not apologetic

At my Bishop's direction (and it turned out really great for me), as well as the Lutheran theological seminary he graciously arranged for me to attend because Gettysburg was conveniently a reasonable daily commute from our home in Harrisburg, I also attended our Episcopal theological seminary across the Potomac River from WashingtonDC in Alexandria, Virginia. Starting my second semester, I took one course a semester at Virginia and the rest at Gettysburg, and then the last semester of my Senior year I studied in residence at Virginia while also completing my CPE program at Hershey Medical Center. 

One of the professors at Virginia kept his course fascinating with anecdotes from his decades of teaching, and one comes to mind almost every Sunday morning after the sermon as, in compliance with the rubric that says "On Sundays and other major feasts there follows, all standing", we stand and recite the Nicene Creed together. He said that on one occasion he'd asked a professor friend, a Greek Orthodox priest, to come lecture to his class about the Nicene Creed. When the visitor had finished and invited questions, one young upstart seminarian spoke up, "When I say my Creed I leave out parts of it that I don't agree with." To which the visiting professor retorted, "Young man, it's not YOUR creed, it's OUR creed, and if you say it often enough perhaps eventually you will get it." 

Well, that young man was not me, and I don't leave out parts and I don't cross my fingers, and although parts of it are beyond human knowing, and all Christian doctrine is beyond human proving notwithstanding the most earnest of Christian apologists, I stand and say the Creed because it's longstanding liturgical Tradition (take care using the word "tradition" because in Anglicanism "tradition" is charged with theological implications, as in Scripture, Tradition, and Reason - - many people use "tradition" when they mean "custom" and in a religious milieu the two words are not interchangeable), Tradition and also, as I said, the rubrics require it (BCP 326 and 358).

The Nicene Creed is not all Scriptural, but (Scripture, Tradition and Reason, remember and some add Experience) it's Tradition, which to some extent is another word for History. Two early General Councils of the church particularly, Nicaea (325 AD) and Constantinople (381 AD), established and prescribed the Creed as orthodox doctrine of the Church for all Christians for all Time. Not universally accepted by all Christians even in it's (4th) century, the Creed was largely to refute several teachings growing in the Church that the councils of early church fathers condemned as heresy - - not by refuting them in the Creed but by asserting in the Creed what the gathering of old men decided would be orthodoxy vis-a-vis each of the several heretical teachings.

Anyone interested in the History of that era might read "Jesus Wars"* that in my years as an EfM mentor I prescribed as summer reading for my EfM students before they started Year Three, which was about church theology.

So as usual I'm wandering from my topic object subject that I meant to be something about Christian apologetics, my view of. Christian apologetics is a somewhat high sounding term for a - - discipline, I guess - - or compulsion - - or desperation - - or exercise - - that attempts to rationalize, explain, justify, even prove and make sense of, doctrine makes no sense whatsoever; but that rather must Either be accepted by the conscious deliberate decision that is a "leap of faith" - - Or by having been so immersed-in and indoctrinated-in for so many years that it never occurs to one to wonder and doubt and ask questions (especially in doctrinaire religious traditions where doubting and questioning would be unthinkable for The Great Unthinking - - which is not the Episcopal Church, where we have far more questions than answers).   

In that anyone can try to rationalize anything, the notion of Christian apologetics can apply both to the Creed and to the Bible as bases for Christian doctrine. Years ago, in a gathering that was discussing the Nicene Creed, someone in the group said, "It just makes sense". And I suppose to him it does. But "it don't make no sense" to me, regardless of how many times I say it (and in 84 years of saying it I've said it more times than you have), and regardless of the apologetics that anyone may offer as "proof". As well, there is my reservation about being told what to believe by an ancient generation whose world view was so different from my own - - mine is far from sophisticated, but does include much reading and many long night hours with my eye glued to an astronomical telescope. If you think you can prove Christianity, your God is too small.

