|
Source: (consider it)
|
Thread: Judaisation by stealth?
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
In my current preaching series I've reached Acts 15, which is the pivotal Council of Jerusalem at which (in what one friend of mine has described as a "fudge") the Church decides not to impose circumcision on non-Jewish converts but advises them not to eat food sacrificed to idols and refrain from various other practices.
It seems clear to me from this and other passages such as 1 Cor 10 and Rom 14 that the apostles are very clear on the comprehensive nature of grace, but also on the limits to which it can be enjoyed.
Specifically, all these passages indicate that while no legalistic obstacles should be placed in the way of people benefiting from grace, the beneficiaries should not abuse grace by provoking their weaker brethren who hold to more legalistic traditions.
My question is: doesn't this end up being Judaisation by stealth?
In NT terms, wouldn't this mean that even those who had no problem eating food sacrificed to idols ended up deferring to their Jewish fellow-believers so as not to offend their consciences (at least in public)? As they did so, they would be perpetuating an impression of Christian behaviour (Christians don't eat food sacrificed to idols) which would then rub off on the next generation, and so on.
Isn't the upshot of this precedent that we tend to defer increasingly to more conservative consciences, thereby recreating the very barriers to 'outsiders' receiving the Good News that the apostles were so keen to avoid?
Overturning this tendency is tempting, but it means running the risk of being a stumbling block to weaker brethren. That's a big responsibility.
Can grace win out in the end, or are we stuck with creeping legalism for the sake of our brother's conscience?
--------------------
Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
|
Posted
Since christianity was a Jewish sect at that time, it doesn't seem all that stealthy...
--Tom Clune
--------------------
This space left blank intentionally.
Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
Christianity is not a Jewish sect any more. I was wondering whether this exhortation to Christians to defer to others' weaker consciences doesn't lead, over time, to dulling the explosive message of grace and replacing it with covert legalism. We may not have a problem with food sacrificed to idols any more but there are various other shibboleths.
[ 26. October 2013, 12:03: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
--------------------
Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
My question is: doesn't this end up being Judaisation by stealth?
I think you've got it backwards. It is gentile christianisation by stealth that eventually overtook the jewish christians.
Palestinian christianity was jewish. Not one letter of the law shall be dropped says Matthew and Luke.
Pauline Christianity - to the gentiles - eventually takes over.
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
Can grace win out in the end, or are we stuck with creeping legalism for the sake of our brother's conscience?
I think you're swimming in the troubled waters that is the false dichotomy of law vs grace.
What do you mean by legalism?
Can you provide a more contemporary example of the kow-towing to conservatism than food laws?
--------------------
a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Crsos
Shipmate
# 238
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Can you provide a more contemporary example of the kow-towing to conservatism than food laws?
Charges of "stealth judaism" have an ugly history in Christianity. It was one of the more common charges used by the Inquisition against Jews who had converted to Christianity.
quote:
This behavior was particularly persecuted between 1300 and 1800 under the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions, using as a basis the many references in the Pauline epistles regarding the "Law as a curse" and the futility of relying on the Law for attaining salvation, known as legalism. Thus, in spite of Paul's agreement at the Council of Jerusalem, Gentile Christianity came to understand that any Torah Laws (with the exception of the Ten Commandments and Natural Law) were anathema, not only to Gentile Christians but even to Christians of Jewish extraction. Under the Inquisition, the penalty to a converted Jew for "Judaizing" was usually death by burning.
That's "more contemporary" than early church, insofar as it's a lot closer to the present day than it is to the time of the Apostles.
--------------------
Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Mockingbird
Mimus polyglottos navis
# 5818
|
Posted
The possibility of the "weaker brethren" (or those who claim to be) exercising a spiritual tyranny over the rest of us through their scruples is a possibility I can imagine, though I have never seen it.
The hypothetical can be discussed without bringing Jewish law into the discussion.
--------------------
Foržon we sealon efestan žas Easterlican žing to asmeagenne and to gehealdanne, žaet we magon cuman to žam Easterlican daege, že aa byš, mid fullum glaedscipe and wynsumnysse and ecere blisse.
Posts: 1443 | From: Between Broken Bow and Black Mesa | Registered: Apr 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Snags
Utterly socially unrealistic
# 15351
|
Posted
Maybe I'm just a simplistic creature, but I've always taken that passage to have an implicit "When in the presence of ...". So it's not so much a creeping legalism (although I can see how that can be derived from mis-application), as a call to consideration.
Thus if you or I have no problem with eat pork scratchings, and it's just us, or us plus similar/unbelieving friends down the pub, we eat pork scratchings. If we have our messianic jewish chum with us, who's still a bit bothered by the whole pork thing, and is working it through, we'll stick to cheese'n'onion crisps.
