Christianity

[Alexis Jacobi]

It must be a Christian or religious thing. Almost no one agrees with me on most fundamental principles, but I and they have no problem cooperating with each other on endless things we do voluntarily, because it is in each individuals own interest to do so.

I suspect if you have a problem cooperating with others who happen to not hold the same views you do, it is you that has the problem, a kind of prejudice perhaps.

No, I am examining cooperation in a larger, social sense. And I have recently referred, as an example, to the breakdown in social cohesion in contemporary France, and the political and social problems that are arising from that, as a way to examine issues of larger social cooperation and also those that pertain to *identity*.

You are simply outside of these concerns and so all of this has no meaning for you. But these issues and concerns have real meaning, and real relevance, within the European context. They do as well in America (where I assume you come from and reside) but they are much more murky and difficult there.

What I am trying to do is to contextualize the conversation we have here and to see it in a larger frame. I use France as an example because I lived for a time in France, but I could also refer in a similar way to social discord leading to social and cultural breakdown in Italy, Germany, Britain, Belgium as well as Denmark.

I suspect if you have a problem cooperating with others who happen to not hold the same views you do, it is you that has the problem, a kind of prejudice perhaps.

I am very far away from both Europe and the US and yet my *essential concerns* still revolve around Europe and also *Europe* in an idealistic sense. You are making a mistake to try to situate this in some personal attitude of mine. I am not speaking personally.

[Immanuel Can]

I asked you what source you thought we should turn to, in order to define "Christianity." You declined to answer: but I know why. There IS no other plausible source of decisive information on that but the Bible -- and we both know it. And the same goes for salvation: if you want to know what Christian salvation is, you have to go to the Bible to find out. Where else?

"I'll take Define Christianity for $500.00"
... the Church Fathers, The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus, that sort of thing...the hymns of the very early Church....The dictionary ...

The Catholic belief has been that the "Church" fathers, the traditions, the practices of "the Church"...but maybe not the dictionary...are all more authoritative than Scripture. However, since all of them pretend to be reproducing aspects of the Scripture and the narratives found therein, it clearly cannot be the case that any of these is the original authority. They all have to be, at most, derivative -- and all can be judged on the basis of their closeness or departure from the explict teaching of that Scripture.

The Catholic explanation becomes that "revelation is onging." That is, things like the dictates of the Popes and Councils are at liberty to change, supplant and contradict Scripture at will; rarely, however, will they even admit that this is what they are doing. They will tend to insist that their innovation "is derived from" Scripture in some way, once again accidentally paying homage to the correct Source and judging themselves by the degree to which their innovation is actually derivable.

So I'll stick with the Bible for authority, Alex.

"Lovejoy reaffirms the "intrinsic worth of diversity," as a caution against certitude.

That's hilarious.

"The intrinsic worth of diversity" means "things that are merely different are better than things that are not." No doubt a cancer patient has more "diversity" in his cells than he had when he was healthy. One would hardly recommend that, though.

What's "intrinsic worth," too? Is that like, "We hold these truths to be self-evident"?

"I'll take 'bluffs' for $1,000, Alex."

[Immanuel Can]

And the same goes for salvation: if you want to know what Christian salvation is, you have to go to the Bible to find out. Where else?

I think you have a shallow definition of 'salvation'.

You'll never know. You have nothing by which to form a judgment of that.

Salvation has many different levels of meaning...

Not Biblically. It's actually quite simple. For personal salvation, there are only four or five things one needs to absorb. It's so basic a child can be saved. Of course, theologically, there is a more complex story to be told, but the truth is that the rest is expansion and detail. The dynamic of salvation is actually very simple to understand. But things can be both simple and profound.

In Christ's own day, the sophisticates -- the Pharisees and Sadducees, the Priests and the elite -- never understood Him at all. They were so sophisticated they were lost; and the poor, the prostitutes, the fisherman and shepherds, and even the tax collectors and yes, the children were saved.

On the cross, a dying murderer and thief with his hands pinned to a piece of wood was saved; while the elders and elites of Judah stood around in their long robes, and the imperial Roman soldiers marched up and down in their shiny armour...and all were lost.

You say that the Christian conversion is so simple that a child can achieve it, and I say that this is a totally ridiculous idea,

I say it's a very great gift of God. For it must be apparent that were it not so, much of the world's population could never be saved.

There is a kind of insistence on sophistication that is nothing more than pride. And pride, well, that sends people to Hell. Be careful what you wish for.

