Can I send out one of these without a typo? Apparently not - and this time in the second sentence! Sorry friends.
Also, I should have linked to this in the piece itself, but in a briefer format I addressed some of my worries about a theological discourse driven by center-left ethical norms rather than revealed truth here: https://bencrosby.substack.com/p/on-untheological-language-and-clergy
This post is really solid food for thought and hits close to home! The authors and claims you use showcase a few types of speaking, and a set theological reflexes, that I by turns find deeply attractive or kinda off-putting.
*Disclaimer: Being both a layperson and religiously inactive (but interested) since my teens, I want to play my get-out-of-jail free card at the outset, if I say anything wildly theologically naïve or silly.
So here goes:
1) granting that "the concept of God functions" is intuitive and correct at some level, how does one monitor the boundaries of God-language for when its potentially being chosen or revised 'functionally' in a way that slides into projection? When do you get suspicious that someone is starting to "prove Feuerbach right"? What exempts the traditional language from this?
2) How does the assumed functionality of God-language bear on the relation of mainline churches to broader politics? More specifically, I am interested in how assumptions of functionality may tie in to the sheer amount of mainline language that is largely indistinguishable from a selectively Jesus-inflected press release, with a dash of NPR. One ges the feel of recruiting Jesus-language to *the current cause* of the general Anglophone west, not in bad faith per se but in an almost panicked fear that the reputation as "the good kind of Christians" will fly from them.
And I say this as an unaffiliated layperson who thinks they support the inclusive orthodoxy slant in general, but worries that what counts as inclusive is going to move so fast that one may quickly find oneself in a position of the 19th century natural theologians / clergy who so confidently supported the best and worst of their era and were quickly left behind to boot (good: suffrage and science, bad: eugenics and naive whiggish notions of progress).
3) Something in your post that really surprised me (in a good way!) is the fairly straightforward but overlooked point that some function claims almost seem falsifiable (way too big a topic for a comment here, but, e.g., the lack of democratic or even remotely egalatarian politics in places that held to more "social trinitarian" theologies).
These are such good questions, Graham!! And not theologically naive or silly at all. A few thoughts, which may or may not be helpful.
(1) I don't actually think that the traditional language is automatically exempt from functioning in unhelpful ways, thus my example of the student who thought that Father-language meant that God was male. What to me makes it different is that it is revealed, that it is the language that God has given us to refer to him. Obviously this commitment is downstream from a particular view of Scriptural authority; if I saw Scripture as merely a record of ancient peoples' experiences of God rather than as God's revealed Word, I wouldn't necessarily feel so bound to it.
In terms of the other part of your question here, I am not sure if there is a clear test for someone, as you say, trying to prove Feuerbach right. But oftentimes people will explicitly make a given anthropological function the primary criterion for holding a doctrine, and whenever this happens I think that something is awry. This is particularly glaring when it has to do with theology proper, ie speech about God and his attributes. To use an example from the right (since many of my examples in the piece were left-coded), it has been wild to watch an approach to Trinitarian thought called 'eternal functional subordinationism' emerge in right-wing evangelical circles, which more-or-less openly tries to justify relationships of male authority and female submission in marriage by arguing that authority and submission operate in the life of the Trinity, with the Son eternally subordinate to the Father. In essence, they're willing to through out 1600 years of Trinitarian theology to own the feminists. Not sure if this helps at all.
(2) I think you are 100% right here. I think that we have an implicit account of religious language and ritual in the mainline that basically sees it as there to help us be good center-left Democrats, that the point of going to church is to help you be more socially just. That is, the function of what we do or hear in church is less about, say, teaching us true things about God or bringing us into communion with him than about equipping us to pursue a set of this-worldly social ends. And thus we get NPR + a little bit of Jesus.
I do also think its fair to worry about 'inclusive orthodoxy' in this regard. I do too. I sometimes wonder if there are at least two approaches within the IO world, one which says something like "you can happen to believe the content of the creeds and also live indistinguishably from/have the same politics and ethics as secular progressives - in fact actually the creeds support that politics and ethics" and another that says "it is possible to be deeply formed by Scripture and the Christian tradition and nonetheless approve of shifts on secondary matters like lgbtq inclusion." Admittedly this contrast is a bit polemically made; I obviously prefer the second. But I think there is a tension that you're right to point out, and a danger for the IO crowd is being so (rightly) alert to the ways that the church has been complicit in injustice that we end up wholly capitulating to a faddish progressivism, parts of which probably will not age well.
(3) Yes, thanks for noting this! I've been struck by it too.
The reply is much appreciated! As is the "eternal functional subordinationism" example: it's good to be mindful of examples of theological ideas metastasizing into convenient political crutches.
Only aside question since this is an older thread now: did you read / what did you think of "women and the gender of god" ? That was my first exposure to function arguments about the virgin birth narratives and I was both enthralled and slightly agnostic about the point being made. More accurately I found the point compelling but was confused about how ontologically serious, if that's the right word, the argument was meant to be taken. The argument as pointing towards a nonanthropomorphic God and a serious role for a woman in a patriarchal culture: thumbs up. The argument as: We talk this way as a language game to decenter a more patriarchal reading: not thumbs down, but a shrug perhaps. Seems too close to a wink and a nod for comfort.
