9/11 and the City of Man

I have not posted in a while due to the demands of fatherhood and my summer school classes.  The following post is the introduction of the paper I am writing today.  Let me know your thoughts.

The world’s greatest metropolis stood burning, ashen and shell shocked. The unthinkable happened; people with lesser technology, lesser training and lesser mastery of the world struck a swift, furious blow to the heart of an economic empire, causing the markets to quake in the aftermath. The metropolis was thought untouchable, but these barbarians touched the sacred city.

Some of the high profile citizens assigned blame for this national tragedy. Of course they blamed the barbarians, but they believed there must have been some higher, spiritual reason why evil was allowed to touch this Western, Christianized metropolis. God must be offended; after all, this metropolis had left their historical, traditional form of worship and religion, turning to a form of atheism. Maybe the city’s turn to a false “religion” was to blame, they speculated.

Thus was the reaction of the pagan, polytheists when Alaric sacked the Christianized Rome in 410 AD. They charged the new religion of the Empire, Christianity, with causing the gods to send the barbarians to punish them. The irony cannot be missed when comparing this historical situation with the comments made by a few prominent Christians after the events of 9/11. These American Christians assured themselves and the public that God was judging the immorality, apostasy and atheism of America, and they were certain that God would continue to “lift the veil of protection” if American did not repent, returning to their historic Christian roots.

The irony is that 21st century American evangelicals made the same argument the pagans made when Rome was sacked. The irony is deeper when considering the fact that the pagans of Rome made this argument as a polemic attack upon Christianity. Sadly, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell do not appear to have truly appropriated a biblical view of the world, their nation and the history of both.

Rome was not a Christian Empire; it was not taking the privileged national place of Israel. Rome did not merit or have any biblical expectation to receive God’s protection, preserving national interests for eternity. The same is true for America. American evangelicals need to learn to separate the interests and future of the city of man from the city of God. Augustine took on this project almost 1600 years ago when he wrote The City of God, and the implementation of his project needs to continue today
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Day One Reflection on Medieval Theology

All you need is love; all you need is love, love; love is all you need.  These famous words, penned by the brilliant Lennon and McCartney, are more right theologically than we often assume.

Augustine and others in his day were deeply concerned about lapsarian priests and bishops, particularly as their lapse impacted the efficacy of sacraments.  "if the priest is not truly in the Church due to sin then is my baptism legitimate?", people often asked.  To wit, an overwhelming majority in the church in North Africa said, NO!  This response was deeply troubling for everyone to hear.  Christians asked, "what happens if I am baptized by a priest with an undisclosed pattern of sin in his life and years later I learn of the priest’s lapse from the Church?"  More common was the problem of a priest that recanted his faith under the duress of persecution, raising the question of his ability to  administer the sacraments.

Augustine called a time out from the ensuing panic and controversy, and spoke a calming word to the Church.  In his writing called Homilies on the First Epistle of John, he suggested that the Donatists (those who believed the efficacy of the sacrament depended upon the moral uprightness of the priest) were looking in the wrong place to find evidence that the sacrament worked, particularly as it related to the washing of sin in baptism. 

Baptism’s efficacy, he argued, was not contingent upon the priest or bishop, but the efficacy was found in the measure of love demonstrated in the life of the baptized Christian.  Rest easy fundamentalists, doctrine still mattered to Augustine, but, above all else, the quality of love in the life of a follower was the identifying hallmark. 

I don’t know about you, but I find that assertion very convicting.  The assurance of our life being in union in Christ is not evidence by the measure of orthodoxy (certainly it matters but it is insufficient by itself), but it is how we love one another in  an orthodox manner.  Love of the church, love of the scripture, love of Christ, love of our enemies.  Love, love, love what we need is love to know if our baptism in Christ and communion with Christ is efficacious.

Day Two Reflections on the Patristic Period: Mystery Not Mastery

            Preserving mystery not presenting mastery was the point of theological philosophizing at Nicene and elsewhere.  It was the heretics, the outsiders, the atheists that insisted upon the simplicity of the Ideal/Divine.  Yet it was the church that sought to maintain the mystery even while explaining the scriptures to pagans.  Homoousios was not an attempt to scientifically, philosophically "nail down" what God was, but a rendering, a painting, an artistic impression of His nature.  It was a term for comprehension with mystery not for dogmatic mastery.

            Why press for Enlightened, dogmatic certainty in our faith and theology?  To become like the ancient pagans that believed only the simple, the certain and the unified could be true of the divine.  Don’t be like the pagans and Enlightened rationalists.  Listen the ancient fathers, and leave room for mystery in our faith, theology and discussion of the same.