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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: "We must move with the times .... "
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
What does this (I submit) vacuous statement actually mean and what possible significance could it have for theologising? Consider Germany in the 30's for example. I suppose the Church, on this basis, could have justified supporting anti-Semitism because it was "moving with the times."
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
People using terms whose meanings they don't understand is so inimical to good discussion, I feel.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Care to address the question rather than the illustration?
The question is too vacuous.
You have to provide a context in order to discuss the question meaningfully.
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a theological scrapbook
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
I think it suggests two things, Father Gregory.
1) That issues of faith and morals are matters of fashion.
2) That there actually is a coherent "zeitgeist" and we must conform to it, whatever it is.
I think both of those suggestions are flawed.
Jim Wallis has spoken and written rather well on this. He sees political processes as ones often characterised by someone raising a wet finger in the air "to see which way the wind blows" - and then following it. That fits in rather well with the Yes Prime Minister observations
a) that a major requirement is moral malleability
b) that politicians prefer solution which are quick, popular, simple and cheap.
c) that "courageous and far-sighted" will lose you not just the next election but the one after that.
He thinks that there is often a deeper challenge - to be "wind-changers" - and cites e.g. Desmond Tutu and MLK as "wind-changers".
An encouragement to "move with the times" is often an excuse for avoiding real engagement with issues. As de Bono once put it, "people think in order to stop thinking", i.e. to get as quickly as possible to a comfortable pre-packaged automatic thought.
On most "hot button" issues of faith, for example, I would probably be regarded as a radical, rather than a conserver, or conservative. But that's a result of hard personal thought and reflection, not some sense that "swimming with the tide" is a good thing in itself. I think in general it's a bad thing in itself.
[xposted with CK]
[ 16. June 2012, 07:18: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Evensong ... certainly. I wanted to avoid Dead Horse temptations but more especially the tendency of some people ... hopefully not you ... to argue from the basis of the context rather than the principle. That way the argument gets deflected into the pros and cons of the contextual issue rather than the principle being addressed. So let's see if we can actually avoid talking about gay marriage.
The comment: "We must move with the times" was made on TV last night by a lady from a parish whose Vicar is lobbying the Archbishop of York for the possibility of the CofE allowing its clergy to marry gay people in church.
I respect totally those who argue for a course of action based on the theology and practice of the Church. I repudiate entirely those who argue for the same course of action based on "moving wioth the times."
So, let's now forget gay marriage and deal with the principle being addressed .... which is ... how does the Church authentically theologise and act.
Remember Dean Inge? quote:
Whoever marries the spirit of this age will find himself a widower in the next.
THAT'S what I am getting at. Nothing to do with gay marriage per se.
[ 16. June 2012, 07:21: Message edited by: Father Gregory ]
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
I would actually agree on this, liberal though I tend to be on a number of issues.
Modernity is a red herring. The current values of a secular society give us cause to examine what we believe, but no cause of themselves to change it. If the changes in society are consistent with the major principles of Christian belief, then it is worth examining whether it is our existing position that was conformed to secular society's expectations. The ordination of women, in particular, would seem to come under that heading. Promiscuity and casual sex, I think, would not.
The only yardstick of value when consider issues of faith and morals is what is right and wrong, neither tradition nor modernity can stand against doing what is right.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
I think it's difficult when we're in the middle of the situation to see who are the wind-changers, although Tutu is definitely one, and who are rightly holding on to tenets of faith that should be held, as against refusing to see how our understandings have changed - which is what happened over slavery, to use a historical example.
I think church as community, real hands on community, is a tenet that should be held on to, but also we need to reach out - and getting that balance right is a huge challenge as society changes and the ways we can reach out change.
But that issue of community also means we need to be aware of what the local and international needs are to be able to reach out and that means we do have to change what we offer and our focuses.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
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moonlitdoor
Shipmate
# 11707
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Posted
quote:
originally posted by Barnabas62
That issues of faith and morals are matters of fashion.
