\u00a0<\/p>\n
Calvin College philosophy professor James K.A Smith has done a lot of good for today\u2019s Church.\u00a0 He has made accessible such arcane subjects as postmodern philosophy and Radical Orthodoxy, and otherwise-impenetrable thinkers like Jacques Derrida and Charles Taylor.\u00a0 He is the unusual philosopher who talks about Pentecostal<\/a> contributions to his field.\u00a0 His recent books on worship and desire have showed legions of young (and old!) readers the significance of liturgy and habits for Christian discipleship.<\/p>\n Now, however, he risks\u00a0separating moral theology from dogmatic theology in an odd way.\u00a0 In a widely-read post at his blog on \u201corthodox theology,\u201d<\/a> he complains about the Christians who insist that orthodoxy must include adherence to the historic Christian view of marriage and sexuality.\u00a0 They don\u2019t realize, he argues, that \u201cthis deployment of the term \u2018orthodox\u2019 is recent, innovative, and narrow.\u201d\u00a0 Historically, he maintains, orthodoxy was understood as commitment to the great ecumenical creeds\u2014Nicaea and Chalcedon.\u00a0 These creeds taught \u201cthe conciliar marks of the gospel\u201d\u2013namely, creation, Incarnation, the virgin birth, Jesus\u2019 life, death, resurrection, and ascension, his second coming, the Trinity, the one holy, catholic and apostolic church, one baptism, and the hope of bodily resurrection.<\/p>\n But these zealots for a narrowly-conceived orthodoxy, Smith complains, are \u201creduc[ing] Christianity to a morality,\u201d just as Kant did.\u00a0 They are taking second-order matters (my use of the term) and elevating them to first-order status\u2014just as some Christians regard Christian non-violence, the mode of baptism, the ordination of women, and the rapture as necessary parts of orthodoxy.\u00a0 Bakers who are persecuted for refusing to bake cakes for gay weddings are not suffering for orthodoxy<\/em> but for things that are not \u201cat the very heart of Christian faith.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0Smith concedes that these views of sexuality and marriage which the bakers are defending \u201chave been the historic teaching of the church.\u201d\u00a0 But they are \u201ctraditional\u201d rather than \u201cconciliar.\u00a0 If we regard them as central to orthodoxy, they will \u201cstart to overwhelm and supersede what the church has defined as orthodox.\u201d<\/p>\n Derek Rishmawy<\/a>, Wesley Hill<\/a>, and Alan Jacobs<\/a> have given thoughtful responses to Smith.\u00a0 I want to approach Smith\u2019s challenge from a historical perspective.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s think back to three Church crises that bear some resemblance, I suggest, to our current marriage crisis: the slavery crisis (the Civil War), the Jewish crisis (Nazism), and the segregation\u00a0crisis (the Civil Rights movement).\u00a0 In each of these crises the Church debated whether the issue at hand was central to Christian faith (what we would call \u201corthodoxy\u201d).<\/p>\n In the antebellum period, there were many Christians in both South and North who said slavery was a matter of adiaphora<\/em> or \u201cthings indifferent,\u201d in other words, not central to Christian faith but matters over which good (orthodox!) Christians could agree to disagree.\u00a0 Many would have said, using Smith\u2019s terms, that slavery was not mentioned in the creeds and therefore should not be considered a test for orthodoxy.\u00a0 Now let\u2019s zoom back to last week in Charlottesville.\u00a0 I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if some of the alt-right people at the C\u2019ville debacle thought of themselves as creedal Christians.\u00a0 They might say that slavery is acceptable for Christians as long as they \u00a0accept what is explicitly stated in the creeds.\u00a0 I could be wrong, but I would guess that Smith would have difficulty allowing them into the orthodox tent.<\/p>\n In the 1930s the German Christian Churches banned the use of the Old Testament in Sunday morning worship.\u00a0 They tacitly supported the Nazi program to persecute and then kill Jews.\u00a0 They could have easily said that there is nothing in the Nicene or Chalcedonian creeds that speaks to this issue.\u00a0 Both creeds mention only \u201cthe prophets\u201d and proceed from creation to redemption as if the history of Israel does not matter.\u00a0 Or at least one could read them this way if one pays attention only to the explicit language and not to implications that \u201cthe prophets\u201d might raise.\u00a0 In other words, they could have appealed to the creeds and said that good Christians can disagree on \u201cthe Jewish question\u201d and still be orthodox.\u00a0 Since this question is not addressed by the creeds, it is like the questions of baptismal mode and eschatology where otherwise-orthodox Christians disagree.\u00a0 Could those German Christians in this movement who affirmed the creeds be accepted as orthodox?<\/p>\n In the 1960s Christians debated racial segregation.\u00a0 Many Christians insisted that this is a cultural and not biblical question.\u00a0 Some argued from the creeds, using something like Smith\u2019s reasoning: since it is not addressed by the creeds, it should not be made a test of orthodoxy.\u00a0 You can be orthodox, they said, and also keep black Christians out of your church or restaurant or country club.\u00a0 Those who make race a matter of orthodoxy are using standards that are \u201crecent, innovative and narrow.\u201d<\/p>\n What would orthodox Christians say today?\u00a0 I think we would have to search long and hard to find a respected pastor or theologian who says, \u201cGood orthodox Christians can practice racial segregation in their churches and communities because this is not central to the faith.\u201d\u00a0 Our search would be equally difficult to find any theologian or respected pastor who would announce that you can be orthodox and also affirm slavery or discrimination against Jews.<\/p>\n In other words, orthodoxy entails beliefs that go beyond the letter of the creeds, and this has been generally acknowledged by the great theologians of the Church.\u00a0 They have argued this\u2014that orthodoxy includes convictions about matters not explicitly stated in the creeds\u2014for a number of reasons, among which are two statements in <\/em>the creeds.<\/p>\n The first statement is in the third article of the Nicene Creed: We believe in the Holy Spirit . . . who spoke by the prophets.\u00a0 <\/em>By \u201cprophets\u201d is meant, for most interpreters in the Great Tradition, the Old Testament.\u00a0 In other words, this phrase teaches the divine inspiration of the First or Old Testament and its most important teachings.<\/p>\n The second statement in the Nicene Creed that points to convictions of orthodoxy not explicitly stated in the creed is from the last article: We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church.\u00a0 <\/em>The Great Tradition has interpreted this to mean that orthodoxy regards as normative not only the inspiration of the New Testament (apostolic<\/em>) but also the central teachings of the Church<\/em> as it has interpreted Scripture.<\/p>\n Among those central teachings has been the marriage of a man and woman, from which follows everything the Church has taught on sexuality.\u00a0 It is of utmost significance that the principal metaphor in both Testaments for God\u2019s relationship to his people is marriage: YHWH is married to Israel, and Christ is married to the church.\u00a0 That is one reason why the questions that Smith thinks comparable\u2014usury, eschatology, women\u2019s ordination, mode of baptism\u2014have typically been regarded as further away from the center of the faith.<\/p>\n It is also why marriage between a man and woman, and the view of sexuality which it entails, has always been considered as not simply a \u201ctraditional\u201d teaching, as Smith puts it, but part and parcel of orthodoxy.\u00a0 The creeds point not only to the way of redemption\u00a0but also to an order of creation<\/em> that is redeemed.\u00a0 \u00a0Marriage as central to orthodoxy is therefore not \u201crecent, innovative, and narrow.\u201d\u00a0 Instead, it is separation of moral theology (on a matter as paramount as marriage) from dogmatic theology that is recent, innovative, and narrow.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" James K.A. Smith risks separating moral theology from dogmatic theology in a perilous way. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2043,"featured_media":6483,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n