Co-missioners,
For the next month, we are pleased to share with you the written version of one of the presentations featured in January’s Crossings Conference in four parts. Adam Morton’s presentations are always a hit in our community, probably because he is able to clearly and freshly communicate our “thin tradition” without making anyone fall asleep. Even though Adam is a well-trained professional academic himself, currently employed at University of Nottingham’s philosophy department, he does not resort to (as we often do, mea culpa!) overly niche or arcane terminology intended only for insiders. Adam is able to combine scholarly depth with cheeky humor and novel images to present the Gospel and its history of proclamation as something thrilling and life-altering. No wonder he had his hearers at the edge of their seats, including yours truly.
In this paper, Adam speaks to the conference’s theme on “Christian behavior” by picking one of the big themes in the Augustine/Luther stream of theology, humanity’s passivity before God in ultimate matters: including, of course, justification and salvation, but indeed, also sanctification! As he will come to show, God would have us be passive “tubes” in our active lives – conduits through which God’s grace is at work, freely and uninhibited. It is when we are thus passively receptive and unobstructive to God’s work (we Germans might say, durchlässig) that we are most faith-full, most useful, and (as Adam will show) can even fight and WIN against God himself!
Today’s first part launches into this rollercoaster of a paper by complaining about a grace-less article and then taking us on a historical tour of ancient Britain. Strap in!
Peace & joy,
Co-editor Robin Lütjohann
for the Crossings Community
Wrestling Jacob and a Series of Tubes:
How the Passive Life Gets Things Done
(part 1)
by Adam Morton
Adam Morton
I. “the Good Church”
Now, I’m well aware that the overall topic is the gospel and Christian behavior. We’ll get there, but bear with me, as it’s going to be perhaps a bit of a strange road.
I was irritated recently by an article in the Church Times, which is a newspaper mainly covering the Church of England and things related to it. The article, by Paul Avis—a known theologian in the Church of England—is somewhat remarkable. I don’t say that to recommend it.
Avis begins with a catalogue of the recent sins of the Church of England. One could quibble with some of what Avis names as problems and what he doesn’t, but that is beside the point. We in the church can become so used to hearing stuff that is neither fish nor fowl that we forget what the Gospel sounds like. And this may have happened to Avis; I think he swam in tepid waters far, far too long, and lost the plot. The poor man has spent most of his career writing about ecclesiology of all things—the study of church itself. I’d rather write about hell than ecclesiology; I can imagine being a little optimistic about hell. So what Avis offers is not ”yes, grace, but don’t forget good works” and “Forgiveness is important, but not without justice!” – the typical qualifying-to-death that happens in the church. No, he goes full bore moralism. I’ll read you his conclusion in full:
“We are now living in an upside-down, topsy-turvy, Church. Turning things the right way up again needs us to begin with the ethical imperative. What needs to be affirmed, above all, is the priority of the ethical for thinking and acting, because the ethical reflects the nature and will of God and the character of Christ.”
That last sentence makes my blood run cold. Avis continues—
“As the Reformed theologian John Oman thundered in the midst of the First World War, our relation to our fellow humans comes before our relation to God. That, Oman insisted, in Grace and Personality, ‘is the essential order, because there is no religious insight which is not first ethical, no relation to God which is not, in practice, a relation to humankind.’ Repairing the inseparable connection between religious faith and ethical intention will set us on the path to becoming again ‘The Good Church’.
“WE CONTINUALLY pray for the Church, its people, clergy, and bishops, not least in every Sunday service. How will we know whether our prayers have been answered? What difference do we expect it to make? What changes are we hoping to see?
“The only solid ground we have been given, in order to answer that question, is ethical in nature and centred on goodness, justice, and love. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Christ/Messiah (= Anointed One) who was endued with the Spirit of God, in the symbolic form of the dove of peace, gentleness, and innocence, at his baptism. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the God of justice, goodness, and love, whose ethical character is revealed in the scriptures, especially the prophetic and wisdom literature and the Psalms.
“The work of the Holy Spirit in the Church is to teach, to give light, to enable sound judgement, to produce rejoicing, and to impart moral strength. “Come, Holy Spirit, and fill the hearts of your waiting people, and kindle in us the fire of your love.” The Spirit of Christ is the Spirit of love. Is love what we are praying for across the Church? I suspect that we might need to do an ethical check on our prayers. If we find that the moral complexion of the Church has improved, that justice, goodness, and love have suddenly become the driving forces of our priorities, then we will have the assurance that our prayers have, indeed, been answered. The Good Shepherd looks for the Good Church.”
The only answer we have, the only bedrock, the only solid ground, the only hope, in Avis’ view, is ethical. Doing goodness, justice, love. You want the Holy Spirit? Prove it. Be “the Good Church” because that’s what the Good Shepherd is looking for.
We’ve vaulted past any pretence that the law isn’t the beginning, middle, and end of all things. The gospel is not present here. Yet this is still a radically inadequate moralism, insofar as Avis can’t draw the necessary conclusion—the church has been found sorely wanting. Even “the good church” isn’t nearly good enough. The things one can credibly accuse the Church of England of in its too-sordid history…. So burn it down. Let judgment roll down like waters. Instead of that word of judgment Avis has placed his hope in the capacity of the Church of England to make itself good again, attractive not only to the tired and indifferent people of England (who are all too aware of the scandals), but even to appear attractive to Christ.
