A la carte Christianity

Michael Patton, who is president of Credo House Ministries, and the most active contributor to the Parchment & Pen blog, recently posted a deeply confused article:

http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2013/03/eight-issues-that-do-not-make-or-break-christianity/

The article goes so wrong in so many ways that it’s hard to summarize, but I’ll try. I’m going to begin with some general observations, then shift to specifics:

1. Terminology

i) In his post, and a related post, Michael uses the following terms interchangeably: “central,” “foundational,” “essential,” “break.”

Now in many discussions I don’t object to using these terms as rough synonyms, but because of how Michael is setting up the contrast, it’s important to distinguish them.

“Central,” “foundational,” and “break” are metaphors. As metaphors, these have different nuances. They build on different images.

For instance, the Resurrection is a “central” event and central doctrine in the Christian faith. But is it “foundational”?

A foundation underlies whatever rests on the foundation. A foundation supports what lies on top of the foundation.

In that sense, the Resurrection is a foundational event for the Ascension, Session, and return of Christ. A precondition for those subsequent events. The Resurrection must happen before those other events can happen.

On the other hand, the Resurrection is not foundational to the Incarnation or the Crucifixion. Rather, the Incarnation and Crucifixion are foundational to the Resurrection. Christ can’t live again unless he died. And he can’t die unless he was alive.

Likewise, the Resurrection is not foundational to the creation or the fall. Rather, those are foundational to the Resurrection. No creation, no fall, no Resurrection.

To vary the metaphor, the Resurrection is more of a keystone or (headstone quoin) event than a foundational event. In redemptive history, there’s a series of divinely orchestrated events leading up to the Resurrection. Events which culminate in the Resurrection. They underlie the Resurrection.

If you remove the keystone, an arch or vault will collapse. If you remove a foundation, the building will collapse. But they collapse for different reasons.  The keystone is a building block that locks the other building blocks in place.

The keystone is also a central building block. It has a weight-bearing function in relation to other building blocks on either side and lower down.

The keystone occupies the apex, whereas the foundation is at the bottom. The foundation supports everything above it.

To take another example, the Exodus is central to Judaism in a way that’s not the case for Christianity. In Christianity, the first and second advents of Christ are central.

Yet the Exodus is a foundational event for Christianity as well as Judaism. The Exodus is one of those defining events which reveals the identity, character, and purposes of God. The Exodus is a past event which establishes a precedent for future events. Redemptive history repeats itself in the sense that God has common purposes for history. Every decade, century, generation, is driven and unified by God’s overarching purpose for world history.

Likewise, take the calling of Abraham. That event isn’t central to the Christian faith. It’s not the epicenter of our faith, from which everything else radiates out.

However, the calling of Abraham is surely a foundational event in redemptive history. By the same token, the calling of Abraham is an essential event in redemptive history. God does one thing in order to do another thing. The calling of Abraham is a precipitating cause of many other redemptive events down the line. If God hadn’t called Abraham, you’d have an alternate future without Christianity. No Abraham, no Israel, no Christianity.

History has a causal flow. Later events are effects of earlier events.

Or take the relationship of the OT to the NT. The OT is not as central to Christian faith as the NT. However, the OT is foundational to the NT. The OT lays the groundwork for the NT.

Not only does the NT fulfill the OT, but the NT must fulfill the OT. The NT requires OT warrant. In that respect (among others), the OT is essential to Christianity. To be the true Messiah, Jesus must match the Messianic job description laid out in the OT.

ii) I’m not quite sure how Michael is using the word “break.” Is that shorthand for “make-or-break” and/or “deal-breaker”?

iii) Unlike “central” and “foundational,” which are figurative adjectives, “essential” is abstract. Now one of Michael’s criteria for distinguishing what’s essential from what’s inessential is to invoke alternate possibilities. If God might have or could have done something differently, then that makes it inessential.

But that criterion is remarkably confused. It’s like saying that if there’s a possible world with non-carbon-based organisms, then carbon is inessential to biological life on earth. Needless to say, in the world we actually inhabit, carbon is essential to life.

Likewise, the Bible would not be essential to Christianity if, in fact, God revealed Biblical truths by some other means. However, that hypothetical scenario hardly justifies the claim that the Bible is inessential for us. After all, we’re not living in a parallel universe where God reveals Biblical truths by some other means. Christianity, as it actually exists, is dependent on Biblical revelation.

2. Essential for what?

Michael also equivocates on what it means for something to be essential or inessential. He oscillates between two fundamentally different referents:

i) Essential to be a Christian

ii) Essential to Christianity

But these aren’t interchangeable. Michael fails to distinguish what is essential for Christianity to be true from what is essential to be a true Christian. He fails to distinguish essential beliefs from essential events (or things or realities).

