Back to basics with Schleiermacher

Earlier today we had our Shapers of Contemporary Theology exam. This was the course where we were able to read ample sections from Germans like Barth and Rahner, Pannenberg and Moltmann. We started the course by looking at Schleiermacher, the guy known as either "the Father of modern theology" or the "Father of Protestant Liberalism", depending on whether you think he's a goody or baddy (and, I guess, whether you think Protestant Liberalism is a good or bad thing). My own tradition has set him up as a baddy, so what a surprise to read him saying things like:

Christ is distinguished from all others as Redeemer alone.

Sounds fairly evangelical to me.

Of course, his view of the nature of Christ's redemption may be deficient:

Jesus is the Founder of a religious communion simply in the sense that its members become conscious of redemption through him (Consciousness? Surely this is not the sum total of what it's all about).

But he does maintain the centrality and necessity of Jesus.

So this got me thinking...Is Schleiermacher a Christian? Often we think "No way, he's a liberal", but as I read him I see a guy who responded to Jesus and only Jesus, which is the response called for in the Gospels. Now we might argue that he is responding to a different Jesus than the one he ought to respond to and the one we ought to preach, but I think his heart was in the right place, and if God judges the heart...

So a question: How much do you need to get right to be a Christian? To put it another way, I heard one MTC lecturer say that "Theologian X is wrong. He'll be in heaven, but he's not an evangelical" So if he'll get there in the end why are we bringing him down? And is "being in heaven/the age to come" the right way to think about this in any case?

Love to hear your thoughts.

Was SJ Kirkby Sydney's Barth?

You be the judge as he answers the question: “Which Christ do we lead people to?”

Not to any pale, merely theological Christ, a lay-figure, product of the schools (though to Dogmatics we owe a tremendous debt); not to any vague, impalpable, though beautiful Christ, the creation of a wistful imagination; but to Christ of the New Testament, the Christ of the Incarnation and of Bethlehem, the Christ of the Atonement on Calvary’s Cross, the Christ of the Resurrection and Ascension, and of the Blessed Appearing, the ever-present Christ Who is “warm, sweet, tender,” and Who confirms Himself unto us in all joys and stresses, and to set Him forth should be the burden of our ministry.

A Gospel that is not Christo-centric is no Gospel at all. We may gather people unto ourselves with a smart eloquence, or with snappy criticisms of public affairs, or with spectacular and popular services; we may think that we hold them to ourselves by providing well-organised rounds of social functions, pleasing and amusing, for all sorts and conditions of men and women; we may, by such means, secure the good-natured help and interest of a wide circle of supporters; but we shall never save their souls alive if that be all which we have to give them. Without this Christo-centric Gospel we have no authority enabling us to stand as did the prophets of old who faced kings and men with the words, “Thus saith the Lord”; we have no message calculated to bring home to people that sense of sin and of God’s forgiveness of it, we have no assurance of peace and harmony for the whole wide world. Woe be unto us if we fail to preach it.

Presidential address to ordinary session of Synod, 1933. Year Book of the Diocese of Sydney 1934, 306-07.

Granted, a line like “we shall never save their souls alive” might be a little too eager to find a place in the Dogmatics, but note the flow of the language: short, sharp clauses that colour and build up the one idea. Very Barthian. And also the obvious Christo-centricity.

I was commenting to a friend of mine (Ed Loane) how I thought Kirkby must have been a Barth reader, and he commented that when his great-grandfather (D.J. Knox, father of D. Broughton Knox) first read Barth’s Commentary on Romans, it was as if he was connecting with a “kindred spirit”. Ed also told me that Knox was close friends with Kirkby, so it’s possible that Barth was being passed around the senior Sydney clergy at this point. That would go some way in explaining Kirkby’s prose in the above speech.

Sydney's theology of hope #2

When researching my church history essay I came across SJ Kirkby, Bishop Coadjutor of Diocese of Sydney in the 1930s. Check this bit out from his Presidential address to the Synod of 1933:

For what are the motivating impulses to war? Are they not desire for world rule and possession, arrogant pride in merely national culture, the temptation open always to the strong to exploit the week, fierce racial jealousies too often the outcome of pure misunderstanding? We not only deny the morality of all these motives, but we would supplant them with something finer and greater. We present unto mankind that divine ideal which swallows up all world ideals, an ideal which is able to capture the imagination and thrill the hearts of man, an ideal which challenges and calls forth all that splendid sacrifice too often wasted in war, the ideal of tremendous freedom giving, peace-ensuing truth of St. Paul: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, neither male nor female, but ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Note when this was delivered. In 1933 Hitler was stirring in Germany, and there was a growing fascist movement here in Australia. And here is one of Sydney's senior clergy taking these issues on and providing a clear call to a theological alternative. Not only would this have challenged society's policy makers, but also all those in the pews who were playing with the idea of falling in with either the communists or fascists as a way of dealing with the hopelessness of the Depression. As an alternative Kirkby posits the hope of a humanity reconstituted in Christ. Nice!

