Date: Wed, 23 May 2001 14:03:26 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: phenomenology of religion


Henk and Allen,

(For the sake of convenience let's call me PJ for the
rest of this discussion -- the blur between Paul the
Apostle and Paul Johnston [both called "Paul"] is
beginning to make me feel vertiginous).

It's possible that I didn't make Lindbeck's notion of
doctrine sufficiently clear.  I suspect this because
we're not "tracking" to one another's basic ideas. 
The person I disagree with the most in this
conversation is not Allen or Henk (as one would
expect) but Myself-as-Implied-in-Your-Messages.

For instance, the concept of Halakhah Allen expounds
as being in agreement with "Henk's characterization of
Heidegger's characterization of Paul" (and as being
one in which the *what* cannot be understood except in
the *how*) is none other than the NT concept of
Halakhah -- shared, I think, by the evangelists _and_
Paul and James, not constituting the basis of an
alleged distinction between them.  The canonical Jesus
and Paul throw a lot of negative language at real,
existing Halakhah -- but then introduce the functional
equivalent of it into Christian discourse from the
get-go.  (Cf. James 2, Matthew 5, Romans 13).  I
accept and honor this NT concept of Halakhah, which
understands the keeping of mitzvot (particular
"whats") as inevitable concomitants to living one's
life according to the appropriate "how" (incarnate
love that conducts itself as disciplined adherence to
the "royal law").

"You do well if you really fulfill the royal law
according to the scripture, 'You shall love your
neighbor as yourself.'" (James then introduces a
particular 'short-list' of traditional mitzvot a
Christian might transgress and therein fail in their
duties, drawn from the ten commandments).  

"Do not think I have come to abolish the law or the
prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. 
For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass
away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will
pass from the law until all is accomplished (then
Jesus delivers the rest of the sermon on the mount as
a series of commandments Christians must honor in
order to fulfill the law in love).  

"Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for
the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.  The
commandments, 'You shall not commit adultery; You
shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not
covet"; and any other commandment, are summed up in
this word, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'  Love
does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the
fulfilling of the law" (Paul gives a general
injunction to people to fulfill the law through
loving, again with a short-list of traditional mitvot
a Christian must keep if serious about fulfilling the
law in love).  

The canonical NT, for all its abusive language
directed towards the Halakhah, cannot be understood as
being without a functional equivalent of the Halakhah;
a concept of Halakhah is too obviously and palpably
present.  Paul's alleged antinomianism is calculated
in terms of its rhetorical effect, and to maximize the
difference (in point of fact quite minimal) between
first century Jews and Christians.  But his ethical
injunctions are incomprehensible without the
presuppositions of Halakhah.

>From this, it almost trivially follows that I agree
with my friend and colleague Dale Patrick in the
following observation (recounted by Allen):

>Patrick suggests that the only way the claim of the
>First Commandment ("I am the Lord your God. . .") 
>can be "assessed" (by which I mean some sort of 
>non-objectifying alternative to proof) is through 
>the observance of the laws which follow.  That is,
>the "what," i.e. Yahweh being who he says he is, 
>can only be understood through the "how," that is
>through the observance of the Halakhah.

So where does the presumption of disagreement enter
in?  I think in a misapprehension of the nature of
doctrine in Lindbeck's project.  Henk thinks doctrine
is a matter in which what Heidegger calls "theoretical
proof" is going to be determinative (perhaps Henk
conceptualizes doctrine as the aggregate collection of
proposition-bearing sentences within a given religious
discourse).  In fact, that's the notion of doctrine
that Lindbeck most targets himself against. 

Lindbeck understands a given religion as a "form of
life" which has certain
behaviors/liturgies/disciplines/sentences as its
indispensible props -- "doctrine" in Lindbeck's sense
consists of "communally authoritative teachings
regarding belief and practice that are considered
essential to the identity and welfare of the group in
question." (Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine 74). 
Their truth is not evaluated on the basis of their
correspondence to realities external to the discourse,
but on the basis of what he calls "intra-systematic
coherence" (how well these items cohere in propagating
the religious form of life in its particular
teleological ends).  One of his famous lines is "Jesus
Christ is Lord is never true when it's being shouted
as one cleaves the skull of an infidel" (because this
wouldn't cohere with the non-violent presuppositions
implicit in the Christian form of life).  Whether or
not somewhere in the metaphysical aether there is a
Jesus Christ who is (truly and really) the universe's
unquestioned Lord is a shell-game -- the context in
which the claim "Jesus Christ is Lord" is meaningful
is the attempt to live a Christian life in which all
one's traditionally-received Christian
behaviors/articulations (however interpreted) cohere
in a self-reinforcing whole that enhances one's
efforts to realize the distinctive teleology of
Christian life.  I see parallels to Mordecai Kaplan,
and possibilities for a "Reconstructionist"
Christianity.  A religious way of life is essential
for the cultivation and preservation of religious
doctrine (as its animating teleology); religious
doctrine is essential to the propagation and
cultivation of the religious way of life (as its
indisipensible "efficient means").

I think Allen Scult (or perhaps Mel Scult???) should
be interested in the articulation of "Anglican
normativity" enclosed below.  It's an authoritative
decision from the ecclesiastical court authorized to
deliberate on the nature of doctrine and heresy in
Anglicanism; the salient feature that commands
attention is that Lindbeck is explicitly invoked as
the governing understanding of the nature of doctrine.
 Please read this document closely; the parallels to
Reconstruction Judaism (and the possibilities for
parallel theological work) are numerous and
impressive.  The general notion is that one's
orthodoxy in every matter of normative importance can
be presupposed if one demonstrates one's ability to
utilize the patterns of public worship outlined in the
Church's authorized liturgies; if one can realize the
religious form of life in question, and hit upon all
the elements of received tradition required in the
authorized liturgies in so doing, one has enacted a
compelling and non-heretical performance of the
Christian life and cannot be considered a heretic no
matter what one might believe.


from
http://www.andromeda.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/summary.html
(a summary of Righter v. Stanton)



Core Doctrine

Within Anglicanism there is a long tradition of appeal
to fundamental doctrine as supplying a basis for
reckoning a Church to be a true Church. This "Core
Doctrine" of the Church arises out of the Gospel
itself, and is rooted and grounded in Holy Scripture.
It is the story of God's relationship to God's people,
and has been entrusted to the Church as the people of
God, the bearers of God's mission to "restore all
people to unity with God and each other in Christ."
(See "An Outline of the Faith commonly called the
Catechism," Book of Common Prayer, 855). 

The Court holds to the ancient distinction between the
Core Doctrine which is derived from the Gospel
preaching, kerygma, and the Church's teaching,
didache, of those things necessary for our life in
community and the world. The kerygma is found in the
life and teaching of Jesus and the preaching and
evangelistic action of the Church revealed in the New
Testament and other early Christian documents. Sound
and trustworthy biblical scholarship has identified
the basic contents of the kerygma. See, for example,
C.H. Dodd, The Apostolic Preaching (New York and
London: Harper & Bros., 1936). They are: 

God in Christ fulfills the scripture. 
God became incarnate in Jesus Christ. 
Christ was crucified. 
Christ was buried. 
Christ rose again. 
Christ was exalted to God. 
God gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit. 
There will be a day of judgment. 
Therefore repent. 

This kerygma evolved during a period of controversy
which culminated in the first four General Councils of
the Church, and was given expression in particular
through the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds, in agreement
with the formula of St. Vincent of Lerins, the
so-called Vincentian Canon: "What has been believed
everywhere, always, and by all." (See F.L. Cross, ed.,
Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church [London:
Oxford, 1957], 1423). Core Doctrine is understood as
of the essence of Christianity and necessary for
salvation, and is therefore binding on all who are
baptized. Core Doctrine, therefore, is unchangeable. 

Where is Core Doctrine to be Found?

Anglicans have important grounds for viewing the
Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral of 1886, 1888 (see Book
of Common Prayer, 876) as a reflection of this
understanding of Core Doctrine, one which sets forth
what we hold as essential to the restoration of the
unity of the Church. This Quadrilateral describes not
only articles of belief but a way of life. The use of
scripture and the creeds in worship, the centrality of
the dominical sacraments of Holy Baptism and the
Eucharist, and the practice of episcopal government
represent elements which seek to ensure the
transmission of orthodox apostolic doctrine, not
solely to propound it. We are guided by the Anglican
understanding of lex orandi, lex credendi, (the law of
prayer, the law of faith). Worship, when faithful to
Holy Scripture, expresses the kerygma as the living
dwelling place of the Church's Core Doctrine. It is
this tradition of "continu[ing] in the apostles'
teaching and fellowship" which we pledge to continue
in the Baptismal Covenant. (See ibid., 304). 

It is this Core Doctrine, and not the broad definition
urged by the dissent, which is protected by the Canons
of the Church, particularly Canon IV.1.1(2) (1994)
(cf. Canon IV.1.1(c) [1996]) which we have before us
today. Teaching contrary to this Core Doctrine is
constrained by this Canon. 

Theology is Different From Doctrine

We also agree with the 1924 holding in the Bishop
Brown Case that doctrine in the Anglican sense is to
be established by the whole Church acting in its
corporate capacity. Doctrine is not to be confused
with "theology" which is prayerful reflection on
scripture and Core Doctrine in the light of the
Christian experience. While such reflection has helped
to form doctrine, theology may also offer diverse
understandings of Holy Scripture and doctrine. It is a
reflection upon and guidance for Christian life and
practice. The Anglican tradition has encouraged
theological diversity and supports faithful
exploration in developing theology rather than a
confessional definition. Nevertheless, all theology is
in the end to be subordinated to the Core Doctrine of
the Church's faith. 

