Freedom, loss of authority yield, 'The Great Seduction'
South Dakota State University
A recent letter from theologian Carl Braaten to Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson reminds
us that many ELCA theologians have for many years been
successfullydiagnosing the problem of the ELCA: There
is no longer any palpable authority in the mainstream
Lutheran theological tradition in North America. Many
theologians have pointed to the unfortunate fact that
within the ELCA, subjective opinion and personal experience
rule. Lamentably, the ELCA is no longer a confessional,
Scripturally-based church. Instead, in the contemporary ELCA,
each individual is seemingly given the latitude to be religious
in his or her own way.
When one ponders the subjectivity and relativism within the
ELCA, one realizes that the "tradition" in the ELCA can,
strictly-speaking, no longer be called a "religious tradition"
at all. How can this be? How can it be that the ELCA no
longer counts as a religious tradition?
The word "religion" comes from the Latin "religio," meaning
"binding." The ancient Latins used to say, "religio mihi est,"
a phrase translated as, "I bind myself to." The root connotation
of "religion" is thus a binding, the taking of an oath of
obligation towards something or other.
The necessary condition for the possibility of such a binding
is that the person or thing one binds oneself to, has authority
over the one doing the binding. One binds oneself to a god, to
a text or to a tradition. To bind oneself profoundly to
Scripture and confessions is to be religiously committed to them.
If there is no binding to that which is over and against the
self, then there can be no religious commitment.
This connotation of binding is quite different from that of how
people now speak of "spirit." People today, within and outside
the ELCA, like to think of themselves as being spiritual. The
root connotation of "spiritual" is "breath" or "wind." In Latin,
to say "spiritus spirat" is to say, "the wind blows." For the
ancient Hebrews, spirit connects literally to one's own
breathing. If one is breathing, he or she has spirit.
It is one short step from thinking of the "spirit" of physical
breathing to the "spirit" of our existential breath. Spirit is
both the wind that gives physical life and the breath that gives
existential life in and despite the negativities of existence
(death, guilt, purposelessness, etc). To have spirit in the most
profound way is to have the deep breath that connects one to
the source and goal of existence, to that which transcends and
empowers one in the face of the existential negativities.
"Spiritual" and "religious" are distinguished logically. The
first is a "monadic" property, a property that need not relate
to anything else to be what it is. In its deepest sense, a
person is spiritual if and only if he or she has existential
breath. However, to be religious is to possess a "dyadic"
property, a property that must relate to another. While one can
breath on one's own, one cannot be bound by oneself, but only
to another. To be religious, therefore, means to be connected by
oath and obligation to some other thing. Unlike being
"spiritual," one needs something outside the self to which to be
bound in order to be religious. (Of course, to be truly spiritual
in a Christian sense is to have the Holy Spirit present in one's
own being, and this certainly seems to involve a dyadic property.
However, I here am speaking of the root connotations of
"spiritual" and "religion," connotations that operate across the
religious traditions generally.)
Now, it is no wonder that religion is not very popular today. We
live in a time where the self and its experience trumps all other
authority. In fact, authority is routinely conceived to limit
freedom and constrain the self. The unfettered self is free; the
limited self is bound, and we value freedom over everything.
It is part of our experience to interpret texts in various ways.
Subscription to the "otherness" of confessional documents is
replaced in our day by a celebration of multivalency in our
interpretation of those documents. We unfettered selves are the
ones that interpret documents, and our interpretation is, after
all, our interpretation, our experience in the reading of the
text.
Thus it is that confessional and scriptural texts are read in
new ways. There is a celebration in the novelty of our readings
because they are our readings. Passages that once seemed to
proscribe certain actions are now interpreted as being in
consonance with those actions, for example, the homosexual matter
within the ELCA.
It is this situation of absence of authority that drives hoards
of theologians within the ELCA to embrace the church for that
requisite authority. Understanding that the Lutheran theological
tradition is a religious tradition needing authority, and knowing
that written documents (Scripture and confessions) cannot function
today to give that authority, they run to a living institution
built on authority. In their frustration they embrace an
institution they believe has some chance of granting normativity,
of giving people clear decision procedures on theological,
hermeneutical(interpretive), ethical and social issues.
To the church they go to find some foundation, some ground to
quell the shifting sands of personal interpretation. To the church
they go to find a place upon which to base a religious tradition.
In order to be Lutheran, they reason, there must be authority.
But because of the hermeneutical problem, there is no longer
authority in Scripture and the confessions. Therefore, in order to
be Lutheran we must find some other authority outside Scripture,
an authority that can determine normative understandings of
Scripture and confessions. This we all "know" is the church.
Appeal to the church is, for Lutherans, the great seduction.
When we despair over the operation of the Living Word, we
naturally look towards that which the Living Word created.
John Calvin was correct, the human mind is a factory of idols.
We avert our eyes from the Creator to the creation, and hope
somehow that the creation can function to determine our
thinking on the Creator. It is a seductive thought for anyone
sincerely wanting to save the Lutheran theological tradition.
The problem is, like in any seduction, that move ultimately
leads us away from that which is really important. While a
seduction may be momentarily pleasant, it definitely takes us
down the wrong road.
The WordAlone movement has a theological center. It confesses
that the Word alone is sufficient, that the Word alone creates
its own structures of response and interpretation and that
nothing else can vouchsafe the integrity of the Word except
the Word. This declaration may seem hopelessly out of touch
with the current cultural horizon. How can one claim that the
Word alone is sufficient when we see the plethora of
conflicting interpretations of the Word, when we see that human
experience has become the foundational point in understanding
that Word?
The response by the WordAlone movement must be this: No matter
how dark things seem today, we confess that the Word alone is
sufficient in creating its own structures of interpretation and
response. We confess that the church is a creature of the Word,
and that no epistemological foundations or ontological presence
is needed to protect, augment and determine the future of the
Word's work among us.
Hegel once said, "The owl of Minerva only flies at dusk." Perhaps
our time is a time of dusk. Perhaps we in the first world are at
the end of that great Christian tradition that structured the
landscape of our culture and time. But if this is the case,
our response cannot be to say it is really not a time of dusk.
The seduction of our time is to think we can return to a time
in which it is not dusk. But it is dusk. Will we have the wisdom
to stay the course and proclaim it is the Word alone upon which
we stand? The Church's one foundation is Jesus Christ its Lord.
So we are at a crossroads. We know the problem. Can we keep our
eyes on the Creator and not its creation?
