Today the pastor talked about the Wesleyan quadrilateral. This means our discussion of issues in Christianity has these four sides to them: The Bible, experience, reason, and tradition. The result was some thinking on my part how much I employed these things myself. I would estimate the weights I give to them as follows.
Experience 10
The Bible 7
Reason 5
Tradition 1
If the Bible didn’t agree with experience I would pay it no attention at all. The use of reason is difficult, because the results depend far too much on the premises we start with. So by itself, it gives us nothing really. Its role is to make sure conclusions are consistent with the things which do matter to us, and that is important of course. Not having been raised Christian and starting with science, it is difficult for me to see much value in tradition. It looks mostly to me like a way of perpetuating error. But it may provide conventions in things where it is more important to have a decision than what the decision is. It can provide structure which we can make meaningful according to what is important.
However… Perhaps there is another side which has been included in tradition. This consists of what we have learned over time regarding what works and what doesn’t work. The problem is, too great an emphasis on tradition can be an obstacle to learning. So I think this really needs to be fifth side to the equation different from tradition.
Interesting to think about. We are studying a book regarding doctrine that discusses the WQ a bit, but places more weight on scripture and having the other three legs as secondary features. Not sure what I think of it, as when someone uses scripture as their base of support, it is still very dependent on how they read it in light of their experience, tradition, and reason, despite any protests to the contrary.
How does your 5th leg proposed differ from that of experience? sounds much the same.
I think the point is that some portion of church tradition consists of things learned by experience in the history of the church. So it is not a matter of your own personal experience and much more likely to be included under the label of tradition.
Does science qualify as “reason”? How about ancient studies?
That’s my problem with the Wesleyan scheme: to me, the other three all involve reason, for example the Bible is useless without reason, and experience is nearly so, but then Experience can be judged by reason and the Bible and even by Tradition, while Tradition gets judged by reason and the Bible, and so on.
I learned recently from a video lecture by an Orthodox scholar that the East categorizes tradition: There is universal tradition that applies to the whole church, local tradition that applies to anything from a single church to a patriarchate, then there’s long-term versus short-term tradition. His claim was that it is very difficult to get something into universal tradition, though it has happened accidentally as illustrated by the practice of giving communion with a spoon.
This Sunday, my sister and brother attended a church (Lakeshore Baptist in Grand Haven), where the pastor reminded everyone how not to get over upset about politics. He cited Psalm 2, “Why do the nations rage.” They (and my son, who was visiting), felt it was a great message.
My own pastor reminded us of how hard it is to fear or dislike someone in a petty way, if we actively pray for them as people.
I emailed my pastor to tell him my appreciation for his wisdom.
Our pastor also had a great meassage He has been doing a series on the overarching story of the Bible, and this was his final one on eschatology. Interesting as he emphasized how the end times started with Jesus’ resurrection, and how the warnings about deception,conflict, false leaders who claim to be Christian, etc. apply today, saying how it is easy to identify those who are up front with their opposition to Christianity, but far more dangerous are the anti-Christs within. I anyone wants a link to the sermon, PM me. sort of a dangerous sermon in these political times, but can easily apply it to either side of the political aisle.
Both use reason just as do lawyers, politicians, and used car salesmen. Reason depends on the premises you start with, and so by itself reason tells you nothing.
It is not a problem because a quadrilateral need not have equal sides. It is only a problem if one of these plays no role whatsoever in your thinking and decisions. Is that the case for you?
We continue to lift those prayers together today and tomorrow (and after!).
Yesterday I listened through a holy post interview of policy strategist, Christ Crawford, (who works with Project Democracy), and learned a few interesting (and reassuring) things about our U.S. elections and election laws. Sorry that the interview itself is behind a registration wall - if you’re a Holy Post subscriber, you can get to it. Anyway - one of the things he reminded us about is that even with a normal and fair election, it isn’t reasonable to expect (especially if it’s a close election) that we’ll know winners already on Tuesday night. So many different states have different kinds of counting systems in place (some of which require them to wait till election day to begin the process of counting all the early ballots, etc) - and some have different (faster or slower) methods of determining, checking, and certifying their counts. So we just need to prepare ourselves to have patience. And to know that in that window of uncertainty, there will be bad actors - perhaps both domestic or from abroad - who will attempt to sow doubt and mistrust about the whole process. But the system works - and worked in 2020. Any suspicions of widespread fraud that have any evidence to back them up are taken seriously. And no evidence of anything widespread enough to influence outcomes was there in the last elections - despite the many attempts to find such things.
