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As a Protestant, I agree with you that the papacy is no guarantor of doctrinal fidelity. But the core question is this: The pope is said to be the vicar of Christ – is he? Flawed historical assertions and doctrinal contradictions count as evidence against the claim, but the claim itself is true or false and should be addressed as such. (Whether this is the right forum to go deep on that question is a separate issue.)
The same is true of claims about the president of the Mormon church: Is he a true or false prophet? Having a true prophet may be useful, but that doesn’t determine whether Joseph Smith and Russell Nelson qualify. Flawed historical assertions and doctrinal contradictions count as evidence here too. And I think it’s audacious to say that the LDS score well.
What about the Mormon history of pre-Columbian America, which doesn’t jive with any historical source or archeological finds? Or the book of Abraham, whose source manuscripts turned out to be Egyptian funerary texts once we could read hieroglyphs? Or the edits to the Book of Mormon regarding the nature of the godhead? Or the doctrines which were said to be unchangeable but were nevertheless changed, like plural marriage?
I believe that the idea was to have an apostolic guidance for the church as a whole but persecution, deaths, unauthorized doctrinal changes, undue pagan influences, power grabs, a view that the Second Coming was imminent, and the gradual loss of divine revelation made the church fundamentally changed and eventually bereft of authority. Perhaps some city bishops had some legitimate authority for a while, but the connection that e.g. the Bishop of Rome would have any actual special sway over the church as a whole is highly suspect, as was especially the consolidation under Constantine. The later "sins" of the Catholic church are some evidence, but not the primary evidence. I agree that to the extent historical matters should be considered in coming to spiritual conclusions, that history both theological and otherwise are fair game for examination - though my comment was more about the theological history of the Catholics than their more political/historical acts.
Getting a little off topic I guess, but in terms of Book of Mormon history, the position has long been (and is mildly supported in-text) that the people there were simply one of many living side by side. Archeologically speaking, we simply do not have anywhere close to a comprehensive survey of all peoples who lived in Mesoamerica. Among the Maya, for example, we've only excavated about 1% of the sites and of those sites only 10% of what's there, approximately. The Book of Abraham I feel was used as a starting point for inspiration on Abrahamic writings rather than a true transliteration, though admittedly there are decent reasons to think otherwise I certainly wouldn't begrudge others for believing. A few edits to a single section don't really change anything about LDS in-text our out-of-text teachings on the Trinity. Many Old Testament prophets were polygamists, so clearly it's compatible with Christianity, yes? It's I believe a plausible or even likely reading of the history that Joseph Smith was forced into accepting plural marriage (obviously it brought nothing but trouble) as part of the "restoration of all things", i.e. re-treading parts of earlier pre-Christ Christianity as part of the doctrinal point that the gospel (Christianity broadly from Adam to now) is now in its ultimate and most complete form (though some allowance is made for new knowledge, teachings, and practices to be either restored or newly given). At least under this model of Christian history, there's far less confusion over having to litigate and reexamine each and every piece of modern practice and belief - Protestant, Catholic, or otherwise - for accuracy. Study is helpful for understanding true religious principles, and might be a rewarding activity, but it is not the cornerstone of doctrine, nor is there a need for major political activism to influence church leaders at the church-wide level.
Returning back a little bit to the original point, it's amazing to me that anyone would read the Epistles of Paul and come to any conclusion other than that there were serious doctrinal misunderstandings by new converts everywhere, on top of the rampant persecution, on top of the behavior problems, on top of the cultural difficulties popping up as many new members tried to blend their previous beliefs into the new religion. The vibe is that there's definitely a bit of a mess out there, yeah? Paul was obviously, I think everyone agrees, capable of correcting misunderstandings and offering some excellent guidance, but there were only so many people like Paul, and fewer by the year. And there's little evidence as far as I'm concerned that anyone satisfactorily took his place, much less the Bishop of Rome, though a few bishops tried to a limited extent.
It's quite obvious to me that the biggest problem is the Great Schism of 1054, where the patriarch of Rome decided he was better than the rest of the Church, based on specious reading of scripture.
Can you expound upon where the Great Schism of 1054 was Rome going off the rails? Because this is how Catholics see it:
From here, I have done some formatting because gosh that's a wall of text with names no one's heard about before.
Distilling down the barest essentials:
Patriarch of Constantinople declares, based on a document written by a local theologian, that Roman disciplines of consecrating unleavened bread and fasting on Saturday are horrible and disqualifying from being a member of the Church. They go so far as to desecrate the Eucharist in Roman churches.
Pope sends delegation that explains to the theologian how they are wrong, and that this ancient practice of the Latin Church is not disqualifying or heretical. Patriarch refuses to even see them.
Once it becomes clear that the Patriarch's side isn't going to win, he excommunicates the Pope. The papal legates excommunicate the Patriarch using the authority they have from the Pope (except at this time, unbeknownst to them, the Pope is dead so the excommunication isn't even valid on the Latin side, which was discovered shortly after).
