Institutional apostasy

Shameless scavenger that I am, I will once again be dragging the remarks of Der Fuersprecher out of the basement and putting them on display in the showroom since they form such a fitting complement to my modest remarks on the church fathers.

My only concern is that he may begin to demand royalties for the use of his classy material, and a junkyard dog like me can scarcely afford his Park Avenue rates, but perhaps we can agree on some installment plan.

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9. We have the historic precedent of widespread institutional apostasy among the covenant people of God in the OT itself. That this phenomenon would repeat itself in the New Covenant era should surprise few.

i) Apostasy at an institutional level doesn't militate against the existence of true believers who live/operate apart from the sanction/authority of an apostate hierarchical class (The OT itself is essentially a record of this very thing. Cf. especially Elijah's belief that he alone was faithful in all of Israel - yet God's response was that His true remnant, although not visible at an institutional level, numbered 7,000).

ii) We should also note that institutional apostasy is seldom a dramatic event that occurs at a point in time. Rather it is something that develops over time as traditional accretions displace/supersede various aspects of the original religion (and this is not a phenomenon limited to Christianity alone).

iii) The Old Covenant people of God had moved so far from the true religion of YHVH at an institutional level, that the law itself was apparently lost (cf. 2 Kgs 22:3-20), which was followed by a later period of revival/restoration (cf. 2 Kgs 23:1-25).

10. The Gospels record the institutional apostasy that was prevalent in the Jewish nation prior to and during the time of Christ.

i) Christ’s response to their traditional accretions (all allegedly handed down from Moses) was to repeatedly direct them back to the priority of the written Revelation of the OT (cf. his oft used formula “Have you not read…?”).

11. We have the further example (at the close of the apostolic age) of most of the churches in chapters 2 & 3 in the book of Revelation condemned for greater or lesser degrees of apostasy.

# posted by Der Fuersprecher : 1/31/2006 12:10 PM

Der, are you saying the church fathers, Augustine, Ambrose, all the greats, were apostates?

# posted by Hello : 1/31/2006 1:17 PM

What I was pointing out was that the apostasy of the institutional structure of the covenant people of God is not without historical precedent (cf. the OT record for many examples).

This fact is indisputable although those who think in facile terms concerning ecclesiastical development (i.e., those who believe in a church that has remained essentially unchanged and uniform in doctrine for the last 2000 years) will no doubt not appreciate the observation and the implications that follow concerning the probability of historical recapitulation - but I can't do anything about that.

Additionally, I made the point that apostasy isn't something that happens at a point in time, but rather is something that occurs gradually over time.

Hence various individual fathers held greater or lesser degrees of heterodox ideas on a variety of theological topics based on their geographical locale and period in which each lived (e.g., fifth century writers with ties to Antioch would lean more toward sharply dividing the 2 natures of Christ, much as Nestorius did).

In specific answer to your question - let me reframe it, because the question itself reflects a naive understanding of what it means to be orthodox/heterodox.

Were Augustine and Ambrose possessors of a pure and undefiled faith without any errors in their thought?

I'm not inclined to think so. I have many reasons to believe that they were fallible men who were just as subject to their own historical/cultural/sociological influences as you or I, and hence subject to error.

What about the converse? Were they heterodox on every matter of theological articulation?

I would answer that question in the negative (as I think most would). Much (but not all) of the thought of both aligns well with the apostolic faith one finds in the NT record.

The answer, then, lies somewhere in between. Neither possessed a theology that was identical to either that of a pure NT theology or to the theology of the other.

I am generally favorable toward both figures (but especially Augustine) – although I would disagree with both at certain points as well.

# posted by Der Fuersprecher : 1/31/2006 2:24 PM

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