Christian history is replete with bone-rattling documents of theological protest that capsuled the pressing issues of the day: Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, which sparked the Reformation, Pope Pius IX’s 19th century Syllabus of Errors, and the German Confessing Christians’ Barmen Declaration against Nazism. The technique has fallen into disuse, but it was dusted off last week by a group of 18 Christian thinkers of nine denominations. After a weekend war council at the Hartford Seminary Foundation in Connecticut, they joined in a dramatic warning that American theology has strayed dangerously far afield.
God is Real. Their “Appeal for Theological Affirmation” condemns 13 pervasive ideas, all of which undermine “transcendence,” the essential concept that God and his kingdom have a real, autonomous existence apart from the thoughts and efforts of humanity.
Among the signers, who were able to agree on the protest with surprising alacrity, were Catholic Theologian Avery Dulles, Eastern Orthodox Seminary Dean Alexander Schmemann, Lutheran Theologians George Forell and George Lindbeck, Yale Chaplain William Sloane Coffin Jr., a Presbyterian, and Evangelical Theologian Lewis Smedes of Fuller Seminary.
In 1,150 words, their statement takes issue with some of the most popular liberal fashions of the past decade, including secular Christianity, political eschatology and the human potential movement. The specific theses that the churchmen condemned as “false and debilitating”:
1. Modern thought is superior to all past forms of understanding reality, and is therefore normative for Christian faith and life.
2. Religious statements are totally independent of reasonable discourse.
3. Religious language refers to human experience and nothing else, God being humanity’s noblest creation.
4. Jesus can only be understood in terms of contemporary models of humanity.
5. All religions are equally valid; the choice among them is not a matter of conviction about truth but only of personal preference or lifestyle.
6. To realize one’s potential and to be true to oneself is the whole meaning of salvation.
7. Since what is human is good, evil can adequately be understood as failure to realize human potential.
8. The sole purpose of worship is to promote individual self-realization and human community.
9. Institutions and historical traditions are oppressive and inimical to our being truly human; liberation from them is required for authentic existence and authentic religion.
10. The world must set the agenda for the Church. Social, political and economic programs to improve the quality of life are ultimately normative for the Church’s mission in the world.
11. An emphasis on God’s transcendence is at least a hindrance to, and perhaps incompatible with, Christian social concern and action.
12. The struggle for a better humanity will bring about the Kingdom of God.
13. The question of hope beyond death is irrelevant or at best marginal to the Christian understanding of human fulfillment.
After each of these assertions, the statement adds a qualifying paragraph explaining why the idea is wrong, even though it might sound beguiling and contain an element of truth. The statement nowhere mentions the people who have promulgated the false theses, but the discussions at Hartford included references to Harvey Cox (The Secular City), Situation Ethicist Joseph Fletcher and Britain’s Bishop John Robinson (Honest to God). As for the pervasiveness of the thinking exemplified in the theses, Jesuit Dulles thinks that the ideas are widespread in the Roman Catholic Church, particularly among popularizers of the late Teilhard de Chardin and “liberation theologians,” who give the Bible a Marxist reinterpretation. A professor from Manhattan’s Union Theological Seminary, an influential Protestant school, said that the theses summarize the general belief there.
Gargantuan Exercise. Even the World Council of Churches is “a gargantuan exercise in such cultural capitulation,” said the Rev. Richard Neuhaus, an antiwar activist and pastor of St. John the Evangelist Church in Brooklyn. Neuhaus and Fellow Lutheran Peter Berger, iconoclastic author and sociologist at Rutgers, were the originators of the protest. Exasperated by what they consider a church sellout to such man-made ideologies as scientific rationalism and socialism, they wrote the original draft of the statement a year ago, mailed it to 50 churchmen for their reactions and summoned the Hartford meeting to prepare the final declaration.
Though the Hartford discussions brought out many theological differences, conservatives and liberals alike agreed on the necessity of Christian social involvement. However, a paradox was noted. The declaration insists that politically based theologies, which were created to foster social impact, have done just the opposite. Even Political Activist Coffin joined the group in condemning an idea on which he has often preached, that “the world must set the agenda for the Church.” The view from Hartford is that Christianity will be too weak for sustained attack on social evils —or for anything else—unless it first seeks the transcendence, power and will of God. After all, the Hartford Eighteen declare, “We did not invent God; God invented us.”
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