My guess is that basically, Christianity builds on Judaism, or at least the Hebrew Bible, and J himself claims not be changing the law but fulfilling it. So everything was always already there in the scriptures, and those who observe the law are "in compliance," even if that way is too hard for most, and certainly for non-Jew's, and required an intervention by Him.
Islam, or Mormonism for that matter don't get the same treatment because they claim to build on and go beyond Christianity itself.
On FB this article was linked (by Kotsko!) with a reference to Romans, which is part of the Christian so-called "Bible", so presumably the reason is in Romans.
Here's the actual document, if anyone wants to read it. I haven't yet.
Paradoxically, Christians who follow the letter of the Mosaic Law are damned. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding Paul.
3 sounds like the popular explanation of Theravada vs Mahayana. Which is at least a better model for mutual tolerance than one typically gets in Western religion.
Understanding Paul on that point is hard.
And Jews for Jesus mostly tries to explain it only to Jewish people.
Quick and dirty understanding: the Catholic position is basically Narnia. The whole Aslan death/resurrection thing is what fixes Narnia, and nothing else can. But, surely you could be worshipping Tash and still be a good person, doing all those Aslan-mandated things. And you're not going to be condemned for mistakes in ostension!
Not new, and not specific to Judaism, although the emphasis is due to Christians historically being cruel to Jews.
I thought that was orthodox Catholicism for everyone for a while now -- that this is reiterating it, but not a change. That is, that orthodoxy is that salvation comes through the agency of Jesus for everyone, but that it is not necessarily the case that to be saved a person must consciously worship Jesus; if you're doing the right things otherwise, you can be saved by his agency whether or not you know what's going on.
So, nothing special about Jews; the Vatican could have said the same thing about non-Christians generally. But I don't recall my basis for thinking this is prior orthodoxy -- I'll look around and see if I can find anything.
Crossed with Cala, and making the same point.
9. More generally, fuck Paul. James FTW!
11/12 seems like a reasonable interpretation of Matthew 25. One wonders how the sola fide mob get past that.
More generally, fuck Paul
I've only read the Gospels and the first few books of the Old Testament, so it's just my osmotic belief that Jesus was the cool social justice warrior and Paul was the make a bunch of rules so we can throw people in hell for breaking them guy. Is that right?
15: I always assumed by not reading it.
12: I think that view is "acceptable Catholic theology" rather than "orthodox Catholicism". The catechism doesn't resolve this either way, I don't think.
12: I'm a pretty lousy Catholic, but that's basically what I learned as a kid. There are Catholics that are all about exceedingly strict interpretations of everything, but I think they're jerks, and the religion is a pretty big tent.
16. I'd say more that Jesus was a 1st century Jewish reformer, and Paul (who was also Jewish, but thought that breaking with Jewish practices was important) was screwed up by a lot of half digested Greek philosophy he didn't really understand.
17. I find it hard to imagine that Luther and Calvin weren't familiar with the Gospels.
21.2: That's usually put as "apostle to the goy".
The link also does mention that this is not a new interpretation.
I wish I could use "it is an unfathomable mystery" as a justification for things in my life, and have people go along with it.
I know the doctrine from the second Vatican Council, The Church in the Modern World. You have to be open to grace.
11: Quick and dirty understanding: the Catholic position is basically Narnia. The whole Aslan death/resurrection thing is what fixes Narnia, and nothing else can. But, surely you could be worshipping Tash and still be a good person, doing all those Aslan-mandated things. And you're not going to be condemned for mistakes in ostension!
Yup. It's interesting too that C.S. Lewis was an Anglican, not Catholic.
I don't think there's a big difference there except for Pope vs. Queen.
Anyway, when I went to an Episcopalian wedding it was basically the same as a Catholic one except for the words at the end of the Our Father and the groom being Jewish.
26. Anglicanism includes a lot of people who basically follow Catholic theology, except for the bits about the Pope. See also, "Oxford Movement".
One wonders how the sola fide mob get past that.
