Ayaan Hirsi Ali – Tipsy Teetotaler ن

Orthodox

“Necessary to Salvation”

One of the oddest thoughts to have crept its way into the Christian mind is the notion of what is “necessary to salvation.” The simple questions within the New Testament, “What must we do to be saved?” quickly become the stuff of bumper-stickers and a reduced version of Christianity unable to sustain a genuine spiritual life.

…

Anglicanism (as did many other versions of Protestantism) enshrined some of this sentiment in the Oath of Ordination required of its clergy. In this they swore that they believed the “Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to contain all things necessary to salvation.” In the hands of more extreme Reformers, this notion became a slogan with which to eliminate everything from Christianity other than those things that could be found in the Scriptures. A white-washed (literally) Christianity, devoid of ceremony and with only a hint of sacrament was the result. It is easily the primary culprit in the creation of secularism. All the “unnecessary stuff” is removed from Christianity, leaving the world with huge collections of unchristian, “neutral” things. This instinct and principle is both contrary to the Scriptures themselves as well as destructive of the very nature of the Christian faith.

…

A not inaccurate polemic against this reductionist form of Christianity is to describe it as an increasing Islamification of the faith. I have written before of the influence of Islam on the notion of Sola Scriptura. Christianity, viewed as essentially an act of submission to God through Christ, is not Christianity. It is a Christianized Islam. It’s useful. It need have none of the problems concomitant with a genuine historical Church. It is quite portable and can be kept entirely private, offering no disturbance to the structures and agreements of the secular world. Individual Christians are never a problem for the world. It’s only when two or three of them gather together that they become dangerous.

Fr. Stephen Freeman, An Unnecessary Salvation (emphasis added).

I have long (at least since my earliest days as an Orthodox Christian) thought that the urge to identify what is “necessary to salvation” was, at the popular level (perhaps not in seminary), a begrudging attitude — an effort not to give God anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary to give Him.

I still think that. If you stopped reading my post now and read and meditated on the whole Fr. Stephen post instead, I’d be very content.

Humans

Humans are not the point and purpose of the planet. Our art will begin with the attempt to step outside the human bubble. By careful attention, we will reengage with the non-human world.

Paul Kingsnorth, Principles of the Dark Mountain Manifesto, before his conversion to any form of Christianity. I’m not sure what he’d say now, but it might be like what another Christian said:

The human voice: That we can sing seems basis for conjecture that, despite our stupidities and our sinfulness, we might be the reason the universe exists.

Alexander Riley

Theophanies

The feasts on the calendar are not appointments with memorials, the recollection of events long past. They are invitations to present tense moments in the liturgical life of the world. In those moments there is an intersection of the present and the eternal. They are theophanies into which we may enter.

Fr. Stephen Freeman

I’ve listened recently to a lot of recorded talks by Fr. Stephen and feel affirmed in something I said 25 years or so ago: “I know that St. Irenaus said ‘God became man so that man might become God,’ but I’m aiming for now at just becoming human.”

Leaving all to follow

Each disciple must decide about the risks of discipleship. As the Lord warns: “For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it, lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish’” (Lk. 14:28-30). Some have faced demands in the work place to compromise the truth or have been expected to help defraud customers or investors. Some have faced demands for sexual favors. Some have had their parents cut them off from the warmth and affection of the family for choosing to become Orthodox Christians. Be advised, and count the cost. Consider seriously, should the demand come: how ready am I to forsake all?

Many will say, “But to belong to the Church is not highly risky. Are not all these images a little overstated?” At this moment for you and me risks are minimal; but conditions change. There are, today, implacable enemies of Christian commitment ready to destroy us.

Dynamis daily devotional for November 16, the Feast of St. Matthew, who left all and followed Christ.

Latin

Pope Francis removed a Texas Bishop, Joseph Strickland, from his bishopric. He apparently had harshly criticized the Pope on social media.

I thought this was another instance of “Liberal Pope Francis does bad thing to liberalize Church.” But maybe not:

Bishops should probably write books and letters rather than tweets and Facebook posts. That would be more in keeping with the character and purpose of the office—and not only the bishops. Congressmen, professors, prominent figures in scientific and medical establishments, would all be better served communicating to a smaller, more refined audience at a slower, more reflective tempo. But the allure of instant feedback from a large readership is very seductive.

It works on prelates the same way it works on senators, which perhaps is one reason Bishop Strickland has so often sounded like Ted Cruz in a cassock, sharing the usual obsessions—vaccines, the purportedly stolen election, etc.—as that one uncle every progressive with a byline apparently has to endure at Thanksgiving dinner. There are prominent figures in conservative Catholic circles, including bitter critics of the current pope, who privately dismiss Bishop Strickland as a publicity hound and a clown.

Kevin D. Williamson

Protestant

The Mainline

Mainline American Protestantism, as is often the case, plodded wearily along as if nothing had changed. Like an aging dowager, living in a decaying mansion on the edge of town, bankrupt and penniless, house decaying around her but acting as if her family still controlled the city, our theologians and church leaders continued to think and act as if we were in charge, as if the old arrangements were still valid.

Stanley Hauerwas, Resident Aliens

The Christian’s natural state

It should be the Christian’s natural state to feel that the times are out of joint and that we do not truly belong here. Yet lamentation can too often become just another form of worldliness, and polemic simply a means of making ourselves feel righteous.

Carl R. Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. The book gives Rod Dreher credit for co-authorship, but the book appeared to me to be 99% Trueman.

This, by the way, is a pretty penetrating observation, isn’t it?

