Sterile Modernism
October 27th 2007 09:21
I was reading Monika Hellwig's book, "Jesus, the Compassion of God". I must have been in an especially masochistic frame of mind. It reminded me of those interminable undergraduate theology seminars to which I was subjected during the best years of my life - when I should have been pursuing love and wine and roses in Paris.
What I hate about it is the lack of intellectual honesty. I have no objection to people saying that they don't agree with the Council of Chalcedon - it is actually a hard ask intellectually. Being non-Chalcedonian is a respectable position. Hellwig, in common with almost every modernist theologian (please read "fashionable"), is unable to embrace the implications of her own position.
The Nicaean/Constantinopolitan creed is quite specific. Orthodox Christians went to their deaths rather than change a iota. The "Compassion of God" just won't do. It isn't the faith of historical Christianity. Why not just say I don't believe anymore and I need to make up my own creed?
The sting is in the tail. "Compassion" is, of course, code for supporting bourgeoise Ameicrican liberal politics. It is the old fashioned caesaro-papism of the left. As I read her bibliography - the real guts of any theological work - it was a tour down memory lane of every remaindered liberationist in what used to be Christendom.
What I hate about it is the lack of intellectual honesty. I have no objection to people saying that they don't agree with the Council of Chalcedon - it is actually a hard ask intellectually. Being non-Chalcedonian is a respectable position. Hellwig, in common with almost every modernist theologian (please read "fashionable"), is unable to embrace the implications of her own position.
The Nicaean/Constantinopolitan creed is quite specific. Orthodox Christians went to their deaths rather than change a iota. The "Compassion of God" just won't do. It isn't the faith of historical Christianity. Why not just say I don't believe anymore and I need to make up my own creed?
The sting is in the tail. "Compassion" is, of course, code for supporting bourgeoise Ameicrican liberal politics. It is the old fashioned caesaro-papism of the left. As I read her bibliography - the real guts of any theological work - it was a tour down memory lane of every remaindered liberationist in what used to be Christendom.
| 43 |
| Vote |
Subscribe to this blog
