I recently heard a Reformed
podcast in which the host and guest caricatured the whole idea of returning to the first
century. Look at all the problems in the New Testament era, why would we want
to return to that?
They also proceeded to attack the whole notion that the past is somehow more pure. This is a key point reflecting very different concepts of history and the nature of truth. In fact on this point Restorationism has more in common with Eastern Orthodoxy than Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.
Orthodoxy has been less
interested in development and progress and more keen to retain what they
already had. Unfortunately Orthodoxy represents a theology that stopped about
the 8th century. From my standpoint it was already deeply corrupted.
The Western tradition
represented by Catholicism and Protestantism was always about development,
progress, and speculation. This has also been pointed to in order to explain
fundamental differences between the East and West. In the West these ideas of
progress extended beyond the Church and certainly beyond the age of unified Roman
Christendom into the era of the Reformation, the Enlightenment and the modern
age.
This difference in mindset
continues to this day in the divide between East and West. Although that's only
true in part. The West basically extended itself over the globe during the 19th
and 20th centuries and all the world's foundationally different
cultures have been forced to interact and change, affected by Westernism.[i]
Nevertheless old feelings, intuitions and biases remain.[ii]
Western ideas concerning
economics and progress have a deep moral element that many Westerners do not
give enough consideration. Others outside the Western sphere have felt the
effects and have experienced firsthand, and in often a short span of time, the
change in morality and social fabric produced by this interaction. Traditional
cultural systems are being turned on their heads and in some cases this as much
as any specific religious or theological element is spurring on reactionary
violence.
The Reformed men in the podcast
believe in progressive history. We all believe history is progressing, moving
toward the moment when Christ returns to the Earth. But these men have tied the
concept of the Kingdom of God to intellectual and thus cultural and theological
development and advancement.
To be sure the 'Parable of the
Wheat and Tares' in Matthew 13 presents an idea of progressive maturation, viz.,
the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of the Enemy grow together on this earth.
Neither one is completely victorious prior to the Parousia of Christ. When the
'harvest' comes, the wheat and tares will be separated. This is often used to
refute Postmillennialism's expectation of a pre-Eschaton 'Golden Age'.
So, these Reformed men might
argue, you see there's progress. Yes, but how is that progress gauged? How is
it measured? How does the Kingdom of God progress in terms of time and space on
Earth?
To answer this we have to go
back to defining the Kingdom and once again I will revert to the host of New
Testament passages that define it as Spiritual, not able to be seen by the
lost, a Kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. I would
argue the Old Testament passages speaking of glorious political and cultural
triumph are interpreted by the New. The Apostolic Hermeneutic enables us to
understand the passages in the Old Testament that speak of a universal
worldwide Kingdom. We understand this to be fulfilled spiritually in the
present, in that the Gospel goes out to all nations of the Earth and is not
restricted merely to Israel. And that it will only find its ultimate
fulfillment in the Consummated Kingdom when indeed all of the New Heavens and
the New Earth will be Holy and without corruption. In the New Heavens and New
Earth then truly the worldwide culture will be Holy and Christian...because all
sin will be removed.
So I don't think the Kingdom
can be defined in terms of cultural advancement. I don't think the Kingdom
expands through civilizational endeavour. But what about in the realm of
knowledge? Are the Scriptures an a priori starting point, a foundation upon
which the Church builds and applies the Kingdom to the world through various
forms of theology?[iii]
This question must also be
answered and I have made an initial attempt to answer it elsewhere.
Do we find greater purity the
nearer we approach the time of the Apostles? Those committed to historical
narratives and notions of theological development and progress will be inclined
to say, "No."
I would answer that it's not a
'yes or no' question. It's more complicated than that. In some ways in terms of
simplicity the closer we approach to Apostolic times then indeed we find a more
'pure' Church and a more 'pure' time. However, I am unwilling to suggest there
is absolutely no room for theological development. Reading the Fathers it is
apparent there were many doctrines not yet developed or 'worked out'.
So while I would argue some
development (done with a certain understanding) to be a good thing, not all
development nor the impetus and commitments behind it have proved good. In fact
in many cases the development has led to unnecessary strife and trouble and
certainly division. I am in no way advocating an anti-doctrinal (Doctrine
Divides) stance. Far from it, but doctrine indeed can divide...sometimes out of
necessity, but often due to other reasons. If Restorationism is being employed
to divide, to 'write-off' Christian history and disregard claims from large
portions of the Church than this too would be an error. Many Restorationists
and Fundamentalists have not wrestled with Church History and they often do
this in ignorance of their own origins.
I have heard many a
Fundamentalist express confidence that their beliefs and practices are nothing
more than 'old time' Christianity, when in reality they reflect nothing older
than 19th century innovations. And likewise I've heard many
Restorationists speak of 'merely following the Bible' but have given little
thought to hermeneutics and the epistemological and philosophical commitments
which underpin them. While they seek to simply read and follow the Bible as the
early Church did, they do so with Enlightenment and Americanist eyes and it
shows in the end result.
I do not operate under the
fiction that we can somehow 'return' to the first or second century. The
Dissenters in the Middle Ages couldn't either. Too much had happened, too many
things had changed, there were too many new issues. It's only worse today and
far more complicated.
But I do believe we can
re-assess much of Church history. I don't mean to suggest we come at it in
novel terms. There's nothing I'm suggesting that is completely out of accord
with historic Christianity. I'm patently disagreeing with large portions of the
'Church' and rejecting many ideas. I want to go further and reject the ideas
that spawned those ideas in the first place. I do strongly believe the Truth is
in the minority, and I believe the theme of the Remnant is something that
pervades Scripture. I believe the majority will always reject the Truth and
these beliefs also inform how we think about theological development and Church
history. These beliefs place me squarely at odds with the Reformed men I
mentioned who worked to destroy the Restorationist straw-man they had
constructed.
[i] This generated some interesting and terrible cultural
hybrids...Communism is a Western idea but put into Eastern contexts produced
different results, none of them actually in accord with Marxist Orthodoxy. The Marxist-Leninist origins of the Soviet
Union, the Maoism of China, and the Khmer variation in Cambodia all devolved
into Nationalist forms of Totalitarianism, akin to Fascism...not because
Fascism and Communism are the same thing. Far from it. But because Communism
never did actually work or get its feet off the ground.
It can debated whether or
not Mao's ideas were even Marxist at all. Peasant Communism was rooted in very
different ideas than the industrialized context/worker-based ideas of Marx.
[ii] Those
who believe Democracy is some kind of universal value are ignorant of history,
but likewise the adherents of the Huntington 'Clash' thesis are equally
ignorant in oversimplifying the world's cultures and failing to recognize the
hybridization taking place as technological society is fundamentally
overthrowing traditional cultural norms and attitudes in places like Russia,
Turkey, and China.
[iii] Systematic,
Speculative, Historical, and Dogmatic