It's not always clearcut what are issues of faith and morals though. Something which is a matter of fashion to a significant extent in society is music. So is it legitimate for the church to choose to use the sort of music it thinks people will like ? That's not an issue of morals but whether it is an issue of faith depends on what you think the Christian faith consists of.
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We've evolved to being strange monkeys, but in the next life he'll help us be something more worthwhile - Gwai
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
CK
It's in the nature of things that you can't see who the wind-changers have been until afterwards.
While the shit is hitting the fan, I think the real moral imperative is not to look for a guru (or hoist a "wet finger" in the air either) but to work out what your own convictions really are, and go with that.
Another half-remembered Yes Prime Minister joke is this one.
Hacker (I think) to Bernard. "So which side are the Foreign Office on?"
Bernard. "The winning side".
[Or maybe it was the Civil Service as a whole, not just the Foreign Office?]
I'm sure you get my point. Nailing your colours to the mast, standing to your tacking, these things can have both costs and rewards. But once you start playing "winning or popularity" consequences games while the issues are joined (not decided), you're up a gum tree of circular argument.
[ 16. June 2012, 07:59: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Dear Arethosemyfeet .... I was with you until the last sentence. How do we tell right from wrong (especially in hard cases).
Dear Curiosity killed .... Community yes, but who, where and when?
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
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Mary LA
Shipmate
# 17040
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Posted
Living in South Africa, the influence of Archbishop Tutu is prevalent in many churches here. A few years ago I was at a lecture Tutu gave where he spoke about how he had been encouraged by reading the Roman Catholic encyclicals on social justice to discern the 'signs of the times' and not simply to react to injustices under apartheid and colonialism with protest and outrage, but to envision what kind of society might be possible without certain oppressions, the difference human rights and freedoms might make in the lives of ordinary people and help bring about the Kingdom.
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“I often wonder if we were all characters in one of God's dreams.”
― Muriel Spark
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
Dear father Gregory, I entirely agree with you and unlike some, I understood what you meant from your very first post.
I too don't liker this attitude that the church must move with the times, as if if the very date itself should determine our faith and practice.
There's a verse in one of our songs that says:
quote:
In a world of shifting values
there are standards that remain.
I believe that holy living
by God's grace we may attain.
It is indeed worrying that the church finds a need to copy the world's attitudes and it's often because some people look to their own interests, hobby-horses, politics, morality and campaigns, and try to bring them into the church. The loudest voices, in my experience, always win while the sincere and less vocal majority have to put up with issues in church that are not necessarily relevant to them.
Paul said 'do not be conformed to this world' and this, sadly, is what I see going on quite often. The phrase that really annoys me about the mission of the church is 'Find out what God is doing (in your community) and join in.'
People therefore look at social issues and assume automatically that God is in it and feel that the church must join in with it all. Well maybe, just maybe, some of these things have little to do with God and what he wants is for us to be salt and light and do something different.
Having said that, issues of compassion and justice are God's issues anyway, but the solution is not to go along with human remedies and resources but to actually bring the love and light of Christ and the word of God to bear on the issue and thus bringing in a different emphasis, a different solution, to the 'worldly' and more acceptable one.
Maybe the world would be more at peace if we built our attitudes on the rock rather than the sands of changing seasons and attitudes.
Some things, after all, are eternally true; and we shouldn't change things just because this generation with no other foundation than 'preference' and 'lifestyle choice' wants to build on shaky ground.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif) I wish I knew though where this itch to be on the same page comes from. Is it a lack of confidence in the gospel, an entirely alien intrusion (with or without conscious infiltration), ignorance etc. etc. What?
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
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Johnny S
Shipmate
# 12581
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
What does this (I submit) vacuous statement actually mean and what possible significance could it have for theologising?
I tend to agree with you but am rather puzzled by your OP.
I would have thought that such a phrase was anathema to the Orthodox Church by definition. End of.
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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
What does this (I submit) vacuous statement actually mean and what possible significance could it have for theologising? Consider Germany in the 30's for example. I suppose the Church, on this basis, could have justified supporting anti-Semitism because it was "moving with the times."
