Faith and its defence

Sven has been talking about his favourite books, including The Crucified God by Jurgen Moltmann. One passage that he quoted resonated with me, especially in light of the debates currently going on in the Anglican Communion, in the attitudes of some people towards the need to “defend” their faith.

Faith is fearful and defensive when it begins to die inwardly, struggling to maintain itself and reaching out for security and guarantees. In so doing, it removes itself from the hand of one who has promised to maintain it, and its own manipulations bring it to ruin. This…usually occurs in the form of an orthodoxy which feels threatened and is therefore more rigid than ever. It occurs wherever, in the present age, the gospel of creative love for the abandoned is replaced by the law of what is supposed to be Christian morality, and by penal law… Such a faith tries to protect its ‘most sacred things’, God, Christ, doctrine and morality, because it clearly no longer believes that these are sufficiently powerful to maintain themselves. When the ‘religion of fear’ finds its way into the Christian church, those who regard themselves as the most vigilant guardians of the faith do violence to faith and smother it…
Then they build a defensive wall round their own little group, and in apocalyptic terms call themselves the ‘little flock’ or the ‘faithful remnant’, and abandon the world outside to the godlessness and immorality which they themselves lament. They lament the assimilation of Christianity to the secularised society which has declined since the ‘good old days’, and bewail the loss of identity of those who in theology and in practice involved themselves in the conflicts of this society and work with others to resolve them…They accept the increasing isolation of the church as an insignificant sect on the margin of society, and encourage it by their sectarian withdrawal. The symptoms of this mentality at the present day include the preservation of tradition without the attempt to found new tradition; biblicism without liberating preaching; increasing unwillingness to undergo new experience with the gospel and faith, and the language of zealotry and militant behaviour in disputes within the church…Friends and enemies are clearly distinguished…People grow tired of maintaining the open situation of dialogue and co-operation with others, in which the boundaries are always fluid, and look for the final hour. [emphasis mine]

Now, these failings are not exclusive to any one group (we are all liable to such things) but the actions of the conservative evangelical faction are described uncannily well by this passage from Moltmann, writing 50 years ago. Is the zealous defence of “Christian morality” espoused by the evangelicals both in church politics and secular politics a symptom of uncertainty in the evangelical church? Is the stridency of their declarations covering up insecurity? For many people, learning to live with uncertainty is what helps them to grow up in their faith, and also what causes them to leave evangelicalism behind. Even more, learning to live with contrary opinions, for we do not need to be clones of one another to live together in Christ; indeed, we must not become clones, for none of us can grasp the entirety of God and we need diversity to avoid missing crucial things of God.

Perhaps the evangelical doth protest too much.

pax et bonum

Article posted at 11:02am on 20 April 2005
Category: Books, Faith, Musing, Politics

Yes he does describe Conservative Evangelicals very well, though I’m not even 100% sure that’s who he had in mind – but the description fits quite well.

regards

Sven

Sven (URL)
12:09pm on 20 April 2005

O boy! You wish…

You show you do not understand evangelicalism at all. Enough of this amateur psychologising from a distance!

(Sorry no time to comment in detail… :-)

)

Stephen (URL)
09:44am on 22 April 2005

Stephen,
I’m not trying at all to say that all evangelicals fall under this description. I was for a long time an evangelical myself, and still value my evangelical roots. As a result, I do wonder whether part of the root some of the more strident pronouncements do rise from a root that Moltmann identifies here: “Such a faith tries to protect its ‘most sacred things’, God, Christ, doctrine and morality, because it clearly no longer believes that these are sufficiently powerful to maintain themselves.“

At base, then, do these extremists really grasp the strength of God, or do they feel that God’s work will fail unless they are zealous in condemning anything that doesn’t fit their own vision? Do they have a need for total certainty even about things that we ought not to be certain about (such as God’s plans, our own holiness or other people’s journey with God)?

pax et bonum

John ()
10:27am on 22 April 2005

John,

I finally decided to track you down. Didn’t realize you are in the UK. Thanks for linking back to Raven’s View — if the lame software for Blogger would allow it, I’d link back to you as well.

I’ve appreciated your comments and would like to be able to exchange ideas with you. You have a nice site and I’ll spend some time looking around.

Peace,
Bill

Bill () (URL)
4:19pm on 22 April 2005