Among the Evangelicals at ATS

Carl Trueman notes a real laxity in Protestant doctrine, particularly among evangelicals:

A recovery of classical theology also raises an interesting ecumenical question. Why do Protestants, especially those of an evangelical stripe, typically prioritize the doctrine of salvation over the doctrine of God? If an evangelical rejects simplicity or impassibility or eternal generation, he is typically free to do so. But why should those properly committed to the creeds and confessions consider that person closer spiritually to them than those who affirm classical theism but share a different understanding of justification?

This is a real issue. At an Association of Theological Schools accreditation meeting I once found myself placed among the “evangelical” attendees. In that group was someone who denied simplicity, impassibility, and the fact that God knows the future—all doctrines that I affirm. Those are not minor differences. Wistfully my eyes wandered to the Dominicans at another table, all of whom would at least have agreed with me on who God is, even if not on how he saves his church. We would at least have shared some common ground upon which to set forth our significant differences. The Reformed Orthodox of the Westminster Assembly would have considered deviance on the doctrine of God to be anathema and, if forced to choose, would certainly have preferred the company of a Thomist to that of someone who denied simplicity, eternal generation, or God’s foreknowledge. Why do we not think the same? The modern Protestant imagination is oddly different from that of our ancestors.

I’m not sure I’ve ever heard the words “simplicity”, “impassibility” or “eternal generation” in an Orthodox Church. Perhaps they come up in catechesis of those without Christian background. I also assume our Priests, Bishops and academics know them well enough to engage in ecumenical theology settings. But I don’t think they’re our native tongue.

Populism

The English sociologist David Martin comments that while both England and America share an anti-intellectual populism, in America such populists have worked within rather than without the walls of the church.

Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity

I think this is the first time since Trump rode down that escalator that I came across this quote. It could unlock some of the mysteries of Evangelicals supporting Trump.

More on the Christian Conversion of Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Douthat

[T]o set out to practice Christianity because you love the civilization that sprang from it and feel some kind of spiritual response to its teachings seems much more reasonable than hovering forever in agnosticism while you wait to achieve perfect theological certainty about the divinity of Christ.

Ross Douthat, Where Does Religion Come From?

DeBoer

I knew there’s be Christian critics of her conversion story; I should have realized that there would be bitter atheist critics as well — though it took the particular genius of Freddie deBoer to center criticism around consequentialist professions of religion — which Hirsi Ali’s apologia does appear to be in substantial part.

Still, this was not Freddie at his best; it seems to me that he usually gives people the benefit of the doubt and avoids construing their words in ways that make them look stupid. Not this time, though. It’s almost as if atheists resent apostates from their religion as much (or more) than other religions do.

Alan Jacobs

Which brings me to Alan Jacobs, responding to Freddie:

I would also note that while most people think that Buddhism is a religion, it typically doesn’t do or have any of the things that Freddie says religion does and has. I can’t now remember who said it, but one scholar of religion said that the only thing all religions have in common is that they use candles. That seems right to me.

So “religion” is an intractably fuzzy concept, the many religions of the world do many different things and do them in many different ways, and even within a given religion people may believe and may commit themselves for as astonishing variety of reasons. The whole enterprise, if indeed we can call religion an enterprise, is so fraught with complications that I don’t think there’s anything that can be legitimately said in general about it. It’s like life itself in that respect.

Relatedly: Freddie (like many people, it seems) is critical of the reasons Ayaan Hirsi Ali has cited for her conversion to Christianity. I’m not. My view is that everyone has to start somewhere — she’s very forthright about being a newcomer to all this — and what matters is not where you start but where you end up ….

Just so, Alan.

(Side note: I doubt that megachurces use candles. Are they, then, not practitioners of a religion? An affirmative answer is tempting.)

I, too, am leery of purely consequentialist arguments for Christianity, but I’m far from sure that’s all Hirsi Ali has.

Andrew Sullivan

Andrew Sullivan was uncharacteristically hostile and incoherent. It was as if he was figuring out his position by writing, but instead of tidying up after he reached a conclusion, he left in all the messiness of the exercise.

In the end, I think he decided the conversion may be real, if embryonic. None of it seemed worth quoting.

PEG

Finally, though he wasn’t responding to Freddy, Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry, notes that “the model of religious conversion implied by the notorious Protestant evangelization phrase [“Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?”] is far from the only one found in Christian tradition”:

“The best argument for the Catholic faith, in the end, is the beauty of her art, and the life of her saints,” once said none other than Benedict XVI, and the argument presented there is really a different version of Ali’s: look at what Christian civilization has produced, look at how uniquely beautiful and praiseworthy it is; the fact that a civilization animated by such ideas produced such unique and surpassing greatness must be an indication that these ideas are in a profound way true.

Christianity Today

[A] world after liberalism will be morally worse than the world before it. That was a tyranny of ignorance. This would be a tyranny of amnesia.

This quote, and the book review around it, is not intended to be about Ayaan Hirsi Ali. But coincidentally, Bonnie Kristian at Christianity Today (the flagship magazine of what I consider the most serious Evangelicals), reviewing John Gray’s The New Leviathans: Thoughts after Liberalism, chose the title Christianity Has Anchored Free Societies. What Happens as They Deconvert?.

What happens, then, as the West deconverts? Our culture’s post-Christianity and its post-liberalism go hand in hand, Gray suggests. Christendom is supplanted not by a reversion to paganism, as some conservatives think, but by a perversion of Puritanism, bloated with rules and bereft of redemption.

“Christian values continue to be widely authoritative if not often practiced,” Gray observes. But “unmoored from their theological matrix, they become inordinate and extreme. Society descends into a state of moral warfare unrestrained by the Christian insight into human imperfection.”

If you’ve read Hirsi Ali’s conversion account, you’ll surely note some parallels. And I don’t mind planting a “consequentialist” seed in my readers’ minds, either.

The human voice: That we can sing seems basis for conjecture that, despite our stupidities and our sinfulness, we might be the reason the universe exists.