From: tas@PEGASUS.COM ((Len Howard))
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.catholic
Subject: Re: Homosexuality
Date: 15 Oct 92 08:38:44 GMT
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              Homosexuality" (Oct 14,  3:17pm)

John,   Thank you for your courteous reply.  This is sort of what
I have always had in mind for this mail group, a discussion about
the various ways we look at our particular brand of the Christian
(and other) religion.  When we discuss, rather than debate or
judge, we are able to learn from each other.

You are correct.  I am an Episcopalian for over 35 years,
currently Worship Chairman in our Parish, a vested Lay Reader,
and in my fourth (and final) year of study leading to ordination
as a Deacon.  We are embroiled currently in the study of
Theology, which brings me to where we are in these discussions. I
use as my texts Owen Thomas' "Introduction to Theology"; John
Macquarrie's "Principles of Christian Theology"; Karl Barth's
"Dogmatics in Outline"; Donald McKim's "Theological Turning
Points" and Karl Rahner's "Foundations of Christian Faith"  I am
not attempting to snow you with authorities, as I know you have
equal resources to draw on.  I am, however, indicating the
somewhat liberal bent that we are being presented, and with which
I feel comfortable dealing.

You ask how the prohibitions given in scripture and tradition
count as theology, and thus subject to change.  You also mention
Divine Revelation.  I suppose in order to communicate effectively
we first should try to agree on some definitions:
     THEOLOGY - the study, which, through participation in and
reflection upon a religious faith, seeks to express the content
of this faith in the clearest and most coherent language
available.  This definition indicates that theology is both
continuous with and yet distinct from faith.  The faith mentioned
is not just faith in general but the faith of an historic
community.  We speak from the point of view of Christian
theology.  This means that theology implies participation in a
community of faith.
   But our definition stresses reflection just as much as
participation in theology's relation to faith.  While theology
participates in the faith and does not speak from outside of the
faith, it has nevertheless taken a step aback from the immediate
experiences of faith.  When Thomas says "My Lord and my God!"
this is indeed faith expressing itself in language, but not yet
theology, for there is no reflection upon it.  So theology
involves us thinking about the experience of faith in the past,
but thinking about it in the here and now, using the language of
today, surrounded by and inculcated with the cultural values of
our 20th century society.
   Macquarrie describes 6 formative factors in Theology, what
some other authors refer to as sources.  He includes in the six
factors the following: experience, revelation, scripture,
tradition, culture, and reason.
   EXPERIENCE - appeared first on the list, not because it is to
dominate, but to indicate that theology implies participation in
a religious faith, so that some experience of the life of faith
precedes theology and may indeed be said to motivate it.  I bring
35 years of experience as an Episcopalian, added to 24 years as a
Congregationalist, and the a Presbyterian.  I cannot erase the
tapes of this experience when I start to formally study Theology.
   REVELATION - This is the primary source of theology, and is
also a basic category in theological thinking. We see a gift-like
character in what we come to know through revelation.  It would
seem that almost anything in the world can be an occasion for
revelation., and especially in primitive and archaic religions
especially, the holy is believed to manifest itself in nature.
At a more sophisticated level, nature is replaced by history and
personal relationship as the locus wherein the holy discloses
itself.  In the Christian religion, a person, Jesus the Christ,
is the bearer of revelation.  Because of its gift-like character,
revelation is of a different order from our ordinary matter-of-
fact knowing of the world.  Ordinary language is stretched to the
maximum to encompass the experiences that revelation contains.
But the consistency of the pattern of the revelation experience
validates the numerous cases.  Obviously revelation and
experience are related.  In the construction of a theology, the
two factors must be kept in proper balance. Macquarrie states "It
is present experience within a community of faith that gives rise
to theology and that enables us to recognize the primordial
revelation as revelation; but if theology is to be saved from the
dangers of subjectivism, the varieties of experience within the
community must be submitted to the relatively objective content
of the classic revelation on which the community is founded."  So
how do we have access to it today, you ask.  The next two factors
bring the primordial revelation to us.  These factors are not
coordinate with revelation, but subordinate to it.  The next two
factors are Scripture and Tradition.  Now we are getting closer
to the answer to your question.
   In the section on Tradition, he says "Scripture needs the
complement of tradition in order to guard against private
interpretations of scripture, for almost anything can be read
into scripture, and some control has to be exercised by the mind
of the Church as expressed in received interpretations."  He goes
on "Sometimes there are enthusiasts who break with tradition
either for the sake of being modern or for the sake of going
right back to the New Testament, as if all the intervening
development could be left out.  Sometimes both of these errors
occur in the same person."  Now here comes the pertinent section,
John.  "Tradition, as everyone knows, can become dead and
mechanical, so that all growth and healthy development are
inhibited.  I have argued the case for tradition alongside
scripture precisely on the ground that a living tradition lends
its life to scripture.  But if tradition itself becomes dead,
then we get a rigid fixity of the theological (as well as the
other) expressions of a religious faith that is just as harmful
as any rigid biblicism.  But this need not happen.  The function
of tradition that has been stressed here is interpretation, and
interpretation needs to be done over and over again."  "Each
generation must appropriate the tradition, and in order to do
this it has to interpret the ancient formula, or whatever it may
be, into its own categories of thought.  This means that one has
to ask what the formula was trying to express in its own
historical context, or what error it was trying to guard against,
and then rethink this in our own situation."
   I hope you can see where I am coming from in saying that our
theology of today must incorporate our own tradition, experience
and culture (I did not hit culture for brevity sake, but it
cannot be excluded just as experience cannot be.)  It is not a
matter of biblical injunction no longer applying, but to
determine the application today of the truth in the biblical
injunction.  There is a circular pattern to theological study
that enables us to learn as we go, then the second time around be
more alert for what we might have missed the first time, and so
on thru each cycle.  I believe in a living God, thus a continuing
revelation.  It is up to us to discern revelation when we see it
walking down the street.  This is why you get so many different
answers about religious topics from Episcopalians.  We are asked
to think, study, pray, meditate, and inform our conscience, then
proceed to use that conscience as 'right reason' in the tripod of
Sacred Scripture, Tradition, and Right Reason which are the
classic Episcopal sources of revelation.
   Thanks for reading this far, John.... it is a difficult topic
to discuss in posting form.  But we will do the best we can.

Shalom,                        Len Howard
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.catholic