I think it all depends on one's world view. Many (particularly secularists) seem to be of the opinion that human progress is an ever increasing, upward, phenomenon. They see absolute total democracy as the Raison d'être for their efforts, although we all know that this has been tried in the past and failed.
Sometimes (with things such as gay marriage) our ethics go into complete reverse, yet it is always progress. Abortion (with all it's euphemisms) is seen as progress. History is believed to show that we are just getting better and better, towards some perceived utopia of humanism.
(For the record, I'm not particularly interested in the rights and/or wrongs of gay marriage, but I do have strong views against abortion.)
It seems that many liberal christians seem to put this principle of human progress before Christ, meaning that "the Church must change with the times."
I don't see things this way at all. As others have said, ethics are more like fashions. They come in and go out of fashion, and I don't see any trend for ever increasing progress. History isn't like a ladder, where we go up and up to ever increasing heights of progress and righteousness.
Rather, I believe history is more like a pendulum, where we seem to just keep making the same mistakes, impervious to what has happened in the past. If this wasn't so, wouldn't human warfare have ceased centuries ago?
So, if we ignore Revealed truth, and gradually replace it with our own this-worldly hopes and dreams, how will that ultimately profit us? How can we put our trust in human progress, if we know it isn't what it's made out to be?
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
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Snags
Utterly socially unrealistic
# 15351
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Posted
I'm not sure one can divorce the meaning (or perhaps underlying meaning, or validity) of "move with the times" from specific issues and contexts.
There are some things where one most emphatically doesn't "move with the times" and indeed needs to stand in principled opposition.
There are others where, actually, it's not such a bad thing at all.
I (and obviously this is me personally, and I accept some of these may be lines in the sand for others) have no problem in "moving with the times" in areas such as musical style, forms and structures of worship, how one "does church". In fact, I'd argue that generally being culturally relevant is a good thing. As long as the core/heart of what's being done is still focused in the right place, and on the right person(s).
There are other areas where I'm thoroughly convinced that "the times" are wrong, and it's right and appropriate to speak and act (lovingly) in opposition. I'm not a big fan of the whole divide between public & private morality; of the veneration of casual sex. I'm highly unlikely to "move with the times" in supporting the New Atheism.
As others have said, there's a difference between cleaving to core moral/ethical/theological positions, and cleaving to the way that those positions are necessarily expressed or demonstrated.
In the general case, though, I agree it's usually a vacuous phrase, employed to cover up a lack of thought and justify a vague feeling that one doesn't want to be seen to be out of touch or anachronistic. The underlying principles are a bit more subtle, however.
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Vain witterings :-: Vain pretentions :-: The Dog's Blog(locks)
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Ender's Shadow
Shipmate
# 2272
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Posted
The biblical justification for the attitude portrayed in the OP is, of course:
quote:
19 Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. 20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. 23 I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.
1 Cor 9:19-23, and for me it challenges the logic of the Orthodox, who seem to be saying 'All the churches should fossilise their worship in the forms of 5th century Constantinople'. The focus is surely that last verse: I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. We need to remove unnecessary barriers - even the Orthodox have introduced seats and heating these days! - but the core problem is that we don't know how to hear God for ourselves. Many of the aphorisms that are around, such as 'Find out what God is doing (in your community) and join in' aren't bad in themselves as long as they are seen as part of a process of trying to hear what God is telling YOU to do. Which will be different in every case, because God has given each of us a particular set of gifts which He wants us to use for His service. ONE of the indicators of this is sometimes that something 'takes off'. However the success of the church in achieving Prohibition is a reminder that sometimes we get it BADLY wrong, whilst the persistent support of church leaders for socialist economics and their presence on the roll of useful idiots is also a major embarrassment in retrospect.
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Test everything. Hold on to the good.
Please don't refer to me as 'Ender' - the whole point of Ender's Shadow is that he isn't Ender.
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
OK, so how have we moved away from slavery to not accepting it if we don't accept change? And what are the current slavery issues?
Most people would find regarding a woman and children as property to be decided by the man as anathema - however Biblical - are we right in moving with the times to change that?
