Naturally any veering off course required justification. That is when you discovered what was negotiable and what was not. Interestingly, there were instances when the non-negotiables could be more representative of ethnicity or tradition than of straightforward (or more often, not so straightforward) scriptural teaching. This could range from one's view of war to one's predilection for alcohol. I was against the former and for the latter, which worked in some instances but not others.
I used to wonder how the Christians of the first three hundred years after Christ managed, given that the Church had not yet come to consensus on the great creeds that have dominated theological discussion ever since. Not being sure whether the Spirit proceeded from just the Father, or from the Father and the Son, or whether there was a Holy Spirit at all; just when Jesus would return to earth and what shape it would be in when he arrived (and whether he would be packing heat); how to baptize properly; whether or not to take Bel and the Dragon seriously--my goodness, how did the faith spread so far, and why did so many Christians turn themselves into lion food for it, when they didn't have a statement of faith against which to check their daily decisions?
No, it's because of a column I read in the July 23, 2011 publication of the National Post (p. A17) by Robert Fulford. Fulford, like myself a goy, was exploring the concept of the self-hating Jew. In his analysis, he makes reference to the Jewish way of doing theology:
Just about every educated Jew comes into fairly close contact with the Talmudic tradition, which consists mainly of vigorously phrased disputes about religion and daily life. In Jewish texts, controversy is not an event; it's everyone's daily bread. The Talmud began as a way of explaining the Torah, the Five Books of Moses in the Hebrew Bible, but it encouraged reasoned questions about every aspect of life. Articulate argument became the essence of Jewish thought. That made Jewish intellectual life exceptionally rigorous and helped Jews achieve spectacular success in literature, law and the sciences....Harold Rosenberg, the great American art critic, wrote that for thousands of year, Jews over-produced intellectuals in their study halls. Since he was one of them, he could hardly resent this fact but he set it down to explain why Jewish life is so frequently rent by controversy. It's the Jewish way.
How could one resist this approach? Imagine being able to debate and discuss matters of great moment without first putting your thoughts through the Calvinist grid, or sprinkling them with Anabaptist insight. Do you suppose Christianity could ever be that grown up?
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to write my next book: Chicken Soup for the Wallet.
