Of one thing we can be sure about hermeneutics, there will be disagreements among Christians when we read the Bible together. So at this preliminary stage, talking about aims and such like, it is also good to talk about how we might handle disagreement as we go along. After all, the history of hermeneutics and Scripture is the history of the church, and there we find a number of disagreements, as well as a number of strategies for handling them.
Here are three strategies to think about - it's not an exclusive list.
(1) Ongoing disputation, without schism
(2) One side submitting to another
(3) Compromise negotiated
(4) Schism (for whatever reason, noble or ignoble)
Some examples (briefly):
(1) The great and prolonged debates and different ways of reading Scripture between the Alexandrian and Antichene schools of theology in the first centuries of the Christian era; the also long debates which went on among the schoolmen of the middle ages.
(2) Celtic Christianity agreeing to Roman calculation of calendrical matters, and rule of ecclesial matters at the Synod of Whitby.
(3) The outcome of the council in Jerusalem in Acts 15.
(4) The Great Schism between Eastern and Western Christianity of 1054; the Reformation schism of the 1520s between Protestants and Catholics in Western Europe.
Is it the nature of the issues before Anglicanism at the moment, or our poverty of historical knowledge of three other strategies which keeps us thinking that (ultimately) schism will be the end of the great debate we are involved in?
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Is it the nature of the issues before Anglicanism at the moment, or our poverty of historical knowledge of three other strategies which keeps us thinking that (ultimately) schism will be the end of the great debate we are involved in?
ReplyDeleteI think it's the nature of the human heart. Too often we lack sufficient humility to consider the possibility that we are wrong, or we have an emotional investment in whatever it is we want to think is right. That being the case we can too easily assume that those who disagree with us are, somehow, on the side of evil.
I'm in favour of ongoing dialogue informed by prayer. But if people won't humble themselves, pray for wisdom, be willing to consider that maybe they are wrong and be willing to talk to one another without assuming at the start that the other is evil, then you have to do what you have to do. All things work together for good. Maybe not for us in our lifetimes but at least for our children or grandchildren.
I was reading a book about the many assassination attempts on Hitler. Why did God let none of them succeed? Wouldn't the world have been spared much misery if he had been killed early? Maybe. But, on the other hand, if he had been killed early the world would not have learned through the fruits of his ideology just how wicked it was. People might now be mourning him because he built the autobahns rather than reviling him because he built so many death camps.
The Israelites didn't learn not to worship idols until they were all dragged off into captivity and servitude. Maybe we will have to learn what we should do when what we shouldn't do is, similarly, punished severely enough. I hope not.
That is profound, Janice!
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