Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Date:         Tue, 25 Aug 1992 19:15:24 EDT
From:         JEK@NIHCU.BITNET
Subject:      anathemas

     The Council of Trent closes some of its assertions on points of
doctrine by saying: "If anyone denies this, let him be anathema."
     Some listmembers take this as meaning, "We curse him so that he
may be damned." They are accordingly upset. A little background is
in order.
     The Apostle Paul uses the same expression in Galatians 1:8,9,
applying it to those who teach a doctrine that Paul regards as
undermining the foundations of the Gospel. Does he mean that he
hopes that these men will be damned? Or does he mean that they are
to be disfellowshipped -- to be regarded as outside the bounds of
acceptable Christian belief, and therefore not a part of the
Christian community until they repent?
     Christians a few centuries later took the phrase to mean the
latter.  In the early 300's, there was a dispute in the Church about
the Nature of the Word of God (the "Logos", as in John 1:1).  On one
side were the presbyter Arius of Alexandria and his followers, who
held that the Word is the first thing created by God, and that
"before he was begotten he did not exist." On the other side were
those (eventually led by Athanasius of Alexandria) who held that the
Word of God is eternally begotten of the Father, and is eternal,
without beginning or end, and is God equally with the Father.
     A council of the bishops of the Church was called at Nicea,
just across the straits from modern Istambul, and the council
declared in favor of Athanasius. It formulated aa creed which (with
some later additions at the end) is called the Nicene Creed. It then
added, "But as for those who say, 'Before he was begotten he was
not,' or... these the Church anathemizes and condemns." The wording
caused no confusion at the time. It was understood all around to
mean that the bishops of Nicea were not merely voicing their belief
that the Son was co-equal and co-eternal with the Father. (They
would probably have been equally agreed in believing that Athens had
a more pleasant climate than Britain, and certainly better library
facilities.) They were taking the further step of declaring that the
belief in question was an essential part of the Christian faith, and
that they were not prepared to fellowship with anyone who rejected
it.
     This usage was retained by subsequent councils. When the
members of a council wish to declare their collective judgement on
some question, they do so.  When they wish to take the further step
of declaring that the contrary view undermines the foundations of
the Christian faith, and that they therefore cannot accept into
their midst those who hold and teach the contrary view, they use the
"anathema" formula.
     That the Greek word "anathema" once meant "accursed, damned,
sentenced to Hell," or whatever does not prove that the councils use
it in that sense.  The English word "brave" once meant "depraved."
The English word "sad" once meant "satisfied." Words change their
meaning. Words often mean one thing in a general or popular context
and another in a specialized context. The terms "break a leg" and
"best boy" do not mean to an actor what they would mean to most
other persons.
     The last time this question came up, I discussed it with one
fellow listmember who said, "But does any authority on earth since
the death of the Apostles have the right to exclude someone from the
Christian community?" My reply is: "Do you mean to tell me that your
group does not have any basis for excluding anyone? Suppose that
someone with half a dozen wives wanted to join your local
congregation, and wanted to keep all his wives and continue to have
sex with them. He would perhaps point out that there is no passage
in the Bible that forbids polygyny in language that leaves no room
for more than one interpretation. If you turn him down, you are
excluding him, not for defying the commands of God as found in the
Bible, but for disagreeing with you on how those commands are to be
interpreted. But you would exclude him, right? Can any congregation
function without the right to draw the line somewhere?"

     *     *     *     *     *

     An odd feature of the discussion is that those who are upset
with the Council of Trent for anathemizing are often (in my
experience) the very persons who are upset with the Anglican
Communion (to which I belong -- the American branch is known as the
Episcopal Church) for not anathemizing. For a number of historical
reasons, the Anglican churches have developed an arrangement which
makes it practically impossible to dismiss or depose a bishop or
priest for heresy. The arguments for this are similar to the
arguments for giving a high degree of job security to judges,
college professors, and civil servants. Clearly, such job security
permits many persons to behave badly with impunity. There are many
college professors who ought to be fired, and can't be because they
have tenure. There are many judges who should be fired. In my
county, there is one judge who has not actually presided in court
for at least five years, and whom no one wants to see presiding in
court, because said judge has a severe problem with alcohol abuse,
and has not drawn a sober breath in years. However, while he
breathes at all, he will continue to collect a salary.  And this is
a relatively minor problem. At least this judge is not doing any
harm besides pocketing the salary. Some unfit judges are
perpetrating grave injustices. Some professors are not just
defrauding the taxpayers of their salaries -- they are bringing up a
generation of students who do not understand that scholarship is
supposed to have something to do with evidence.
     But the rules about academic freedom and judicial immunity were
not drawn up in the first place to give a free ride to the
incompetent and the currupt.  They were put there to guard against
evils which we do not think about because they have been largely
eliminated -- evils that come when a judge is afraid to render a
judgement unacceptable to the government, or when a professor is
afraid to examine the arguments for and against an unpopular idea.
      There are churches where anyone who wants to discuss a belief
on which others have made up their minds is likely to find himself
accused of heresy and disloyalty. If he says (as did John Calvin),
that he is not sure whether the Book of Job describes actual
historical events, or is a discussion of the Problem of Suffering
("Why Bad Things Happen to Good People") in narrative form, he runs
the risk of being accused of insulting the Bible. On the other hand,
in contrast to such groups, we have the Anglican Church. Every so
often, I get into the following dialogue:

     D: Does your church teach the Resurrection of Jesus from the
dead?
     K: Of course we do. The Prayer Book is quite clear on the
point.
     D: But I saw an story in the newspaper last week about one of
your bishops who doesn't believe in it. How come he is still
functioning as a bishop?
     K: Because once someone becomes a bishop in the Episcopal
Church, there is no practical way of getting him out of office short
of assassination. And don't think I haven't thought about it.

The price of a loose system of church discipline is that you usually
have some vocal idiots around who are an embarassment to the Church.
The price of a tight system of discipline is that some questions
that should be openly discussed (like the historicity of Job) are
avoided because no one wants trouble. Is there an arrangement that
has no downside? Not that I have seen.

 Yours,
 James Kiefer
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia