Thinking of Converting?

Scot McNight writes often about the need to become more connected to the history of the church and of the inadequate ecclesiology of low-church evangelicals. He was recently asked, in light of those criticisms, why he does not convert to the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox traditions.

Here are a few of his responses…

- The biggest reason is how I read the Bible. I believe the Bible establishes a clear framework for a vital characteristic of forming all theology. The framework is what I call the “wiki” nature of gospel and theological expression. That is, God spoke to God’s people in Moses’ day in Moses’ way, in David’s day in David’s way, in Isaiah’s way in Isaiah’s day, in Jesus’ day in Jesus’ way, in Paul’s day in Paul’s way, and in John’s day in John’s way. There is, then, a clear pattern: the gospel and God’s revelation participates in “wiki” (or ongoing, renewed and renewable) versions. What this means is that there is an ongoing pattern of development and a recognition that the former days can get swallowed up in the present days.

- I think the RCC and EO render authority in the ecclesia instead of in Scripture and in Spirit to make Scripture clear… RCCs and EOs talk about Church; Protestants talk about Scripture… (I wish each talked more of Spirit).

- For each of these communions the Tradition becomes massively authoritative and, in my view, each of these communions has become un-reformable. 

- They read the Bible through Tradition and I believe in reading the Bible with Tradition.

- I believe in the guidance of the Spirit in the Church, both in theological articulation (Nicea, for example) and in revival (the Reformation, for example). The minute, however, one begins to think that a given moment in the Church or its articulation was timeless truth rather than truthful timeliness one falls prey to elevating Tradition too high.

- I believe in ongoing discernment of what the Spirit is saying to the Church, and I believe this discernment is a function of church leaders and churches in communion with one another. Discernment for the day is different than infallible teaching for all time.

- New Birth. I believe deeply in the need for personal rebirth, for the new birth, and I don’t think either communion emphasizes this enough. The sparks of change I do see aren’t creating blazes of revival. When they do you’ll see me jumping for joy.

- While McNight acknowledges that “evangelicalism today has completely lost touch with the history of the Church, with the great traditions”, he remains “unapologetically an evangelical Protestant” because he believes this is a more faithful shaping of the doctrines of the Bible.

- Other reasons include: assurance of salvation, the worrisome compulsion to attend mass, women in ministry, the significance of lay giftedness, less (not more) authority in the local pastor and more authority in the Spirit, justification by faith, hierarchical power structures that create endless red tape, too much Mary, etc.

You can read Scot's full response HERE. 

Comments

[Reed]

I have heard many of these arguments before but unfortunately, McNight still suffers from the Evangelical presupposition of sola scriptura, meaning "by scripture alone."

What American Evangelicals fail to acknowledge time and time again is that the church existed for three hundred years before the canon was officially verified. Eastern and Roman churches view scripture through Tradition because it was Tradition that chose what was going to be scripture in the first place. The councils chose which books were going to make up the canon based on what Tradition was already practicing. There were many epistles and gospels that did not make it into what we call the New Testament today, precisely because they did not support what the Church leadership already considered its identity.

It seems silly to me to argue that God gave Christian leaders in the 4th century the supernatural ability to make one good decision, (that is, the selection of the canon), and yet let them be way off on a lot of the other weird "ritualistic stuff" that Roman and especially Eastern Christians still practice today. A better argument might be from a "historical viewpoint." Are the Eastern and Roman churches what Jesus and the original disciples originally had in mind? But unfortunately, I'm not sure that modern American Evangelicalism would hold up to that scrutiny very well either.

It's no coincidence that the doctrine of sola scriptura didn't really start catching steam amongst protestants until after Vatican I when Catholics started pushing the infallibility of the pope.

While not yet a convert to Eastern Orthodoxy, I do feel the need to play devil's advocate to what I see as McNight's wounded argument. The truth is, this is merely one side of the larger debate for authority in the Church, and something I've not yet fully resolved for myself. In the end, which has the greatest authority? Tradition, Scripture, or History? I'm not sure if a clear answer exists.

-Reed

(Incidentally, a proper Eastern Christian would probably argue that they never lost "the spirit" in their worship and theology and that it was the western church—and its later protestant offshoots—that lost the Holy Spirit when they made their faith too Christological in focus rather than trinitarian.)