For instance, a young child can be saved without believing in the Trinity. But that doesn’t mean the Trinity is inessential to Christianity.

The Trinity is essential to reality. God is a Trinity is every possible world. God is the ultimate reality. If God is Triune, then the Trinity is essential to reality.

However, a Christian with Down syndrome could exercise saving faith even if he lacks the mental competence to assent to the Trinity. In that qualified sense, belief in the Trinity is inessential.

Moreover, I’m saying that belief in the Trinity is inessential in exceptional circumstances. Young children or the retarded are special cases. We make allowance for their cognitive impairment.

To take another comparison, a Christian who becomes senile, or comes down with brain cancer, or suffers severe head trauma, may cease to believe in the person and work of Christ. Yet he doesn’t lose his salvation, even though he can no longer exercise saving faith.

But that doesn’t mean lack of faith in the person and work of Christ is ordinarily inessential to saving faith. That’s not the norm. As a rule, belief and trust in the person and work of Christ are essential to saving faith.

3. Religious duties

For some reason, Michael has usurped the right to tell people that they don’t have to believe everything God says. Frankly, that’s blasphemous. God is telling us we ought to believe something, while Michael is saying, “You don’t really have to believe what God tells you to believe.”

Imagine if Michael accompanied the prophet Jeremiah. God commands Jeremiah to deliver an oracle of judgment. As Jeremiah is speaking, Michael Patton stands behind Jeremiah, giving thumbs up or thumbs down depending on whether or not the oracle is essential to Christianity, or essential to saving faith.

I don’t know how Michael worked himself into the mindset of imagining that he’s entitled to give people permission not to believe anything in Scripture that’s not “essential” or “central” or “foundational.” Michael is suffering from extreme spiritual arrogance.

People have an absolute obligation to believe whatever God reveals. It’s not Michael’s place to make faith easier for them by waiving their duty to believe each and everything God has taught us. Michael doesn’t have the authority to do that. If God wanted to make it easier for some people to believe, God didn’t have to reveal those hard truths in the first place. That is God’s call, not Michael’s.

Now Michael might say we must distinguish between Scriptural teaching and our fallible interpretations of Scripture. The problem, though, is that by relegating inspiration and inerrancy to nonessential or nonfoundational categories, Michael himself is erasing that distinction.

4. Nominal faith

A large part of Christian faith is to take things on faith. To believe something on the authority of God’s word. I didn’t personally witness Bible history.

What does it say about the quality of someone’s faith who only believes what he can see for himself? He doesn’t have to trust God to believe what he can see for himself.

Take the wilderness generation. They were condemned to wander and die in the wilderness because they were faithless. They could never bring themselves to trust God. They had to live by sight every step of the way. That theme that looms large in the book of Hebrews, as a warning to the church.

Michael’s a la carte Christianity reminds me of a scene from Brideshead Revisited. Rex Mottram wants to marry Julia. But Julia is Roman Catholic. Rex must convert to Catholicism to marry Julia.

Problem is, Rex is irreligious. Rex only wants to know the bare minimum he must profess to marry Julia:

So Rex was sent to Farm Street to Father Mowbray, a priest renowned for his triumphs with obdurate catechumens. After the third interview he came to tea with Lady Marchmain.

“Well, how do you find my future son-in-law?”

“He’s the most difficult convert I have ever met.”

“Oh dear, I thought he was going to make it so easy.”

“That’s exactly it. I can’t get anywhere near him. He doesn’t seem to have the least intellectual curiosity or natural piety. Yesterday I asked him whether Our Lord had more than one nature. He said: ‘Just as many as you say, Father.’”

“Julia,” said Lady Marchmain, when the priest had gone, “are you sure that Rex isn’t doing this thing purely with the idea of pleasing us?”

“I don’t think it enters his head,” said Julia.

“He’s really sincere in his conversion?”

Next week the Jesuit came to tea again. It was the Easter holidays and Cordelia was there, too.

“Lady Marchmain,” he said. “You should have chosen one of the younger fathers for this task. I shall be dead long before Rex is a Catholic.”

“Oh dear, I thought it was going so well.”

“It was, in a sense. He was exceptionally docile, and he accepted everything I told him, remembered bits of it, asked no questions.”

Imagine filling our pews with church members who ask what’s the very least they have to believe to get by with. It’s a recipe for nominal Christians.

Now let’s comment on some specifics:

I have seen too many people who walk away from the faith due to their trust in some non-essential issue coming unglued.

Ironically, this is exactly what happens to many who study the Bible. Charles Darwin tells about how his faith was initially dislodged due to discrepancies in the Scriptures. Bart Ehrman goes in the same direction.

