merefaith: two friends on pilgrimage

“So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them.”
-Genesis 1:27

Vatican Council II called Moral Theology to the task of returning to Scripture and the person of Jesus Christ. In doing so the Church took a bold step towards shifting the focus of Moral Theology from the actions of the person, the external realities, to the person himself. Questions arise such as what causes humans to flourish and what are the effects of not just the physical aspects but the psychological, sociological, spiritual aspects and the like on forming the person and understanding good and evil. This approach has a tendency, and rightly so to an extent, of seeing each person as a unique subject and thereby making it more difficult to develop concrete moral norms which are applicable to every individual.[1] Is there, under this paradigm, a way in which one can make, not just an abstract absolute moral statement, but a concrete one as well? In order to examine this question we will look at how the encyclical Veritatis Splendor uses the notion of intrinsically evil acts, particularly defined and developed, to exemplify the fact that man is ordered to God and thereby towards Love, a love that is not arbitrary or relative, but one that calls mankind to particular concrete actions.

Our first task will be to define what intrinsically evil acts are. It will be particularly important to examine their context within the whole of Veritatis Splendor. I believe that many theologians unfairly criticize the Pope’s use of intrinsically evil acts because they fail to see the idea in the context of the document’s focus. In paragraphs number 79 and 80 intrinsically evil acts, intrinsece malum in se, are defined as “objects of the human act which are by their nature ‘incapable of being ordered’ to God because they radically contradict the good of the person made in his image,”[2] “apart from a consideration of the [ulterior] intention for which the choice is made or the totality of the foreseeable consequences of that act for all persons concerned.”[3] This definition needs to be unpacked so that we can see what John Paul II is truly saying here.

So much of the controversy surrounding intrinsically evil acts centers on what is meant by the object of the act, so let us start there. The object of the act, or the end of the action itself, is one of the three traditional sources of morality, fonts moralitatis: the object, the circumstances, and the intention.[4] There are some moral theologians who dislike the use of the term intrinsically evil act. Their problem lies in describing acts as moral simply based on their object, because they feel that such a definition fails to adequately describe the interplay of intention and circumstances in the act itself. These theologians seem to describe the object as a pre-moral act, an act which in itself has no moral value until it is placed within the context of the other two founts, intention and circumstance.[5] This however is not what Veritatis Splendor is saying. It is calling us to step out of a third person morality, one which looks at the person from the outside, into a first person morality, a morality in which the observer places himself “in the perspective of the person” as opposed to looking merely at the physical behavior itself.[6] The object “is the proximate end of a deliberate decision which determines the act of willing on the part of the acting person.”[7] Here a distinction is made between the “proximate end of a deliberate decision” and the “ulterior intention.” John Paul II is not saying that intention plays no part in determining the object of an act, far from it; rather he is saying that only the direct or proximate intention that leads to the willing of the act, and not a secondary or ulterior or remote intention, determines the object. We must drop our dualistic notions of body and soul division and see a human act as containing inseparably the physical act and the directly willed intention of the person. Intention does in fact play a role in determining the object of a moral act; if the act were not intended by the will it would cease to be a moral act. It would simply be an act of a human, such as putting on one’s shirt in the morning. There is no moral value in that act. However the ulterior intention, or circumstances for that matter, can not make an intrinsically evil act good. “And why not say (as some people slander us by saying that we say), ‘Let us do evil so that good may come’? Their condemnation is deserved!”[8] An example of the difference between proximate and remote intention is as follows. Two married couples have good reasons not to have a child at this particular period in there life. One couple chooses to use the condom to contracept in order to not have a child, whereas the second couple only has sexual intercourse during the infertile period within the woman’s cycle. Both couple’s ulterior intention is the same and good, but the proximate intentions of the objects, contracepting in the case of the first couple and having sex in the case of the second couple, are different. Another way to define the object of an act is “the content of an intentional action.”[9]

