Mere Fidelity
Mere Fidelity
How to Read Outside Your Tradition
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If you only read what you know you'll agree with, how will you learn? But if you read something from another theological tradition, do you risk weakening your faith? In this episode, James Wood and Joseph Minich explore the importance of reading widely across Christian traditions, the role of ecumenism, and how to deepen your understanding within one's own tradition while remaining open to others. They discuss the value of tradition, truth, and the future of the church in a divided world.
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Why Read Outside Reformed Circles
SPEAKER_02Welcome to another episode of Mere Fidelity, which is hosted by Mere Orthodoxy. My name is James Wood, and I'm joined by one of my co-hosts, Joseph Middick. We are out from under the reins of Derek Rishmawi, who this week who is at the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America, which is where I uh am ordained. I'm a teaching elder there. And I think, Joe, are you attending a PCA church? Where are you at?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's my current membership is in a PCA church, but I just moved to Florida, so we're gonna find out if we're all up for grabs. Well, it's all up for grabs, PCA or Anglican. We'll see what happens.
SPEAKER_02Well, and that's related to the topic we wanted to explore, just a short episode while it's just us two. Is the idea we're we're both reformed public thinkers, theologians, philosophers. Uh, we're happy in the broad tradition of what it means to be a reformed Protestant. However, both Joe and I um are intellectually curious, not in a sinful way, like John Webster's term, but we like to dabble. We like to read outside of our tradition. I think Joe, uh you studied uh your undergrad at the Catholic University, is that correct? Yep, that's right. Yeah. Where'd you do your your your master's and doctorate? I can't remember now.
SPEAKER_03My master's was at RTS in the Washington, D.C. area, and then my doctorate was at the University of Texas at Dallas uh in a humanities program. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So and then I uh I was in, yeah, I came into the faith in college, as many people know, and then I immediately got thrown into the reformed orbit pretty deeply. My master's was at a version of Westminster that became a school called Redeemer, which then became folded into RTS network. Uh and then I did another degree at Princeton Seminary, which is another version of Reformed. But then my my my doctorate stu my doctoral studies was at an Anglican school called Wycliffe. And I think both of us also currently read pretty broadly. And so I think what I uh wanted to discuss uh is just how why do we do that? And then how do we do it well? Is it is it uh in a uh is it unfaithful to our Reformed convictions to read this way, uh, to explore these topics outside of the tradition? Is it dangerous? We've seen figures uh who start reading outside of the reformed tradition. They, you know, is this inevitably you're going to swim the Tiber, or you should read Thomas Aquinas and uh-oh, you know, is can you be a reformed Thomist or is that uh an oxymoron? So, you know, we'll explore, I think, a lot, a lot of angles on this. But but Joe, how do you why do you read broadly? Uh and how do you you just any any initial thoughts on why you do this, how you do it?
SPEAKER_03I suppose my initial uh reflection on that is simply that I I do so because I uh I have to uh at some point when you're asking certain questions and you're uh engaging certain things. You go where the resources are to investigate certain things. And so um, and the truth is some literature is more meaty than others on various questions. Some conversations are thicker in some places than others. Um and uh really the mind is adequated, it's mostly oriented toward the truth. And uh I don't mean that I'm you know some you know perfectly uh uh pointed toward the truth person. Uh nevertheless, in as much as what I'm trying to do when I ask questions is get at the truth of a matter, um, truth is found wherever it's spoken. And the Christians, for that reason, have always read uh quite widely outside of their immediate purview, because the the truth emerges, or at least pieces of the truth emerge in many different contexts. And um in one of the the other, I think, thing that that brings up in me then is that part of this is actually that you're keeping in the habits of uh your own tradition in this