Luther was exactly the opposite of a friend to the Jews, but "sola fide" doesn't mean for most competent theologians, didn't mean for Paul to the extent he espoused the doctrine, and certainly doesn't necessarily mean, intellectual acceptance of any particular set of religious beliefs. "Faith" does not mean "belief." To the contrary, it means almost the opposite: acceptance that works or rule-obedience are not only not sufficient, but not even necessary for salvation, which remains fundamentally mysterious and God-determined, not determined by any particular set of religious practice. And, the workings of faith are always historically grounded. It's thus fully consistent with the following (which comes from the Vatican text linked above):
Since God has never revoked his covenant with his people Israel, there cannot be different paths or approaches to God's salvation. The theory that there may be two different paths to salvation, the Jewish path without Christ and the path with the Christ, whom Christians believe is Jesus of Nazareth, would in fact endanger the foundations of Christian faith. Confessing the universal and therefore also exclusive mediation of salvation through Jesus Christ belongs to the core of Christian faith. So too does the confession of the one God, the God of Israel, who through his revelation in Jesus Christ has become totally manifest as the God of all peoples, insofar as in him the promise has been fulfilled that all peoples will pray to the God of Israel as the one God (cf. Is 56:1-8). The document "Notes on the correct way to present the Jews and Judaism in preaching and catechesis in the Roman Catholic Church" published by the Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews in 1985 therefore maintained that the Church and Judaism cannot be represented as "two parallel ways to salvation", but that the Church must "witness to Christ as the Redeemer for all" (No.I, 7). The Christian faith confesses that God wants to lead all people to salvation, that
Jesus Christ is the universal mediator of salvation, and that there is no "other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved" (Acts 4:12).
From the Christian confession that there can be only one path to salvation, however, it does not in any way follow that the Jews are excluded from God's salvation because they do not believe in Jesus Christ as the Messiah of Israel and the Son of God. Such a claim would find no support in the soteriological understanding of Saint Paul, who in the Letter to the Romans not only gives expression to his conviction that there can be no breach in the history of salvation, but that salvation comes from the Jews (cf. also Jn 4:22). God entrusted Israel with a unique mission, and He does not bring his mysterious plan of salvation for all peoples (cf. 1 Tim 2:4) to fulfilment without drawing into it his "first-born son" (Ex 4:22). From this it is self-evident that Paul in the Letter to the Romans definitively negates the question he himself has posed, whether God has repudiated his own people. Just as decisively he asserts: "For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable" (Rom 11:29). That the Jews are participants in God's salvation is theologically unquestionable, but how that can be possible without confessing Christ explicitly, is and remains an unfathomable divine mystery. It is therefore no accident that Paul's soteriological reflections in Romans 9-11 on the irrevocable redemption of Israel against the background of the Christ-mystery culminate in a magnificent doxology: "Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways" (Rom 11:33). Bernard of Clairvaux (De cons. III/1,3) says that for the Jews "a determined point in time has been fixed which cannot be anticipated".
Anyway, when I went to an Episcopalian wedding it was basically the same as a Catholic one except for the words at the end of the Our Father
When I went to a Catholic wedding I expected it to be just like an Anglican one, but the priest called a time out in the middle for everybody to get up and take photos of the happy couple, which I thought was of questionable taste.
21: Yes, and add to that what we have from Paul are actually just letters to local churches/people as he flails haphazardly from one drama to the next, and are not well thought-out works of theology. Also, his Greek is a fucking mess. The canonisation of his "work" has really been an inconvenience for western civilisation.
The rules are almost all in the Old Testament. The stuff in the epistles (Paul) is more like exhortations. There are a couple of commands in the gospels, but they're few and far between, and tend to be more general.
but the priest called a time out in the middle for everybody to get up and take photos of the happy couple
I've never seen this at a Catholic wedding. Sounds a bit tacky.
Whatever theology.
Looking at Dante, Joshua, Judas Maccabeus, David, Hezekiah, and Trajan are in the 5th and 6th spheres of Heaven
"I saw mamma kissing Judas Maccabee."
I thought it was extremely tacky. The priest was an amiable old Franciscan who seemed to be a friend of the bride's family. I don't know if he made a habit of doing this or if it was a one off for people he knew well.
37 was tacky, but it was a great SNL skit.
There are a couple of commands in the gospels, but they're few and far between, and tend to be more general.
That, uh, doesn't make them easier to follow, for what it's worth.
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I am enjoying an edible arrangement as we speak. It's eight slices of apple, dipped in chocolate, then each with a different topping.
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36: In Dante, there is a big distinction between pre-Jesus Jews and post-Jesus Jews. I don't think there are any post-Jesus Jews in his Heaven.