[Alexis Jacobi]

So I'll stick with the Bible for authority, Alex.

"I'll take 'bluffs' for $1,000, Alex."

Yes, of course, and I know all of that.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Not Biblically. It's actually quite simple. For personal salvation, there are only four or five things one needs to absorb. It's so basic a child can be saved. Of course, theologically, there is a more complex story to be told, but the truth is that the rest is expansion and detail. The dynamic of salvation is actually very simple to understand. But things can be both simple and profound.

Et cetera . . .

And of course this I also know is your concept and position.

I do not exclude inner levels (where, obviously, a spiritual turning occurs). I expand it as well into other levels. And I contextualize it in a present which demands more of us.

But I think you know all this too.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Just a thought re identity being of extreme importance as it denotes in whatever age a people and their native culture. Don't know if you heard of this book, though it speaks mostly on a secular basis of the changes already happening in Europe. I don't think it's wrong to say that the hyper-liberalism you mention amounts to a perverse kind of metanoia - if one can state it that way - which for a number of years has infected Europe, especially France, Germany and the UK which seeks to erode in the most derogatory terms the very identity of what has long been deemed European in spite of all its internecine wars.

Yes, I am aware of his YT vids and I’ve read some of his articles. And books of a similar sort. Some less radical, some more.

[Immanuel Can]

But I think you know all this too.

I do.

I think I understand where you're coming from. And I like you. But I don't agree, and prefer the Biblical account to the one you've supplied. I can see nothing authoritative or decisive behind your account...not the "church fathers," not the clergy, not the papacy, not the presumptions of secular historiography, not old hymns...

The bottom line is that when it comes to talking about "Christianity" in a grounded way, we go back to Scripture, or we have nothing of substance at all.

But again, I don't know how we move on from there. It looks like an agreement to disagree.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I think I understand where you're coming from. And I like you. But I don't agree, and prefer the Biblical account to the one you've supplied. I can see nothing authoritative or decisive behind your account...not the "church fathers," not the clergy, not the papacy, not the presumptions of secular historiography, not old hymns...

The bottom line is that when it comes to talking about "Christianity" in a grounded way, we go back to Scripture, or we have nothing of substance at all.

But again, I don't know how we move on from there. It looks like an agreement to disagree.

I am not fully sure that you know where I am coming from but I do believe you have an outline. You cannot fully know for the simple reason that my ideas are not absolute solidities. They are moving and changing as I continue to think things through.

This conversation has been immensely useful to me because it pushes me to clarify things in areas I left a bit fuzzy. I have no hard feelings (feelings don't enter in much for me on-line) and I would only ever encourage you to state things as you understand them.

The Catholic belief has been that the "Church" fathers, the traditions, the practices of "the Church"...but maybe not the dictionary...are all more authoritative than Scripture. However, since all of them pretend to be reproducing aspects of the Scripture and the narratives found therein, it clearly cannot be the case that any of these is the original authority. They all have to be, at most, derivative -- and all can be judged on the basis of their closeness or departure from the explicit teaching of that Scripture.

You asked for the sources that have informed my understanding of *what Christianity is*. I should also have included the Bible itself. Obviously, I focus on the origins of Christianity in *a confusion of peoples' that was those early centuries.

Your position, also obviously, is one that extends from the Protestant Reformation. That involved, significantly, a 'review' and a 'looking again' at Christianity. As I have often said you have the luxury of *hopping over* real history, and also the history of ideas, to define a Christian view which is the view you work with. I see that as revisionist. But that is not necessarily a bad thing. I merely note it. And I note it strongly in you.

It is also true that my sense of spirituality, or of metaphysics, allows me a much wider and perhaps *inclusive* view and understanding of those other traditions I reference from time to time. And though I understand Judaic imperialism I do not agree that it is 'right'. So I take issue with many aspects of what Christianity became.

But here I repeat things that, by and large, are already understood.

So actually, with you, there is no further point to go. There is no further and larger conversation possible.

But I wish to define myself as one who can extend the conversation (the concern with this specific religious movement) in all manner of different ways.

[RCSaunders]

It must be a Christian or religious thing. Almost no one agrees with me on most fundamental principles, but I and they have no problem cooperating with each other on endless things we do voluntarily, because it is in each individuals own interest to do so.

I suspect if you have a problem cooperating with others who happen to not hold the same views you do, it is you that has the problem, a kind of prejudice perhaps.

No, I am examining cooperation in a larger, social sense. And I have recently referred, as an example, to the breakdown in social cohesion in contemporary France, and the political and social problems that are arising from that, as a way to examine issues of larger social cooperation and also those that pertain to *identity*.

