Eyre Lines

Following on from my previous post (about labels), I’ve just been listening to Henry Neufeld’s video explaining the mission of Energion Publications (with which I am proud to be associated).

Although it isn’t Henry’s central point, he talks there (and in the post which it’s embedded in and to which I linked) about statements of faith, sets of doctrines. Those who have read my blog from the beginning will know that I take a somewhat dim view of doctrines. I’ve perhaps moved a little since I wrote that post – now, for instance, I can see the viewpoint of the post-liberals, who see doctrinal statements as the rules of grammar for a language of description, but even then I have the problem that languages develop and adapt in practice, and what Fowler’s Modern English Usage was saying 50 years ago about rules of grammar is not necessarily what it says now.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the bases of human perception recently (and there may be a post specifically about that soon), but it seems to me that the most basic features of cognition are firstly the distinction of one thing from another, and secondly the comparison of one thing with another – the two faculties go together, though I’m inclined to think that distinction is marginally the first-born twin. It is therefore hugely natural to try to work out how, exactly, two groups are different from each other (and to a lesser extent how they are like each other). Thus the impulse to create doctrinal statements.

One really major snag with these is that as James McGrath recently linked to, one result is that protestantism has fractured itself into more than 30,000 denominations, each with slightly different doctrinal views. The article he links to perhaps slightly jokingly blames the insistence in protestantism for each believer interpreting scripture for him or herself, but I think the greater blame has to be with our impulse to create categories of distinction. Emo Philips’ celebrated joke lampoons this wonderfully.

Perhaps it is time that we looked at a different way of constructing our categories? What doctrinal statements seek to do is to create a bounded set; adherence to the doctrines creates the boundary, and you’re either in or out. There is, however, a different way of constructing a set; this is a centered set. Rather than setting a boundary, you create a centred set by looking at everyone who looks to some centering principle.

I used something like this principle in setting down the guidelines for “who is a Christian?” some years ago on the Religion Forum. There were a really wide variety of people there, including many flavours of Christianity – and the Baptists weren’t sure that the Catholics were Christians, the Catholics were pretty sure that they were the only Christians, the Anabaptists thought every one else got it wrong, and so on. Were, for instance, Jehovah’s Witnesses Christians? Or Seventh Day Adventists? Or Mormons? This mattered, as I was running the Christianity section there, in which “Christians” had wider latitude and better protection under the forum rules. I settled on the basic test of “Do they look to Christ as their leader?” No further clarification was allowed, and particularly not any concept of who or what Christ actually was. “Jesus is Lord” would do nicely, without the need to say “and saviour”. This had the particular merit of being, in essence, one of the very earliest touchstone phrases expressing Christian identity.

I find to my interest that the Vineyard Churches have this kind of thinking. At least they have it to an extent, as the article to which I link depends on the issue of direction (are you going towards Jesus or in some other direction?) and the loosest kind of centered set does not require direction, merely focus. Perhaps the distinction is too subtle, though; it’s certainly not one I’d have encouraged when setting down the guidelines! This, of course, could be summed up by the baptismal declaration “I turn to Christ”.

Vineyard are, however, a denomination among others. They have some other denominational indicators which actually make them another bounded set. I suggest that if we are ever to see a “Church Universal”, a “one church” (and I submit that that is a thoroughly biblical concept), a centered set centered on Christ is as much doctrinal requirement as it can support.