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Dear Curiosity killed .... Community yes, but who, where and when?
I was thinking about the Online Sacraments thread when I was following that train of thought, that there were different views of community, communion and reaching out embedded in the underlying assumptions being made on that thread.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Evensong ... certainly. I wanted to avoid Dead Horse temptations but more especially the tendency of some people ... hopefully not you ... to argue from the basis of the context rather than the principle.
The principle will decide the application of pros and cons in the context.
If change is a "bad thing" in principle then the context probably doesn't matter much.
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
So, let's now forget gay marriage and deal with the principle being addressed .... which is ... how does the Church authentically theologise and act.
Well in my tradition we do it together and we do it by basing our principals on Scripture, Tradition and Reason.
Many people accuse my particular stream of "moving with the times" too much but it is usually accusations based on fear of removing social mores that have been traditionally hidden behind codes of moral piety that have no basis in Jesus' central theology.
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a theological scrapbook
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Ender's Shadow
Shipmate
# 2272
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
OK, so how have we moved away from slavery to not accepting it if we don't accept change? And what are the current slavery issues?
Most people would find regarding a woman and children as property to be decided by the man as anathema - however Biblical - are we right in moving with the times to change that?
Certainly once you look at slavery from an Old Testament perspective, you gain a far more nuanced attitude to it than the simplistic attitudes seen today. The church had absorbed the Graeco-Roman attitude to it, and had failed to challenge that biblically - leading to the serfdom that persisted in Europe until the 19th century. The abolition of slavery in the obscene form to which it had degenerated in the Americas was an application of those biblical principles which had finally been rediscovered; the abolition of slavery [from a CHURCH perspective] was thus a late flowering of the Reformation principle of applying biblical standard, not the traditions of the church; of course we were helped by our conclusions appealing to many others at the time. Sadly the present 'slavery' experienced by criminal offenders locked up is equally sub-biblical - but most of us have yet to wake up to the need for change in this area.
[I wrote a 2000 word essay on the topic which is why I'm confident to offer a somewhat unusual perspective - anyone who wants a copy can private message me]
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Test everything. Hold on to the good.
Please don't refer to me as 'Ender' - the whole point of Ender's Shadow is that he isn't Ender.
Posts: 5018 | From: Manchester, England | Registered: Feb 2002
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Ah, but what's implicit in what I'm asking is that we can read and justify our prevention of slavery from our current understandings of what the Biblical writings were basing their assumptions on. And some people would say that women priests and homosexuality are due the same revisionism. Is that moving with the times?
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
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Macrina
Shipmate
# 8807
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Posted
I think 'moving with the times' is often bound up with attempts to 'make church relevant'. These two things can often work wonders when done in the correct spirit and aiming to engage and enthuse a rather lost generation of people.
Change does not have a moral status, it is not bad or good in of itself. It's our motivations for the change that give it its standing. The church has 'moved with the times' on any number of issues over the centuries and come down on both sides of the moral divide as a result.
I've been thinking lately that Christianity is getting itself vastly sidetracked by what are, in the whole picture of resurrection and salvation, very small and insignificant issues. I think people are so keen to appear as if they agree with everyone else that they are forgetting the fundamentals of this rather astonishing and life changing message.
The message of Christ is and always will be relevant when it is properly expressed in a language people understand and can engage with. I think if Christians focussed on this rather than on trying to defend and explain social positions that do not make sense outside of the message before explaining the message itself then we would actually get somewhere.
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Just a reminder ... some are posting here as if the Orthodox subscribe to "Sola Scriptura" or the "Nothing-ain't-ever-gonna-change" society. Neither is true. Theologising for us happens in Tradition ... which is not "the traditions of men" or "how we have always done it."
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Er no .,.. I am just correcting a misinterpretation of my contribution. If I said "you Calvinists are all the same ... you believe that God decided before creation who would be saved and who wouldn't" then I would expect to be corrected. Sauce for the goose?
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
I was thinking of the OP actually.
But that's okay. I understand. You're just moving with the times.