Why does Michael assume that’s a bad thing? Why not view that as a winnowing process? It purifies the church to slough off nominal believers.

What’s the value of an untested faith that fails the test when put to the test? A time-tested faith is real faith.

There was nothing that obligated God to this form of revelation (or any form at all!). Christ could have come and lived a perfect life, gained representation, died on the cross, rose from the grave, and never had it recorded in the Scriptures. How would we know about the Gospel? I don’t know. Maybe angels, maybe word of mouth, maybe direct revelation, or maybe not at all. The point is that God did not have to inspire any books in order for him to be who he is and do what he did. The Bible does not make Christianity true; the Bible simply records true Christianity through inspired words and thoughts.

But by that logic, it’s not merely the inspiration of Scripture that’s inessential: Scripture itself is inessential. If God could have dispensed with Scripture altogether, then by Michael’s reasoning, the Bible is not essential or central or foundational to the Christian faith.

While I do believe a sustained argument can and should be made for the inclusion of these [Pastoral Epistles] in the canon, whether or not Paul wrote these letters does not affect the truthfulness of the Christian faith. While these letters are extremely valuable for issues of personal integrity and ecclesiology, the essence of the Christian faith remains intact without them. This goes for 2 Peter as well – by far the most contested book in the New Testament. William Barclay, author of the Daily Bible Study Series (as far as I know, still the best selling commentary set of all time), did not accept Petrine authorship of Second Peter. While I disagree (like Calvin, I believe that Peter was behind the letter, though he did not directly write it) this did not in any way disqualify Barclay from being a Christian and a committed servant of God.

i) If you keep whittling down the Bible to the bare essentials (as (Michael defines it), where do you stop? Does Michael think four gospels are essential? Or would one gospel suffice?

Does Michael think Christians aren’t required to believe all four gospels as long as they believe in the Gospel of Mark? Would a one-book canon suffice?

And it doesn’t stop there. Is everything in Mark’s Gospel essential (as Michael defines it)? Or does Michael think Christians are only required to believe an essential core of Markan teaching?

Mark’s gospel has lots of miracles. How many miracles do you have to believe in? Will one or two suffice?

What about the parables of Jesus? Can’t we just pick out our favorites?

ii) Why does Michael think God inspired, collected, and preserved all these superfluous books of the Bible? Isn’t that a stumbling block to faith?

There are many people who spend an enormous amount of money holding seminars, building museums, and creating curricula attempting to educate people on the importance and evidence for a six-thousand (give or take) year-old earth.

Considering all the natural history museums around the world that indoctrinate viewers in Darwinism, why is Michael bothered by the existence of a single Creation Museum in Kentucky?

There is simply no sustainable reason to believe that one’s interpretation about the early chapters of Genesis determines his or her status before God.

i) Surely that’s an overstatement. It depends, in part, on what motivates the denial. As long as exegetical considerations are foremost, rejection of young-earth creationism doesn’t cast doubt on their status before God. But if their denial is the reflexive response of an unbelieving mindset, then that does implicate their status before God.

ii) Also, when Michael refers to “the early chapters of Genesis,” he’s casting the net pretty wide. That’s not just a question of chronology, but historicity. Does disbelieving Gen 2-3 have no bearing on your status before God? Isn’t disbelief in God’s word the effect of an unbelieving heart?

iii) Moreover, the early chapters of Genesis are “foundational” for redemptive history.

Some believe that the entire earth was covered with water. Others believe it was a local flood, isolated in Mesopotamia. Some even believe that the whole event did not really take place and is not meant to be taken literally. These believe that the story itself is a polemic against other gods and other flood stories, essentially saying in a parabolic way that God is in charge, not your other gods. Whichever view one takes, this does not affect Christianity.

i) Again, it depends, in part, on what motives the interpretation. Is this primarily exegetical, or does it evince a lack of faith? Rank disbelief?

ii) And what about those who think the flood account is fictitious. Honestly, is that really a faithful attitude? Or is that driven by profound skepticism regarding God’s action in the world?

Once again, consider the attitude of the wilderness generation, which is paradigmatic for apostates (Heb 3-4). Unbelievers typically find Biblical miracles incredible. They balk at the supernatural. They have a fundamentally secular, closed-system outlook. God, if there is a God, doesn’t rupture the uniformity of nature. God, if there is a God, doesn’t break natural laws. God, if there is a God, doesn’t interrupt the causal continuum. Practical atheism.

Unfortunately, many Christians believe that the theory of evolution is somehow an anti-Christian theory invented by Satan to destroy Christianity.

If evolution is false, and if there is a devil, then why is it out of bounds to consider evolution the devil’s counter story to the true story? Writing over the true story? Isn’t the devil the master counterfeiter?