Orthodoxy, Bible, etc. etc.

Am I a progressive Christian? If being a progressive Christian means being LGBT+ affirming, being in favour of women’s ordination and generally having left-leaning politics, then I am one. But little about that description speaks to one’s disposition towards what are the more central questions of Christian identity: who is Jesus? Who and what is God? How are the authority of the Bible and the Church to be understood? What are the sacraments? Etc.

Many conservative Christians and progressive Christians seem to agree that socially conservative outcomes are a necessary consequence of much of what has been considered orthodox Christian doctrine (more on this term in a moment), only differing on the conclusions they draw from this. For conservative Christians, there’s often a doubling down on conservative attitudes: that we cannot, for instance, countenance a more egalitarian understanding of the relationship between men and women in the church because tugging at this thread may threaten to unravel Christian orthodoxy itself. For progressives, if Christianity is to repent of its association with patriarchy, with queerphobia, with colonialism and so on, what is needed (to a greater or lesser extent) is a willingness to deconstruct orthodox Christian doctrine.

In this framework, conservative Christians and progressive Christians are not just people who disagree about particular moral issues, but rather people who almost seem to belong to different theological traditions altogether. But I think this framework, which views Christian theology entirely through the lens of a modern political spectrum, obscures more than it clarifies. There is a kernel of truth in it: what one thinks about particular moral issues must inevitably reflect, to some degree, what one thinks about God. But I don’t think things so neatly line up along these lines.

I’ll lay my own cards out on the table: both extremes are incorrect in equating Christian tradition with conservatism. The actual, lived reality of the Church is much more complex than that. For myself, as a trans woman I’ve known first hand how certain understandings of orthodoxy can be oppressive and repressive (conservatives are indeed wrong to dismiss progressive critiques as just an antinomian enthusiasm!); but I’ve also more often than not found my liberation through a thoughtful engagement with what tradition has to offer, rather than a wholehearted embrace of all innovation that happens in the spirit of progressivism. It may be that an excessive clinging to tradition is indicative of a resistance towards where the Holy Spirit may be calling us in our own time, just as an excessive despising of tradition may be a discounting of the work the Holy Spirit has already accomplished; but nevertheless I think what is necessary isn’t a compromise between conservative and progressive extremes, but rather a rejection of this framework altogether.

But what do I mean by orthodox Christian doctrine and tradition. Orthodoxy within Christianity has not been a universal or static concept, and there are many ecclesial traditions on offer these days. Indeed within my own life as a Christian, the meaning of that word has shifted in the course of my journey from Catholicism to Protestantism. A younger version of me would have identified it with high ecclesial authority where the Church, infallibly guided by the Holy Spirit, sets the standards of Christian faith and morals.

Nowadays I would give the classic Protestant line that the Church is authoritative only insofar as she is faithful to the Word of God attested in Holy Scripture. But there is an important wrinkle in here – despite some Protestant attempts to treat it as such, the Bible is not a book of prefabricated doctrines. Orthodoxy and dogma are not identical with the Bible, but instead emerge through reflection upon it.

But this opens up a rabbit hole: why can’t we treat the Bible as a source of prefabricated doctrine? What about the Bible itself specifically forecloses this possibility? The most mundane and obvious answer is that the Bible is a collection of different many books in a variety of different genres and styles, and that wrangling all of that material into a few definitive propositions about what the Bible teaches is something that thoughtful Christians throughout the ages have always known to require careful interpretation.

But to leave the answer at that is to treat the Bible as though it were only about ‘teaching’, perhaps doing it in a more excellent way than other books of the sort, but not differing in kind from them. To quote Katherine Sonderegger,

Christians do not read the Bible in order to learn about God, though of course it can be done in this fashion! Rather, we read Holy Scripture in order to enter into the Divine Presence, to walk before Him, to draw near. This is the dearness of Scripture, in its intimate charisma, its lovely familiarity. Christians do not understand or embrace or rest at ease with every last verse of Scripture; it remains a strange book, sometimes an alien and terrible one. But to hear the history and song and parable and law book of Holy Scripture is to come into the penumbra of a welcome Light, to touch a lovely garment, well-worn, and to love a token, a remnant and sign, of the One who irresistibly calls us to himself. Just so the very bones of the saints, the handwriting of a lover, the schoolbooks of a child, the well-worn path of a pilgrim, heading across the golden fields of Chatres: just so are these dear to us, the sign and fragrance of the beloved. So the vast arc of the Bible shelters the Presence, the Living Fire, of the eternal Teacher who radiates His own Vitality to the earth. (Sonderegger, 265) (Emphasis added)

Holy Scripture thus has a sacramental character: we prayerfully approach it in order to encounter the invisible God through the humble visible means of its words, just as we approach the bread and wine of Holy Communion in the hopes of encountering the invisible God. Treating the Bible as though it were the ultimate textbook is to miss this entire dimension.

This also has epistemological consequences. As Sonderegger notes, if the authority of the Bible comes from God being present in it in a unique way, then this forecloses the possibility of ‘proving’ its veracity and authority through secular means. (ibid. 518-521) Indeed, even doctrinal notions such as Plenary Inspiration and Verbal Inerrancy, meant to shore up biblical authority, risk stapling God down to the written word and compromising His sovereignty and invisibility. (ibid. 516)

But in saying all of this, Sonderegger is speaking rather closely with the spirit of John Calvin himself:

Let it therefore be held as fixed, that those who are inwardly taught by the Holy Spirit acquiesce implicitly in Scripture; that Scripture carrying its own evidence along with it, deigns not to submit to proofs and arguments, but owes the full conviction with which we ought to receive it to the testimony of the Spirit.

[….]

…[I]n holding it, we hold unassailable truth…because we feel a divine energy living and breathing in it[.] (Calvin, 33-4)

When we articulate doctrine, it is a thoughtful response to the encounter with God in Scripture. But in this life, we do not see God face-to-face. Hence orthodoxy can be nothing more than an approximation. Orthodoxy has an inherently provisional character. Bruce McCormack, in discussing the theologian Karl Barth’s relationship to orthodoxy, explains things rather well:

Ultimately, orthodox teaching is that which conforms perfectly to the Word of God as attested in Holy Scripture. But given that such perfection is not attainable in this world, it is understandable that Karl Barth should have regarded “Dogma” as an eschatological concept. The “dogmas” (i.e., the teachings formally adopted and promulgated by individual churches) are witnesses to the Dogma and stand in a relation of greater or lesser approximation to it. But they do not attain it perfectly—hence, the inherent reformability of all “dogmas.” Orthodoxy is not therefore a static, fixed reality; it is a body of teachings that have arisen out of, and belong to, a history which is as yet incomplete and constantly in need of reevaluation. (McCormack, 16) (Emphasis added)

In talking about the value of orthodoxy and tradition, I do not mean the value of dogma that can never be interrogated or reformulated. Rather, what is of value is the shared grammar that allows one to enter into this dialogue, this history that stretches through time and across culture. It provides a necessary check against seeing one’s own cultural milieu as providing the neutral framework for understanding the Gospel.

The danger of tinkering with that grammar a little too radically is that one loses that point of contact and winds up with a Christianity that is quite parochial and only relevant to those of a particular time and culture.

In saying all this, I don’t mean to pit Christian doctrine and tradition against the insights of modern secular culture and science. Doctrines do not exist in a vacuum. To quote Sarah Coakley,

doctrine always has an embedded texture, a set of subliminal cultural and societal associations and evocations, as well as its ‘plain’ meaning. Thus often one must read between or under the lines to see what is going on doctrinally in context. The tools of the social sciences, when stripped of secularizing pretensions, are vital for any such investigation[.] (Coakley, 81)

This great dialogue and history of orthodoxy is never without a cultural context, and is always in the hands of all too fallible humans. The perspectives of feminist thought, queer theory, postcolonial thought, etc. thus still have their value in shining a light on blind spots and abuses. We can ask, for instance, how patriarchal or cisheteronormative prejudices have potentially warped how doctrine is understood and applied.

We will always in some way ‘fail’. Our understanding and experience of God will always inevitably be conditioned to some extent by our cultural and personal biases. What is called for is neither a wilful ignorance of our blind spots, nor a despair of ever truly knowing God. In the God-Human dyad, God is the basic term. God wills to dwell with us and in us. That reality sets the terms for our epistemological and moral puzzles, rather than the other way around.

To loop back to my initial question: am I a progressive Christian? In the sort of ‘dialectical orthodoxy’ I have attempted to sketch above, there is space for socially progressive outcomes; indeed I would argue that those outcomes are simply part and parcel of Church renewal. So yes, I am.

Works Cited

Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge. Hendrickson Publishers Marketing, 2008.

Coakley, Sarah. God, Sexuality, and the Self: An Essay ‘On the Trinity’. Cambridge University Press, 2013.

McCormack, Bruce L. Orthodox and Modern: Studies in the Theology of Karl Barth. Baker Academic, 2008.

Sonderegger, Katherine. Systematic Theology: Volume 1, The Doctrine of God. Fortress Press, 2015.