Ask a question. Pretend you're interested in people's answers to make them feel empowered then bring in your own agenda as the best way to go.
Good social theory. Well done. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Is that emoticon "passive aggressive"? Actually I am interested in peoples' views .... but how I answer can never be non-denominational. You are going to have to live with that I'm afraid.
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
If we were to consider Kierkegaardian understanding (for the sake of argument as much as anything else), there is a mutuality between two different kinds of ethics - one related to the generally accepted understanding of 'the good' and one divine. The religious often want to imply that these are in opposition, but Kierkegaard suggests that the Christian is the one who holds these things in tension.
I'd say that the public understanding of 'the good' is always in flux, but even that doesn't mean it is irrelevant for theologising.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
Posts: 1310 | Registered: May 2012
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
I was thinking of the OP actually.
But that's okay. I understand. You're just moving with the times.
Ask a question. Pretend you're interested in people's answers to make them feel empowered then bring in your own agenda as the best way to go.
Good social theory. Well done.
Unless you know something I don't know (which is possible I suppose), the Orthodox are not assumed to be 'pretending to discuss' on these bulletin boards any more than anyone else.
Maybe yon Orthodox personage is actually interested to hear what other people think.
Maybe you are actually an annoying, sniping, bitch with nothing useful to do around here but randomly attack anyone who thinks differently to you as a bigot.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
That I find attractive (Kierkegaard). The two ethical perspectives can be derived from two theological premises ... we are made in the divine image ... we have the possibility of a renewed mind. Discernment I suppose is the bridge.
[ 16. June 2012, 11:18: Message edited by: Father Gregory ]
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
Personally I can't think of anything worse than the person that thinks his ethics are solely derived from the divine. Such thinking leads to all kinds of errors and worse.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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Dinghy Sailor
Ship's Jibsheet
# 8507
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Posted
Surely the key issue here is prophecy? Prophecy is standing outside the world with its ways and methods, and speaking God's word into that situation. If we run with the spirit of the age, we'll never be able to be prophetic - aren't all of the OT prophets precisely not conforming to the spirits of their own ages?
Instead, we should let God transform and renew our minds (cf. Romans 12). This means that change in the church is possible, but not in the direction of the world, but in the direction of God. We know that all churches have erred in some way or another, so we need to be constantly listening to God's word and transforming our churches back to what it says as he reveals our own and our forefathers' sins to us - semper reformanda!
The trick, of course, is differentiating the two. How do we ascertain that we're listening to God rather than to the zeitgeist, or interpreting God's word through the lens of the zeitgeist to such a degree that it's being distorted?
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Preach Christ, because this old humanity has used up all hopes and expectations, but in Christ hope lives and remains.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
Dingy Sailor, I'd say we have to calm ourselves and listen for the voice of God, which may be from the depths of our understanding of the universal ethic or the Holy Spirit whispering the divine ethic into our hearts.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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SeraphimSarov
Shipmate
# 4335
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
I was thinking of the OP actually.
But that's okay. I understand. You're just moving with the times.
Ask a question. Pretend you're interested in people's answers to make them feel empowered then bring in your own agenda as the best way to go.
Good social theory. Well done.
Tiresome sarcasm Take it to Hell
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"For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like"
Posts: 2247 | From: Sacramento, California | Registered: Apr 2003
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irish_lord99
Shipmate
# 16250
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Posted
Too late. TLR beat her too it.
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"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." - Mark Twain
Posts: 1169 | From: Maine, US | Registered: Feb 2011
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Melon
Ship's desserter
# 4038
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
I suppose the Church, on this basis, could have justified supporting anti-Semitism because it was "moving with the times."
Surely the Church less frequently supporting anti-semitism as it had done for centuries prior to the 1930s was a sign of "moving with the times" that many of us would welcome. I'm sure that the Jews who used to be corralled into the medieval ghetto a stone's throw from my flat, where the synagogue looks like a Catholic Church because Jews weren't allowed to build themselves, would have agreed with me on this.
