Theological hairsplitting and why it doesn’t help
I ran across three seemingly unrelated items this week:
- The Christian church in Ethiopia split from the western church over monophysitism.
- John Piper says that a good dose of Reformed theology will assuage guilt over sexual misconduct like masturbation, pornography, and fornication.
- The North Carolina Baptist Convention uninvited Doug Pagitt after they learned some things about his theology.
So, let’s take these in order:
The Ethiopian Church. The Ethiopian Church is full of monophysitists apparently. Before you call the exterminator or take an antibiotic, monophysitists believe that Christ has one nature and it’s divine. They believe he came out of two natures — divine and human — but now (or then) the two merged into one divine nature. The Council of Chalcedon disagreed, declared monophysitism heresy, and the Ethiopian church was left to its own devices.
John Piper and Reformed theology as salve for a guilty conscience. Out of Ur posted Missions and Masturbation on their site today. Obviously this is sweeps week, because they were going for what I call the sleaze effect. So, I clicked on the post (sleaze works) and read that John Piper is concerned we are losing a lot of kids to the ministry because of their previous sexual misdeeds, among which are masturbation, pornography, and fornication. Sounds like kids to me, but Piper, according to OOU, said that a good healthy dose of theology, specifically substitutionary atonement, would bring them around.
Doug Pagitt uninvited by the North Carolina Baptist Convention. The good folks at the BSCNC uninvited Doug Pagitt to speak at one of their emerging-wanna be conferences after Mark Driscoll gave Pagitt a theological blackball. NC Baptists said they learned some things about Pagitt’s theology they didn’t know, and so uninvited him to speak.
Theological Theater of the Absurd
If all of this doesn’t sound like theater of the absurd, I don’t know what does. Here’s my take on all of the above:
- Monophysitism. Who knows? Who cares? Why does it matter? Doesn’t change Jesus one bit whether you think he had one nature or two, or if they merged or didn’t. So over this bit of theological silliness, the entire ancient Ethiopian and Armenian churches were lost from the world communion.
- Theology as guilt-cure. I am sorry, but try trotting out substitutionary atonement in the midst of a counseling session and watch the counselee’s eyes glaze over. People of all ages need forgiveness and that comes from a person, not a doctrine.
- Theology as excluder. Mostly theology has served the function of excluding folks from each other, as in the case of NC Baptists and Doug Pagitt. I’m sure Doug has a lot of other places to speak, but it still seems like my Baptists brethren to the south are abusing the purpose of theology.
By definition, theology is the knowledge of God. Why does that divide people? Shouldn’t the more we know about God unite us? Shouldn’t the more we know about God assure us of God’s love for us, regardless of our sin? Shouldn’t the more we know about God remind us of how little our own make-believe ideas matter? When theology unites, heals, and includes that is the real knowledge of God in my estimation. – Amicus Dei
Excellent post. I have experienced theology exclusion in the past. Man, that stuff smells bad. Glad to find your blog!
larry Vaughan
October 30, 2007 at 7:51 pm
Hey, Larry, thanks for stopping by!
chuck warnock
October 30, 2007 at 8:21 pm
Not only a good point (I suppose I think that because I agree with you) but what a great three issues to highlight it with. Who has the time or inclination to argue about the nature of the being of Christ. Had some ontological discussions of one kind or another in college. These days I have sermons to prepare, writing to do, and people to see.
Piper said that? Wow. A good dose of theology would clear that masturbation “problem” right up, would it? Why would he think that. It didn’t work for him.
real live preacher
October 31, 2007 at 9:38 am
Let the edginess begin! RLP, thanks for dropping by! -Chuck
chuck warnock
October 31, 2007 at 11:11 am
Chuck — what were the purposes of the early, post-apostolic creeds?
Frank Turk
October 31, 2007 at 1:03 pm
rlp:
Piper didn’t say theology curse sinful behavior — he said that the right understanding of the relationship between sin and redemption would cause people qualified for the ministry to go into ministry rather than die on the vine under the burden of legalism.
It’s a version of his last “Passion” sermon/talk.
Frank Turk
October 31, 2007 at 1:06 pm
woops. “cures” not “curse”. Sorry.
Frank Turk
October 31, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Frank, was that a freudian slip — cures/curses? Interesting. My point in all of this was to say that theology is to point us to God, not divide us. Didn’t mean to pick on Piper, blame Out of Ur for that. Thanks for dropping by.
Chuck
chuck warnock
October 31, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Hold on just a sec = if monophysitism means nothing, then an all-divine-natured Jesus, having no human nature, could not have suffered, grieved over a friend’s death, would not have needed to grow in learning and obedience to his parents. Any actions like that would have been a sham, a divine nature pretending to be human.
We know from Scripture that this is not true, without some special over-interpreting of “Christ appearing in human form.”
So it damages our look at His salvific work on earth, His understanding of us, His identification with us, His very Incarnation – with only divine nature, then Jesus is “God in a meat glove.”
Does this rejection of the depth and precision and theology goes along with a rejection of seminary or Bible school for ministers?
Therese Z
October 31, 2007 at 1:56 pm
Therese, this is my point exactly. And now I’ve gone and got your hackles up over a 1600-year old theological feud that got settled by the Council of Chalcedon. Not sure what you mean by rejection of seminary for ministers, but I am not advocating we all join the theological equivalent of Luddites. But somehow I don’t think this is precision, I think it’s a mental exercise that has no purpose and no way of being proven one way or the other. And suppose both are wrong, what then? But, now I’m ranting, which was the point I was trying to make about not ranting.
chuck warnock
October 31, 2007 at 8:39 pm