So it's a case of a little bit of give and take, never losing sight of the fact that grace covers all, so over time the weaker bretheren should become stronger, and the issue disappears ...
--------------------
Vain witterings :-: Vain pretentions :-: The Dog's Blog(locks)
Posts: 1399 | From: just north of That London | Registered: Dec 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Galilit
Shipmate
# 16470
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mockingbird:
The possibility of the "weaker brethren" (or those who claim to be) exercising a spiritual tyranny over the rest of us through their scruples is a possibility I can imagine, though I have never seen it.
I have.
The previous Moderator of the Church of Scotland (The Very Rev Albert Bogle) used this passage/ concept in his last-minute effort at this year's General Assembly. It prevented the passing of the remit permitting gay and Lesbian clergy.
--------------------
She who does Her Son's will in all things can rely on me to do Hers.
Posts: 624 | From: a Galilee far, far away | Registered: Jun 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Oscar the Grouch
Adopted Cascadian
# 1916
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Snags:
Maybe I'm just a simplistic creature, but I've always taken that passage to have an implicit "When in the presence of ...". So it's not so much a creeping legalism (although I can see how that can be derived from mis-application), as a call to consideration.
Thus if you or I have no problem with eat pork scratchings, and it's just us, or us plus similar/unbelieving friends down the pub, we eat pork scratchings. If we have our messianic jewish chum with us, who's still a bit bothered by the whole pork thing, and is working it through, we'll stick to cheese'n'onion crisps.
I think that this is absolutely right.
We live under grace, not law. But living under grace also means living by the law of love, which means that we moderate our own actions when in the presence of someone who might struggle.
The example I often think of is alcohol. I like a pint from time to time. I see no problem (as a Christian) with drinking beer. But if I am in the presence of someone I know to be a recovering alcoholic, it would be unloving of me to take him into a pub and then down a pint of Wadworth 6X in front of him.
--------------------
Faradiu, dundeibįwa weyu lįrigi weyu
Posts: 3871 | From: Gamma Quadrant, just to the left of Galifrey | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Oscar the Grouch
Adopted Cascadian
# 1916
|
Posted
(Sorry to double post...)
I think that there is a difference between what I have just described (which is an action by individuals) and the idea that a whole denomination should temper its actions to placate the fears of a minority.
The same principle of love is still at work, of course. But when you are talking about the decisions of an organisation or denomination, you end up getting into a complete muddle or just becoming paralysed.
Let's take the issue which has already been mentioned - permitting gay and lesbian clergy. If you start saying "we can't allow this, because some of our members will be offended", you end up NOT doing it and still finding that another grouo of people are offended. An organisation HAS to be clear about what it is approving or refusing. Then once it has made a decision, it needs to implement it with as much love as possible. The alternative is to move at the pace of the slowest person - which effectively means never changing at all, because there will always be SOMEONE who is going to be offended.
--------------------
Faradiu, dundeibįwa weyu lįrigi weyu
Posts: 3871 | From: Gamma Quadrant, just to the left of Galifrey | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
|
Posted
Let us take care not to fall into stealth DH. The points made have been appropriate illustrations, but they tread a fine line. Please make all reasonable efforts to illustrate your point with examples that can be thoroughly dissected on this board.
--Tom Clune, Purgatory Host
--------------------
This space left blank intentionally.
Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Garasu
Shipmate
# 17152
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
Let us take care not to fall into stealth DH. The points made have been appropriate illustrations, but they tread a fine line. Please make all reasonable efforts to illustrate your point with examples that can be thoroughly dissected on this board.
--Tom Clune, Purgatory Host
Isn't that kind of the point?
However: how about alcohol?
I've been in various meetings where statements of the sort "I have no problem with people drinking alcohol but we must have concern for <Friends who object/ people with alcohol dependency issues/ people who are on courses which preclude indulgence in alcohol...>"
--------------------
"Could I believe in the doctrine without believing in the deity?". - Modesitt, L. E., Jr., 1943- Imager.
Posts: 889 | From: Surrey Heath (England) | Registered: Jun 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
The point about Jewish law was not that it was anathema, but that under grace it is not necessary for salvation.
This questioning is not so much about grace versus legalism, but about the potential for legalism creeping back in under cover of grace.
To take the example of alcohol. A new Christian might note that none of his new brothers and sisters drink (well, in fact they do, but they do so out of sight in order not to offend any of their weaker brethren). So he drops alcohol (at least in public) basically to conform to the group.
He might still think that there's nothing wrong with drinking, but it might be difficult not to end up feeling a little superior to those who do (we 'proper, sanctified Christians' don't). Pretty soon he may have got himself to the place where if Jesus comes along, he will be scorned for hanging out with the wine-bibbers, and if like his brethren this Christian also enjoys a private not-in-front-of-the-potentially-weak-conscience-others tipple, he may well be in danger of being blasted by Jesus as a hypocrite.
