Part 1: What is Doctrine?
This is a review of the 1st half of Chapter 1 only:
Chapter 1: What is Doctrine
1. JMc outlines catholic and protestant approaches to doctrine. Doctrine = a church teaching that must be taught for the church to be the church here and now.
2. Doctrine is a first order task; it comes first BEFORE theology. That is, theologians receive Church teaching/doctrine first, then study and interpret it. They don’t make up doctrine and market it to church. Ie. Mother comes before the child.
3. Catholic view of doctrine is closely associated with propositions, revealed to church, interpreted by church (cf. pope central role) to the people. Similar to foundationalism, all knowledge rests on these propositions, which is why the catholic church vehemently defends these propositions.
4. Liberal Protestant view in modern times: religion=feelings or awareness, but not = to knowing or doing, therefore, doctrine = accounts of our religious affections (Schleiermacher). Therefore, unity of the church is measured by its “shared awareness” of God.
Commentary:
The catholic view above is not dissimilar at all from fundamentalist protestants, and many modern evangelicals. Truth is seen as static and unchanging from generation to generation, or at any rate, extremely slow in changing. It seems to me that this accounts in large measure why some people see such incongruity with our context today and some church teaching. Cf. women in church, slavery in recent past, etc.
If the church is to emerge into the postmodern context with the rest of the world, this will be the primary ‘battleground’ or ‘love-ground.’ How can those of us within the large Christian tradition dialogue with those who believe with all their heart that truth is static.
Starting ideas:
1. take our faith and commitment to live a truthful life with all the seriousness that our fundamentalist brothers and sisters do. Short of seeing our seriousness, they won’t even engage in a conversation.
2. Allow ourselves to be persuaded by some of their heartfelt convictions, while modeling for them dialogue that is loving.
3. We are not from Mars and they are not from Venus. We do have commonalities and should start with those in conversation. Asking anyone to take great leaps or grand switches in their thinking is remarkably unreasonable. We wouldn’t do it. They won’t do it. Conversions are usually long processes of change and only appear to be dramatic at the point a switch in paradigms is made.
Chapter 1: What is Doctrine
1. JMc outlines catholic and protestant approaches to doctrine. Doctrine = a church teaching that must be taught for the church to be the church here and now.
2. Doctrine is a first order task; it comes first BEFORE theology. That is, theologians receive Church teaching/doctrine first, then study and interpret it. They don’t make up doctrine and market it to church. Ie. Mother comes before the child.
3. Catholic view of doctrine is closely associated with propositions, revealed to church, interpreted by church (cf. pope central role) to the people. Similar to foundationalism, all knowledge rests on these propositions, which is why the catholic church vehemently defends these propositions.
4. Liberal Protestant view in modern times: religion=feelings or awareness, but not = to knowing or doing, therefore, doctrine = accounts of our religious affections (Schleiermacher). Therefore, unity of the church is measured by its “shared awareness” of God.
Commentary:
The catholic view above is not dissimilar at all from fundamentalist protestants, and many modern evangelicals. Truth is seen as static and unchanging from generation to generation, or at any rate, extremely slow in changing. It seems to me that this accounts in large measure why some people see such incongruity with our context today and some church teaching. Cf. women in church, slavery in recent past, etc.
If the church is to emerge into the postmodern context with the rest of the world, this will be the primary ‘battleground’ or ‘love-ground.’ How can those of us within the large Christian tradition dialogue with those who believe with all their heart that truth is static.
Starting ideas:
1. take our faith and commitment to live a truthful life with all the seriousness that our fundamentalist brothers and sisters do. Short of seeing our seriousness, they won’t even engage in a conversation.
2. Allow ourselves to be persuaded by some of their heartfelt convictions, while modeling for them dialogue that is loving.
3. We are not from Mars and they are not from Venus. We do have commonalities and should start with those in conversation. Asking anyone to take great leaps or grand switches in their thinking is remarkably unreasonable. We wouldn’t do it. They won’t do it. Conversions are usually long processes of change and only appear to be dramatic at the point a switch in paradigms is made.
posted by Jimmy at 10:00 AM
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