The order of the articles, part 2

I really would like this blog to be a place where I can explore questions with other folk. Camassia's blog is the best example of this I can find so far. Lee's is good too. I really don't intend to rant and/or pontificate all the time (I'm just so darn good at it!)

But something I read over on Ut Unum Sint gets me back on my previous post on the Trinity being the first article of our Augsburg Confession. Matthew Fox, former Catholic priest who was banned from teaching by the Vatican in the mid-90s and currently is an Episcopal priest, will be teaching the Professional Leader's Event in the ELCA's Northern Illinois Synod this fall. Dr. Fox just was in Wittenberg, where he called for a new Reformation and posted "95 Theses" near the Castle Church Door.

In opposition to the original 95 Theses, Dr. Fox's make very little sense in a linear fashion. They alternate between rants against the Roman Catholic Church, bromides about homosexuality and economic justice, and promulgation of a neo-Gnostic pastiche which would probably make a second-century Gnostic twitch with laughter.

Among the most problematic theses:


1.

God is both Mother and Father.

I would affirm that God is neither male nor female. However, the term "Father" as a designation for the first person of the Trinity is part of our Triune Confession of God, the first of our Lutheran Confessions.

2.

At this time in history, God is more Mother than Father because the feminine is most missing and it is important to bring gender balance back.


5.

“All the names we give to God come from an understanding of ourselves.” (Eckhart) Thus people who worship a punitive father are themselves punitive.

6.

Theism (the idea that God is ‘out there’ or above and beyond the universe) is false. All things are in God and God is in all things (panentheism).

Panentheism seems to me to directly contradict the Christian notion of Creation by a God who is not this world but who creates this world.

16.

Christians must distinguish between Jesus and Paul.

But which Jesus? Certainly not the Jesus of John 17. Certainly not the Jesus of Matthew 28:16-20. Certainly not the one who says that those who indulge in porneia will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. In other words, that which accords to Fox's predetermined notion of Truth in Jesus and Paul will be used, and that which does not will be discarded.
23.

Sexuality is a sacred act and a spiritual experience, a theophany (revelation of the Divine), a mystical experience. It is holy and deserves to be honored as such.

What about the sin that dogs our sexuality from the word go - the desire to possess and use the other for our own purposes? Well, read on...

32.

Original sin is an ultimate expression of a punitive father God and is not a Biblical teaching. But original blessing (goodness and grace) is biblical.

33.

The term “original wound” better describes the separation humans experience on leaving the womb and entering the world, a world that is often unjust and unwelcoming than does the term “original sin.”

Contra article two of the Augsburg Confession.
Besides, this is totally illogical. If the world is often unjust and unwelcoming, then where did that come from? If "bad stuff" originates with the world, where did the bad stuff come from in the first place?

54.

The Holy Spirit works through all cultures and all spiritual traditions and blows “where it wills” and is not the exclusive domain of any one tradition and
never has been.

That God does work through other faiths than Christianity is a given. How God does so and whether Christianity has a superior claim is another question. I suggest that those who are Christians should believe that Christ is the self-revelation of God to humanity.
88.

When science teaches that matter is “frozen light” (physicist David Bohm) it is freeing human thought from scapegoating flesh as something evil and instead reassuring us that all things are light. This same teaching is found in the Christian Gospels (Christ is the light in all things) and in Buddhist teaching (the Buddha nature is in all things). Therefore, flesh does not sin; it is our choices that are sometimes off center.

1. What?
2. The fact that this guy calls himself a theologian is breathtaking. "There is no sin, there are only bad choices?" Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot? Auschwitz was a bad choice? Apartheid? Slavery? Gang violence is the result of bad choices? How about sex slavery in Asia? Child pornography? Even his favorite sins - economic injustice, etc? A bad choice is Folger's Crystals rather than fairly-traded organic coffee. A sin is killing rather than giving life, lying rather than truth-telling, taking rather than receiving.
3. The fact that this guy cannot distinguish the idea of "our flesh" as the poetic biblical term for the sin that dwells inside of us rather than denigrating the entire bodily existence is disturbing. The entire Christian tradition has been remarkably pro-body as an expression of God creating the world and seeing it as very good. However, it realizes that our very selves are turned away from God and towards ourselves, something that Fox represents to perfection but cannot see himself.

90.

"God” is only one name for the Divine One and there are an infinite number of names for God and Godhead and still God “has no name and will never be given a name.” (Eckhart)


Again, contra article one.

I am quite astounded and distressed that those in authority in the Northern Illinois Synod have chosen to invite this person, whose teaching and beliefs directly contradict the Lutheran Confessions, and in fact have their roots in the ancient heresy of Gnosticism, to teach their pastors and professional leaders.

In the seminaries, the Confessions are not treated as binding on our consciences. We do not study them in depth, we do not treat them as much more than historical documents which are interesting in themselves as a resource for where Lutheranism came from. We take vows to preach and teach according to them when we are ordained, but that does not seem to mean too much.

"Christians must distinguish" (to coin a phrase) between interpretation of the Confessions and unfaithfulness to the Confessions. And yes, we as Lutherans do owe loyalty to the Lutheran Confessions. We value them as "true witnesses to the Gospel." Or we used to.

When you invite a Matthew Fox to teach your professional leaders, a man who celebrates a "Cosmic Mass," a man who rejects the catholic faith as expressed in the Creeds, a man who openly states (among other things) that there is no such thing as sin, that we need no Savior other than ourselves, then you are no longer teaching and preaching according to the Lutheran Confessions.