we have Webber using a scatter shot tactic of tossing out mess of different points. First he says that while under Islamic domination, there wasn’t any “creative theological work” going on. Apart from being ambiguous, this assumes that the purpose of theologians is to be creative, rather than faithfully preserving what he has received. So Webber measures Orthodoxy by an inappropriate standard. Theology is not a constructive practice in Orthodoxy to begin with.

This is another important point those wishing to learn about the Orthodox should know...preserving the faith as received is the intent, not a continual evolution of theological thought.

If the Lutherans can’t do any better than this, Orthodoxy is going to plunder what’s left of Lutheran gold.

And this is what I think sums up what Perry has to say...these kinds of arguments against Orthodoxy by Lutherans, which are straw men, half truths and insufficiently reasoned, are not going to stop the exodus of those Lutherans looking for something else. These are the things that damage credibility. I know because I have walked these very steps. I sincerely looked for my former denomination to give me some substantive reasons why Orthodoxy was false but what I got instead was an inaccurate caricature of Orthodoxy.

If this topic is of interest to you, read the whole article and feel free to comment where you agree or disagree.