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French Whine
Posts: 4177 | From: Cavaillon, France | Registered: Feb 2003
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Melon:
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
I suppose the Church, on this basis, could have justified supporting anti-Semitism because it was "moving with the times."
Surely the Church less frequently supporting anti-semitism as it had done for centuries prior to the 1930s was a sign of "moving with the times" that many of us would welcome. I'm sure that the Jews who used to be corralled into the medieval ghetto a stone's throw from my flat, where the synagogue looks like a Catholic Church because Jews weren't allowed to build themselves, would have agreed with me on this.
Again, I don't really hold with either a 'good old times' or a 'modern perfectionism' viewpoint. Things have changed, the situation for some people who were adversely and directly affected by our forebears (some of whom shared something of our religious outlook) might have changed, but the lot of others has got considerably worse.
On the whole, ethics have not noticeably got better or worse, they're just different.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
When I came across this thread, my first impression, having just read the "Blessing the toilets" thread, was a mental image of someone walking down the path to the bog with a copy of The Times. Ah, well.
But we do move with the times. Otherwise there would not have been a Reformation, the Great Schism would not have happened, slavery would still be a norm, there would not be electric lighting in the churches (candles matter!), priests would not use their IPads to carry their sermon notes, there would be no debate about male supremacy, OoW or SSM...
Just how much farther out of touch with the potential Christians do you want to be?
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
If there is a desire to be relevant to the world then I think the Church is doomed to failure. We cannot be relevant to the world.
What the church must be, however, is accessible.
Catherine Booth (wife of William Booth, Founder of The Salvation Army), wrote:
quote:
"When the Church and the world can jog along comfortable together you may be sure there is something wrong."
There have to be times when the Church actually has to rebuke the world about its standards and morality, even if it means being less 'inclusive'.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Martyrdom, imprisonment, exile. This is the usual condition of the Church and Christians ... punctuated by episodes of peace and polluted by compromises with worldly power.
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
Posts: 15099 | From: Manchester, UK | Registered: May 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Yes, but what happens Mudfrog when representatives of the Church (however defined) start attacking values, norms or activities that thee or me or anyone else might consider to be the very model of appropriate Christian behaviour. Many of the slave-owners in the Southern US States were very devout. The same could be applied to many Apartheid supporters in 1970s South Africa.
There was a comment about 'middle-class values' for instance over on the NFI thread. I'm sure many Christians (of all stripes) in this country think that middle-classness is next to godliness. Consequently, when a clergyperson of whatever tradition challenges that they are then pilloried for being overly socialist or pursuing a political rather than a spiritual agenda ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Chucking something else into the debate ...
Thee and me had a recent discussion (which got heated at times) about theological innovations and which ones were to be deemed appropriate. I suggested that things like the Rapture and pre-millenial dispensationalism should be rejected partly because they were of apparently recent vintage - something you hotly denied.
Clearly, someone like Fr Gregory would go for antiquity (or perceived antiquity) over modern developments any day of the week (for the record, Ender's Shadow, Fr Gregory is one of those who doesn't really want to bring in seating ... ![[Biased]](wink.gif) ) - but I also know that he can be seen as quite 'liberal' and something of a 'moderniser' by some Orthodox standards.
Morality is morality and timeless truths are timeless truths - I'm not suggesting that everything is subject to moral relativism. But just as we no longer tend to see mental illness as evidence of demonic possession (in the way that previous generations might have done) it does seem that there is a shifting of the goal-posts over time. The same-sex relationship issue is a case in point. I know quite a number of very conservative Christians who have shifted ground on this one.
How do we discern these things?
At the risk of putting Fr Gregory on the spot, he strikes me as more liberal on this one than many of his co-religionists. At what point does he become completely out on a limb? At one point do his co-religionists need to budge and modify their views?
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
If there is a desire to be relevant to the world then I think the Church is doomed to failure. We cannot be relevant to the world.
What the church must be, however, is accessible.
... There have to be times when the Church actually has to rebuke the world about its standards and morality, even if it means being less 'inclusive'.
