Newsweek, the Koran and the administration

Linked above is a statement from Mark Whitaker, editor of Newsweek, retracting a recent story which stated that U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had flushed a copy of the Qu'ran down a toilet as an interrogation tactic.

Immediately, the administration slammed Newsweek because, in Scott McClellan's words, "the report had real consequences. People have lost their lives. Our image abroad has been damaged."

How ironic, coming from this administration. It seems to me that the key issue here is not whether the story is true or false, but simply that it is plausible. Those who are disposed to oppose the U.S. don't need any more confirmation than that.

Given what we, and the rest of the world, know about what U.S. interrogators have proven themselves capable of at Abu Ghraib and at Guantanamo Bay and about the endless capacity of top-level administration officials to insist that the taint of scandal not rise above the level of a "few bad apples," it hardly seems appropriate for the administration to pontificate about what Newsweek should do. Our credibility on the world stage is already shot, irrespective of mistaken or less-than-thorough reporting on Newsweek's part.

A Christian Affirmation (Part 3)

Two things:

• For some very well thought out analysis of the Affirmation, go here. I was previously unaware of Jimmy Shaw's blog, but will definitely be stopping in more frequently!
  

• At least one signer of the Affirmation has posted some thoughts on why he signed. I appreciate what Dr. Hicks has to say and I pray that all of those who have blogged about the Affirmation recently will find their way to his site and his explanation for signing the document. Here's to similarly irenic and reflective statements from the other signers!

XP,

Chris

A Christian Affirmation (Part 2)

Some more thoughts on A Christian Affirmation...

Comments on the Affirmation are proliferating across the web (among many others, go here, here and here). Some of the comments center around the perception that the signers wrote the document for nefarious, hurtful purposes: to close ranks, to say who is in/out, to establish a creed, or to say that the 4 items discussed are at the center of the gospel.

As a whole, it seems to me that the Affirmation is designed to be a restatement, not of what is at the core of the gospel, but of the distinctive practices and traditions of Churches of Christ over the past two centuries. To my mind, there is a great deal of difference between the two.

The author(s) of the Affirmation list and discuss four distinctives:

• the New Testament is the "original design" for the Church
• baptism
• weekly Communion
• a cappella singing
  

These four items are not all equal in their proximity to the Cross, to the center of the Christian faith. A cappella worship is not on the same level as the Resurrection. But this is not a document about the core of the Christian faith. Rather, it is about the core of cofC identity and needs to be interpreted as such.

The fundamental question, for the signers, seems to be: can we, in the cofC, slough off our "legacy of legalism, sectarianism, and divisiveness" and at the same time maintain what is best about the restorationist impulse (in a non-sectarian manner)? As I see it, the answer is "yes," and the Affirmation represents a first attempt to do just that -- to place our traditional emphases on a less dogmatic, more reflective and non-sectarian basis. Furthermore, it doesn't seem to me that the Affirmation is meant to be a "once for all" document. Rather, it was meant to invite discussion in order to further clarify these distinctives. As to the wisdom of reserving discussion for "ministers, elders and teachers," this does seem to limit discussion quite a bit. But I would want to know the motives of the author(s) before I pass judgment on this choice.

That's what I think. Your thoughts?

just for fun...

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Howitzer of Reasoned Discussion.

Get yours.

I wonder what a cofC version would look like...

A Christian Affirmation

Linked above is a document that appeared in the most recent issue of the Christian Chronicle, a news magazine that serves Churches of Christ. It has occasioned quite a bit of discussion (to follow some of that, go here).

First off, take a few minutes to read the Affirmation. It is, to be sure, a clear and eloquent statement of historic cofC theological stances regarding the New Testament as "constitution" (to use Alexander Campbell's phrase) of the Church, baptism, Eucharist, and a cappella singing in corporate worship. These are (to borrow a Baptist buzzword) the distinctives of cofC identity and have been called into question in recent years. Some of this rethinking has been quite healthy and, generally, presented in an irenic tone. Some of it, on the other hand, has not: in the rush to disassociate themselves from ugly expressions of sectarianism, some have abandoned these markers of the faith as well -- attacking them as legalistic requirements that are merely "traditions." Mindful of these varied movements within Churches of Christ, the signers of the Affirmation explicitly reject the legalism and exclusivism that have dogged our fellowship during the 20th century.

A few specific thoughts occurred to me after reading and chewing on it for a while:

• The place of tradition: Jaroslav Pelikan famously said: "Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. Tradition lives in conversation with the past, while remembering where we are and when we are and that it is we who have to decide. Traditionalism supposes that nothing should ever be done for the first time, so all that is needed to solve any problem is to arrive at the supposedly unanimous testimony of this homogenized tradition." I think that the signers of the Affirmation recognize this implicitly: there is value in the understandings of our spiritual forebears. For them, cofC understandings of baptism, Communion, etc. are based upon the received wisdom of our ancestors (Stone, Campbell, Scott, etc.) AND sound exegesis of the Holy Scriptures. But, in saying this, they have cut themselves off from one of the foundational impulses of Churches of Christ: distrust and rabid skepticism of tradition. To make myself clear, I doubt that very many of their readers (at any place on the cofC theological spectrum) will even accept the validity of an appeal to tradition. Progressives and conservatives regularly display knee-jerk reactions to the concept of tradition (which is seen as "legalistic," "denominational," or "Catholic"). This is unfortunate in the extreme: the stabilizing force of tradition could, I think, be effective medicine for many of our intramural arguments.
  

More thoughts later. There are other points that I'd like to make about the Affirmation regarding creedalism, unity, and "things of first importance" (1 Cor. 15.3).

kinko, kinkere, bibipi, jamitum

Sauvage Noble has a wonderful little post on the trials of theses/dissertations (the deadlines, the lack of coherence, etc.).