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The Row Boat"Had we but world enough, and time..." * Confusion and Theology3/18/2005 19:02:56Lately I have found it impossible to make a decision; feeling like childhood, when I was absolutely certain that there were no answers. The stupidity of the adults, thinking there were, always astounded me. Free of many hard decisions to make, this seemed quite fine. My guess, unfortunately, is that this present incarnation is a passing phase. Adults always seem to wind up with one set of certainties or another. It is the nature of Jesus' dialectic to subvert the logics of his interlocutors. He never meets them on their own terms and always sets his own. The conversation about whether an adultress is guilty or not is rephrased by asking if any person was clean enough to condemn her. A black and white question about taxation was reframed in terms of what might be Caesar's and what might be God's. On the other hand, status quo constantly maintains demands upon Christians to systematize their theology. Before, practicality demanded the full application of Roman legal tradition. What is your position on this or that issue? they ask today. Statements come out by this church or that church on what reforms are to be blessed at this particular juncture. New churches are formed when disagreements occur. Nevertheless, there is a foreignness between prescription and the life of Jesus. Somehow, the theological community is called to live that way. Wait; I propose that the Church is called to be a theological community above even its calling to be a moral one, which would be more centrally located around St. Paul and after. The theological community is a spiritual one, which is concerned most particularly with our deepest beliefs and assumptions and hopes. What specific moral frameworks follow come only second. Laws come much later, though their usefulness continues to be recognized. While another religion might want theology to me "gotten over with," in order to move on with law or ritual, Christianity should be consumed by it, posessed by it, driven mad by it. As indeed was the case in the early centuries through councils, letters, and schisms. The tradition, it seems to me, carries with it the effect that any conversation can be subverted the way Jesus always did. To debate theology at all requires a subversive dialectic; it entails the revision of one's most basic assumptions. Any conversation, at least, that does not speak as directly as possible in the language of love. The possibility, therefore, of Christian convictions that stray far from the central premise, the greatest commandment, are always susceptible. Children probably always know this. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
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