You are simply outside of these concerns and so all of this has no meaning for you. But these issues and concerns have real meaning, and real relevance, within the European context. They do as well in America (where I assume you come from and reside) but they are much more murky and difficult there.

So you aren't talking about cooperation, you're talking about supporting and promoting some particular social/political agenda and calling anyone who does not agree with it or support it, "uncooperative."

[Immanuel Can]

I am not fully sure that you know where I am coming from but I do believe you have an outline. You cannot fully know for the simple reason that my ideas are not absolute solidities. They are moving and changing as I continue to think things through.

This conversation has been immensely useful to me because it pushes me to clarify things in areas I left a bit fuzzy. I have no hard feelings (feelings don't enter in much for me on-line) and I would only ever encourage you to state things as you understand them.

Yep. That's all fair enough.

The Catholic belief has been that the "Church" fathers, the traditions, the practices of "the Church"...but maybe not the dictionary...are all more authoritative than Scripture. However, since all of them pretend to be reproducing aspects of the Scripture and the narratives found therein, it clearly cannot be the case that any of these is the original authority. They all have to be, at most, derivative -- and all can be judged on the basis of their closeness or departure from the explicit teaching of that Scripture.

You asked for the sources that have informed my understanding of *what Christianity is*. I should also have included the Bible itself.

That is an oversight...but I did not call you on it, of course.

The problem is exactly that which happened at the Reformation: when the will of the papacy and the doctrines of the clergymen are in oppositon to the Word of God, which one do you opt for?

As Martin Luther famously said, "Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me."

...you have the luxury of *hopping over* real history, and also the history of ideas,

I've done no such thing, at all.

I don't dispute that secular historians, many of whom have no more than a thinly-concealed contempt for everything Christian, have said all sorts of things. I merely inform you that their statements clearly reveal they have no real definition of "Christian," beyond, "one who says they are." And that, I say, accounts for the failures in their histoiography...they have a shifting, illusory data pool. Naturally, they are going to make ridiculous mistakes when they do that.

That's just common sense. A person who has no stable or reasonable definition of "American" will make absurd statements about "Americans." A person who can't decide if an "Indian" is an aboriginal or a person from Mumbai is going to make absurd mistakes about both. A person who thinks a "Christian" is "somebody who says they are" is likewise going to end up only proving himself foolish in his generalizations.

Good historiography requires accurate definitions.

It is also true that my sense of spirituality, or of metaphysics, allows me a much wider and perhaps *inclusive* view and understanding of those other traditions I reference from time to time.

I"ve read those things pretty widely too, and given them due consideration. However, it seems I'm not at all so easily impressed. And I don't make the mistake of equating "inclusive" with either "fair," "true," "open-minded" or "accurate," of course.

So actually, with you, there is no further point to go. There is no further and larger conversation possible.

Yes, it seems so. We are at an impasse, at least on the subject with which this particular thread is concerned.

[Alexis Jacobi]

So you aren't talking about cooperation, you're talking about supporting and promoting some particular social/political agenda and calling anyone who does not agree with it or support it, "uncooperative."

Well, all civilizations, all cultures and communities, are built around social/political agendas are they not? Do you see that as something wrong or bad?

I definitely say that when the defined social/political agenda (I call these *agreements*) become incommensurate that social conflict, civil conflict, occur.

In the context of France -- my chosen example but there might be others -- many people, in wide sectors of the population, have begun to doubt if social peace and harmony, under the umbrella of concerns that traditional French have and through which they define themselves, is possible in the long run with the rising quantity and rising political power of the Muslim minority.

What do you think should be done? What is right/wrong good/bad?? How would you settle it? What would you say?

[Alexis Jacobi]

I don't dispute that secular historians, many of whom have no more than a thinly-concealed contempt for everything Christian, have said all sorts of things. I merely inform you that their statements clearly reveal they have no real definition of "Christian," beyond, "one who says they are." And that, I say, accounts for the failures in their histoiography...they have a shifting, illusory data pool. Naturally, they are going to make ridiculous mistakes when they do that.

I have often referred to Christopher Dawson (a Catholic historian). This excerpt is from The Imaginative Conservative: Religion: The Key to Christopher Dawson’s Culture.