The next part of the definition in which objects are described as “by their nature ‘incapable of being ordered’ to God” has also led to many criticisms of the classical understanding of intrinsically evil acts. This stems primarily from the accusation of such acts as being determined merely on their physical realities, a physicalist approach.[10] However, as shown above, an intrinsically evil act cannot be devoid of the intention of the person; it is fundamentally connected within the moral act. The second part of the description of the object of an act, “because they radically contradict the good of the person made in his image,” in conjunction with the first half, leads us to ask what it means to be made in the image of God. First let us define what is meant by “good of the person.” Fr. Melina defines it as consisting

in the perfecting of the nature of the human being, constitutively incomplete, by means of exercise of self-determining freedom. It is therefore that good that depends only on the free self-determination of the person and that is conditioned in no way by factors extrinsic to his freedom…The good of the person is not a partial, sectoral good, distinct from other goods: it concerns that good of the personal being proper to the person that depends on the exercise of his own freedom, that is, the good of action not as a production of goods external to the agent but as the perfection of the acting subject himself.[11]

Man is a seemingly limitless potentialiality who actualizes himself, that is finds his fulfillment, in freely discovering himself as the image of God. Mankind’s creation, a creation in the image of God, is how we understand the end of this motion towards perfection. To what end were we created? In order to understand what it means to be made in this image and likeness let us look at the image we humans are supposed to be reflecting, the God of Jesus Christ, the Triune God of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The immanent Trinity has, since the Council of Constantinople, been officially described by the Church as mia ousia, treis hypostaseis, which can be translated roughly as one substance and three persons. The term person was meant in to be understood in terms of Aristotle’s first substance, the specific thing, such as the man John, opposed to the second substance, the general thing, humankind. The use of the word person to describe the Father, Son and Holy Spirit has since then been problematic, as can be seen through the writing of such pivotal characters as Jerome, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and modern day theologians, on account of its “linguistic inadequacy”[12]. “The problem was rendered even more acute in the modern age because the concept of person changed in relation to that which was current in the early church and in the Middle Ages.”[13] The term person changed from an ontological definition into a psychological definition. The modern age defines person as one who has self-consciousness. “Kant added a definition geared to morality: ‘A person is a subject who is capable of having his actions imputed to him.’”[14] This new understanding of person has led to misinterpretations of the idea of person and even making the doctrine of the persons of the Trinity utterly unintelligible.[15] However modern personalism seems to have developed a way out of this problem by moving away from an understanding of person as an “extreme individualism” to understanding person as existing “only in relation.”

In the concrete, personality exists only as interpersonality, subjectivity only as intersubjectivity. The human person exists only in relations of the I-Thou-We kind. Within the horizon of this modern understanding of person, an isolated unipersonal God is inconceivable. Thus it is precisely the modern concept of person that offers a point of contact for the doctrine of the Trinity.[16]

The persons within God are interdependent upon each other in their unique relations to each other. “The Father is a pure self enunciation and address to the Son as his Word; the Son is a pure hearing and heeding of the Father and therefore pure fulfillment of his mission; the Holy Spirit is pure reception, pure gift.”[17] Cardinal Ratzinger takes this idea of person even further by saying by saying that ultimately persons are relations. This greatly affects our understanding of “made in the image and likeness of God.”

Man is neither a self-sufficient in-himself (substance) nor an autonomous individual for-himself (subject) but a being from God and to God, from other human beings and to other human beings; he lives humanly only in I-Thou-We relations. Love proves to be the meaning of his being.[18]

To be made in the image of God means that man’s very existence is dependent, not just on God Himself, but on our fellow man, a dependence which is played out through Love. Thus the ordering to God for the good of the person made in God’s image is made explicitly clear in the Son’s Incarnation. In becoming man, Christ made clear that love of God, neighbor and self are not just arbitrary commandments, but constitutive of our very being.[19] When man willingly fails to uphold this relational reality, he is committing a moral evil, not because some precept or law has deemed it so, but because man is ceasing to be man. Coming back to the definition of intrinsically evil acts with this idea of made in the image of God in mind we can see that these are acts which go against the relation of love between man’s self to other, both human and divine.