In this hypothetical example, these are all people who technically believe in grace and its reach, yet they have somehow got themselves to a place where they have added more hoops to jump through before someone can feel they are recognised and welcomed as being a recipient of grace.
--------------------
Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
What a brilliant question Eutychus.
THE answer: Inclusion is omnidirectional. All the way.
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Galilit
Shipmate
# 16470
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
... more hoops to jump through before someone can feel they are recognised and welcomed as being a recipient of grace.
Brilliant thought for Reformation Sunday!
--------------------
She who does Her Son's will in all things can rely on me to do Hers.
Posts: 624 | From: a Galilee far, far away | Registered: Jun 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
What a brilliant question Eutychus.
THE answer: Inclusion is omnidirectional. All the way.
It should be. But can it be? As church members gradually get their lives sorted out, over time doesn't their community run the danger of morphing into a body that's technically grace-filled but implicitly requires observance of a whole set of rules to be part of?
Either that or you're going to have to exegete your answer a little more.
--------------------
Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
Rats. You called my bluff. OK. I was in Rome yesterday and today. Saw himself from a bus last night. I HAVE to include Roman Catholicism. Not just because Francis is the most attractive Pope I have ever known by far. My wife and I shook our heads over the immense real estate of the RCC and the shattered beggars and bag ladies outnumbered 1000:1 by ... us. The rich. And HAVE to include it. Us. Them. I waffled on as usual integrating that and Brave New World (where the hero works out what's going on and is arrested only to be given the keys to the kingdom) and the adult responsibility to our children to helplessly endure their suffering and that which they cause.
It ALL monistically integrates for me. As I struggle to submit to embracing the increasingly Charismatic® Evangelical® congo of which we are a part. I see no church members getting their lives sorted out, no churches doing that collectively, not mine or any I've attended. Martin Luther accepted the dogmatic, liturgical needs of Reformed Roman Catholics, it's that or NOTHING. And yeah this is my typical stream of consciousness, 'cos that's all there is. I mean of anyone, some rhetoric is more polished that others. Unless the leadership is inclusive, as the appallingly flawed Luther was, there is no flock, no hope.
I mean I've been reaching out to an EDL guy, just refusing to be alienated from him. Freaks him out. Only by being inclusive of the non-inclusive, of the alienated, of the deeply inculturated, will we ever see Muslim Christians, Hindu Christians, New Age Christians, Atheist Christians just as we see Roman and Orthodox and Con Evo ones.
That the world finds this confusing, it will see that we love one another. That is evangelizing. There is no risk. Except to us, the 'enlightened' if we get impatient.
You may say I'm a dreamer ...
The million starlings I saw and heard over Rome last night in their fabulous chaos reflected us in the sky: as above, so below.
Leadership like yours is rare and precious and not to be blunted, whilst conserving ALL your flock. We have to give the 'weak' what they want, find a way to embrace it, to make it work, gently stretch their paradigms from it, use their language, grasp it and sneak postmodernism back to them.
Isn't that what Jesus did? Overcome, subvert the dominant culture from beneath, from within, alongside.
All terribly woolly I know. I'm just sick of being against anything. I just want to be for stuff. Find a way.
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
quote:
Isn't that what Jesus did? Overcome, subvert the dominant culture from beneath, from within, alongside.
That's certainly close to the way I see him doing things. Maybe you're right and the Council of Jerusalem was another imperfect step on the way to achieving that. I hope so.
--------------------
Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
comet
Snowball in Hell
# 10353
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
I'm just sick of being against anything. I just want to be for stuff. Find a way.
Martin, I do love you, you know. ME TOO only hey - what Oscar says really resounds with me, too. and the only examples I can think of are Dead Horses.
...
Say the traditionalists were still sticking to the "no shellfish" thing, and saying they can't include shellfish eaters in their church, no matter what 'cause OT law says so and shellfish eaters are an abomination and heading straight for sulphury climes. And the crab fishermen are saying they want to be a part of things but crab fishing and eating isn't just their livelihood but who they are and while they love Christ and want to be a part of things, they could no more give up crabbing than give up oxygen. And we know that inclusive means crabbers have a place at the table, too. But these traditionalists have drawn their lines in the sand.
Do we tell the crabbers "thanks but no thanks" and close our doors to them? do we give up our deep and abiding love of the dungeness dipped in hot butter? all to make the legal literalists feel better?