Caramel, tiny chocolate chips, 2 kinds of crushed nuts, coconut, trail mix lookin' stuff, something, and plain.
Did you strategize about the right order to eat the slices?
Oh yes. I started with the ones I didn't want anyone else to eat - caramel, chocolate chip - and left behind the ones I was less interested in.
As an indigenous Lutheran, I would interpret it differently. First, I wouldn't give an exclusive reading to Jews as opposed to other non-Christians. Secondly, according to Lutheranism, we are save by grace, not through grace, and because God's grace in infinitely magnanimous, one's salvation does not depend on believing anything in particular or acting in any particular way. The fundamental basis of Lutheranism is everyone goes to heaven, no matter what.
The point is, you are already supposed to be filled with self-loathing, so when you realize what a nice guy God is, you are inspired to believe and do good works. You're also just in general supposed to have a massive overactive superego and tend toward depression, so showing up at church once a week to hear about how much God loves everyone, even flawed and despicable people like you is supposed to be kind of therapeutic. So, like, Lutherans value good works and shit, but salvation is not predicated on them. Anyways, this means that in Lutheran theology, everyone goes to heaven, including Jews/whoever, without them having to particularly believe in any Christian theology. I would say it's a bit of a tongue and cheek statement: your salvation bases are covered by Jesus' death, even though you don't believe in it.
The fundamental basis of Lutheranism is everyone goes to heaven, no matter what.
This is not the impression that I got from my theology prof carpoolmate.
You can take my comment as native informant verification of El Tigre's 30.1
Also, if you look into it, Luther's dislike of the Jews was, unlike historical Catholic anti-semitism, primarily not theologically motivated. Unlike Catholics, for whom killing Christ was a big (negative) deal, Lutherans view Jesus' death as teleological and necessary for salvation (aka "the religion of the cross not the crucifix"), so historically vilification of Jews in Lutheran areas were primarily not on those grounds.*
*I;m not gonna double check, but IIRC in his long screed against Jews, he doesn't even get to the christ-killer argument until near the end. Mostly it's just straight up xenophobia and complaints about how the Jews are too stubborn to recognize how amazing his reformed religion was.
You're in Texas, is he Lutheran Church Missouri Synod? They tend to be very conservative, so it's possible he wouldn't admit to this aspect of Lutheran theology. Lutherans generally don't really talk about it, since it's not conducive to promoting a certain moral code of conduct, but AFAIK the consensus among ELCA theology profs is that there is no possible human mechanism that can lead to individual salvation, because the point is God's grace is endlessly vast beyond puny human imagination*
*See Kant's writing on the sublime.
I don't get the impression that Luther liked anybody.
52
Yeah he was a crotchety misanthrope obsessed with fart jokes.
53
I just found out that Luther wrote married couples should try to do it at least twice a week. More was fine, but as long as it happened twice a week your marriage should be ok.
He liked fart jokes. Oh I see Buttercup already has that covered.
I was also raised Lutheran, but LCMS, and I don't think I could sign on to 48. Certainly being Jewish rather than Hindu wouldn't affect one's chances of going to heaven, but I got the distinct impression in confirmation class that converting to Islam might queer the deal.
IANALT but I think this
we are save by grace, not through grace, and because God's grace in infinitely magnanimous, one's salvation does not depend on believing anything in particular or acting in any particular way.
is totally right but this
The fundamental basis of Lutheranism is everyone goes to heaven, no matter what.
is not. It's not that "everyone goes to heaven, no matter what" but that we neither do nor can know about what specific processes get you to heaven because there's nothing you can do or not do to deserve it. We certainly can't expect any entry into heaven based on what we believe, do, profess, or deserve. Which is why "sola fides" means the exact opposite of "believing certain things about theology means that I get a free card to go to the good place while others burn!" But there's still an expectation that some people receive God's grace, and some don't, even if we can't explain why or expect that our actions or beliefs will produce that grace.
More modern Protestant theologians (not ML himself) take this further, to mean that thinking about things at all in terms of saved/damned heaven/hell grace/no grace as if you have any possible means of access to that knowledge for the next world, or any vision of what the next world is like, or even if it exists, is entirely and completely missing the point. To the extent you can do something meaningful for the faith, it's developing a connection with God in this world, not wondering about the (inaccessible to human knowledge) next one. People should be focused more on God's love for everyone, and God's universally obtainable, mysterious grace, and infinite, universal compassion for everyone. This gets very very close to, or maybe is, universalism, but in a different way than "everyone goes to heaven, no matter what."