case. That is to say, that it's not just um uh it's not just a good idea to read widely in in the pursuit of truth. It's also the case that this is the habits of your own fathers, because it's as it were baked into the reformed tradition to be a a tradition that is feeding upon resources and foundations that are prior to itself. Uh and the nutrients uh that it's drawing upon are not um dead, they're still living and they're still vital, and we're still drawing upon those nutrients as we continue the contemporary application of the reform project. And so, in one sense, I've never really felt it to be attention precisely because of the reformed relationships, uh uh, the reformed tradition's relationship to sources outside of itself. Um, but then also uh presumably uh we're after the truth. Uh and in as much as reading widely helps you get to the truth, then yeah, that's
Common Grace And Ongoing Reform
SPEAKER_03it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I think one of the things I love about being reformed, right, and not only at the genesis of our tradition, which is inheriting broad conversations all across the world, right, of the church uh from its genesis, and also the idea that yeah, you've you've you f you honor truth wherever it's found. And in the neo-Calvinist ver, you know, stream of the reformed tradition, that's really expounded with the theme of like common grace, right? And I think sometimes reformed figures are better at uh more open to receiving that outside of other Christian traditions, uh, you know, outside of the church itself. Like we might receive truth from pagans, you know, but we're more we're more nervous about doing it from Catholics. Well, I guess maybe many of what the Reformed folks would call them pagans. But, you know, we're more nervous about that. And um, but I'll, you know, it it's just um interesting to me. One of the things I love about I said being reformed is also built into our DNA is uh open to to renewal and be in reforming. This is one of the things I actually love about my tradition, is it doesn't stultify, it shouldn't stultify in that way. That we're councils can error or err, right? And and so can theologians and even whole periods of the church might on certain points. Uh and I think that's kind of also built into our DNA that I really love in a way that might not be true for other traditions. But also for me, yeah, and as I really affirm that idea that I'm a questioner, right? I'm if I'm seeking truth, it's going to lead me down certain paths, and I need to be open to that, um, of of engaging figures that I might not have first um looked to, might not uh have um complete uh harmony with on certain doctrinal questions, but they might be exploring this line of inquiry in a way that is profoundly deep and worth engaging, uh, that my tradition might not have uh, at least maybe in in its current stage, might not have plumbed those depths at this point. And so I'm, you know, don't want to live in an insecurity. It's like, well, if I uh read these, for instance, Catholic figures on this set of questions, I inevitably have to be Catholic. I think that's an insecurity that I just I don't have. It's just not built into my DNA. And if you force me to only read reform figures all the time, you're gonna foreclose some of those lines of inquiry, I think, that might be really generative. That's and so it's just always been part of my my DNA. Oh, the other thing is one of the th I I agree that at our gen at the genesis of the reformed tradition, this was part of it built in the warp and woof of it, right? That you know, uh but the one of my frustrations in the the current state of things is uh is I think this is part of my ecumenism, is I also think that as the church has divided, which I there are all sorts of reasons why it has at various stages. One of the dilemmas of that is I I think different traditions I mean they almost have different charisms. They're just strong on different points. And I think we all suffer when the church is divided, that certain of those charisms are kind of obviously I think in the truest sense, in the deepest sense, the spirit is going to work in our tradition, absolutely, and and you're gonna be saved in your tradition. But there might be insights, uh there might be gold from other traditions that we miss out on. And that's part of the reason why I don't want to stick myself uh and foreclose those options of reading those figures, because they just really might have another angle on the truth that we just don't see at the in the present state of affairs.
