Cool Hand Luke Theology

I started reading again a book by Fred Zaspel called The Theology of B.B. Warfield. I have quoted Warfield in other blogs. One of the issues Warfield dealt with in his time as professor theology and apologetics at Princeton Seminary was Protestant liberalism, which traces its roots in the work of Friedrich Schleiermacher, becoming more readily defined by Albert Ritschl. Zaspel explains,

The hallmark of Ritschilianism is its attempt "to clear theology of all 'metaphysical' elements. Otherwise expressed, this means that nothing will be admitted to belong to Christianity except facts of experience." Any elaboration of these "facts" into "dogmas" necessarily entails metaphysical elements and questions of ontology and is therefore ruled out of court..."Religious investigation had to do only with religious experience, "value judgments," morals, and ethics. God may be known as love, for this is how we experience him. But beyond that is beyond experience and the realm of religion.

Christ is Lord in that this is how we experience him as we bow to his example and teaching. There is nothing knowable about him apart from this...Ritschl had no room for metaphysical or (its related) mystical theology, and doctrine itself came to be held in utmost disdain as obstructive of true religion and "essential Christianity." Warfield therefore often characterized Ritschlianism as a reduced Christianity and a mere system of ethics (p.45).

Many of the features of classic theological liberalism are still with us in the forms of some aspects of evangelicalism and certainly in the form of Unitarianism. As in the late 19th century, there is today a disdain for clear, deep theological reflection (at least the kind that pushes back against the status quo).  Back then it was because it was seen as outdated dogma that got in the way of "true" Christian experience.

Today this is still the case, but the issue of social justice, often in the context of "the poor," will be invoked in a "too-much-theology-not-enough-action" kind of way.  Too often what is meant by this argument is de-emphasizing a doctrine in Scripture (for example, election) in order to prop another one up (for example, justice for the widow and the orphan). The reasoning is folks have a problem with Doctrine A and bring up Doctrine B, not to bring a more balanced view to the whole of Scripture, but because they don't particularly like Doctrine A all that much.

Much modern-day theological liberalism (in the many forms it takes) does this while wielding the dull blade of an errant and falliable Bible. For this I have dubbed it the "Cool Hand Luke Theology" because it just keeps coming with nothing.

Michael Bird, in a critique of liberal Christianity, addresses similarily what Warfield spoke of in his day:

Their aim is not to destroy the faith, far from it, they see themselves as saving it, by accommodating faith to the spirit of the age, making it more palatable to the masses, translating its idiom into contemporary language, engaging the challenge of religious meaning in a post-Enlightenement world, and even secularizing faith to some degree.

Or as Zaspel puts it: "Traditional terminology was used, but sharply different meanings were attached. Such was the theological world of Protestanism at the close of the nineteenth century" (p. 47).

Zaspel gives an example of a pastor in the Free Church of Scotland in the mid-19th century who was accused of denying the deity of Christ.  That's a pretty serious charge.  If someone said that to me, I would be equally serious about addressing it and showing that I do indeed believe it. The pastor, however, replied--to call a spade a spade--in a smart-aleck manner, "How can they accuse me of that? I've never denied the divinity of any man, let alone Jesus."

There are plenty of these folks still out there and, to be honest, it makes it very difficult to not answer back in a smart-aleck manner (dear Lord, deliver us). The purposeful unorthodoxy displayed in this man's answer shows that even then the very terms "Christian" or "Christianity" had been evacuated of all meaning.  Warfield states, "If everything that is called Christianity in these days is Christianity, then there is no such thing as Christianity. A name applied indiscriminately to everything, designates nothing" (Zaspel, p. 48).

Reading a portion of Ritschl in Allister McGrath's The Christian Theology Reader, it is clear Ritschl believes another tenent of liberal religion, which is the separation of the Old Testament from the New Testament, as though Jesus meant to make a total break from what came before.  To quote a former professor of mine, we like to think that Jesus said, "I did not come to abolish the law, but to abolish the law."