As always, you offer a rich menu of food for thought. I had never thought of the idea of the "payoff" as being the reward for certain theological moves, but I see it clearly now. I have been noticing for some time now that there is a reluctance in my circles of the Anglican Church of Canada to use the traditional Trinitarian names of God, and to use functionalist language in their place, especially "Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer (or Sanctifier). " While these terms are traditional descriptions of the work of the three persons of the Trinity as seen in the creeds, I always feel that they are used as a well-meaning way to sidestep "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit". Once we move from naming the self-revealing Trinitarian God who wants to be known to describing what that God will do for us, then I think we can get into trouble/
I've also heard a bishop recently talk about "Father God and Mother Earth" but that's another story.
Grateful as always for your voice and reflections, Michael
Thank you so much, Michael! Yes, I think this this is exactly right re: the changes to Trinitarian language. Certainly well-intentioned, but I also worry that we get into trouble when we move away from naming God as he has revealed himself to us!
Thanks for this fine piece. It's a trend that has become all too common - to measure the value of a doctrine by its purported benefits or harms. Marx casts a long shadow: "The philosophers have only interpreted the world. The point, however, is to change it". And behind Marx, Feuerbach: "it is not as in the Bible, that God created man in his own image. But, on the contrary, man created God in his own image".
Thanks for this! Yes - I think Marx and especially Feuerbach are important figures in this story. It is a bit bizarre that many of the people who think of doctrine this way essentially accept Feuerbach's critique, that God is just a blown-up version of our own desires and abilities, but rather than abandoning Christianity (like Feuerbach) or working for a strenuously anti-idolatrous Christianity (Barth's project, especially circa the Romerbrief) simply decide "well, if our talk about God is just a veiled form of talk about our values or aspirations, let's just remake our God language to reflect things we like better."
Thank you for helping me understand more clearly my problem with inclusive orthodoxy. I thought that it should mean truth with compassion and openness. I consistently find it means something else. Now I know it means making truth more useful. As you say, truth is truth whether it is useful or not.
Thanks for this! I should say that I *do* continue to identify with 'inclusive orthodoxy'; it describes my own theological position. This was intended to be a sort of internal critique, a concern about the ways that we go awry (ie, by defending truth primarily in terms of its usefulness).
Can I send out one of these without a typo? Apparently not - and this time in the second sentence! Sorry friends.
Also, I should have linked to this in the piece itself, but in a briefer format I addressed some of my worries about a theological discourse driven by center-left ethical norms rather than revealed truth here: https://bencrosby.substack.com/p/on-untheological-language-and-clergy
This post is really solid food for thought and hits close to home! The authors and claims you use showcase a few types of speaking, and a set theological reflexes, that I by turns find deeply attractive or kinda off-putting.
*Disclaimer: Being both a layperson and religiously inactive (but interested) since my teens, I want to play my get-out-of-jail free card at the outset, if I say anything wildly theologically naïve or silly.
So here goes:
1) granting that "the concept of God functions" is intuitive and correct at some level, how does one monitor the boundaries of God-language for when its potentially being chosen or revised 'functionally' in a way that slides into projection? When do you get suspicious that someone is starting to "prove Feuerbach right"? What exempts the traditional language from this?
2) How does the assumed functionality of God-language bear on the relation of mainline churches to broader politics? More specifically, I am interested in how assumptions of functionality may tie in to the sheer amount of mainline language that is largely indistinguishable from a selectively Jesus-inflected press release, with a dash of NPR. One ges the feel of recruiting Jesus-language to *the current cause* of the general Anglophone west, not in bad faith per se but in an almost panicked fear that the reputation as "the good kind of Christians" will fly from them.
And I say this as an unaffiliated layperson who thinks they support the inclusive orthodoxy slant in general, but worries that what counts as inclusive is going to move so fast that one may quickly find oneself in a position of the 19th century natural theologians / clergy who so confidently supported the best and worst of their era and were quickly left behind to boot (good: suffrage and science, bad: eugenics and naive whiggish notions of progress).
3) Something in your post that really surprised me (in a good way!) is the fairly straightforward but overlooked point that some function claims almost seem falsifiable (way too big a topic for a comment here, but, e.g., the lack of democratic or even remotely egalatarian politics in places that held to more "social trinitarian" theologies).
These are such good questions, Graham!! And not theologically naive or silly at all. A few thoughts, which may or may not be helpful.
(1) I don't actually think that the traditional language is automatically exempt from functioning in unhelpful ways, thus my example of the student who thought that Father-language meant that God was male. What to me makes it different is that it is revealed, that it is the language that God has given us to refer to him. Obviously this commitment is downstream from a particular view of Scriptural authority; if I saw Scripture as merely a record of ancient peoples' experiences of God rather than as God's revealed Word, I wouldn't necessarily feel so bound to it.