Division And The Catholic Mind
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's uh I think an important point. I've been reading the Apostolic Fathers recently, and it has struck me afresh just what a crisis in the early Christian communities division was uh in those first centuries, especially, and the divided state of the church that we see today was never meant to be its norm. Um, you see, you see the state of the church that we see today uh something that is strongly attempting to uh uh there's a big attempt to prevent something like this uh in the early Christian communities. And for this very reason, that what happens is the virtues of the church get distributed uh in little pools and little teams and the whole body of Christ working together with the pooling of its virtues and competencies, and ultimately the fullness of man is and that includes a conflagration of intellectual styles, even in the church's mental life, abstracting it just to the church's intellectual life. There are different intellectual projects that uh are are all part of the one, as it were, Catholic mind. Recently we we talked, I think last time we were on an episode together about John Betts's Christ the Logos of Creation. And one of the things he does that I think is a quite Catholic, uh small C Catholic move in that book, is to talk about how perhaps various movements within the history of the Catholic Church, various dialectics are part of the inevitable um growth of the mind of the church, that in fact we shouldn't overly, you know, see just the Jansenists versus the Thomas and these sorts of things, or Bonaventure versus Thomas, et cetera, et cetera. But that there is a uh a singular reality of truth which nevertheless is approached dialectically in the human mind and is represented in the whole conversation of the church. Uh Bob Inck will write something similar about this in uh uh Reformed Dogmatics Volume 1, that in one sense, the church, the theology, uh he says, does not yet now exist uh as a singularity. It exists in the diversity of its churches and theologies out of which we expect it through the Holy Spirit to grow. And so part of that is then not that we then become members of, you know, invisible, non-identified churches. We remain members of uh visible, identified churches. Um, and yet part of what we're doing when we speak to other traditions and we try to work uh in as much as that's possible, uh, and we try to uh uh uh draw upon outside sources is we're actually bringing uh as it were the fragments of the consciousness of Christ uh back together into the unity of the church, or at least when there's you know a real spiritual unity to be had and a unity toward Christ to be had.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, a lot of those figures you brought up uh stimulated some of my other reflections. Peter Lighthart's been a big influence on me and and the way he conducts his own uh um uh theological projects has inspired me, engaging figures like what how we're talking. And but you know, the idea that he he brings up in the the end of Protestantism book of just like he's praying for the future church and we don't know yet what it will look like. But if you've already kind of answered that question from the outside, well, it's gonna look like this church from this previous century, and it's gonna look exactly like that, and we need to retrieve exactly that thing, then yeah, you're you're gonna be very suspicious of what Peter is doing. Uh, but I think he's on to something is do I think the church and was uh uh received its final form in some era? No, I'm not a golden age reverse utopian. Uh I'm also not a false kind of Marxist utopian of the future that, you know, we're gonna build this. But I am trusting the Spirit that he has something in store for the church that we can't yet fully discern. And it's going to look like gathering the various, like you said, the various fragments, not only of of truth that other people perceive, but also bring uh the fruits of these various traditions that actually are Christian to inform one another. And so I am praying for this future church and and another and another figure that has inspired me, which is much even more controversial.
Hart Newman And Tradition Shockwaves
SPEAKER_02But I think this is a this is a fascinating challenge that I really appreciated uh from uh David Bentley Hart's little book on tradition, which is very provocative. And I can't affirm that book as a whole, of course. Of course not. But again, you know, uh chew the meat, spit out the bones type thing uh with every figure I engage. And with I do that with Hart as well. He's the figure that I I I forget how we brought it up in a chat one time. We talked about a pop a possible future podcast where it's like your your favorite unorthodox figures you read. Yeah. Who do you always who do you always hate love read, right? Yes. David Bentley Hart is that for me. I always have to both love and hate, but I always read him because he's very stimulating.
SPEAKER_03Uh very stimulating.
SPEAKER_02And uh in this book, Tradition and Apocalypse, uh, I really thought it was, especially the beginning where he's talking, he's engaging the John Henry Newman argument about tradition. And he I think it's pretty devastating some of the arguments he makes there. But he I think pairing those two dialectics, those those two poles of tradition and apocalypse, I think is very generative of like, look, when we carry forward tradition, yeah, you want to honor it as much as you can, and there you want to pr perceive and and promote a certain type of continuity. But like the spirit does just break in and just and and reshuffle the deck, you know, reshuffle the chairs. Uh there's a quote from Marilyn Robinson, I think it's in Gilead, where one of the characters uh in Gilead was talking about Carl Bart, and I'm not endorsing Bart here, but uh the character says, I, you know, I love old Bart. You know, he he shuffles the furniture around, throws the furniture all around. And I think I always want to be open to that. Of um, I I mentioned in the last episode that I recorded on uh Cardinal Avery Dulles' uh uh book on the Catholicity of the church, and he invokes Paul Tillich's framework of like the Protestant principle, the Catholic principle of like you want to have you want to hold those two intention, I think, of uh you want to carry forward the the Catholic form, the Catholic principle of of continuity, et cetera, et cetera. But what Tillich identifies that Dulles picks up is there is this kind of Protestant DNA of like the spirit breaks in and just and can disrupt things, whatever form you have. I think that's uh that you know, I think it we need to hold on to that.