The genius of an ethnic religion is satisfied if there be participation in the fixed tradition and custom of the nation; and such participation, when regarded as the supreme standard of human fellowship, imposes on personal independence impassable limits. Because this ideal of self-realization has not come within the horizon of any of the ethnic religions, therefore in none of these has the founder received a place which can be compared with the significance of Christ.

Even in the case of Zoroaster and of Moses, the ideal interests of their religion are so bound up with the natural consciousness of belonging to a particular nation, that the decision of the Parsees for Zoroaster, and of the Israelites for Moses, was the inevitable result of hostility toward the Hindus in the one case, and toward the Egyptians in the other. ("The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation" in Christian Theology Reader, p. 291, emphasis mine)

I am ignorant of Ritschl's example of Zoroaster. With Moses, it seems he is saying that national and ethnic religion was the problem, squeezing out the freedom of the individual, since "the aim of the Christian is to be attained under the form of personal freedom" (p. 291). This emphasis on the national and ethnic led to hostility toward Egypt.

It could just be a hunch, but may be Israel's enslavement to Egypt would have been a key issue. And the Lord, I AM, had a problem with this, especially since 1) he had promised on oath to bless the nations through Abraham and 2) these Egyptian gods had to go.  This led to judgment for Egypt and redemption for Israel, which then led to God's law being given to Israel so that "you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" (Exo. 19:6).

For a present day, more conspiratorial side of separating the Old and New Testament--as in "things-got-edited-out-of-the-Bible" conspiracy--there is this gem entitled God's Wife Edited Out of the Bible -- Almost. This is hardly even worth talking about because it's not a secret that there were Israelites who worshipped Asherah and even believed the goddess to be the wife of YHWH.  2 Kings 21:7 says, "And the carved image of  Asherah that he (Manasseh) had made he set in the house of which the Lord said to David and to Solomon his son, 'In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever.'"

The problem with this is it is clear idolatry and syncretism. The prophets condemned it:

Thus says the Lord:

“What wrong did your fathers find in me
that they went far from me,
and went after worthlessness, and became worthless?" (Jer. 2:5)

It is a downgrading of humanity, of the image of God.

"All who fashion idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit" (Isa. 44:9).

"Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak; they have to be carried, for they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, neither is it in them to do good" (Jer. 10:5).

In an indirect way (dare I say "direct"?) this article and its backdrop of a "hermeneutics of suspicion" also downgrades humanity. In effect, the people are God are nothing more than a mistress.  I AM has his chickadee Asherah on the arm, but when he gets bored, he has a fling with Israel (or the Church). That is not the God of the covenants; the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This is also a reflection of poor journalism and poor research. It is Cool Hand Luke; it comes with "nuthin."

In contrast Meredith Kline demonstrates that humanity is lifted up and dignified in the worship of the one true God, I AM.

The Glory was a Spirit-temple and the Creator foreknew a temple constructed in spirit-dimensions. As the Omega-point of the creative cloning of the archetypal Glory-temple, the divine design contemplated a living temple of created spirits. God created man in the likeness of the Glory to be a spirit-temple of God in the Spirit. Such is the setting in which the Scriptures introduce man's identity as the earthling made in the image of God.

Once we have have recognized the Spirit as the creation narrative of the Glory-Presence, we realize that it is not the case after all that the image-of-God idea appears in Genesis out of the blue, an unexplained riddle inviting nebulously abstract solutions. The statement in Genesis 1:27 that God created man in his own image instead finds a concretely specific and in fact visible point of reference in the Glory-Spirit theophany of Genesis 1:2. (Images of the Spirit, p. 21)

To those who hold to Cool Hand Luke theology, it's not worth it. Humanity cannot live on abstract Christian ethics with no meta-narrative to back it up. There simply is no ethic that can be called Christian without this "greater story."  We are the image of God, who has revealed himself as One-in-Three. Jesus brings new creation. With Paul I plead, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved."