important things 4: Christianity's origins

The wonderful thing about this next part of Jack's article and talk, The Two Most Important Things I Have Learned--(I'm now responding to Point II)--is how clearly Jack expresses two differing understandings he has held on the nature of Christianity and its origins. This opens for me the opportunity to respond to what appear to be very solid points of thought, his specific ideas which have grown over decades and which alternately differ and dovetail in certain places with some of my own.

I'll start by looking at the introductory sentence about Jack's original understanding:
 
"Twenty years ago, my understanding of the origin of Christianity would have gone something like this: Jesus, the incarnation of God, came to earth to teach his disciples how to live as God wanted them to live."

I'll call this Jack's old picture.

If someone were to ask if my old picture used to be the same, I would answer yes and no. I did, similarly, believe Jesus to be the incarnation of God. It might be profitable to unpack that statement. Behind it, for me twenty years ago, was this presupposition: Within the nature of the one God exist three Persons.

I long believed the above claim, because it was an explanation of what I had always been taught. There were Bible verses to back it up. Besides, lots of things in life seemed to happen in threes.

I had grown a bit uncomfortable with my particular Trinitarian presupposition, however, after debating with people from non-Trinitarian groups. During our exchanges I couldn't help observing that, to support their views, they pulled out books by revered teachers of their views. To support my views, I also studied writings or listened to talks by revered teachers of my views.

I hadn't been able to ponder for myself what Jesus' incarnation truly means.

When I came into the Gutenberg group 16 years ago, I heard Jack processing his own presuppositions and ideas. He sought to interpret the Scriptures by using reason and delving deeply (with humility) into possibilities. I loved this refreshing approach. It blew away my one-sentence Trinitarian understanding. While they kept unfolding during the time I studied under Jack, I didn't mind waiting for his latest updated insights. I trusted they were leading me to the closest understanding possible of Jesus' incarnation.

While I did believe Jesus to be the incarnation of God, I don't think my understanding of the origin of Christianity hinged, as Jack's seems to have twenty years ago, on Jesus "teaching his disciples how to live as God wanted them to live." Learning to live God's way was certainly important, but my life experience had already given me an insight into Jesus' interaction with his disciples. Especially relevant to me were Peter's interactions with Jesus. Peter had recognized his need to do specifically what his Master--the Master he had betrayed and then been forgiven by--gave him to do. I wasn't looking, therefore, for general instructions on Christian living (nor do I think the apostles were looking for general instructions on Jewish living; they knew them). I was, 16 years ago, more interested in being freed from a lot of practices and expectations--you might call them rituals and doctrines--that I had known in my familiar, before-Gutenberg cultural Christian experience, which appeared to be missing something. These familiar ways of operating and believing were, I came to recognize, either empty and worthless or partial and lacking something deeply significant.

In all my years, encountering people from Catholic churches to nondenominational churches and several types of groups in between, I had observed those influenced by their peers to act and interpret, and also those improvising new ways to act and interpret. Being naturally an introvert, I noticed the more extroverted people often calling the shots regarding church life; they were flashier and braver than I, and often I resented them for this. I especially cringed when two groups of extroverts quarreled about issues I found tiresome.

Coming to Gutenberg was, again, refreshing, due to a lack of flashy improvisations. I was more than ready to discover alongside other studious people the original intent of the biblical authors. I longed for the significant, deep truth embedded in Scripture.

And so we see that my old picture of Christianity's origins was similar to Jack's--in that I believed Jesus to be God's incarnation--but was different (if I'm understanding him correctly) from Jack's in this sense: I did not consider the apostles' encounter with Jesus to have been "about" Jesus teaching them generally how to live (perhaps how to get along) in this world.

The basic sense I get is that Jack believed long ago that if he was in the right church he would be able to follow its practices and know he was doing all he could for God, so he could have peace of mind. I, on the other hand, by young adulthood sensed that all was not right with any church I had encountered. (And by this I don't mean I was discouraged because every church was made up of sinners. On the contrary, I found myself to be a great sinner, and yet I wanted to follow Jesus. I actually quit going to church until I had children, because, frustratingly, church wasn't "about" us all being sinners wanting to follow Jesus; it was more about doing things right and feeling good about ourselves, as in any social group.)

Regarding his old picture, Jack points out two ramifications he considers important: "(1) There was a faithful impartation of the Truth from Jesus to his apostles and to the original Christian church; and (2) the revealed Truth that was incorporated in the life of the original Christian church is currently reflected in those universally held doctrines, practices, beliefs, and perspectives of traditional Christianity."

These ramifications were not on my radar, because my life experience did not teach or show me that the Truth had been passed along very well. Something had gone wrong, somewhere, because life in the churches I knew often didn't make sense. Before I "found" Gutenberg, I figured all I could do was settle and do my best with what was offered, seeing as I wanted to follow Jesus, study the Bible, and raise my children with an awareness of these things, and somehow I knew God would show me the way.

So I came into the Gutenberg community from within my old picture, which showed me Jesus as God's incarnation, as well as a very broken church history, in some unknown-to-me fashion or another.

Eleven years after that, I was basically an adherent of Jack's new picture. As I've mentioned, I had studied the Bible under Jack's tutelage and trusted where his ideas were leading. At this date I would have started off comments about Christianity's origins using words similar to his: "Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God, brought into existence by God, his Father, taught his Jewish disciples the true meaning and significance of what they had already learned as first-century Jews who had been taught the Scriptures in the synagogue."

My mind had changed from my old picture, which had been based on: Within the nature of the one God exist three Persons. I now accepted a new picture, that Jesus was, as I heard Jack saying it, the perfect Man who perfectly expressed God to his followers. I believed that, in this certain sense, Jesus was God. But I no longer believed Jesus existed within the nature of the one God as part of a Divine Trinity.

I had no clue that this understanding, my new picture (from Jack), would turn out to be a perfect preparation for me, when I unexpectedly launched into a serious consideration of Orthodox Christianity.

Obviously Jack was in a different spot, having read some early Church Fathers and dismissed their understanding as "enamored by and influenced by ancient pagan ideas, especially Platonic ideas." Jack believes their intellectual efforts "were less an attempt to understand the teaching of the apostles on its own terms—as the teaching of Jewish prophets who were articulating what God had revealed—and much more an attempt to understand Christian doctrine, practices, and religion in terms compatible with Hellenistic paganism."

For my own reasons, I came to need to dive into that universe of thought built upon the Scriptural interpretations of these ancient Fathers, rather than to continue my immersion in the Gutenberg understanding built largely upon Jack's Scriptural interpretations.

Because this post has grown so long already, I'll post next time on what happened as I wrestled between these viewpoints.

Here is Part 5.

important things 3: beginning to respond

Now, in truth, the question of what I have learned is not for me to answer. It is for someone else to answer—notably God. ~ Jack Crabtree

Introducing his article and talk, The Two Most Important Things I Have Learned, Dr. Crabtree humbly shares the above-quoted insightful recognition. Jack sees that those things best proclaiming a person’s understanding are what he or she does and who he or she is. I applaud and can attest to this man's commitment to studying the Bible so as to conform himself to its true understanding. This truly appears to be the focus of his intellectual life. Such commitment and focus have been, as long as I've known Jack, what he does and who he is.

In his introduction Jack lists four things about which his perspective has dramatically changed, the first of which is the Christian religion and its origins. I'll address this topic next post. In Section I he discusses the power of culture. The following are my observations on that.

Regarding culture, I basically agree with Jack. One’s culture is an enormous influence, and this influence is very difficult to recognize.

During the five years I’ve spent away from the Gutenberg community I have gained a perspective of myself that I simply couldn’t see while within the group. I now recognize my strong desire to be accepted by intellectual people. Academic minds are highly valued in our culture and throughout the world. As far as it goes, this isn’t a bad thing. People with PhD.s are often a real treat to talk with. Plus, the great minds of science, theology, literature, and the arts make contributions of inestimable value to society.

I don’t wish to criticize Jack’s insight regarding culture. I wish merely to point out the perspective I’ve gained regarding Gutenberg’s academic, intellectual culture in which Jack has worked on biblical interpretation and in which he received insights regarding historical Christianity. His insight, showing him the fact of people throughout history reading the Bible through lenses provided to them by a culture they are tempted to fear, might also apply to people reading the Bible who, like me, are tempted to fear what people of academic and/or intellectual giftedness think of them. This problem might lead to a somewhat blind acceptance of one’s teacher’s insights regarding Christianity.

I’ll take my point a step further. Within his remarks about Christianity and culture, Jack asserts that the follower of Jesus “must learn to trust his reason when it has been cut loose from its tether to other men. He must give heed to his intelligence as it receives counsel from the Bible and the Spirit of Truth.” My experience in the Orthodox Church provides me with another caveat, one that I believe comes down from the apostles. Before trusting his reason and intellect (with or without cultural influence), the apostolic understanding implores a man to recognize his need for transformation, for the renewing of his mind (nous in the Greek; see Romans 7 and 12, and elsewhere).

