An occasional thread on a topical question of enormous significance: how might we find ourselves proclaiming and living something the Lord’s apostles would consider ‘another gospel’?
There have always been some who set out to come up with ‘another gospel’. In more recent times, there have been books, lecture tours and intentionally provocative events declaring that the apostolic faith was fine for its own times, but should now be relegated to the rubbish bin of history. We can do better, so we are told, sometimes with the embarrassingly trite theological justification that ‘the church wrote the scriptures, so it can rewrite them’.
The scandal of our present age is not that such views can emerge within the establishment of the church (I use that term advisedly), but that such views are welcomed and promoted on the basis of ‘at least it gets people talking’ – I heard that rationale from an Archbishop in Australia (now retired) as justification for inviting a highly publicised heretic to preach from the Cathedral pulpit. Such a move was understandably perceived by the wider community as an endorsement for all the provocative contentions that constituted the message of this particular figure.
The failure to name heresy for what it is reflects a spirit of cowardice amongst our present day bishops. We live within a church culture cowed into avoiding such terms altogether (‘heresy’ or ‘false teaching’), with a superior stance of disparagement of anyone who dares to suggest such a thing. [I note the charge given to bishops in the BCP Ordinal ‘Are you ready, with all faithful diligence, to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God’s Word; and both privately and openly to encourage others to do the same?’ has been dropped in the ACANZP Ordinal, replaced by a much tamer line].
I suggest that failures in this area are as much responsible for the current pale imitation of the ‘Church catholic’ that we currently manifest as anything else.
However, my interest lies in another direction. It is all too easy to point at others and identify serious shortcomings in the gospel being presented. What about the danger closer to home – the unintended drift in what we affirm, preach and live out that may end up at an equally serious position? Are we mindful of pathways to result in affirming ‘another gospel’?
There are group dynamics at work here. Historically, one function of communion or koinonia is to warn and rebuke one another in a spirit of mutual accountability. We are to keep one another honest to the gospel as received from the outset, affirmed by the apostles. The notion of such koinonia is a foil to individualism and the spirit of independence. We cannot say ‘our Father’ without having brothers and sisters, and we are indeed ‘our brother’s [and sister’s] keeper’.
Let me toss one thought on the table for discussion at this point, to be explored further in part 2.
One pathway to inadvertently arriving at ‘another gospel’ is when we change the bottom line. We take something that is laudable in itself, and make it the non-negotiable affirmation by which all other notions are considered. Take, for instance, the resolve that we want no-one to walk away from the table of fellowship and dialogue…
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