Before moving forward and examining if there are any concrete acts which can be labeled as intrinsically evil, per se and always, let us summarize what those acts are. An intrinsically evil act consists of two major parts, the object itself and the incorrect ordering of one’s self to his proper end through the act. The object itself is not defined merely as the physically observable act, but as the willfully intended act of the person, the thing directly or proximately intended. It is separable from the other two sources of morality, intention (remote intention) and circumstances in so far as the objective morality of the act is concerned. These two founts provide the degree of morality. The object of the act is intrinsically evil when it can never order one to mankind’s proper end, namely upholding the dignity of the person, which can be restated as upholding the loving relationality found between man and man, and man and God. Simply put if there are actions which always without exception go against the dignity of the person, they are intrinsically evil.[20]

Now that we have a working definition of an intrinsically evil act, the next question that surfaces is, can we formulate a concrete moral norm from this idea. It is simple to form an abstract moral norm that is always evil, such as disrespecting the dignity of the human person is always morally evil. To this extent the majority of Catholic theologians agree that intrinsically evil acts exist, but many, proportionalists for example, do not agree that there can be particular acts always defined as such and so many do not want to employ the term, or if nothing else use it with much caution.[21] It is fitting that John Paul II quotes the Vatican Council II document Gaudium et Spes when giving examples of such acts:

“Whatever is hostile to life itself, such as any kind of homicide, genocide, abortion, euthanasia and voluntary suicide; whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, physical and mental torture and attempts to coerce the spirit; whatever is offensive to human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, and trafficking in women and children; degrading conditions of work which treat laborers as mere instruments of profit, and not as free responsible persons: all of these and the like are a disgrace, and so long as they infect human civilization they contaminate those who inflict them more than those who suffer injustice, and they are a negation of the honor due to the Creator.”[22]

These are actions which, when they are the object of a person’s action, can in no way be considered morally good. For example let us examine enslaving another human. By enslaving a person you turn the person from a subject, in which an interaction of relations as I-Thou can occur, into an object, whereby the only interaction of relations that occurs is I-It. The other person becomes less than human, a mere thing, in the enslaver’s eyes, and by dehumanizing the other, he actually becomes less human, as he is failing to see himself as human, one who relates as I-Thou to other humans. There can be no mitigating circumstances or ulterior intentions which can allow one to perform such an act and call it morally good. As Veritatis Splendor points out “man can never be hindered from not doing certain actions, especially if he is prepared to die rather than do evil.”[23] So it appears that in light of the definition that Veritatis Splendor sets forth for intrinsically evil acts, they do not only apply to abstract moral realities, but also concrete moral realties due to the fact that any concrete intentional breaking of the relation between man and man, and man and God, are always morally wrong.

Over the next couple of months I would like to continue in this direction in order to better understand the relationship of our ordering to God and our actions. It seems to me that this personalistic approach to Moral Theology would call into question some old and well established principles, such as Just War Theory (you were waiting for that one, weren’t you!).

---

[1] James T. Bretzke, A Morally Complex World: Engaging Contemporary Moral Theology(Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2004), 239.`

[2] Pope John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 1993), No. 80.

[3] Ibid., No. 79.

[4] Bretzke, 228.

[5] Sean Fagan, Does Morality Change? (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 1997)

[6] Pope John Paul II, 78.

[7] Ibid., 78.

[8] Romans 3:8, NRSV.

[9] Martin Rhonheimer, “The Moral Viewpoint of Veritatis Splendor,” The Thomist 58 (1994): 6.

[10] Richard M. Gula, S.S, Reason Informed by Faith (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1989), 227

[11] Livio Melina, Sharing in Christ's Virtues: For a Renewal of Moral Theology in Light of Veritatis Splendor (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2001), 72-3.

[12] Walter Kasper, The God of Jesus Christ, trans. and ed. Matthew J. O’Connell. (New York: Crossroad Publishing, 2005), 286.

[13] Ibid., 287.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid., 289. “This can only be applied analogically to the Trinity” For a more in depth look at this analogy and the development of the use of person: Walter Kasper, The God of Jesus Christ, trans. and ed. Matthew J. O’Connell. (New York: Crossroad Publishing, 2005).

[17] Ibid., 290.

[18] Ibid., 290.

[19] Pope John Paul II, No. 53.

[20] Ibid., No. 80.

[21] Bretzke, 75.

[22] Pope John Paul II, No. 80.

[23] Ibid., No. 52.

Labels: Moral Theology

Posted by Craig Baker at Tuesday, March 27, 2007 | Permalink | Comments

Writing in Christianismus Primitivus, the 17th-century English General Baptist leader Thomas Grantham declares concerning the Nicene Creed:

This Confession of Faith, as it is of great Antiquity, so verily, were it diligently considered, might be a good means to bring to a greater degree of unity, many of the divided parties professing Christianity.
-- C.P. II.2.V, p. 61.

Labels: Baptist Catholicity, Baptists, Ecumenism

Posted by Chris Schelin at Monday, March 26, 2007 | Permalink | Comments

I am a happy Baptist now and very accepting of the love-hate relationship with my tradition that surely every faithful Christian has with his or hers. But when I began divinity school I was not a happy Baptist, for I arrived a wounded veteran of a recent round of the Southern Baptist holy war as it played out in the affairs of my college. I was sickened by the tactics of the ultraconservatives and I could not go back to their highly sectarian, insular form of the faith. But I was not comfortable either with my allies among the moderates, who all too often prized individual freedom above faithfulness to historic Christianity.

Increasingly attracted by traditional liturgy, ancient practices, and creedal stability, it seemed I was on the fast track to some other ecclesial home. And for a while I was, and contemplated Eastern Orthodoxy for a time. However, I stepped back from the leap, deciding that I still had so much to learn in my theological education. Now I am not only content but eager as a Baptist, and sometimes I almost revel in confounding my Anglican and Methodist friends at Duke when I do things that are supposedly "un-Baptist."

Not all my friends have reaffirmed their Christian commitment within the Baptist fold in the wake of my college's civil war. Some who were on the edges of the faith have left it behind entirely. Others who have been dedicated disciples of Jesus Christ for some time have chosen to switch to traditions that appear more amenable to a stable, balanced orthodoxy - either Anglicanism or, in the case of one friend, Eastern Orthodoxy. Now a catechumen, he has for some time been puzzled why I not only stopped in my tracks when it seemed I was running in the same direction, but also turned back around. We have decided to dialogue on some key issues, the first of which being apostolic succession. Originally this enterprise was conducted on the student advocacy web site for my college, but now it has apparently been attacked and deleted. So we will renew our conversation on our blogs. Therefore I present to you my opening statement to Paul as to why I do not accept the traditional doctrine of apostolic succession.

*****

Perhaps we need to begin with a definition of apostolic succession. For what I will be critiquing is neither a) the notion that the apostles may have appointed leaders to serve in the church – this is quite simply a sensible move to keep a community going; nor b) the notion that a visible succession or continuity in church leadership is a helpful sign, or indeed perhaps an aid, in the unity of the Church and the preservation of its teaching. Rather, what I do reject is the more robust doctrine summed up by Kallistos Ware as follows:

All bishops share equally in the apostolic succession, all have the same sacramental powers, all are divinely appointed teachers of the faith.

• Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church. London: Penguin Books, revised 1997.

Or, as he explicates further on in his book, that the bishop receives a special charisma from the Holy Spirit that enables him to act as teacher/imparter of the faith, that validates him for celebration of the Eucharist, and that makes him “the fountain of all the sacraments” (Ware, 249). Adding to Ware's description, I note that the doctrine of apostolic succession through the bishops as successors of the apostles is seen as a necessary sign without which one has no guarantee of being Church. Or, as Ware says, “Without the bishops there can be no Orthodox people...” (Ware, 250). My working definition of classical AS (I will simply refer to the doctrine by these initials from now one) is thus as follows: that the apostles ordained bishops through the laying on of hands to impart a special gift of the Holy Spirit and thus made them valid successors. The Church only properly exists where people gather around these duly-ordained successors to receive instruction, the sacraments, and ordination to the other two orders of ministry – the priesthood and the diaconate. Schismation from this orderly succession of bishops means to be cast out of the visible unity of the Church, the ark of salvation.

Like you at present, I used to find this vision compelling. In some respects, it's neat and clean and allows a ready answer to the difficult question of where one may find the Church. It has a certain sensible appeal – why wouldn't such a succession be set up to guarantee the visible unity and legitimacy of church fellowships? And the very audacity of Orthodox claims can be quite hypnotic: surely such a strident conviction would have deep roots and overwhelming historical evidence in order to be made. And indeed AS does have quite a historical resume, but now I believe that this is made possible only by a superficial reading of history. I reject the claim of AS now because of New Testament and historical counter-evidence, gaps and discrepancies in the historical record, and the movement in ecumenical theology away from AS, classically defined, as belonging to the esse of Church.

1. The New Testament

First of all, biblical scholarship has known for decades that there is no one ecclesiology that characterizes all the writings that make up the New Testament; rather, there are several ecclesiologies that stand in tension with one another due to their competing emphases and conceptions of the community that gathers around the teaching of Jesus. Is the Church primarily a community of mutual discipline tempered by a hermeneutic of mercy? Then your ecclesiology is heavily dependent on Matthew. Is it a charismatic fellowship that follows trails blazed by the freedom of the Spirit? Then your ecclesiology relies on Luke-Acts. Or is it an orderly institution safeguarded in sound doctrine by clearly-defined offices of authority? Then your ecclesiology draws from the testimony of the Pastorals.

The remarkable (although I think not overwhelming) diversity of the biblical witness thus throws up a big question mark against any attempt to promote a univocal, normative teaching on church structure and authority. Should the church be governed congregationally, so that every member has an equal voice in decisions? Then a key text is I Corinthians 14:26. Or is the “biblical pattern” the entrusting of authority to a representative body of respected elders? You find your evidence in 1 Timothy 5:17.

Raymond Brown, the great North American Catholic New Testament scholar of the 20^th century, wrote a little book called The Churches the Apostles Left Behind (Multnomah, NY: Paulist Press, 1984) with the purpose of analyzing and presenting the different ecclesiologies in the New Testament that were provided as answers to how the Church may survive and function after the death of its first generation. Brown writes:

I approached a number of NT books looking for an answer, explicit or implicit, to a specific problem, namely: What were Christians in the Sub-Apostolic Period (the last one-third of the first century) being told that would enable their respective churches to survive the passing of the authoritative apostolic generation? There was no evidence in these works that a consistent or uniform ecclesiology had emerged. Rather, writings addressed to different NT communities had quite diverse emphases. (164)

Brown goes on to note that ultraconservatives of one sort reject this diversity in the NT in order to uphold a certain view of Scriptural inspiration, while ultraconservatives of another sort reject it out of a belief that Jesus planned the Church, the apostles were of one mind carrying out his orders, and only troublemakers differed concerning this plan.

This diversity thus stands in judgment over any bold claim that classical AS was instituted as the foundation of the Church from the very beginning, such that no fellowship was not recognized as a genuinely Christian community without an ordained successor of the apostles (through the laying on of hands) present.

In fact, a number of NT texts call this reading of the Church's origins into question, if not outright deny it. Two stories in Acts in particular have jumped out at me for their distinct lack of reference to AS where one would think it is necessary. In the encounter between Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8, Philip explains the meaning of Scripture and the gospel of Jesus and the eunuch asks to be baptized. In verse 39, when they come up out of the water, the Spirit snatches Philip away so that the eunuch sees him no more, and then the eunuch goes on his way rejoicing. Presumably, the eunuch will return to Ethiopia and proclaim his newfound faith and worship Jesus as Messiah and Lord. But if he is indeed to worship and evangelize and extend the Church in his homeland, why did Philip not lay his hands on him and ordain him? It may be said claimed that Philip is only a deacon (although Acts 6 never specifies an “office” to which the seven Hellenists are appointed) but that still leaves the problem intact for classical AS: the eunuch departs to spread the faith in Ethiopia but lacks a “valid” succession.

Consider also the spread of the faith to Antioch in Acts 11:19-30. Barnabas, an assistant to the apostles who has no specified “office” in Acts, is dispatched by them from Jerusalem to investigate the outbreak of messianic belief. According to the passage, Hellenist Jewish-Christians scattered by the persecution in connection with Stephen's death begin to tell the gospel to Greeks, leading to a great response. When news reaches Jerusalem, the mother church sends Barnabas, who encourages the new disciples, but who never, according to the text, lays hands on people to appoint presbyters or bishops to order church life, administer the sacraments, and ensure “valid” succession.

So the author of Luke-Acts depicts a Church dependent on the Spirit's guidance for its fundamental existence but not on a hierarchy in which the necessary community-ordering charism is handed down by an ordination rite. The same appears to be the case in some of the writings of Paul, particularly the Corinthian correspondence. He does speak of those appointed by God to be apostles and teachers, alongside other functions, in 1 Corinthians 12:27-31. Yet in his whole appeal to the factious Corinthians, I believe it is quite illuminating that he never calls them to obey an appointed bishop or presbyters set up by succession (as Ignatius repeatedly does half a century later to churches that are not even facing such turmoil). His letter is addressed to the church in Corinth (1:2) and not to a bishop at Corinth or body of elders. One would think that in a crisis such as this he should address officers appointed by his hand to provide sacramental efficacy and sound teaching, and yet he doesn't. Why, if from the beginning all Christian churches were ordered according to AS and why, if the bishop validates the community and is necessary for its rites and practices (as Ignatius states in Smyrnaeans) does Paul not call upon a bishop at Corinth to exercise Eucharistic discipline so that one social class does not binge at the Lord's Supper while another goes hungry (1 Corinthians 11:17-33)? It appears that Paul, the divinely appointed apostle to the Gentiles, does not have a developed or precise view of leadership in the church (cf. Andrew Chester, “The Pauline Communities,” in Markus Bockmuehl and Michael B. Thompson, eds. A Vision for the Church: Studies in Early Christian Ecclesiology. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997).