SPEAKER_03And in one sense, it's it's fascinating to see um it's fascinating to see that that these mixes are happening. I recall uh or I don't remember which speech it was from Peter Lighthart, but one of the things he was predicting was the advent of liturgical Bible churches. And these were the kinds of things he wanted people to imagine. And it's like I've I've seen that uh at this point. I mean, there's a it's it's interesting to think of like, you know, uh the resurgence of classical and even in some cases quite technical Trinitarian theology among Fred Sanders, Mr. Low Church Evangelical, all right? You know, you're seeing you're seeing the movement of low church evangelical Christians in the West into a rich conversation in the church, while at the same time you're seeing the impact of low church evangelical culture on the liturgical church. And so there was a huge movement. I mean, in the 70s, you know, the Jesus movement in the 70s had a massive impact on all the liturgical traditions as well. And so you see these places where the the mind of the church in forming the evangelical mold, you might say, doesn't leave it less evangelical. It renders it more evangelical and it renders it and and God can do rich things. Yeah, the cross pollination is going to affect everybody. Yeah, yeah. And God can do rich rich things through that. Absolutely. And absolutely, this this point uh of David tradition and apocalypse is just heart, David Bentley Hart the Protestant. Yes.
SPEAKER_02That's right, that's right. Uh I mean, uh You would never by the way, if the audience, if you don't read it, he would hate that characterization.
SPEAKER_03He would, he would, but it's so funny because, in one sense, it's like, you're the most Protestant, you know, in your principles in some way. Um yeah, he's an interesting figure in that um one of the things you see going on in Hart, um, I've been reading some of him lately uh for other contexts, is trying to say that a lot of the conversations that have historically divided the church. So for instance, the kind of difference between Eastern and Western reading of Augustine, or some of the fine-tuned points of the Christological disputes after Chalcedon, uh, Hart's one of the guys that is going to walk in the room and say a lot of this is the accidents of history, and there is a lot more unity available in the church in the doctrine of the truth, in some of its basic doctrines than has historically been appreciated, you know, when the Neo-Palamites and the Thomists start screaming at each other. Nevertheless, he does go in this this quite radical direction that that unity of the church is also ultimately us moving toward an eschatological horizon. Yes. And ultimately, yeah, that seems to me to be the truth of the matter, which doesn't unhinge you, which doesn't unhinge you from tradition and doesn't unhinge you from the fathers or to deference uh to the fathers. What it does do, though, is say that it's appropriate, it's appropriate for us as humans and especially as Christians who are in the project of repentance, both of the will and of the mind. Um, but it's appropriate for us to have an eyeball on not just our own personal sin and our own personal error, but to have some programs running, if you will, God forgive me for that terrible metaphor, uh, uh that are looking for uh um ways in which our tradition mediates folly to us, looking for ways in which the past has not quite gotten something right, or we haven't quite overcome an Eporia, we haven't quite said the adequate thing yet, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. There's something intrinsically Christian about that, and that's part of the overall movement toward maturation of the church, and I think it requires something like the exercises we've been uh talking about, which last thing I'll say here isn't to say that that's um for everybody in the church either. Uh, you and I are talking about something you and I do, given the particular vocation and placement we have in the church. This isn't saying every Christian needs to go out and go read all these books. Like that's you know, that's ridiculous. But the church as such and persons within the church ought to be those links between traditions and thoughts.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I've got I got a lot of thought, a lot of thoughts there. And one of the things I want to come back to maybe at the end is like, how do we do this well as as grounded within our tradition? I want to maybe come back to that.