The Church has to meet people where they are and speak to them in a language they can understand - of course, as a Salvation Army person, you know that. Presumably, that's what you mean by being accessible - but to me that also means being relevant and inclusive.
New times throw up new problems and new information. Moving with the times therefore involves reviewing customs, practice and perhaps even teachings, in order to find valid answers to new questions. That may sometimes involve a re-evaluation of the foundations on which Faith rests - and occasionally that may lead to a new understanding.
Whatever our Faith is, we always have to make sense of it and - if we're going to do any kind of outreach - help others to do the same. The idea that moving with timesnecessarily involves compromising your values is erroneous, though it is true that someone may use this phrase in an argument in order to try and persuade you to do just that. The argument that you must change your values in a certain direction simply in order to move with the times is obviously morally vacuuous, as the OP demonstrates. On the other hand, as Melon has argued, it is equally vacuous to suggest that all changes necessarily involve a movement in the wrong direction.
You talk about rebuking the world - but surely the point is that a rebuke is a relevant comment. I think being irrelevant means being unaware of what is going on (or behaving as if you are unaware) and having nothing to say about it.
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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Desert Daughter
Shipmate
# 13635
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Posted
I am no fan of the Zeitgeist, believe me. I have a very low opinion on pop culture, and the worrying tendency of mass theology to meet on the lowest common denominator. I am also highly critical of the current tendency of over-egalitarianism and Political Correctness nonsense, where everyone, regardless of the kind of crap they think or say, must be respectfully listened to. Sorry, but there you are. That being said, I do not think we ought to completely refuse to take note of what is going on around us.
At the risk of antagonising some of my more traditionally-minded fellow RCs
(not that I'd really mind that ![[Razz]](tongue.gif) ), I propose to approach this issue from a Process Theology perspective.
According to an article by P.S. Fiddes in the Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Modern Christian Thought, "Process theology conceives the world to be a social organism, an interdependent and interrelated whole, growing toward its satisfaction through a network of mutual influences among which are the persuasive aims of [...] The theology is based upon process philosophy as formulate by Alfred North Whitehead [...] Modern influences can be traced in G.W.F. Hegel, William James, Henri Bergson and C.S. Pierce [and, I may add, Teilhard de Chardin]. In contrast to traditional metaphysics based on substance and essence, reality according to process philosophy is characterised by becoming, change, and event [...] Change happens against a background of permanence, which is the organising principle of growth itself” [and thus something to calm down the essentialists].
For more, see also here
I don’t say I agree with all of it. It can easily be taken into too “western”, too pseudo-rational, sophistry. The turnoff to Mysticism (which Teilhard found) is often missed on this road.
Still, if we take this perspective, there is a need for “relevance to the world” in the church, but it must be grounded in its essential transcendence. A Christology of the Christ-in-us gave us Mother Theresa, Desmond Tutu, Dag Hammarskjöld and (yes, I’m procative here) the Liberation Theologians.
Beyond individuals, it also gave us Catholic Social Thought (read Caritas in Veritate -that encyclical reads in parts just like the manifesto of some Occupy- group), and that great body of Christian charitable institutions for which e.g. the Buddhists so admire us.
Jesus-the-man acted in the world and re-acted to it, yet he was firmly transcendent. He had no marketing campaign, no sleek spokesman, no logo and he definitely did not bend over backwards to pander to the Zeitgeist. He was The Christ, both historical and trans-historical.
I find the metaphor of the Martial Arts (especially Aïkido) helpful: Aïkido was founded by Morihei Ueshiba, himself a deeply spiritual man. It is neither about running away from things nor about beating the other guy senseless. It is about re-acting, being flexible, blending in at times, stepping slightly aside at others, but always remaining both non-antagonistic yet firmly rooted, with the aim of transforming the Other.
Who knows, in some quaint pub in heaven, Whitehead and Teilhard may meet Ueshiba to talk process theology. I hope I can join them when my time comes.
Cheers
![[Cool]](cool.gif)
[ 16. June 2012, 13:35: Message edited by: Desert Daughter ]
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"Prayer is the rejection of concepts." (Evagrius Ponticus)
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