Absolutely, the man who follows Christ must receive counsel from the Spirit of Truth in order to interpret the Bible, but, as writers throughout the scriptures warn, he needs to “test the spirits” and make sure God is the Spirit informing his fallen, darkened intellectual understanding and guiding it along the true process toward healing. Without doing this, a man on his own is at great risk of descending into folly and self-deception. How often have people in many cultures seen this happen?

This series now continues with Christianity's Origins.

important things 2: preparing to respond

As I analogized last post, my wish is to spread across our shared table the sheets of ideas Jack Crabtree expressed a couple years ago in his paper and talk, The Two Most Important Things I Have Learned and (not without trepidation) to scrutinize them. My response will lay out the different ways I'm seeing things about faith from a five-years-new Orthodox Christian perspective.

Before I start, I'd like to share five important aspects of where I hope to be coming from:

1. These are just my observations.

Conflict is something I have a lot of trouble dealing with. I want to say I would rather run than argue, but the truth is I argue too easily. When the little furnace of emotion begins to ignite, I often rashly speak. And yet I truly do wish to (calmly, rationally) dialog about the most important things in reality, or I wouldn't be writing this. I know talking about belief in God--just stating it in most contexts--is asking for trouble, for argument, for pain. And so I want to state and repeat throughout this endeavor that I am making observations about Jack's ideas in comparison and contrast with Orthodox views. I'm not trying to coerce others to share those views.

When Tim and I sit down to talk finances, there are always moments when one or the other of us hits a sore spot regarding our different ideas about spending the money. This can't be helped, but we still love each other. Something like that scenario is what I hope for here.

2. Presuppositions are okay.

As someone from Gutenberg recently said, we can't very well exist without presuppositions. Each of us needs an operating framework for daily living. In my response I hope to point out presuppositions I've observed and how those might influence ideas (Jack's and mine).

One more thought on them for now is that throughout the gospel accounts we find people encountering Jesus and having their presuppositions shaken. The woman at the well in Sychar (Photina, as the Orthodox remember her) was amazed when Jesus spoke to her and even moreso when he told her things about her life he couldn't have known. Her amazement kept her talking to Jesus, kept her from fleeing when he exposed her presuppositions and made new claims for her to ponder. That element of surprise Photina experienced has been shared by just about everyone, I've noticed, who came into some form of contact with God in the Bible. I have to remind myself that it is part of faith's territory.

3. Culture is powerful.

I know I'm not shaking anyone's presuppositions with that statement. As someone who only ever was made to feel at home in the culture and community of Reformation Fellowship and Gutenberg College, I have sensed myself carrying that culture with me and rejoicing whenever I discover a similar spirit to it along life's way. I think I've really observed these past five years that, even though the prevailing cultures we inhabit shape and pull us in varying ways, there is a culture (of love) which can't be overcome, and perhaps it can't be completely defined or described, either, but when it shows up it is hard to deny.

4. Jack is right.

I can't tell you how many, many times over the past five years I have stepped back and marveled, when the "new" interpretations of scripture I've been exploring completely concur with those of Jack and his colleagues. Other times, it's been more like hearing the same note Jack "played" in his surmisings about things said in the Bible, yet in a more complex and deeper sense, sort of like a single horn compared to the full orchestra.

And so I want to emphasize in my response that I have observed Jack coming so close, right up to the doorstep, or right onto the station platform. Like the archeologist piecing together shards of bone, he has studied at the true "site" and is simply working out how this or that piece he's found might fit into the complete picture.

This is all to say that I have nothing on Jack as a scholar, philosopher, and imaginer. I might be terribly far wrong when I point out where I think he is missing something. I'd really like such errors in my thinking to be pointed out. (It happens fairly often, actually, in the studies I've done with Orthodox people--they will point out such errors on my part in critiquing Jack; this is how I've come to appreciate Jack's efforts even more than I did before.)

5. I am wrong.

Hopefully this follows from what I've already said. While I might never like to think so, I take a long time to truly get things. As an observer by nature, I tend to try and express what I think I'm seeing. This helps in reaching even tentative conclusions. It's like climbing a ladder or stepping onto the hiking trail. One rung, one effort at a time. If this is the wrong trail or a too-rickety ladder, I want to find that out.

But--and here's another observation--I need help in the process of seeking the truth. Sometimes it's really hard to see that one is shunning help and climbing the unsteady ladder alone. Hard for me, hard for Jack. For anyone. There's no sense, of course, in accepting help from an uncaring helper, from someone who chooses to remain stubbornly blind yet wishes to guide others. This was never the case for me with folks at Gutenberg/RF. And so I ask your help, and I hope for your consideration of the loving helpers I think I have discovered.

Next post, I will, really truly, begin my response to Jack's treatise.

Part 3 has arrived.