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Polemics Caricatures And Real Ecumenism
SPEAKER_02One of the things that I like the accidents of history and how we've kind of got stuck in a certain set of uh rhetorical uh devices, and you know, we haven't overcome the uh Apurias and all these things is is one of uh my favorite quotes when doing my uh doing my dissertation research again on a Roman Catholic named Henri de Lubak. He, I think I can't remember who he was quoting. It might have been Chanu or one of his other Nouvelle Tilogy friends. Um and I can but he says, it's a great tragedy to learn the faith against someone. Uh it's a great tragedy to basically learn the faith against other traditions. So basically just purely in polemical mode. Uh and I I really agree with that, where if you're if you're primarily in uh engaging these sets of questions, these lines of theological inquiry, just kind of purely in that, like, well, this is why this other set of people are wrong. I think you've already kind of set the tracks and you can't break from them. This is actually, you know, even though I love Bobink uh and you know, and I think he himself is a very, very kind of small C Catholic figure. I also grew tired of some of the mode of his theological reasoning. You know, it kind of this kind of like, I'm gonna set up, here's how the Roman Catholic position presents this, here's how the Lutherans, here's how the Anabaptists, and of course the Reformed is the best of all of these. I don't think he necessarily has that in his mind, but I think that method or that mode of reasoning, I think I I over I couldn't operate in that primarily because I think it doesn't lead me enough to be surprised by the the rapprochement, by the agreement, by even uh the limitations of my own tradition. It does kind of set up something that I I was not in uh intrigued by, I was not drawn to. And that polemical theory, you know, I don't think he's necessarily polluted, but he is actually pretty ironic. But I I I think there's something there still uh that it it it it it becomes intellectually stoltifying uh for me. Another limitation of the polemical mode of theology can be uh and and where you're only kind of oftentimes just stuck in reading only your tradition, and you're nervous about you know, reading outside and other traditions and what it might mean, what it might lead you to, is I often think the rads, for instance, of the reformed world often act like we're still in the same state that we were at the early Protestant divisions. And I just think once you like I think you were mentioning offline, we were talking about how what's so interesting about reading like some someone like Betts or someone like Schindler, uh, et cetera, and you even brought up Hart and you just a minute ago is a lot of figures in these other traditions that we might think are very prideful in their identification of what the true church is. Like the true church is this, uh, and it's not Protestants, you know, and they're they're wrongful. You go and read some of the best of their own thinkers, and they oftentimes are the most small C Catholic of uh, and and and there are developments that have happened of rapprochement on their side, you know, uh, and I think we should acknowledge that as we engage. Like, man, there the the spirit also, it's not perfect. It's we don't know what's gonna come down the pike, and I don't have great ecumenical optimism right now in the present state of affairs, but things have happened uh in the recent century, for instance, of greater movement towards one another. And I think we should honor that also in our intellectual uh engagement.
Dangers Of Curiosity Without Roots
SPEAKER_02However, I I do think now I'm gonna come to the other side, but but I also worry that someone who might listen to us here and that the type of theological spirit we're trying to we're promoting that we inhabit ourselves, there is a danger of I think engaging this type of uh intellectual work prematurely uh that doesn't also draw from and appreciate the deep wells of the tradition that we inhabit. I think if you start doing the stuff that we're doing and you actually don't know the your own tradition very well, you don't you haven't actually engaged the old sources and the best of your there is a danger that you just swim quickly to another tradition, but because you've actually contrasted it with a caricature, you know, kind of a lowbrow caricature of your own tradition, and you're often doing it out of a sort of real insecurity of what your tradition has to offer, but that insecurity is not necessary to your tradition. Your tradition has great riches. So anyway, those are some some quick thoughts.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think um that latter point is especially crucial because very often the path, and I was I was looking in this Bob Ink book trying to find the particular quote that I recall from him on this question, but uh Bob Inc especially says that you know the true church exists already, the true theology exists already, but as distributed in the true churches, and in the true theologies, and it's an eschatological thing to have it. Even if you think one church is, as it were, quote quote, more approximate than the others in various things, and that might be where there'd be a critique. Um, on the other hand, there's an expectation that the fullness of truth is found partially outside of one particular stream of the church. On the other hand, your access point to those streams is your own tradition. And so, for instance, this is one of the reasons it's it's um there's something good about, you know, you know, Baptists are not necessarily having to become un-Baptists to become more accurately Trinitarian. They can reach back into their own confessions and and into the grammars that those were, you know, built upon, similar in all the other traditions. But part of it is to recognize your traditions and even evangelical traditions already come out of these rich conversations. And to plug back into