Dawson wrote extensively about the interplay between religion and culture. Better stated, he examined the interdependence of religion and culture as a subject that is sorely absent from the work of modern historians and cultural scholars. Dawson asserted in various ways that religion is the key to truly understanding human history and human cultures. In truth and practice, with growing secularization comes increased disdain and hostility toward religious reality and social expressions of that reality. There is no need to look any further than the rhetorical expressions of fundamentalist atheism. Dawson warned about those who practice “any so-called science of comparative religion which treats its subject in terms of psychopathology or economic determinism is sterile and pseudo-scientific.” Instead, he called for an openness to “the science of religious truth.”

In addition to writing extensively about the interplay between religion and culture, Dawson was also intrigued and somewhat taken with the ways in which culture transitions from one movement to another, or from being one thing into being something else. He also called for examining religion as a unique manifestation of human experience. Unlike many modern critics, Dawson examined rituals, practices, superstitions, and mystical experiences as these are part of understanding humans and religious expression. Transcendence and human consciousness should not be separated in analysis. The reason that observers of cultural change give attention to religion is because, “a culture is a spiritual community which owes its unity to common beliefs and common ways of thought.”

Whether analyzing ancient primitive cultures or the high culture of Christendom during the Carolingian renaissance, Christopher Dawson recognized the intricate and profound relationship between life and religion. His stress on the “spiritual culture—the training of the mind in the way of divine law”—and even a rebellion of that way, is most important toward a proper interpretation of culture: “Thus the scientific revolution has been almost inseparable from movements of social and political revolution and with a far-reaching secularization of social life which produces a new type of conflict between religion and culture.” Between the acts of worship associated with religious practices and the beliefs themselves that stem from religious practices and worship. As with all things, Dawson saw a keen connection that few others have noted.

While most of Christendom (especially Protestants and even more so Evangelicals) focus solely on ideas (a rather gnostic impulse), there is much more to understanding society and culture than disembodied ideas. In a sense, Dawson was using the insights of the sociology of knowledge, found in Durkheim, before it became standard among cultural historians. Simply put, sociology of knowledge is the recognition that there is keen interplay between the way people think, the social context of that thinking, and the way such thinking influences that very same society. It is the recognition that the way of thinking is as important as what is being thought. Where many stress the particular ideas, this approach stresses the manifestations of these ideas in habits, actions, and institutions. One contemporary sociologist employing this tool noted that “the microwave generation cannot understand the virtue of patience.” The genius of this example is that it recognizes the technological ingenuity which produced a device that in turn affects the daily habits of people. Dawson’s analysis of the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution make similar observations. These same people do not realize how their new “instant” culture is counter to the habit of deliberative contemplation and the essential good of being hesitant before engaging in some actions.

Dawson influenced the way I see *Europe*, how I understand that Europe became Christianized, and why I can use the term 'Christian culture' and not exclude your sense of what that should mean but which can, and does, include a great deal more.

[Immanuel Can]

Dawson influenced the way I see *Europe*, how I understand that Europe became Christianized, and why I can use the term 'Christian culture' and not exclude your sense of what that should mean but which can, and does, include a great deal more.

Well, our one of our basic disagreements if over whether or not there's ever been anything like a truly "Christian" culture. So you're not including my view in yours. And a second point of disagreement is the status of Catholicism. So again, it's not the case it's possible to include it.

Rather, to claim that Christianity is some subcompartment of Catholicism or culture is to flatly contradict the truth. And, if I might add, is a rather "colonizing" move, at taking-over of right theology by a wrong theology, rather than a friendly inclusionof everybody in a single warm mush. That move, in fact, can only be bought by the expedient of denying that theology actually matters at all.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Well, our one of our basic disagreements if over whether or not there's ever been anything like a truly "Christian" culture.

That's not a right assessment. I have said that I accept the idea of a cristianesque culture. Christendom is one way to describe it. By definition, Christianity can only be fully practiced in a smallish community.

I am not concerned about a *truly Christian culture* (or state, or nation). I resolved this long ago: it has not happened, it is not happening now, and it will not happen in a foreseeable future. So in my own case -- what you want and how you view things is your own affair -- I accept what is. And that is something very very different from what might be and what should be.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Rather, to claim that Christianity is some subcompartment of Catholicism or culture is to flatly contradict the truth. And, if I might add, is a rather "colonizing" move, at taking-over of right theology by a wrong theology, rather than a friendly inclusionof everybody in a single warm mush. That move, in fact, can only be bought by the expedient of denying that theology actually matters at all.

The Christian religion, and the Christian movement, has specific roots. And those roots, it is true, formed Catholicism. I am not sure what *truth* is contradicted.