Recently stirring around online for reading matter, I came across this, having to do with Christian apologetics, which I quote.** "In The Reason I Believe, Allen Quist returns to a basic fact-based defense of Christianity. In doing so, he offers a wealth of compelling evidence for the truthfulness of Christianity, including the existence of God, the reliability of Scripture, and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Quist also presents a biblical response to the problem of evil and the scientific issues with Darwinism, equipping Christians to confidently respond to these common objections to their faith." Unquote. And, although I've not read the book, I appreciate that in defense (which is what apologetics is) one offers what one considers "compelling evidence for the truthfulness". But in order to accept as "fact-based" in the first place, the reader must go in at least already inclined and willing to accept as "fact" that which is offered as fact - - which is not "fact" but testimony that in today's courtroom might be tossed as "hearsay" - - which under the circumstances is not an objective going in at all but a biased, faith-based going in. 

What Christianity offers is not proven facts but doctrine based on oral tradition set down in writing forty years (70 AD the Gospel according to Mark) and more decades afterward, pericopes, collections of oral stories as faith testimony; remembrances and stories not unlike beloved stories that are passed down in families, and the stories told around the campfires those forty years of evenings in the wilderness with Moses. There are no pictures or newsreels or recordings in a modern sense; what we have is the word of folks who were persuaded and whose agenda was to write that others might also be persuaded - - a fair, honest, and reasonable undertaking. And of which when ordained we "solemnly declare that I do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God" and I've done that and hold to it.

And, frankly, they've persuaded me. But is it because I grew up with it, or because re-reading it now I still love it and mean always to be part of it? And "the Word of God" is not necessarily the same as demonstrably proven human history, nor is it meant to be. It's not proof but like what a Christian grand jury might indict and pass on for you to judge for yourself. What comes to mind is a day in class when my New Testament professor at Gettysburg described himself as "the ultimate skeptic". That day, in a discussion of Jesus' nature miracles, and asked if he believed the nature miracle accounts were true facts, the professor told the class that for all his skepticism he had long ago made the conscious and deliberate decision to "accept just this one thing: the Resurrection as truth and fact." That's a pragmatic example of a "leap of faith", limited though it be. One accepts the Christian faith and its doctrine, creed and scripture, not because it's been proven as fact, which is impossible. But because, based on the testimony, you've decided to believe (or at least to give it a pass and "let it be", even with an Amen). Recognizing, as someone said, "no amount of belief makes something a fact".

Which comes back to the Nicene Creed. We do not stand and say "We know", we stand and say "We believe". Belief is the beginning of faith (Action as one's way-of-life because of that Belief is the rest of faith). And faith is not certainty, "faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see." Hebrews 11:1. Faith and its confidence and assurance may well be laced with doubt. But Christianity is not about belief but about a Way of life.

Meandering on with this muse@, I have no use for Christian apologetics, which is nonsense: Christianity does not need to be proved that it is literal, inerrant true historic fact; Christianity is not "history", Christianity is "heilsgeschichte", our holy history with our stories and songs and our belonging to it and each other. F. Schleiermacher, who objected of the Nicene Creed that it says things that are "beyond human knowing", wrote that in each of us is planted "a sense of the infinite", and that's where we are. Christianity cannot be known, but it can be sensed, and it can be believed with all our hearts, and doubted, and loved, and lived as one's way of life, the Way of the Cross.

So I believe. Of Christian apologetics, as an Episcopal priest with two university degrees in Business Administration, I say it's marketing; and I'm always skeptical when someone is trying to sell me something. 

In our adult Sunday school class sometime before Christmas 2019, I mean for us to pick apart the Nicene Creed, not discrediting but so we understand why the church fathers put all those assertions in there for us to say on Sundays and other Major Feasts. 

And when I study the Bible, both alone for my own enjoyment and in a group of good folks, I'm never trying to sell anyone anything or convince anyone that something is true except how fascinating the Bible is. Rather, I like to look at what was written, and who wrote it, and to whom, and why, and when, and what the writer may originally have said compared to what various copiers and editors have sent down through the ages. 

St Thomas was a doubter and Fr Tom is a doubter and I never treat Bible study as devotional work, but I do try to allow space and Time for those in the group to share what the passage means to them and how it scares, horrifies, delights, or blesses them.

Now I need a picture, don't I. How about sunset just as we were leaving Harbour Village last evening on our way to church.     

TW+  


* Philip Jenkins, "Jesus Wars: How Four Patriarchs, Three Queens, and Two Emperors Decided What Christians Would Believe for the Next 1,500 Years" 

** I found the reference to AQ's book while reading book reviews online. It's there, I'm not going back to look for it this morning; if interested, google and find it yourself.

@ which is itself in the nature of Christian apologetics