those rich conversations can be done from inside your various traditions. And then, of course, the question of growth and the question of uh, you know, more radical transformations becomes relevant, but it's not a free-for-all. You don't have to unhinge, as it were, uh, from your particular location in the body of Christ to connect to the larger aspects of the body of Christ. And I think, yeah, that is very crucial. And so Bobinck's imagination is that, you know, imagine a Lutheran, a reformed person, a Methodist, a Roman Catholic, an Eastern Orthodox person, you know, the perennial joke. That sounds like the beginning of a joke. But uh, but imagine all of them simply studying the whole of scripture in Christian history, making the best presentation of things to themselves, and then talking about theology together. One of the things you already see there, by the way, is that that is intrinsically already a more ecumenical conversation. So to take something like predestination and free will. Um, a lot of people think this is a big dispute between the Protestants and the Catholics. But on one vantage point, you could wind up saying, hey, actually the this entire world of Catholicism and this entire world of the Reformed are not even really talking about a different thing when they are talking about questions of freedom and predestination. And so depending on who you're talking about, even within the various uh worlds, uh you actually wind up locating when you have that level of conversation going on, you actually wind up getting a lot more precise about where the differences are even located, which are often located at superficial levels, and then the argument becomes superficial.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's one of the reasons I thought there was, I think we've talked about this in previous episodes. There was great problems. I could see why you'd be really enthusiastic. Now it kind of feels uh, you know, uh a little dated. But you could you could see why there was enthusiasm with the emergence of like the post-liberal theology of Fry and Lindbeck, you know, of this where you're trying to, it was an attempt to try to understand the other traditions as entire like linguistic worlds where uh that might not use the same terminology that you do, but they're addressing a similar set of issues with their own internal resources, and and it allows you to try to see it from within their tradition. And like I often will talk about with this with my students. It's like this this is a really complicated, like the justification, sanctification debates. Like, uh, you know, I oftentimes I think we present caricatures of of the various positions on this. And one of the things I try to say is like, look, I think everybody who's a Christian, at least I would identify as Christian, is trying to say this Jesus saves you and you need to change. Okay, so everybody's kind of trying to say that. And they're they're often try approaching it with different sets of uh conceptual resources and terminological tools. And I think we can say some are better than others. Of course, of course we do that. Uh, and yet I think, hey, sit charitably and look at how this different tradition is trying to say that. And the East, not only Catholic and Protestant, but also the East Orthodox with the essence energies and you know, deification discourse. Like, okay, just try to sit in that and see how they're trying to answer that question uh with a different set of tools and see and and then try to judge whether or not you feel like that is the best way to do that. And that's fair. I think we then we can make those judgments. But I think you could see how that post-liberal conversation was trying to do what you're talking about. The other thing is um it reminded me of is um the way you talked about like, you know, we're your access point to the truth that even is beyond
Receptive Ecumenism And Going Deeper
SPEAKER_02your tradition. One of the things I've tried to introduce to my students is again, I am kind of a post-liberal theologian in that sense of, you know, uh a narrative theologian that you um I I want to introduce to them the idea of uh you are always practicing traditioned rationality, right? Like you are always coming into the world and coming into a set of conversations that have preceded you, and there is a tradition. Uh and your access to uh re to truth is often mediated by that tradition. However, and so there is true, but also there is truth beyond that tradition, right? Your access point starts there, but always remain open to kind of uh uh surprises and and challenges, right? And don't foreclose the conversation because you've accessed it through a tradition while at the same time honoring that you access this through a tradition. That's what's that's one thing that it came up. The other thing is um uh in my uh research on the theme of Catholicity uh in recent years, um, and you uh I I I've come across uh and this is this might be familiar to our audience, but the the the whole world of receptive ecumenism. And one of the things that receptive particularly associated with a figure named Paul uh Murray. But one of the things that's going on there is it's not just receiving the gifts of other traditions, which is one of the things we've been talking about. Uh, but that that's a that's a long, that's been around for a long time in ecumenism, is like, hey, be open to receiving the gifts of other traditions. One of the things that's going on with what Paul Murray's recent work has been trying to do over the last 20 years is also you are best able to offer your own, offer gifts to that conversation by more deeply going into your tradition. And so, and so one of the things you actually but he what he's arguing is actually you become a better servant of ecumenism by being deeper in your tradition. And what you'll find is the deeper you go is that actually the connection points are are are more real than you first thought. And I think there's something beautiful about that interplay uh going on that yeah.