I'm in the Minneapolis airport and the pa is playing We Built this City. In a Lutheran kind of way.
As a fellow indigenous Lutheran, my impression is not too dissimilar to Buttercup's. (The specific answer I was given as a kid was that whether or not non-Christians went to heaven was between them and God.) Though like everything else in the US, there is a split between liberal and conservative branches.
As B/C says, specifically w/r/t the Jews, Luther went from "gosh they must have been turned off by Catholicism, but now that I've explained things better and we can show them examples of humility and compassion and not being total dicks maybe they'll convert" to "why the fuck haven't they converted yet?? Morons! They are stubborn monsters so fucking kill them."
Luther was kind of amazing in his mix of arguably compassionate theology and super paranoid, aggressive, contemptuous politics. He was into really, really hating his perceived enemies, which was I guess kind of understandable, but even by his own lights it was insanely non-Christian and holy fuck was he ever anti-Semitic.
58
But there's still an expectation that some people receive God's grace, and some don't, even if we can't explain why or expect that our actions or beliefs will produce that grace.
This depends on the politics of your theology, and I would say not really true in contemporary Lutheranism. A main point in Lutheran theology is that Jesus died so all humans would have eternal life. As there is no personal mechanism to affect salvation, there is only the sacrifice of Jesus and the infinite grace of God, it's really hard to motivate, through Lutheran theology as interpreted by the ELCA, any sort of situation where someone would not go to heaven.*
*The concept of heaven is very theologically complex, so I'm using it more as in 'not be damned' or whatever.
There was a With Bob and David about this, and it was pretty damn good.
I don't get the impression that Luther liked anybody.
Presumably this must have been linked here at some point.
I don't think we really disagree, at least not in any way that matters.
51: ELCA. He is very, very liberal. And smarty.
I asked him about the theological foundation of hell, and he squirmed and told me some of the ways theologians try to deal with it, but that the text was very clear that hell is a thing and some people go there.
68
Hmm. Did he say what hell was? I've heard hell be explained as "distance from God," and I've also heard that there's no theological basis for hell, but I've never heard a theology professor or pastor say that some people would definitely go there.
The fundamental basis of Lutheranism is everyone goes to heaven, no matter what.
I think of this as Universalism, but I think Universalism came out of Calvinist roots. I think.
At least as far as the Bible goes the impression I have is that the evidence for hell is something along the lines of "they use this word here, and that word there, and this third word over here and if we translate all of those words as Hell then the bible is really clear that it exists", similar to the existence of the devil but probably not quite as much.
Nope, I'm wrong. Unitarianism comes from Calvinism. Universalism is more related to the Lutherans.
Universalism follows from sorites, I'm told: http://tedsider.org/papers/hell.pdf
Something like this,this, or this pretty much, I think, sum up the conventional mainline liberalish Protestant, including ELCA, view of hell these days -- some combo of "who knows, and guess what we can't possibly know" "scripture is actually incredibly vague about this and not at all focused on it" "if it means anything, it just means an absence of acceptance of grace, whatever that is" and "whatever the message is it is most definitely not 'do and believe x y and z or else you are condemned to hell.'" It's either universalism or pretty close to universalism.
"if it means anything, it just means an absence of acceptance of grace, whatever that is"
Right, he used this phrase. I didn't necessarily pin him down on whether or not he thought it was a physical place, near Ohio or something.
I was specifically asking him if there was any reading that allowed for Hell to not really exist, and it pained him, but he said in his opinion, not really.
Oh yes, I forgot. I have also heard Lutheran clergy when pressed describe hell as 'absence of grace.' The book of Revelations has also been completely excised from the liturgy/biblical cycle. (In my house this carried over to the point that we were actively discouraged from reading "The Last Battle" as kids.)
I also was specifically not asking him what he personally believes, but about Lutheran doctrine.
Hell is other people in Ohio.
It's possible for anyone to get to heaven, but not guaranteed. No individual person is automatically condemned to hell, but some people are going to end up there. Wherever it is. I don't think it's that close to Ohio, though. I don't see it on this map.
And this is what somebody you may recognize has to say about what the former head of my own church thinks about it.
