Protestant Reductionism?

As I've been leaning more and more, at least through books and online videos, toward Eastern Orthodoxy, I continue to have those 'Yes!' moment encountering those thoughts and statements that encapsulate what I have yet to verbalize. One of those crossed my sight yesterday on the Orthodox Bridge blog. I post it here only because I haven't fully digested it and the counterarguments against it to make it mine, so to speak.

But it struck a nerve as I've felt that the emphasis on PSA and the soundbites accompanying it such as 'we serve a living Savior' to account for the resurrection (and it's suspect theologies that are found in modern worship where Jesus dukes it out with the devil like a South Park episode) leaving more sorely wanting for the more. It gives me warm fuzzies some days and I enjoy the people at church but... I often feel as if my intellectual pursuit does not have room.

It isn't that I'm better than anyone, it just needs room to run and I haven't found that the non-denominational (or other) circles in which I run have that 'room' to allow it to roam and bring it back in. I've found this through the Church Fathers. I've found the edge of the hedge. In my 20 years or so running in 'other' worlds I did not find that 'great cloud of witnesses' to bring it into subjection. Like a wild stallion, it bucks against those things that are cliche, tired or off.

So it is that the term 'reductionist' hit me as an 'Yes, that's it!' moment. It isn't that it's there but the challenge is that to put it all together requires picking, choosing and building on my own when in fact, at least from what I have in theory found, it already exists. Granted, some of the things are new, or odd, to me such as the icons and the veneration of Mary but at the moment those aren't deal breakers as I 'get' wht is behind them on their own rather than contrasted with Protestant (generalizing, of course, as the breadth of Protestant is reflected in its countless denominations and non-denominations) theology. I have not been so moved as I have by the readings of the Fathers. I fully understand that as persons they are challenging, especially 1,500 years removed, but they aren't perfect, even as saints. But as a whole reflecting the accumulated tradition (understanding again the power plays at work as the Church and the State collided even cohabitated) the theology we claim to cling to today originates there. Chuck that and we may as well start over which, if you step back for a moment, is in fact happening. So for your reading pleasure with link to the original:

The great problem with Protestant teaching on salvation is its thorough-going reductionism. In the Holy Scripture and in the writings of the Holy Fathers salvation is a grand accomplishment with innumerable facets, a great and expansive deliverance of humanity from all its enemies: sin, condemnation, the wrath of God, the devil and his demons, the world, and ultimately death. In Protestant teaching and practice, salvation is essentially a deliverance from the wrath of God. (p. 288; emphasis added)

The traditional Christian teaching expressed in the New Testament and the writings of the Fathers on the subject of the atonement of our Savior is the Cross saved us in three essential ways: on the Cross Jesus conquered death; on the Cross Jesus triumphed over the principalities and power of this evil age; on the Cross Jesus made atonement for human sins by His blood. Because the Protestants were working out of a soteriological framework of a courtroom and declarative justification, they read the teaching about the Cross through these lenses and as a result articulated a reductionistic theology of the atonement, which ignored the traditional emphasis on the conquering of death and the triumph of the demons. Everything for Protestantism becomes satisfaction of God’s justice, and by making one image the whole, even that image became distorted in Protestant articulation. (p. 294)

. . . the greatest reductionism is found in the immense neglect of emphasis upon the heart of the New Testament teaching on salvation as union with Jesus Christ . . . . The theology of the Church bears witness to the fact that the mystery of salvation is accomplished not just on the Cross, but from the very moment of Incarnation when the Only-Begotten and Co-Eternal Son united Himself forever with humanity in the womb of the Virgin Mary, his Most Pure Mother. Salvation as union and communion between God and Man drips from every page of the new Testament and in the writings of Holy fathers. (p. 296; emphasis added)

Link

The Believer, Shalom Spiegel and the Akedah

Based on a previous post on the Jewish roots of the origins of Paul's views on the death and resurrection of Jesus I was reminded of the film The Believer, about a Jew who is a skinhead struggling with his beliefs. It's a challenging film well worth watching. I saw this film after studying Vermes' article and subsequently reading The Last Trial.

While it is not widely accepted, the tradition that Isaac was actually killed is fairly well known. Spiegel's book on the Akedah is vital reading. Geza Vermes' article is rooted in it, though Spiegel is much harder on Paul than Vermes. Still, both provide rather interesting perspectives on a belief not commonly known and a different sourcing of Paul's view on the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Here's a clip from the film:

God died...

If Jesus is God, then God died on the cross. Depending on one's translation of Acts 20:28, God also had blood. So if Jesus is God then God died; if we say God did not die then it would seem Jesus is not God. The sophistry of theology to reckon this dilemma is something I have yet to accommodate.

I have no problem saying Jesus is Lord. According to Acts, this was bestowed upon him by God. Lord of lords. No problem. King of kings. No problem. Lord of my life. No problem. But just because, in English, the Book says that Jesus is Lord and, elsewhere, that God (or God the Father) is Lord, does that mean Jesus is God?

I'd venture that in the original languages, this would not be the case. A prime example is in Exodus 3:14. Exodus 3:14 says "I am" and John 8:58 says "I am" so Jesus must be calling himself "I am" (i.e. YHWH). But this is only in the English. In the original languages, even in the Latin Vulgate, this connection was not made so directly. The Church Fathers, reading/writing in Greek, did not make this connection, at least not so directly. For them the ego eimi in John 8:58 means pre-existence. Justin Martyr, one of the earliest writers to use specific proof-texts from the New Testament, and Irenaeus, do say that it was Jesus speaking to Moses from the burning bush in Exodus 3:14. But there is no connection between Exodus 3:14 and John 8:58.

It only works in the English. Was it intentional on the part of the King James crew? Divine intervention? In the original Greek, the 'am' is a verb and it is best translated and understood (as it was by Justin and Irenaeus) as "exist(ed)."

At most, Jesus is speaking of pre-existence. But he is not, in this sentence, referring to himself as YHWH. It's possible to argue that pre-existence makes him at least divine, if not God Himself, but the "I am" statement alone isn't it. Any use of this as 'proof' must be based on other reasoning.

There is no way, within a Trinitarian framework, to say that Jesus is God without qualifying that statement. When Muslims say that Allah is God they mean what they say, no qualifications. When Jews say that YHWH (or Ha-Shem or Adonai) is God, they mean what they say. But Christians...

If God died on the cross, taken literally, then that is not really God. God cannot change. God cannot die. Any God that dies is not God.

So either that little statement made by many Christians is wrong or quite a bit of verbal gymnastics is required when defining 'God' or defining what it means to die.

Not sure what made me think of that today...