SPEAKER_03This is uh this is a crucial point, and it's one of the things I think um you see in certain early missiologists, I think certainly Bavink and his um nephew, uh his missiologist's nephew, that the gospel uh and even the intellectual traditions of the gospel um going into various communities, bringing with it the entire wealth and virtues and conversation of the church, does not just, it's not just a kind of spiritual colonization, but because in in one sense the spread of the church and the spread of the gospel is the recovery of man, uh, you also have the vantage points that those people have as creatures, as as as men and women. And that is actually brought into uh their distinctive and unique vantage points are brought into the great conversation. And there is a way in which the, yeah, there's a relationship between ever what is particular about everyone and their culture and the offering that that brings that that's you know given to the one sacrifice in a sense, whether it be the one theology or the one act of worship. I did find my quote. We found it. I I think it's just so relevant to our conversation that I'll go ahead and read this. But this is in uh Bobank um Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 1, uh page 85. He says, Um, the religion and the theology do not now exist any more than the church. They are own there uh there are only differing churches and similarly differing theologies. This will be the case until in Christ the church has attained its full maturity and all have come to the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God. This unity cannot be reached by force, but can best be advanced if each person thinks through the faith of his own church and makes the most accurate presentation of it. It is not apart from the existing churches, but through them that Christ prepares for himself a holy Catholic church, nor is it apart from the different ecclesiastical dogmas, but through them that the unity of the knowledge of God is prepared and realized. Um and so there's this sense in which for Bobank there's, you know, yeah, the the Catholicity and unity of the church, while existing spiritually, are an eschatological end, and yet your way of participating in it isn't running outside of your own house, as it were, uh, but running through your own house or plugging more deeply into your own roots actually to plug into the deeper streams.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because if you jump ship and just go to the, you'll find the same problems there. If you if you like so you swim the Tiber and you think that's gonna resolve all of these problems and the insularity, you you know, you won't have that and you know won't have any of this conceptual limitations, blah, blah, blah. Uh, or the interminable debates that seem not to resolve, you're gonna find it there as well. And and and so uh yeah, I absolutely uh I think that's that's correct. Go deeper into your tradition, but also through that to see uh what might emerge uh in the church uh in the future from that engagement as everybody's doing that. That's part of the receptive ecumenism task. I think is quite generative and stimulating to me. The
Staying Reformed While Bridging Traditions
SPEAKER_02other the other thing I wanted to make sure we cover as we get closer to the end is related to this, is how do we um also then, as we're curious, we read outside, uh, we also maintain uh our integrity as reformed thinkers uh and and honor our tradition. And one of the ways that I've grown in this over the years is um a couple things. One, every time I I try to keep going back to reading both uh frequently to reading old great texts in my tradition and reading kind of contemporary, very important works working very explicitly from within my tradition, to be refreshed by like, you know what? Also, the reform faith is amazing and great. And we have deep depths here. And so I frequently try to go back to that, even if I get off on these other uh paths. Um and so, like, for instance, right now, I uh have been doing a lot of work on the nature grace debates that we talked about. Uh, but also I'm trying to uh and also I'm very interested in superlapsarian Christology, which often has been explored outside of uh the reformed tradition. But also I'm very much trying to make sure I'm engaging those topics from within commitment to kind of reformed covenant theology. And so I've been recently reading a ton on the covenant of works, the covenant of redemption, uh, the covenant of I'm just trying to go back to the best literature on that to try to bring these conversations, these, these um uh threads together into a single conversation and try to think, hey, how can those other topics, those other lines of inquiry speak into and relate to the tradition in which I find myself? And that's been really stimulating, actually, uh to pursue those uh those those paths together and try to try to bring them together. That's been really, really fun. And also to be now I teach at a reformed institution, explicitly so. And to consider my vocation is like, yes, I'm interested in a lot of these other topics, but I have a sense of stewardship uh that I need to also be um speaking as a reformed thinker. And even in my classes, for instance, even though I'm per uh personally ordained in the PCA, which is you know a Westminsterian tradition, I teach at a Dutch Reformed school. And so often uh in my classes, for instance, I will constantly be trying to bring in not only Bob Ink, of course. Bob Ink's always, I tell my students he's always the answer at this institution and whatever the question is, bob uh Bob Ink is the answer. But I also will try to bring in the three forms of unity as much as I can. Yeah, be like, hey, there you let's try to work from within this and see the beauty of the depths here. So those are some of the ways I will do that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and I think um, yeah, this is a really this is a really good point. I I feel like I've been encouraged recently to see theologians working from other traditions and bridging conversations, I think, in just rich ways. So I'm thinking of um um, I think it's Davidson, but uh Partakers.