Here’s a free tip: if you ever want to make yourself truly miserable, try to impress Jesus.
II. Patrick and Pelagius
Avis is wrong, certainly. I hope I don’t have much disagreement on that in this room. But why is he wrong? Specifically, why is he wrong that “there is no religious impulse that is not first ethical”? Does God give commandments in vain? Does Jesus not say that “you shall love the Lord your God” and “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” are in fact alike? Do even we not preach the law and then the gospel? While Avis’ position is somewhat extreme, what about our own? Surely we as Lutherans have to recognize that whatever there is of a “great tradition” of the church often leans away from us, or at least away from Luther, in wanting to balance our giving and our receiving just a bit.
Pelagius
A print of Pelagius from an unidentified early modern source. Pelagius (ca. 354 – ca. 420/440) was an ascetic monk and reformer who denied the doctrine of Original Sin from Adam and was declared a heretic by the Roman Catholic Church.
From Wikimedia Commons
Last spring I heard a paper from a researcher in the history department, an Irish fellow, who has been looking at all the manuscripts known to have been produced by two great monasteries in Northumbria (now known as northeastern England) during the so-called “Age of Bede”—the eighth century, as we would say. Northumbria was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom—specifically Angle rather than Saxon, if you want to be technical about it—and only recently Christianized at that time. That Christianization had a very strong Irish influence, with Irish monks successfully sending missionaries to these Germanic pagans, and then a second, Latin missionary influence coming from Rome. One of the manuscripts shown to us included some quotations from a much older Psalms commentary by one Julian of Eclanum. Julian was a southern Italian bishop in the fifth century who is known for one major reason: he was a very strong ally of a better-known British priest and theologian, in fact, the first known theologian from the British Isles, a fellow known to us as Pelagius. Julian sided with Pelagius against Augustine’s rather immoderate—indeed, extreme—attacks on the questions of sin, grace, and free will. Julian defended Pelagius’ rather commonsense teaching that of course God wouldn’t give us commandments if we didn’t have the power to keep them, and so God’s grace is for those who keep the law. Julian, Pelagius—these, like Paul Avis, were believers in “the Good Church.”
If you’ve ever heard of Pelagius, you know that he is typically named as a heretic. That is at best part of the story. We imagine a fringe fanatic, a cult leader, someone with a dangerous charisma. But that’s not how people in his day, Augustine included, saw the man. The nigh universal view of Pelagius was that he was a humble, upstanding, decent person who loved the church and the Bible. From the time he first came to Rome, round about the 380s, he was well regarded, even by his opponents. Let’s humanize him further. The name Pelagius is Latin but unusual, referring to the sea; if you translate it to Brythonic, the ancestor of Welsh, you get something like the common Welsh name Morgan. So good old Morgan was a respected, pious guy. He wasn’t about fake justice, but the real thing. Yet his teaching was eventually judged as out of bounds, as destructive to the gospel. And even so, we find the writings of his strongest supporters, such as Julian, admiringly quoted into the medieval period in Britain. Pelagius’ thinking seems to be rather resilient. We might want to deny it, but it is part of the “great tradition” of the church—unless you want to rule out those Northumbrians too, who by the way were instrumental in missions to convert the Saxons in Germany. Which means they’re also part of our heritage as Lutherans, historically speaking. Fun facts about the church and tradition.
Icon of Saint Patrick from Christ the Saviour Church. Christ the Savior Orthodox Church in Chicago. In the original icon St Patrick is between St Ambrose and St Gregory the Wonderworker.
From Wikimedia Commons
If we compare Morgan/Pelagius with another British figure of roughly the same period, we get an interesting contrast. We don’t have much written by St. Patrick, but the few pieces we do have include his Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus. This is a letter appealing to the men serving under a king or warlord named Coroticus, who had been raiding along the Irish coast, and in their raiding had attacked some recent converts, killing newly baptized adults and carrying others off into slavery. Patrick preaches the law forcefully, asking that his letter be carried all the way to Coroticus and read out in his hearing, that God’s judgment be heard. But this serves a larger purpose, that “God may inspire them to come back to their right senses. However late it may be, may they repent of acting so wrongly, the murder of the brethren of the Lord, and set free the baptized women prisoners whom they previously seized. So may they deserve to live for God, and be made whole here and in eternity. Peace to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.” Despite the authority he claims in the letter, Patrick rests nothing at all on his own virtue. His introduction is simple, “I, Patrick, an unlearned sinner, have been appointed a bishop in Ireland, and I received from God what I am.”
So even in the earliest phase of British Christianity, in the fifth century, we have two impulses—both of which, I think, are still very much with us. Pelagius and Patrick—the upstanding, refined moralist looking to the Good Church, and the unlearned sinner who knows only that whatever he is he has received from God. Pelagius would have asked Coroticus and his men to use their free will for better things. Patrick asks that God change their hearts. Patrick is no Pelagian, not at all, and thank God for that. But he does still speak of meriting, of deserving the life that comes from God. Well, Jesus also speaks of a reward. We can’t avoid that. But here we have an uncomfortable edge of a question, because it’s difficult to understand these terms—reward, merit, deserve—except in terms of some action of ours, however much it is supported by God’s grace.
