AKMA’s Random Thoughts

Here's the quote as exactly as I can get it (if there's a transcript of the press conference on the Web, I can't find it):

In a news conference after the vote, Robinson said his opponents were right that the decision was contrary to the church's traditional teaching against homosexuality.
"Just simply to say that it goes against tradition and the teaching of the church and Scripture does not necessarily make it wrong," he said. "We worship a living God, and that living God leads us into truth."

Washington Post, August 5, 2003

That statement does not appear to me to be "theologically unsophisticated." He's addressing the question of authority - how one can tell whether an action or a teaching is right or wrong - and he is clearly stating that the teaching of the Church, the Tradition, and the Scripture, taken together, are not a sufficient and reliable authority to make something "wrong". He goes further and states that "God leads us into truth." Given the context, he means that God leads us into truth by some means other than Scripture, Church, and Tradition - that God can and does lead us into a "truth" that is other than what those three authorities, taken together, teach us.

I can't see how Robinson could be any clearer, and I can't read it otherwise than as a deliberate rejection of the Apostolic deposit of faith. He's appealing away from Scripture, Church, and Tradition to a new and different revelation of God.

Am I missing something?

Fr Adam

You say you would "be happier if he had expressed himself more carefully." Can you give us a more careful and theologically sophisticated expression of what Bp Robinson was trying to say, that is not patient of the interpretation that I gave it?

If one whose tendencies are closer to the Continental Reformation may be permitted to interject: it seems to me that the distinction is between small-t tradition and capital-T Tradition.

To haul out a much-exercised trope, there's a difference between saying that the Church traditionally (i.e., through much of its history) tolerated the slave trade and claiming that the Tradition of the Church requires tolerance of the slave trade. "The Tradition of the Church" can't simply be "the way we've always done it" -- it must be narrower than that, mustn't it?

I have no idea, Christopher, how Fr. Adam would "express it more carefully," but *I* might say something like this:

"Just to say that something diverges from the practice, instruction, or Biblical interpretation of the Church through much of its history does not mean that the thing is so contrary to Scripture and Tradition that it must be rejected out-of-hand. To do so would be to ignore the fact that even the Church's teaching and interpretation of Scripture can be, and frequently have been, influenced by extra-Biblical and fundamentally non-theological contingencies and cultural accidents. More than that, to do so implicitly limits the power of the Spirit to shine new light on our reasoned understanding of the teaching of our forbears in faith and on our faithful interpretation of the scriptures."

It seems to me that the Church is forever caught in a tension between the deep value of Tradition and the power of the Spirit, acting through human reason, to understand difficult things in new ways. To err too much in the former condemns us to a rigid literalism that implicitly limits the power of God. To err too much in the latter leads us to discard all too lightly traditions which momentarily seem quaint or inconvenient, or to accept half-baked heresies as "new revelations." Neither error, it seems to me, is very palatable.

Well, Dr Bonzo, that certainly is more careful than what Bp Robinson actually said. And there's no denying that what you said is theologically sophisticated. But I am unconvinced that it fairly represents what Bp Robinson meant to say. (And, to be fair, I'm also unconvinced that what you said (in all its nuance) is in fact correct.)

I do appreciate the distinction you draw between the different senses of "tradition," and I think it quite likely that Robinson himself intended to refer to tradition in a wider (and less venerable) sense. But the general stance of liberal Episcopalians like Robinson does not seem to include the reverence for, and loyalty to, "tradition" in a narrower sense that I personally believe is due. It is that context that leads me to the admittedly severe construction I have put on the Bishop's remarks.

For me, there is an irreducible core of the Christian faith that remains the same in every age. It is essential that we should have the same faith as St Paul had and St John had; and that we should have the same faith that St Irenaeus, St Athanasius, St John Chrysostom, St Maximus Confessor, and St Augustine had. To be an Anglican is to believe that the faith that those saints had is the same faith that Hooker, Laud, Andrewes, Wilberforce, Pusey, Keble, and C. S. Lewis had. An orthodox pneumatology sees the Holy Spirit enabling us to conserve the faith of the Apostles and of the Fathers (and of the orthodox Anglican divines such as Laud and Lewis), rather than enabling us to rise above or outgrow it. And a correct pneumatology certainly does not have the Holy Spirit providing a new revelation or a new understanding of the tradition that we have received. (Again, I emphasize: in my opinion.)