SPEAKER_02Yes, Andrew Davidson.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, what's the name? Participation and participation, yes. Um there's just some there's some elements in there where clearly he's working from a particular tradition, but he's also bridging conversations and traditions uh in a way that has some real rich potential. We've already mentioned John Betts. I can also think of Adonis Vedo, um, his um his recent work on the Trinity. Uh I was just reading it this week, but has just a really excellent section on the uh spiration of the spirit and is connecting it to a reformed theology of grace and wants to bridge certain soteriological conversations and trinitarian discussions, but very much in direct engagement with Thomas Aquinas. And so what you see, um, what you see going on in a lot of fields are people deeply reading these traditions, but then bringing to bear emphases within their own tradition. And I think this is what you're talking about in the race thing. Um, and putting those conversations together produces something that's more than the sum of their parts, and that is an advancement for the the overall knowledge of the church and really does over time create the condition of the possibility of real, uh certain kinds of real reunion. I don't mean that in any crass, uh in any crass predictive sense, but that creates the possibility uh for conditions that aren't these, I suppose you could say, uh relative to that question. But yeah, I just think there are some rich uh I suppose that's one last thing I'll say, but uh when you see it going on well, it's very attractive. You it it it it it it's the sort of thing um uh when you see ecumenicity not done in some cheap way, yes, but you actually see rich conversations with full intellectual rigor being brought to engage one another, and you're seeing things actually get reconciled by people who care about the actual content of the truth, uh, it becomes an intrinsically exciting project, and it's something, therefore, that the just the the raw human in you wants to pursue. Uh uh we shouldn't we shouldn't neglect the possibility of that or be cynical about it in the name of or because of the the the many shallow ways in which ecumenical activity has often gone on in the last century.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I think we uh the last century is you know the the the steam has been you know lost in that form of ecumenism, right? And and it was shown to be shallow and didn't r resolve uh the problems it set out to solve. And and but now what's open to us is the stuff we're talking about here, and I think it's happening on the ground. It's often invisible to the lay person who might not be involved in these conversations, but there is a lot of really exciting developments as people go deeper, not shallow. Uh and so one of the things I love about Lightheart's uh version uh of this type of engagement, he's like, look, real acumenism, to be really Catholic, we should argue more uh because we're actually getting deeper uh with one another. But the spirit there is still one of hope, you know, and that the that spirit, you know, that the spirit actually might resolve uh some of these problems uh through this engagement. So we remain hopeful. Um and it's also not just to bypass the disagreement, but to get to the truth, you're saying. And I think as if we're all oriented towards those, uh towards that truth in its depths, uh, be open to surprise and change and transform, uh, transformation, et cetera, et cetera. Um
Final Hopes And Listener Sendoff
SPEAKER_02so we'll we'll end it with that. It was a fun conversation. Uh and thank you, listener, for joining us again for another episode of Mere Fidelity. Uh, if you like this, please uh leave a like wherever you listen, review, et cetera, et cetera, and join us next time. Uh and have a good, great week. Thank you.