2. Historical Gaps and Discrepancies

From the second century on, various Christian communities began to produce succession lists to validate their origins in the apostolic band. However, certain discrepancies plague these lists as various traditions contradict one another over the origin of a particular line. For example, Ignatius of Antioch is variously attributed as ordained directly by Paul (Theodoret, 393-457; [i]Dialogues I – The Immutable[/i]), directly by Peter (Apostolic Constitutions; late 4^th century; vii.46), or as second in line as bishop after Evodius ( Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History; iii.22). In the case of Clement, “bishop” of Rome, Irenaeus claims, incorrectly, that Peter and Paul founded the church at Rome (Against Heresies 3.3.2-3) and that Clement was the third bishop in line. Tertullian, meanwhile, asserts that Clement was appointed directly by Peter (Proscription against Heretics 32). Rome, however, did not have a monarchical episcopate at the time of Clement and so Irenaeus is anachronistically applying such a church structure. 1 Clement 4:2 only distinguishes between the presbyters and the laity, and the titles “bishop” and “presbyter” are used interchangeably throughout the letter (see 42:4, 44:4-5, 52:4).

Carlos Alfredo Steger, in his doctoral dissertation “ Apostolic Succession in the Writings of Yves Congar and Oscar Cullman” (Andrews University Seminary Doctoral Dissertation Series Volume 20. Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews U Press, 1993), cites various figures for whom AS is a traditionally valid concept as noting the vacuum of real data concerning church structure and governance between the end of the first century and the emergence of the doctrine in Irenaeus in the late second century. Church of England bishop Charles Gore notes how “church history passes through a tunnel” and Anglican liturgical scholar Dom Gregory Dix notes a “gap in the evidence, which confronts all theories alike” (16). At the other end of the tunnel emerges Irenaeus' contra-Gnostic argument that the catholic Church has preserved the true teaching of the apostles by means of a succession that ensures the gift of truth (cf. AH 4.26.2). Even here Irenaeus does not fully describe the doctrine of AS as it comes to be sacramentally and hierarchically conceived in its most robust form – the succession is primarily to preserve pure teaching, which is done by means of a succession of presbyters alongside the episcopate (AH 3.2.2). For both Irenaeus and his near-contemporary Tertullian, what is important is the handing down of the faith, not a sacramental conferral of power via ordination (Steger 18). The notion of the charism wedded to the succession line appears to develop elsewhere and later.

Irenaeus is our earliest source for a clear doctrine of AS through the bishops as a guarantee of where the Church is properly found. Scholars tend to agree that this was a teaching he himself formulated in face of the Gnostic threat. “The notion of succession,” writes Steger, “was intended to confront the Gnostic challenge and to keep pure the apostolic message. It was conceived as a warranty against the intrusion of false traditions into the legitimate apostolic tradition” (48). A similar statement is made by Laurenti Magesa, a Roman Catholic (“Basic Christian Communities and the Apostolic Succession of the Church,” in African Ecclesial Review, 26 December 1984, 350). While I respect Irenaeus and believe he has some great things to say, the notion that he has conceived of the doctrine of AS has grounding in light of another argument he makes. For example, in AH 2.22.5 he argues that Christ was nearly fifty years old at the time of his crucifixion (not in his thirties, as Luke 3:23 indicates), and that this teaching is a tradition attested and handed down by the presbyters who were in Asia with the Apostle John. Irenaeus is the only one to have ever made such a claim for Christ's age, and it is clear he does so on theological grounds in order to make the most sense out of his doctrine of recapitulation (AH 2.22.3-4). Thus we have a clear case in which Irenaeus revises history in order to make a novel theological argument.

