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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!akgub!cylixd!charli
From: charli@cylixd.UUCP (Charli Phillips)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Wingate and Tinkham - Hunting Phantasma in the Christian Tradition
Message-ID: <343@cylixd.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 4-Oct-85 16:53:03 EDT
Article-I.D.: cylixd.343
Posted: Fri Oct  4 16:53:03 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 7-Oct-85 02:59:41 EDT
References: <1153@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Reply-To: charli@cylixd.UUCP (Charli Phillips)
Organization: RCA Cylix Communications , Memphis, TN
Lines: 78
Summary: 

I'll have to admit I'm only an amateur theologian, and I find gary
buchholz's posting a bit confusing.  Perhaps he (or someone else)
could clarify some points for me.

>  It is interesting that Wingate states the 1886 Anglican "confession"
>implying that this may be valid in the contemporary context.  

Are you implying that it is not valid?  If you are, please explain why.
If it is because it is "old" (and 100 years isn't really very old), are
all old confessions and documents invalid? To what extent, why?

>  J. Dunn in Unity and Diversity in the New Testament speaks also of
>this "freezing of tradition" . . . .
>. . .  that it calls into question any lasting
>significance of canonical, creedal or doctrinal authority.

Are you (or he) saying that the Canons, Creeds, and the like are *not*
of "lasting significance"?  Is their anything of lasting significance?
The Church itself?  The Gospel?

>  Koester et al would like to dissolve the question of truth altogether
>understanding "orthodoxy"(truth) and heresy in terms of political
>"winners" and "losers" of history.  "The formation of the canonical
>Gospels simply served to establish the superiority of those writings
>which were prized by that party which had won political hegemony."

"...dissolve the question of truth altogether..."?  Do you say that
there is no absolute truth?  Isn't it possible that the "losers" "lost"
because they were *wrong*?  Is the Church not more than a human 
organization?  If it is, can't the Head of the Church make His
organization bend to His will?  Or is He at the mercy of the local
politics as well?

>  This is the heart of the matter.  Every modern theologian since
>Bultmann (The NT and Mythology) has taken up this problem - how does
>one deal with the mythological categories of thought in the NT that,
>in Bultmanns words, "no modern man can accept" as Reality.

Could you specify the "mythological categories of thought", please?
I'm afraid I haven't read Bultmann.  It sounds like you're saying that
"no modern man" *really* believes that some aspects of the NT were
true.  Which aspects are those?

>Simply *asserting* things like [Anglican and RC doctrines]
>these days and claiming some transhistorical authority for them
>will get you nothing but the condemnation of ideology by the
>contemporary theological community.

I don't understand this statement at all.  What are you defining as
the "contemporary theological community"?  I'm certainly no fundamentalist,
but I know many, both clergy and lay, who will claim transhistorical
authority for the Scriptures, Creeds, and doctrines of their churches.
And what do you mean by "the condemnation of ideology"?  Do you mean
that the "contemporary theological community" will denounce the
Scriptures and Creeds as being idiological and not spiritual?  Or 
what?

>The historical reality of theology moves by passing through criticism not
>by passing around it, or by ignoring it, or by refuting it by simply
>asserting traditional creeds.

But isn't the purpose of the Creeds to give us the means to refute 
heresy?  Or do you imply that there is no such thing as heresy?

>  "Tradition frozen in time" does not easily equate with the type of
>"Truth" that Christians want to claim for it.  Why are the "losers" in
>history always "heretics".
>

Again, isn't the Church the Body of Christ?  Isn't it given the Holy
Spirit to lead it into Truth?  Can we not trust God to make sure that
the Truth "wins"?

Sorry this is so long.  I usually try to keep my postings short, 
particularly responses, but I want to make sure I understand Gary's
posting.

	charli