“I cannot tell, by examining these parallel liturgies, which tradition contains prayer to graven images. I cannot tell, by examining these liturgies, which ones allow the service to be led by a lesbian minister. In short, by looking at these liturgies, I cannot tell whether God accepts them as ‘acceptable worship’ or not. But whether or not God receives us in our offered worship is the central thing. In a line up of skeletons, I cannot tell which one was the tattooed biker moll and which one was the Junior Miss princess” (Against the Church, pp. 14-15).
Have 'Em Delivered
Write to the Editor
I don’t have the book, and perhaps you address this there, but do you deal with the objection that you’re sounding Donatist?
The tattooed biker moll is the one with the wider hips.
Matt, For the sake of those like me who don’t have time do more than skim definitions from Wikipedia, could you flesh out your specific objection. It has been said numerous times that you are less than clear in your arguments. This post is no exception, in my mind at least. You clearly have a concern and you are clearly reluctant to say that your concern is valid, all to the good. But what you give with that attitude you take away with the vague passive form raising your concern (the objection—by whom-or who…sounding like–how and where exactly). It seems… Read more »
David: I wasn’t talking to you, though. The Donasts said that the Church is defined by moral purity. St. Augustine responded that that is false, the Church is defined sacramentally, and though moral purity is important, and although we should seek to have moral leadership, the validity of the community is not a result of moral purity, but of sacramental connection to Christ. Pr. Wilson’s position here seems to be that it is the moral purity that is centrally important not the sacramental connection to Christ–or more specifically, not what we say to Christ, and what He says back to us, or… Read more »
Matt, no, I don’t spend any time in the book distancing myself from Donatism, although I would be happy to do so. A person baptized by a reprobate minister is still baptized. Moral purity is not necessary to make a church. It is necessary to keep the church from being spewed out of Christ’s mouth.
Matt, First, you might not be talking to me but you are talking in a forum where people are listening. And you are asking a question, publicly, about how Doug would answer an objection (proximately by you), that his material might belong to under the catagory of heresy. So, I do think you might consider how and what you say a bit more carefully than if you were in a private conversation. Secondly, accepting your explanation, I’m still at a bit of a loss. It’s only a passage from a book but forcing the my conclusion into your context, I’d… Read more »
Pr. Wilson: I’m not sure what you mean by “spewed out of his mouth” then. I would think that it would mean “ceasing to be a church”, or “being completely destroyed”. But if the second definition, some of the churches you are objecting to have been around for more than a thousand years, and show no signs of dying out–that is, they haven’t been spewed out of His mouth. So the second option doesn’t make sense to me. But you seem to deny the first option here, and from what I’m gathering from these quotes (I may be mistaken), is that it’s… Read more »
Matthew, We all must grant that there is the possibility of “spewing” in some sense, whether that sense is Pr. Wilson’s sense or not. Since Pr. Wilson did not expand on what he meant, I think a fair reading would be to take his answer as an allusion to Rev 3:14ff. There the spewing is the result of lukewarmness, which in context is defined as a failure to recognize one’s own natural condition as “wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked” (v. 17). I say “natural” condition, because Jesus counsels the lukewarm to buy of him “gold tried in the fire”… Read more »
Kevin: Thanks for the thoughtful response. I’ll try to take time to respond to it, though, it will take a considerable amount of time to formulate a response. :P Again, though, challenging me like that is a good thing, and I appreciate it.