--------------------
Evil Dragon Lady, Breaker of Men's Constitutions
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning. -Calvin
Posts: 17024 | From: halfway between Seduction and Peril | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Russ
Old salt
# 120
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Only by being inclusive of the non-inclusive, of the alienated, of the deeply inculturated, will we ever see Muslim Christians, Hindu Christians, New Age Christians, Atheist Christians just as we see Roman and Orthodox and Con Evo ones...
...That the world finds this confusing, it will see that we love one another. That is evangelizing.
Isn't that what Jesus did? Overcome, subvert the dominant culture from beneath, from within, alongside.
All terribly woolly I know. I'm just sick of being against anything. I just want to be for stuff. Find a way.
I think logically if there's any idea that you're for then you're against the negation of that idea. So no way through there.
Jesus set up no institution that took policy positions. There's a sense in which he was crucified because he wouldn't take sides between the Roman authorities and the Jewish nationalists. His message has a lot to do with the mercy that can't be institutionalised.
Man makes culture; it's what we do. The Christian fundamentalists are those who idolise the church culture through which they were brought to an imperfect (because everyone's is) knowledge of Christ. If you want Muslim Christians etc then you're wanting Christianity to be a thing that can profess no culture, flourish in all cultures, in order to refine and baptise all cultures.
But you can't be a Christian outside a community, and all communities have a communal culture, ways we do or don't behave with each other, norms and unwritten rules.
Which is I think where the postmodernism comes in. That while we can't be Christians with no culture, we can perhaps be Christians with a core principle of love/mercy/grace and hold our own culture at a distance - know it, enjoy it, be creative within it but don't take it with ultimate seriousness.
And if the weaker brethren are those who need to believe in their culture ?
Best wishes,
Russ
--------------------
Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
LutheranChik
Shipmate
# 9826
|
Posted
My perception is that, yes, the "weaker brethren" argument always seems to run only in one, conservative direction; that social conservatives never seem to make allowances for perceived "weaknesses" in persons within the Church whose opinions/practices differ from theirs.
Living in the US, with its current social/political take-no-prisoners polarization, doesn't help. It's a mindset that tends to permeate all areas of our culture.
--------------------
Simul iustus et peccator
http://www.lutheranchiklworddiary.blogspot.com
Posts: 6462 | From: rural Michigan, USA | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
I've just got back from a conference on religion in prisons which has given me another great illustration of the sort of thing I'm talking about.
A speaker presented her research into social rehabilitation programmes for former inmates, including ones run by baptists in the former GDR.
She said that the baptists did a great job of fostering social inclusion, inculcating better behaviour, getting people off drugs and alcohol and so on - but were merciless in the event of people who had followed the programme reoffending. Are they beyond grace? And how can the programme be successfully run if stern sanctions are not taken against those who fail?
[ 29. October 2013, 20:35: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
--------------------
Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
Beautiful as ever Russ. Aye, the weaker brethren are those who need to believe in their culture ... OOOOH! That includes me. Us. Here. Yes I'm hoist with me own petard of being against the negation of my inclusivity, but it's like a second order derivative in maths. I must include the negation. I do. Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Conservative Evangelicalism and Islam all exclude me in the name of culture confused as truth. I must include them regardless.
LutheranChik - lonely are the brave, the one-way inclusive, the sacrificial. There is NO quid pro quo with God at all. Doing the right thing is its own reward.
comet & thereby Oscar the Grouch, I drafted this last night, it's no better now:
![[Smile]](smile.gif) aye comet, Oscar the Grouch is right. There are limits to how far we cater to minorities.
...
Your analogy is superb. I have been a literal and metaphoric "no shellfish" man. I now find myself in uncharted waters. Finding a way. Like my vicar.
In my charismatic evangelical congo there will never be a carcinophagous vicar (the congo will die first, and it will). But the vicar we have is quite superbly inclusive from a far more conservative position than me. He ordered a man never to use certain Biblical words about "shellfish" in his hearing. No fear of losing a nasty old ram there. He was approached by a female carcinophagous couple with a child who said that they were not permissive, did not believe that anything goes and was there a place for them? He assured them that there was.
That seems to be as good as it will get for now and a long time to come.
Like the poor, we will always have the non-inclusive.
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Adam.
Like as the
# 4991
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LutheranChik:
My perception is that, yes, the "weaker brethren" argument always seems to run only in one, conservative direction;
I don't think that's true. I've been able to use that argument to get people to use gender-inclusive (horizontal) language, to give just one example of it going in the other direction.
--------------------
Ave Crux, Spes Unica!
Preaching blog
Posts: 8164 | From: Notre Dame, IN | Registered: Sep 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Can you provide a more contemporary example of the kow-towing to conservatism than food laws?
It's a bit belated now, but having thought of it: I have repeatedly heard the weaker brethren argument as a reason to teetotal.
Case in point.
--------------------
Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view
