I don't think this is original with me. What I mean by that is not that I consciously ripped off someone else's ideas, just that I'd be surprised if I'm the only one who noticed this.
It seems to me that the real driver of the Protestant Reformation was not a a theological breakthrough, but a technical one: the printing press. The technology of the press transferred power from the mystical priesthood of Rome to the professors of learning (and reading). Mainstream Protestant clergy still wear the academic robes of the scholar, and get their educations from seminaries, which are basically specialized universities. Universities are just a support system for libraries.
Run that by again: The printing press gave us books. Books are assembled into collections and collections are gathered into libraries. Academics hang out around libraries and develop universities so they can have classes to explain the books to the newbies. If the library/university is specifically interested in matters theological, you have a seminary.
The repository of the wisdom of the ages shifts from the elders of the tribe and their appointed/anointed successors to the libraries/universities and the gatekeepers that run them. Wanna get ahead, son? Get a college degree--show the world you're a learned man.
So here we are in the third millenium AD, and a most interesting thing has happened. It's Gutenberg all over again, although maybe this time it's Tim Berners-Lee and a supporting cast. The Internet has brought us another power shift, only maybe this one is orders of magnitude greater than the last one.
The telegraph, radio, and television were just the warmup. The World Wide Web is the real deal.
And you know what has happened? We don't need Ph.D.'s anymore. Anyone with a three-digit IQ and a $500 appliance can learn anything he wants to know....
Scary, isn't it? Knowledge used to be stored up and guarded by professional keepers-of-the-flame, guys who got paid to tell us what to think, what was right and true.
Not any more. Go for it. Teach yourself something. Read. Absorb. Sift. Test. Compare. Prune. Build. Trust. Discern. Challenge. Yield. Reject. Absorb. Grow. Change. Learn. Live.
Or you can just go pay someone to tell you what to think....
Showing posts with label free thought. Show all posts
Showing posts with label free thought. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Thursday, October 7, 2010
What is a 'heresy', anyway?...
I'm glad you asked! The word "heresy" comes from the Greek hairetikos, "able to choose". If you think about that for a minute, you might ask yourself something like, "so what's wrong with making a choice?".
I'm glad you asked! What's wrong with making a choice? Apparently everything, if you think you and your group are the UAORAW (Undisputed Arbiters of Right and Wrong). If you belong to a group that considers itself to be Right in a way that makes everyone else Wrong, then anyone who chooses to believe something you don't approve of is a heretic, and their disapproved beliefs are heresy.
Wikipedia says that Iraeneus back in the second century (this has been going on a long time...) was the first guy to really promote the idea that his beliefs were "orthodox" and anyone else's were "heresy". He even wrote a book he titled Adversus Haereses (that's right: "Against Heresies") just to straighten everyone out.
Maybe it's just me, but this seems to be an exercise in name calling. As in a shooting war, where the enemy has to be depersonalized through some kind of derogatory nickname, calling someone a 'heretic' seems to be right in there with 'son of a bitch', just a way to be offensive, to put down someone you disagree with, to give yourself permission to hate, and to stereotype the individual to the point where the individual ceases to be a real person. Jesus would love it.
There's one other thing: Notice that the guy who entertains a completely different set of religious beliefs from yours is not called a heretic. That name is reserved for people who claim to follow your own religion, but aren't doing it right ("right" in this context meaning "the way you do it"). In this regard, claims of orthodoxy and heresy look suspiciously like an exercise in branding. Maybe someone should trademark words like "Christian" or "Presbyterian", so they'd have legal rights that they can enforce against anyone who presumes to use those words without their approval.
The conundrum is the sheer number of groups out there that all think they're right and everyone else is wrong. Ten or twelve years ago I read that there were at the time something like 22,000 separate Christian denominations on the planet. Who is "orthodox" now? Not who claims to be orthodox--that's just about everyone, and not just the ones with the word "orthodox" in their brand. I mean who really gets to adjudicate what's the One True Way against which all others are measured? (And how funny is it to watch all these different groups judging each other as if it mattered to anyone else what they think?)
The lawyers might ask, quo warranto? (that is, by what warrant, or by what authority do you do this?). Jesus and his apostles had a lot to say about factions, divisiveness, the traditions of men, religious exclusion, and persecution. They had a lot to say about love, unity, brotherhood, bearing each other's burdens, praying for each other, and taking care of the needy. They did not have a lot to say about creedal conformity. They had a lot to say about Right Action and Right Motive; not so much to say about Right Doctrine. Whatever authority causes some people to think they're the Church Police, the UAORAW, it's not the teachings of Jesus or the apostles.
Bottom line is: I'm not worried about being called a heretic. Everyone's a heretic in someone else's eyes, so if you take any position at all, someone's not going to like it. And at it's etymological root, "heretic" is just another name for "free thinker", someone who is "able to choose", someone who doesn't have to be told what to think, who to vote for, what to believe.
I'm okay with that.
I'm glad you asked! What's wrong with making a choice? Apparently everything, if you think you and your group are the UAORAW (Undisputed Arbiters of Right and Wrong). If you belong to a group that considers itself to be Right in a way that makes everyone else Wrong, then anyone who chooses to believe something you don't approve of is a heretic, and their disapproved beliefs are heresy.
Wikipedia says that Iraeneus back in the second century (this has been going on a long time...) was the first guy to really promote the idea that his beliefs were "orthodox" and anyone else's were "heresy". He even wrote a book he titled Adversus Haereses (that's right: "Against Heresies") just to straighten everyone out.
Maybe it's just me, but this seems to be an exercise in name calling. As in a shooting war, where the enemy has to be depersonalized through some kind of derogatory nickname, calling someone a 'heretic' seems to be right in there with 'son of a bitch', just a way to be offensive, to put down someone you disagree with, to give yourself permission to hate, and to stereotype the individual to the point where the individual ceases to be a real person. Jesus would love it.
There's one other thing: Notice that the guy who entertains a completely different set of religious beliefs from yours is not called a heretic. That name is reserved for people who claim to follow your own religion, but aren't doing it right ("right" in this context meaning "the way you do it"). In this regard, claims of orthodoxy and heresy look suspiciously like an exercise in branding. Maybe someone should trademark words like "Christian" or "Presbyterian", so they'd have legal rights that they can enforce against anyone who presumes to use those words without their approval.
The conundrum is the sheer number of groups out there that all think they're right and everyone else is wrong. Ten or twelve years ago I read that there were at the time something like 22,000 separate Christian denominations on the planet. Who is "orthodox" now? Not who claims to be orthodox--that's just about everyone, and not just the ones with the word "orthodox" in their brand. I mean who really gets to adjudicate what's the One True Way against which all others are measured? (And how funny is it to watch all these different groups judging each other as if it mattered to anyone else what they think?)
The lawyers might ask, quo warranto? (that is, by what warrant, or by what authority do you do this?). Jesus and his apostles had a lot to say about factions, divisiveness, the traditions of men, religious exclusion, and persecution. They had a lot to say about love, unity, brotherhood, bearing each other's burdens, praying for each other, and taking care of the needy. They did not have a lot to say about creedal conformity. They had a lot to say about Right Action and Right Motive; not so much to say about Right Doctrine. Whatever authority causes some people to think they're the Church Police, the UAORAW, it's not the teachings of Jesus or the apostles.
Bottom line is: I'm not worried about being called a heretic. Everyone's a heretic in someone else's eyes, so if you take any position at all, someone's not going to like it. And at it's etymological root, "heretic" is just another name for "free thinker", someone who is "able to choose", someone who doesn't have to be told what to think, who to vote for, what to believe.
I'm okay with that.
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