Or, at much greater length, this:
I think of hell as more of a Florida thing. Or Texas.
Hard to get worked up about it though. Just passed Billings flying home, ipod shuffling through Dead concerts I attended in the 70s, not likely to be seeing my Dad again in this life, the only light in the plane is reflecting of the golden hair of the woman in the row ahead.
Is there another world? I can see the appeal.
72
Did Unitarianism come of the Dutch Reform church? Or is that just United Church of Christ?
Both the UCC and the unitarians came broadly speaking from New England Puritans.
It came out of English Puritanism, which was related to Dutch Reformed (e.g., the Pilgrims hanging out in the Netherlands for a few years before heading over to Plymouth). UCC was similar, I think. They both are offshoots of Congregationalism.
Unitarians have their own theological antecedents before the English settled in New England, running somewhat in parallel to the Anabaptists (with separate anti-Trinitarian movements various parts of Eastern Europe and Italy). You can go back to Arianism if need be, but it's largely something with origins in the 16th century.
Unless you're specifically talking about the Unitarian Universalists in the US, in which case, yes, New England.
People! No way, Unitarianism is totally from Transylvania. Sheesh!
There are Unitarian churches in Translyvania. Occasionally UU youth groups will take a trip there. But I think the connection is actually kind of specious.
I mean, most UU's totally reflect in mirrors, for example.
Wow you're a killjoy Spike. At any rate the UU "church" of my hippie upbringing had little to do with any NE uptight theology. Lots of drugs sex and radical politics tho! Transylvania seemed the more plausible back story.
Well, obviously the Puritainsm bit didn't last. Or maybe only in the form of radical politics.
Is he renting out his place in Texas?
near Ohio or something.
Oh, things are really only unpleasant around bedtime and even at the worst I'd hardly call it hell!
You might want to check with your pastor, though.
This thread is emblematic of why I continue to love Unfogged despite many frustrations with it. Come for the cock jokes, stay for the spirited but well-informed discussion of the finer points of Lutheran theology.
Hell is other people who don't live here anymore.
84: Now, admittedly, I didn't really pay too much attention in confirmation class (it's not like there was a test at the end or something) but I'm pretty sure the UCC's origins are solely in Congregationalism and the German Evangelical and Reformed Church.
I do always get confused, reading C19 Englischer stuff, about who exactly counted as a "nonconformist" in the English Christosphere. I suppose I should delve into it more, like Adam, while Eve span.
102.last: Men search trees like *this*, women search trees like *this*.
This thread has reminded me of my occasional project of trying to sit down and unthread Protestantism a bit more. I think I get the historical situations of most of the big branches, but at a certain point it all just ends up looking like this to me.
104: Diarmaid MacCulloch's The Reformation is a good introduction to the historical background of at least the major branches. It clarified a lot of the picture for me. He also has a more general history of Christianity, which I haven't read, but which might go into more detail about later developments.
Men search trees like *this*, women search trees like *this*.
If Genesis is to be believed, men are breath firsters.
102 - nonconformism is a pretty tightly defined category -- anyone who lives in England or Wales and isn't C of E or Catholic is a non-conformist. Similarly Dissent - Dissent is everything that isn't C of E or Catholic.
It came out of English Puritanism, which was related to Dutch Reformed
Most English Unitarian congregations came out of Presbyterianism, rather that Congregationalism. This is one reason why Presbyterianism, which had been the mainstream of conservative Puritanism in the 17th century was almost limited to Scottish immigrants in England in the early 20th century. It may well have been different in the US. The few remaining English Presbyterians and Congregationalists are now linked up in the United Reformed Church.
Actually I lied, Lutherans do have hell
Well, like black metal says, we should fight the real enemy, the Lutheran Church of Norway.
In every documentary about the black metal church burnings, the Lutheran clergy seem very nice and reasonable about things in general, though understandably dismayed by the, you know, Satanic arson.
110: Looks like it freezes over regularly, too.
Tigre: I should have known you're an Anglican. I've spent so much time reading RW being pompous and circumlocutory and underneath it all just idiotic that it's nice to be reminded of just how thought provoking he can sometimes be.
I'm astonished at the level of theology here. Did you folks actually study this at some point? All I have is Anglican confirmation class, from which I think I remember literally nothing.
105 - Thanks for the book rec, teo.