In terms of the other part of your question here, I am not sure if there is a clear test for someone, as you say, trying to prove Feuerbach right. But oftentimes people will explicitly make a given anthropological function the primary criterion for holding a doctrine, and whenever this happens I think that something is awry. This is particularly glaring when it has to do with theology proper, ie speech about God and his attributes. To use an example from the right (since many of my examples in the piece were left-coded), it has been wild to watch an approach to Trinitarian thought called 'eternal functional subordinationism' emerge in right-wing evangelical circles, which more-or-less openly tries to justify relationships of male authority and female submission in marriage by arguing that authority and submission operate in the life of the Trinity, with the Son eternally subordinate to the Father. In essence, they're willing to through out 1600 years of Trinitarian theology to own the feminists. Not sure if this helps at all.
(2) I think you are 100% right here. I think that we have an implicit account of religious language and ritual in the mainline that basically sees it as there to help us be good center-left Democrats, that the point of going to church is to help you be more socially just. That is, the function of what we do or hear in church is less about, say, teaching us true things about God or bringing us into communion with him than about equipping us to pursue a set of this-worldly social ends. And thus we get NPR + a little bit of Jesus.
I do also think its fair to worry about 'inclusive orthodoxy' in this regard. I do too. I sometimes wonder if there are at least two approaches within the IO world, one which says something like "you can happen to believe the content of the creeds and also live indistinguishably from/have the same politics and ethics as secular progressives - in fact actually the creeds support that politics and ethics" and another that says "it is possible to be deeply formed by Scripture and the Christian tradition and nonetheless approve of shifts on secondary matters like lgbtq inclusion." Admittedly this contrast is a bit polemically made; I obviously prefer the second. But I think there is a tension that you're right to point out, and a danger for the IO crowd is being so (rightly) alert to the ways that the church has been complicit in injustice that we end up wholly capitulating to a faddish progressivism, parts of which probably will not age well.
(3) Yes, thanks for noting this! I've been struck by it too.
The reply is much appreciated! As is the "eternal functional subordinationism" example: it's good to be mindful of examples of theological ideas metastasizing into convenient political crutches.
Only aside question since this is an older thread now: did you read / what did you think of "women and the gender of god" ? That was my first exposure to function arguments about the virgin birth narratives and I was both enthralled and slightly agnostic about the point being made. More accurately I found the point compelling but was confused about how ontologically serious, if that's the right word, the argument was meant to be taken. The argument as pointing towards a nonanthropomorphic God and a serious role for a woman in a patriarchal culture: thumbs up. The argument as: We talk this way as a language game to decenter a more patriarchal reading: not thumbs down, but a shrug perhaps. Seems too close to a wink and a nod for comfort.
Hello Ben:
As always, you offer a rich menu of food for thought. I had never thought of the idea of the "payoff" as being the reward for certain theological moves, but I see it clearly now. I have been noticing for some time now that there is a reluctance in my circles of the Anglican Church of Canada to use the traditional Trinitarian names of God, and to use functionalist language in their place, especially "Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer (or Sanctifier). " While these terms are traditional descriptions of the work of the three persons of the Trinity as seen in the creeds, I always feel that they are used as a well-meaning way to sidestep "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit". Once we move from naming the self-revealing Trinitarian God who wants to be known to describing what that God will do for us, then I think we can get into trouble/
I've also heard a bishop recently talk about "Father God and Mother Earth" but that's another story.
Grateful as always for your voice and reflections, Michael
Thank you so much, Michael! Yes, I think this this is exactly right re: the changes to Trinitarian language. Certainly well-intentioned, but I also worry that we get into trouble when we move away from naming God as he has revealed himself to us!
Thanks for this fine piece. It's a trend that has become all too common - to measure the value of a doctrine by its purported benefits or harms. Marx casts a long shadow: "The philosophers have only interpreted the world. The point, however, is to change it". And behind Marx, Feuerbach: "it is not as in the Bible, that God created man in his own image. But, on the contrary, man created God in his own image".
Thanks for this! Yes - I think Marx and especially Feuerbach are important figures in this story. It is a bit bizarre that many of the people who think of doctrine this way essentially accept Feuerbach's critique, that God is just a blown-up version of our own desires and abilities, but rather than abandoning Christianity (like Feuerbach) or working for a strenuously anti-idolatrous Christianity (Barth's project, especially circa the Romerbrief) simply decide "well, if our talk about God is just a veiled form of talk about our values or aspirations, let's just remake our God language to reflect things we like better."
Thank you for helping me understand more clearly my problem with inclusive orthodoxy. I thought that it should mean truth with compassion and openness. I consistently find it means something else. Now I know it means making truth more useful. As you say, truth is truth whether it is useful or not.
Thanks for this! I should say that I *do* continue to identify with 'inclusive orthodoxy'; it describes my own theological position. This was intended to be a sort of internal critique, a concern about the ways that we go awry (ie, by defending truth primarily in terms of its usefulness).