If the Church's teachings and interpretations can be unduly influenced by "extra-Biblical and fundamentally non-theological contingencies and cultural accidents," then the burden of proof is decidedly on the innovators to show that that is in fact what has happened - and to show it in a way that is fundamentally respectful of the Scriptural and patristic witness to the Church's authentic tradition.

I am unconvinced that that burden has been met. And I don't think the liberals even recognize their obligation to meet it.

It is reassuring to see that Bishop Robinson approaches this issue in an intellectually honest fashon. The teaching of Scripture, at least if it is read as blackletter law, is plainly against homosexual practice. The rule of me arsenokoitein (Sybilline Oracles 2:73, a Jewish work with Christian redactions that possibly reflects the moral values shared by the first Christians) is likely to have been a Christian teaching even before Paul taught it, and has at most times and in most parts of Christendom been taken as blackletter law, binding on all Christians. Those among us who think that we have strong arguments from reason to modify this tradition--alas, to stop the mouths of fools I must pause to point out explicitly that this post does not state either that I am, or that I am not, one of these-- need first to recognize, as Bishop Robinson seems to, that this is what the tradition is, rather than trying to explain it away by sophistry as some commentators have at times attempted to do.

"Now, I’d be happier if he had expressed himself more carefully — but malformed theological statements are the prevalent currency of public discourse in this sorry day and age (especially, but not exclusively, among “liberal” theologians, who can tend to take theological diligence as a waste of time)."

A welcome admission, and let it be noted, alas, that many "conservative" theologians are guilty of a similar fault.

Kendall, a gracious and unanticipated visit! This much we can agree on (though we would rather not), and those things on which we would rather agree I fear we will not. But before we venture onto that terrain, you’ve renewed our conversation with a gesture of solidarity and respect, for which I thank you.

I will say this: I want no part of a church that would stifle patient and reasonable dissent, and I hope that we continue as colleagues in theological discussion, that for those topics — which may turn out to be “most of them” — on which our understandings differ, we can call upon one another as brothers in a shared ministry, to clarify the contours of our disagreement without rancor or disdain, but in an earnest spirit of humble inquiry.

Margaret says, “Hi!”

What's the problem?

"@@@Just simply to say@@@ that it goes against tradition and the teaching of the church and Scripture does not necessarily make it wrong,"

Robinson isn't claiming that his consecration goes against Scripture and Tradition (that Reason is on his side is a given!), he is only disputing @@@those who say@@@ otherwise.

Fisher -

Are you suggesting that Robinson was open to being persuaded by Scripture, Tradition, and Church authority that he had no standing to be consecrated bishop; and that if he had been persuaded on the basis of those authorities he would have stood down?

I think that quite unlikely. I think my reading of his remarks is straightforward, and that yours is sophistry.

An honest liberal will admit that what has happened here is that the Episcopal Church has decided that the existing teachings and practice of Christianity on this matter are wrong and should be changed. I think that is precisely what Robinson was saying in the quoted remarks.

Christopher, if you know what an honest liberal must say regardless of what she or he expressly does or says, it kinda short-circuits conversation. I think that both Dr. Bonzo and J. Collins Fisher have points — obviously not points that convince you, but not groundless points either — and if you decline to deal with them on the basis of their remarks, we can’t be surprised if they don’t pursue the converation.

I’ll stick up for you if somebody tries to tell me what you have to say or mean or think. Please show that respect to those with whom you disagree and show how it must be that someone’s willingness to entertain the possibility that the river of Tradition can change direction without reversing its flow or changing its ultimate destination necessitates their rejecting the whole idea of tradition — or just let us agree to disagree.