RIP Red Rocket, 2000-07

After 7 years and 115,000+ km its all over. This morning, just before noon, the Red Rocket was smashed into by a white falcon which lost control when turning into Carillon from City Rd. I was completely oblivious to the RR's fate, having left it parked in Carillon at about 11pm last night. The first I knew about its unexpected demise was when John Woodhouse came knocking on my door asking "Do you own SSB 219? I have bad news for you mate..." Proceeding downstairs this was the sad sight which greeted me:


The tow-truck guy said "yeah, NRMA will write that off". So that's it. I will cherish the memories, such as the late night tours of Sydney with various friends from different circles, and that time a youth group kid knocked me over with my own car.
Vale my friend, you served your master well.

way way cool

Last night Craig Tubman, Rowan Patterson, Pete Boyd and I went on a late late night sojourn to Dean's cafe in Kings Cross where we sat under a peacock tapestry drinking coffee and red wine. Very cool. The Red tones, late hour and stimulating conversation made us all feel very bohemian. Like, totally intellectually hip, baby.

Sydney's theology of hope #1

John Charles Wright was Archbishop of Sydney from 1909-1933. During that time a world war and the Great Depression put his leadership under the spotlight, and, according to some, he was found wanting:

He excelled as a patient and conciliatory chairman. Yet Wright's temperate influence upon the Diocese was resented by conservative Evangelicals who believed that he over-emphasised his administrative role and failed to give sufficient leadership to his flock. They were wanting a father-in-God, not a moderator.

Judd and Cable, Sydney Anglicans, 225-26.

But his 1931 address to Synod during the worst months of the Depression shows that he was far from being a soft pen-pusher:

The fact is that two years ago we had abundant money. There was money everywhere. But we were living in a fool's paradise. We forgot that it was borrowed money, borrowed lightly and spent gaily in the State and Church and by private individuals ... Then came what no one had deemed possible - all over the world a sudden collapse of the world's purchasing power ... It is not easy to cure the borrowing habit. We all alike had become extravagant. The luxuries of yesterday had become the necessities of today. But at last the unwholesomeness of the position was sternly brought home to us...this was, itself, a call from God to live a simpler life.

We have to confess that the days of prosperity with which we have been blessed in the past have involved the temptation to forget God as the author of our success.

Cop that Synod.
But the really impressive bit of what is really a remarkable piece of oratory is his call for the church to place their hope in the Father's eternal benevolence:

We are all suffering from a pressure of financial anxiety such as we have never known in this generation and never dreamt that we could know. Things were threatening with dark clouds at the beginning of the year, but since then, month by month, the clouds have banked up in darker masses in the heavens ... Yet no one who believes in God and His fatherly care ought to despair of the future. As we enter the unknown we should recall the command of God to his people of old as the approached the land of promise, 'Be strong and of a good courage'.

What I like about this address is Wright's willingness to not pull punches (note his call for the church to repent), while sharing the blame (note his use of the 1st person plural in the first quote). And then he speaks of the sure hope we have which is guaranteed by the Father's love. A nice theological response to a tough time. Of course, detractors of Wright will say that this was precisely the problem; he provided a theological response when what was needed was practical relief. While Wright firmly believed that the Church's primary role was to provide spiritual direction, it remained the case that on an organizational/institutional level the Church was unable to do much due to a lack of funding and resources. AND part of the problem seems to have been that the hardline evangelicals had pulled their funding from the Diocese because they didn't respect the Archbishop. This is why it was left to people like RBS Hammond of St Barnabas Broadway to do what they could in the parishes (and in RB's case, that was quite a lot).

Still, Wright's address is a definite "Father-in-God" moment, no matter what his reputation might be.

Pic is of John Charles Wright with his wife Dorothy.

Luther on Friendship

To love a brother who is kind and pleasant in return—this is a trivial matter. This is the way the world also loves. “The crowd judges friendships by their usefulness” (Cicero, De finibus). Accordingly, John does not say: “Let us love those who are saintly, agreeable, and rich.” No, he says: “Let us love the brethren,” in such a way that then nothing but the brotherhood is loved and regarded; for a brother is loved out of a sense of duty, not because of usefulness and not because of praise. All the gifts we have should serve those who do not have them. For example, he who is learned should serve him who is not learned; he who is rich should serve him who is poor; he who is sensible should serve him who is foolish, etc. it is easy to love Paul and other apostles. They serve you even after their death. But to love those who are weak, troublesome, and unlearned—this indeed is to love truly. Otherwise there is no brotherhood, but there is carnality. In short, it is the duty of Christians to serve, not for their own advantage but for the advantage of the brethren.

Lectures on 1 John (LW 30), comment on 3.18.

Luther paints an all too familiar picture of how twisted our friendships can get. Instead of being opportunities to serve, our relationships can so quickly become mere opportunities to get ahead. "Friends with benefits" one might say. But while genuine friendship can turn this way, even more abhorrent is the picking of friends for reasons of advantage straight from the outset. I have seen this, and it ain't pretty.

Here's to friendship instead of carnality.