We can pray though (no matter which way the outcome goes) that all of us whether our wished-for candidate won or didn’t, will still make a way to come together with our friends and neighbors who themselves will also be needing to deal with either triumphalism or else feelings of defeat and likely continued anger. It’s hard to prepare oneself, when there’s so much uncertainty which side of that you’ll be dealing with for yourself. But one thing is certain - no matter which way it goes, you will still be living with your community and neighbors, and have the oppotunity to give and maybe receive grace from all those friends. I hope people latch onto that intention and live into it in the coming weeks and months.
It was encouraging to hear nothing about the election or politics in church yesterday. There was some talk about football, mostly resignation and defeatism on the part of Texas Aggies.
It was the Day of Remembrance and the choir sang Gabriel Fauré’s beautiful Requiem (Mass for the dead). Many requiems focus on the frightening aspects of the Last Day (“Day of Wrath…”), but this one focuses on the sweetness of the life to come.
In theology class, our guest teacher was an Episcopal military chaplain. Very interesting!
Yesterday, the sermon in our church was about the connected messages of the creation and incarnation. Based on what God did, both tell the same message about the value of humans in the eyes of God. That gives a solid foundation to human dignity. Our value is not in what we can or cannot do, it is shown in what God did. Both stories also tell how strongly God wants to have a relationship with us.
We cannot see the invisible God but we can learn about Him and His will through the acts of God. What God did reflects who He is and what He thinks. It is an illuminating perspective. It is not only what we are told in the scriptures, it is also what we see around us. When we look at or study the creation around us, it reveals something about God and His thinking. In that sense, the creation declares its Creator.
The key idea is that if holy water is poured into ordinary water, the result is that the ordinary water is made holy by the contact.
My thought was that given that when Jesus was baptized in the Jordan, the water of the Jordan was made holy, then by now all the water in the world is now holy; thus all water should remind us of our own Baptism and serve as a reminder that the Evil One has no power over us.
This links with a proof a chemistry professor did that every human on Earth has water molecules making up his/her body that were once part of the body of Jesus.
Take these together and it would seem that all the world where there is water is more holy than before the Incarnation.
It reminded me of Haggai 2:11-14:
"“This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Ask the priests what the law says: 12 If someone carries consecrated meat in the fold of their garment, and that fold touches some bread or stew, some wine, olive oil or other food, does it become consecrated?’” The priests answered, “No.”
13 Then Haggai said, “If a person defiled by contact with a dead body touches one of these things, does it become defiled?” “Yes,” the priests replied, “it becomes defiled.”
14 Then Haggai said, “‘So it is with this people and this nation in my sight,’ declares the Lord. ‘Whatever they do and whatever they offer there is defiled."
This raises the question whether holy water can turn other matter holy?
Another question is what is holy?
If we use the word ‘holy’ in a dictionary sense, “dedicated or consecrated to God or a religious purpose; sacred”, then what is ‘holy’ is not a too complicated issue.
If we use the word ‘holy’ in the sense that matter gets some ‘holy’ properties that can spread to other matter, the question might become somewhat controversial.
This week in church I learned that the CO2 concentration is much higher in the back right pews than in the front left pews(*). This matters because CO2 is a proxy for risk of exposure to respiratory viruses, we have parishioners who want to avoid infection, and we’ve been encouraging them to sit in those back right pews. So our policy doesn’t align well with our air flow patterns.
I think there was also a sermon. (I find having a task to perform during the service to be detrimental to worship.)
(*) I learned this by placing a CO2 monitor in both places.
Maybe the CO2 was higher there because more people were sitting there, contributing their expiratory load. Or candles, too many candles. Of course, it may be the heaters, which could be an issue if has gas heat and exhaust leaks. It is always interesting to consider the why.
Our pastor did his annual recitation of the Sermon on the Mount from memory, with no comment or embellishment, just the exhortation to listen and hear what God is telling you through it. I learn something every year, and often it is how far I fall from the ideal, and how important grace is for me to receive and to give. I just need to practice what I learn.
That’s all a good point. It even made me think of looking up some more articles like the one on Christianity today site about Jesus and ritual impurity. I remember one verse, where he said “Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken to you.” It will be very interesting to read more about Christ’s relationship with ritual purity