3. Ecumenical Developments

Finally, I reject the claim that AS, classically stated, is necessary to be Church because British Baptist theologian Paul Fiddes is not just blowing smoke when he writes:

There is a general agreement growing on the ecumenical scene that apostolic succession is not in the first place about handing on a particular ministry through the laying on of hands in an unbroken chain from the earliest apostles to today. Continuity is not, in its primary manifestation, about a strict sequence of one bishop ordaining another from the early days of the church to the present. Rather, it is about the succession in faith and life of the church as a whole.

• Tracks and Traces: Baptist Identity in Church and Theology (Carlisle, UK: Paternoster Press, 2003, 223).

Laurenti Magesa agrees, noting that AS in its most fundamental sense is the faithful preservation of apostolic tradition. Again, he is a Roman Catholic, but he argues that the present conception of AS as belonging exclusively to the hierarchy does not correspond to what we find in the NT, and that the notion developed in Asia Minor and Syria in the 2^nd and 3^rd centuries to counter Gnostic heresies. Hans Küng, another Catholic, has argued AS involved the whole people of God and is inspired directly by the Spirit anew in each generation as the church renews itself in the witness of the apostles (cited in Veli-Marti Karkainnen, “Apostolicity of Free Churches: A Contradiction in Terms or an Ecumenical Breakthrough?” in European Journal of Theology 11:1, pg. 46). Raymond Brown notes that modern scholarship, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, has effectively challenged this classical notion of AS and has shown it to be a too simple picture and not universal to the experience and practice of the early Church (17). This is merely a list of Catholic voices speaking out against the necessity of AS as defining what and where Church is.

Veli-Marti Karkainnen, a Pentecostal theologian out of Fuller Seminary, notes that AS is being replaced with apostolicity in a broader, more holistic sense. “In modern discussions of the idea of apostolic succession,” he writes, “the insight has established itself that the primary issue is succession in the teaching and faith of the apostles and only secondarily is it a matter of succession in office” (43). The ecumenical document Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, put out by the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches (and written primarily by my systematic theology professor, Dr. Geoffrey Wainwright), defines apostolicity as continuity in the permanent characteristics of the church of the apostles:

...witness to the apostolic faith, proclamation and fresh interpretation of the Gospel, celebration of baptism and the eucharist, the transmission of ministerial responsibilities, communion in prayer, love, joy and suffering, service to the sick and the needy, unity among the local churches and sharing the gifts which the Lord has given to each.

• Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1982, M34)

As Steger notes, AS as ordination in a line of continuity is more and more recognized as a sign of this greater reality – AS does not strictly define nor replace the fullness of apostolicity (55). Apostolic succession is primarily the work of the people in fulfilling the mandate to which all have been called by God and which all have taken upon themselves by their common baptism – it is faithful re-telling and re-membering of the gospel story in each generation. It is a duty not of a select hierarchy, nor incumbent upon that hierarchy's presence for validation, but it is the active confession of the whole community centered on the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Labels: Ecumenism, Theology

Posted by Chris Schelin at Monday, March 19, 2007 | Permalink | Comments

With company in town for spring break, Kelly and I decided to take them on a tour of some wineries here in central North Carolina. The state has seen a burgeoning wine industry in recent years, with the number of licensed vineyards jumping from 27 three years ago to 63 at this point in time. The winemakers have grown in sophistication as well as numbers, and they have begun to win awards not just in state festivals but also regional and international competitions. At the same time, meanwhile, they remain small enough and sparse enough that they do not serve up the pretentiousness of Napa Valley along with their fermented grapes. The wineries we visited had a rather comfortable, homey feel. While justifiably proud of their work, they do not set themselves up like Persian palaces - although I still bought my most expensive bottle of wine from Darioush, because it is the most amazing Cabernet Sauvignon I've ever tasted.

North Carolina now ranks somewhere between 10th and 12th among the states in total wine production, having just recently passed Colorado. Of course, it's paltry 2,000 acres runs far below California's 400,000, but nevertheless it is a significant and exciting new development in the post-tobacco economy here. The state even has its own designated wine region, the Yadkin Valley area, although vineyards can be found everywhere from the Blue Ridge to the coast. The wineries we visited are not that far west, but five of them are in such proximity that they can constitute a wine trail. They are offer certain cultural opportunities that enhance leisurely enjoyment in the area, from dancing to outdoor concerts to artists' festivals.