Count One Dismissed

Accordingly, the Court holds that the protection
afforded by the disciplinary canons of Title IV to
matters of doctrine is limited to what we describe as
Core Doctrine. The Court finds that there is no Core
Doctrine prohibiting the ordination of a non-celibate,
homosexual person living in a faithful and committed
sexual relationship with a person of the same sex and
therefore the Court dismisses Count 1. 

Traditional Doctrinal Teaching

\Alongside the Core Doctrine through the ages has
stood the Church's teaching, the didache. Various
sources, including documents submitted to the Court,
call this teaching "doctrine," "doctrinal teaching,"
and "traditional teaching." The terms are frequently
used interchangeably. For instance, we speak of the
Church's "doctrine of marriage;" sometimes this
"doctrine" is referred to as the Church's "traditional
teaching." In every instance, it is intended by the
Church to be an expression of the contours by which
faithful Christian marriage is to be lived. As another
example, we speak of the "just war doctrine" in
attempting to offer ethical and moral standards to
guide us in deciding whether or not to go to war.
Doctrinal teachings as illustrated by these examples
are used by the Church to guide its members in living
the faith day by day in the Church and the world.
Doctrinal teachings, grounded in Holy Scripture, seek
to interpret the Holy Scripture, the Core Doctrine
described above, and the Church's tradition, that the
people of God may understand and faithfully live out
the mission entrusted to us. As the dissent points
out, there are other examples of teachings that are
referred to as "doctrine" such as the "doctrine of
episcopal collegiality." 

Doctrinal teachings are of vital importance for the
life of the Church. They are the deposit of the
Church's tradition from age to age, understood and
expounded by the gift of reason which integrates the
lived experience of the people of God in particular
times and places, under the guidance of the Holy
Spirit. "Doctrine" in this sense consists of
"communally authoritative teachings regarding belief
and practice that are considered essential to the
identity and welfare of the group in question." (See
George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine
[Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984], 74). 

Traditional teachings give guidance to the Church and
focus its life and that of its members. They contain
the patterns of interpretation and ethics that guide
us amid the challenges and decisions that pull and tug
at the disciples of Jesus the Christ. The history of
Anglicanism has from the sixteenth century to the
present been marked by an effort to understand the
relation between traditional teaching and the demands
of life within changing social, political, and
theological understandings and realities. 

It is significant that both Presenters and Respondent
have sought support for their position in the Laws of
Ecclesiastical Polity of Richard Hooker (1554-1600), a
work which has shaped Anglican theology to the
present. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, Folger
Library Edition of The Works of Richard Hooker,
1977-1993). Hooker is at pains, in the controversies
with Puritan elements in England, to shape and defend
a church polity within which there is a unity of
vision linking scripture, tradition, and reason. No
church polity is good, he argues, unless God is its
author. But God is present as author either by light
of the scripture itself, or by the natural light of
reason guided by the Holy Spirit. Although scripture
is the source of many laws, there are "laws for the
Polity of the Church [which] may be made by the advice
of men . . . those Laws being not repugnant to the
Word of God are approved by his sight." Thus, there
are matters for which the scripture hath not provided
by any law, but left them unto the carefull discretion
of the Church: . . . and what is so in these cases,
partely scripture and partly reason must teach to
discerne. 

(Ibid., vol. III, intro. and ch. ix. 1.). For our
purposes, it is enough to note that Hooker's effort at
comprehensiveness has shaped a tradition extending
through such figures as Frederick Denison Maurice and
Charles Gore in the last century, and William Temple
and Michael Ramsey in our own. In From Gore to Temple:
The Development of Anglican Theology between Lux Mundi
and the Second World War (London: Lonmans, 1960), 27,
Ramsey wrote:

There is . . . a distinctive witness still to be borne
by Anglican theology out of the depths of its own
tradition. . . . There is here a task that Anglican
theology can yet perform, by keeping alive the
importance of history in the manner of its great
divines of the past, by strenuous attempts to relate
Biblical revelation to other categories of thought in
the contemporary world, by striving to integrate dogma
with spirituality in the life of prayer, by presenting
the Church as the effectual sign of the supernatural
in the midst of the natural order. 
The Court understands that doctrinal teaching in the
broad sense includes belief, practice, faith, and
morals. Stability of doctrinal teaching is important
for the order and unity of the Church. Nevertheless,
the context in which we live, worship and carry out
our ministry does change. As the context changes, the
Church's teaching may also change in order to guide us
in living the Christian life as we face new
circumstances and understandings. Changes in doctrinal
teaching must always seek to be in conformity and
obedience to the Core Doctrine as interpreted by the
Church in its corporate capacity. 


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