104 - Orthodoxy Again: A Reply

Orthodoxy Again: A Reply
By Clay B. Carr, Jr.

ALBERT OUTLER'S comments in the "Critic's Corner" on my article "Orthodoxy as Open-ended" (both in the October, 1962, THEOLOGY TODAY) were interesting and helpful. Particularly is this true of his remarks on the "borders" of a Christian realm of discourse.

Two comments, however, require some sort of a reply. Professor Outler seems to feel that in addressing myself to a "strictly doctrinal" concept of orthodoxy I am tilting at windmills. Specifically, he finds my challenge "clear and persuasive," if there are many people remaining who hold to such a doctrinal understanding.

Whether the challenge is clear and generally persuasive or not, the "if"' seems to me unnecessary. Let us forget for a moment the thirty-five million Roman Catholics in this country, who are by and large bound to just such an understanding, and deal only with Protestants. The two fastest-growing major Protestant denominations are not Methodist (Dr. Outler's) or Episcopal (my own) but Southern Baptist and Missouri Synod Lutheran. These two bodies are committed to a doctrinal understanding of orthodoxy such as I outlined in my article. Perhaps more seriously, their growth is occurring not in the backwoods but in the suburbs.

But there is another facet to this. In the small town where I presently am ministering, only two of fourteen Protestant churches represent any form of post-liberal Christianity. My own is one-yet I find that the majority of my parishioners still conceive of orthodoxy (and faith) in doctrinal, strictly conceptual terms. This is true both of "liberals" ("we don't have to believe as many things as other churches") and of teen-agers attempting to find an authentic personal faith ("I wish I could just accept Christianity"). In short, my own experience suggests that those (apart from theologians) whose idea

105 - Orthodoxy Again: A Reply

of orthodoxy is not strictly doctrinal remain in a small minority, and one which may be even decreasing.

A second point of Professor Outler's, however, is more important. He wonders if I would agree that "all 'heresies' are, at bottom, Christological" (I would), and then goes on to suggest that:

The test of orthodoxy is not whether it can follow the twists and turnings of new ideas but whether it can renew in drastically changed contexts the dialogue between the Christian present and the apostolic past.

I certainly share Dr. Outler's concern that the church maintain continuity between its past-specifically, the apostolic past-and its present. But I cannot believe that following the "twists and turnings of new ideas" can be separated from this.

First of all, we have to ask "What is the past?" I would answer that the past is the rewriting which each new generation undertakes of the records we have inherited. The past is what the present finds meaningful in these records-no more, no less. In other words, the "new" ideas which we absorb from our culture condition significantly the past that we find. Supporters of James I found in the Old Testament records the justification of the "divine right of kings"; supporters of democracy have found in these same records the beginnings of popular control.

I would not suggest that the past is simply a rewritten present. But it is simply what the present is able to see. Its interpretation will be conditioned by every new idea which affects the interpreter. If the interpreter is not conscious of the influence of these new ideas, he will predictably discover them "objectively" in the past. To the extent, however, that he is able to confront and interpret them, his view of the past will be nearer to that of those who made and preserved the records. It is as he confronts the "twists and turnings of new ideas" that the scholar is freed to confront the past.

To put this somewhat differently, the past must be as open-ended, or as fixed, as the present. There can be no such thing as a fixed past and an open-ended present, or vice-versa. It is clear that both St. John and St. Paul make use of ideas in their "Christology" which are not derived from the Old Testament. It is quite possible for a biblical scholar to hold that this represents a weakening of "authentic" Christianity, perhaps a serious distortion. It is equally possible (though perhaps not so fashionable) to maintain that this represents

106 - Orthodoxy Again: A Reply

the movement of the biblical faith toward a philosophically meaningful framework.

Both of these biblical witnesses would appear to be dealing with the same past. In actuality, each presupposes a different "past"-the events described cannot be separated from the meaning ascribed to them. Each is carrying on a dialogue with a significantly different past (and further analysis would reveal that the dialogue is being carried on from two different presents). What is this to say but that if the present is open-ended, so is the past. A past is only a fixed and given datum if the present from which it is interpreted is equally fixed and given.

Perhaps my basic point of view could be summarized in this way. The meaning of any event in a series of events is inseparable from the meaning of the series itself. Since that series of events which orthodoxy interprets will not end until the end of history itself, we do not know its final meaning. Consequently, the meaning of any event, whether past or present, is equally open-ended, The apostolic past is not a datum with which we can enter into a dialogue, but, a construct significantly conditioned by the present cultural concepts which have penetrated the church. It is as we receive and evaluate these cultural concepts that we are able to become aware of how they condition us, and consequently enabled to arrive at a construct of the past which can stand in valid judgment over the present.