One aspect that makes North Carolina winemaking exciting is the possibility of a distinctive regional wine emerging. A number of the vineyards are now growing a French/American hybrid grape known as Chambourcin, which was first produced in the 1960s. This varietal has been used for some time as an ingredient in European wine blends but has not until recently been tried as a wine in its own right. However, because the Chambourcin grape grows really well in humid climates (and therefore not in California), it has become a favored choice in this state. It is also favored because while it has an assertive flavor, it is not so robust as a Cabernet or Merlot and so it is more attractive or easier to drink for people who are not used to red wine - and that certainly includes people in the Southeastern United States, who often either drink nothing alcoholic at all or otherwise drink beer and homemade moonshine and "white lightning." Nevertheless, Chambourcin remains appealing to established wine-drinkers such as myself.

The wineries here are also producing tasty Cabernets, Merlots, and Chardonnays, along with more typically Eastern varietals such as Muscadine and Scuppernong and less conventional wines such as Blackberry and Pomegranate. There's plenty to choose from and plenty to enjoy, so if you drop in to visit I know where to take you.

Labels: The Pleasures of Life

Posted by Chris Schelin at Saturday, March 17, 2007 | Permalink | Comments

How many Baptists are there in the world today? Certainly, it depends on how you define a person as a Baptist. Is it based on baptism, church attendance, stated preference? Certainly there are plenty of people who worship in Baptist congregations and yet they may not self-identify as Baptist, preferring a simpler label such as "just Christian." Perhaps most do not consciously think of themselves as in any sense "Baptist" versus anything else, and would not or could not identify a set of Baptist distinctives or traditional practices. Nonetheless, however such persons may subjectively perceive their religious identity, objectively there are millions who find their ecclesial home in a Baptist body. But how many?

On the "About BWA" page on the Baptist World Alliance web site, a curious combination of figures occurs. This body identifies itself "as a fellowship of more than 200 Baptist conventions and unions comprising a membership of more than 36 million baptized believers and a community of over 110 million Baptists worldwide."

Well, that got me scratching my head. How are we simultaneously 36 million and 110 million? Are a number of unions accepting as members people who haven't been baptized (a very un-Baptist practice!)? Is the latter figure the number of Baptists in the world total, and only the smaller set is actually part of the BWA? Searching for answers, I emailed...the Baptist World Alliance! The email actually made its way to the top, and I received a reply from General Secretary Denton Lotz himself.

And this all makes sense according to Baptist theology. The 36 million figure is the number of baptized believers reported by the churches, and therefore the actual membership of the various churches. The latter figure encompasses active participants in the community and worship life of their congregations who are not yet actually members because they have not yet declared their faith in baptism. This would mean infants, children, adolescents - perhaps even adults who are still not yet ready for a discipleship commitment. Of course, churches that baptize infants count them as members, so their figures would be much higher by comparison if Baptists did not have a way of accounting for disciples-in-waiting living in their midst. The latter number is a huge jump over the former, however, which makes me wonder about a) the birth rates for Baptists in the Two-Thirds World and b) the percentage of retention in the Church as Baptist children grow into adulthood. If the retention rate is good, shouldn't the membership numbers spike in the next decade or so? If it is not good, what should we do differently to keep our children feasting at the Lord's Table?

Interestingly enough, counting highly conservative Baptist groups that are not part of the BWA, such as Southern Baptists, should place the worldwide total of the "community of Baptists" at around 130 million or so. But even just considering membership in the BWA, if that body were considered a communion of churches, then it would be the third-largest after Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. I'm not interested in playing a numbers game, but I do find that fascinating. However, Baptists need to learn more about what it means to take seriously being in communion before a claim like that would be made. After all, we seem to schismate a lot and fight over territory - for example there are four Baptist groups in South Africa, five in the Philippines, and seventeen in the United States (not counting non-BWA members)!

The membership figures bring up another interesting question. Some have suggested that Baptists need to promote better practices of affirming children and seekers as integral to the community, if not full members at the level of discipleship and commitment that means baptism. Might Baptists be willing to adopt for children an explicit catechumenate that acknowledges them as already encountering the grace of God and being moved by it in the midst of the community? I for one hope so, but that may be another post for another day...

Labels: Baptists

Posted by Chris Schelin at Thursday, March 08, 2007 | Permalink | Comments