Fr Adam,

I don't intend to show any disrespect to any of my interlocutors here, and I certainly apologize for failing in that regard. We are, all of us, your guests on this forum and I do not want to do anything to wear out my welcome here.

In my reply to Fisher, the word sophistry was uncalled for. I apologize for it and withdraw it. As for An honest liberal will admit ..., this was a (possibly unfortunate) rhetorical device meant to illustrate that it is, in part, the terms of debate that are at issue (i.e., is the growing acceptance of homosexuality a change in doctrine or a legitimate development of what is implicit in doctrine?). It was not an accusation of intellectual dishonesty on the part of Fisher, Robinson, or anyone else. But I can see how it might be taken that way, especially coupled with my intemperate use of the word sophistry.

With respect to my reply to Dr. Bonzo, on the other hand, I am truly at a loss to see how my reply failed to deal with [him] on the basis of his remarks. I found his remarks to be thoughtful and substantive even though I disagreed. Perhaps saying I don't think the liberals even recognize their obligation to make their case in terms of the Tradition was a bit unfair. But it's an honest perception, and I would be glad to be shown that I am wrong about it.

You ask me to show how accepting the possibility of a "change in direction" in Tradition in tantamount to rejecting Tradition. That's a fair challenge, which I'll try to meet at some later time. For now my only purpose is to thank you for providing this forum, and to beg your forgiveness for having abused it.

For what it's worth, Christopher, I took no offense at anything in your response to my comment beyond the "I don't think the liberals even recognize their obligation" assertion that you've already acknowledged. But I'll go along with Fr. Adam in thinking that the "an honest liberal would ..." remark in your response to Fisher's comment goes a bit too far.

Very few "liberals" of my (admittedly narrow) acquaintance are dishonest, or even consciously disingenuous, in the midst of debate. Contrawise, very few "conservatives" of my acquaintance are, so far as I can tell, truly so frightened of even the possibility of change that they will die rather than accept it. And yet I hear both generalizations quite frequently when this kind of debate gets heated -- much to all our shame.

The rest of our conversion follows a similar vein. Instead of going through line by line, let's just compare end results: when the transition is complete, the code that used to read:

This back and forth is an important concept to understand in C programming, especially on the Mac's RISC architecture. Almost every variable you work with can be represented in 32 bits of memory: thirty-two 1s and 0s define the data that a simple variable can hold. There are exceptions, like on the new 64-bit G5s and in the 128-bit world of AltiVec

This is another function provided for dealing with the heap. After you've created some space in the Heap, it's yours until you let go of it. When your program is done using it, you have to explicitly tell the computer that you don't need it anymore or the computer will save it for your future use (or until your program quits, when it knows you won't be needing the memory anymore). The call to simply tells the computer that you had this space, but you're done and the memory can be freed for use by something else later on.

Inside each stack frame is a slew of useful information. It tells the computer what code is currently executing, where to go next, where to go in the case a return statement is found, and a whole lot of other things that are incredible useful to the computer, but not very useful to you most of the time. One of the things that is useful to you is the part of the frame that keeps track of all the variables you're using. So the first place for a variable to live is on the Stack. This is a very nice place to live, in that all the creation and destruction of space is handled for you as Stack Frames are created and destroyed. You seldom have to worry about making space for the variables on the stack. The only problem is that the variables here only live as long as the stack frame does, which is to say the length of the function those variables are declared in. This is often a fine situation, but when you need to store information for longer than a single function, you are instantly out of luck.

Let's see an example by converting our favoriteNumber variable from a stack variable to a heap variable. The first thing we'll do is find the project we've been working on and open it up in Project Builder. In the file, we'll start right at the top and work our way down. Under the line:

Each Stack Frame represents a function. The bottom frame is always the main function, and the frames above it are the other functions that main calls. At any given time, the stack can show you the path your code has taken to get to where it is. The top frame represents the function the code is currently executing, and the frame below it is the function that called the current function, and the frame below that represents the function that called the function that called the current function, and so on all the way down to main, which is the starting point of any C program.