authority in the church

many years ago now, i started my formal theological education with education for ministry, a program of the dubose center of the university of the south.  it consisted of three parts:  (1) a liturgical component, which combined praying together with study of the liturgy as part of (2) an academic component, which began with studying the old testament and continued through contemporary church history; and most importantly, theological reflection.  theological reflection, as taught by efm, was a method of looking at the thoughts, acts, or beliefs that we use in ministry within a quadralateral of "authorities:"  hooker's "three-legged stool of scripture, reason (by which he meant a concept more closely related to nature than to what we might consider scientific reason), and tradition, to which was added wesley's experience.

a few years ago, i recommended efm to a friend, and was surprised and disappointed (why does disappointment with what is happening within the church continue to surprise me?) to find that these four sources of authority had been replaced by some things much more loosey-goosey, which i don't quite remember, but which translated fairly closely to the winds of current pop culture.  the notion of revelation being any sort of authority seemed to have dropped out entirely.  of course within the orthodox tradition, revelation is the beginning, and it takes three primary forms:  creation (similar to hooker's reason), scripture, and the incarnation (about which the church's most important tradition is concerned).  and of course all of these we experience in various ways.

i find i fascinating that for the most part the authorities which seem to operate in the "american church" today are none of the above, but two:  vatican ii, and the academic establishment i tend to call princeton.

almost every part of the american church is following in some way or another the pronouncements of the second vatican council.  some of these ways are obvious:  the liturgican revisions of the episcopal, united methodist, presbyterian, lutheran, united church of christ, american baptists even, are fundamentally in accord with the revisions of vatican ii.  i am not suggesting that this is always a "bad thing."  it seems, in my opinion,  perhaps an improvement for presbyterians, but an impovershment for episcopalians.  but it is the acceptance of vatican ii as an "ecumenical council" which i find so fascinating.  i visited last summer several friends of mine who are pastors in evangelican fringes of the church that would never consider themselves "catholic," and always on their book shelves were the volumes of decrees of the second vatican council.

now, almost none of these groups have considered the findings of the first vatican council attractive.  the actual authority of both of these councils is, however, the same.

the second source of authority seems to be the academic establishment exemplified by princeton:  the pharisees of the day.  i pick princeton because it is not only home to some of the most influential folks in the new non-orthodoxy, such as elaine pagels, but also because it is the same school from which came, a century ago, the fundamentals.  again, the authority of the princeton that gave us fundamentalism and the princeton which is giving us the da vinci code is the same.

i am forced to conclude, therefore, that it is the winds of current popularity which seems to be driving the church.  i will only mention the influence george barna has had.  but i will conclude this post with two questions:  would jesus have conducted a poll to see if he should go up to jerusalem?  or am i significantly wrong in my conclusion.