Most of the Church didn't realize there's a permanent Schism, it slowly develops over time. The Massacre of the Latins in Constantinople in 1182 was a more significant event, with 60,000 Latins dead or sold into slavery, but the Schism probably really became permanent in the Fourth Crusade with the Sack of Constantinople.
This is the version I have always heard. Specifically, the Patriarch excommunicates the legates, not the Patriarch of Rome. Which is a crucial distinction:
From https://orthodoxwiki.org/Great_Schism#cite_note-Cross-1.
This is another major issue which... is pretty unambiguously the fault of the See of Rome.
While I'm sure there are a ton of small historical details you can quibble about, to me the overall thrust makes it pretty obvious that Rome is in the wrong. That being said, I try to be ecumenical and I do hope that the Church can become whole again one day. We'll see!
Politically or theologically?
I would say desecrating the Eucharist in 1054 and killing/expelling/enslaving all Italian Catholics in 1182 are both examples of Constantinople being in the wrong politically first.
I can't say for certain if the Papal Legates were on their best behavior or not in Constantinople. It seems like there are many sources and sides to the story, all of them undoubtedly biased.
Fortunately, what I can say is none of that matters as far as whether one should be Catholic or Orthodox. The question of if I should be Catholic or Orthodox is a theological question. Is there theological basis for Roman Primacy? I believe the answer is "Yes." I believe that the answer has been yes, and was demonstrably so even before the Synod of Chalcedon.
I would love for us to heal the schism. From Rome's perspective I don't think there's anything we'd require the other side to change, just reconfirmation of Rome's primacy. We already have many Eastern Catholic Churches that have a multiplicity of different views and practices. We see the Orthodox as having valid Holy Orders and sacraments.
Both of the churches were wrong politically in many ways - I'll be honest I haven't done a full accounting of the details as I frankly don't have the time or inclination. Part of my decision is based on looking at the 'spirit' of both churches today, and since the schism. Another part is just the fact that Rome essentially took what was an overall democratic church, and demanded to have sole power over all of Christendom. Those two things together are strong evidence from my perspective that Rome was in the wrong.
Frankly I think even the 5 sees being somehow more "legitimate" than other churches is a bit suss, although I'll say that I'm definitely a Nicene Christian.
See, this is the problem! Basically the entire schism comes down to Rome asserting primacy that is not apostolic! You can't just say "we want to end the argument, you just have to give in to all of my demands that actually matter to you" and expect it to work.
See, that's not clear to me that this is the schism! For me, I think I'm asking that the East just goes back to believe about the Roman Pontiff the same things they believed before the 800s. Even Photius and Cerularius, the critical players in the East-West schism, never argued that the Petrine doctrine could justify schism.
For example of a Pope exercising primacy:
Before Sergius died, in 638, he assembled a great Synod at Constantinople, which accepted a "one will" formula as "truly agreeing with the Apostolic preaching." This synod was without any Papal legates nor did it receive Papal approval afterwards. The outcome of this council is not considered infallible or orthodox.
Subsequent Popes and Patriarchs rejected Monothelitism (with one Pope refusing to confirm Paul as Patriarch of Constantinople until after he stopped using the "one will" formula), but there was still some confusion about if Jesus had "one operation" or "two operations."
To clear all this up, Pope St. Agatho sent legates to the General Council in Constantinople in 680. The legates brought with them a letter in which the Pope defined the "two wills, two operations" terminology with authority as the successor of St. Peter, binding the council to accept. The council did and rejected the Monothelites.
That seems to me like the Pope undoubtedly exercising Primacy and the East recognizing this. I can point to dozens of other examples of the Pope settling disputes among various other Apostolic Sees, like when Dennis of Alexandria was accused of heresy, he appealed to Rome and was cleared. Let's look at a council document:
To me, the source of the schism is the liturgical intolerance exhibited by the Byzantine Greeks towards Latin customs and usages. In every council document and story of the schism that I see, that is the primary difficulty that starts the argument. Even Photius admitted to Papal Supremacy in his letters to Rome, when he is appealing to Rome to help his case.
Instead, arguments about Papal Supremacy seem to be ad hoc justification, because the best reason not to be in communion with the Pope would be something like a lack of agreement on the Petrine doctrine. But that wasn't the actual disagreement.
The Eastern Orthodox would basically say the same thing - that Roman Catholics need to go back to believing what they believed about the Pope before the 800s or so for there to be a reunion.
The Orthodox would grant the Pope primacy, but for the Orthodox that means a position of honor as the first among equals. The Pope would not have direct universal jurisdiction over the whole church and could not alter dogma, as he did neither of those things prior to (the lead-up to) the schism. Yes, the Eastern bishops would at times appeal to Rome as a neutral arbiter in their various disputes, but at the Ecumenical Councils did everyone just defer to the Pope? (at some he was barely involved) Did all the apostles just defer to St. Peter? St. Paul resisted him "to his face". The Council of Jerusalem was not decided by St. Peter and was presided over by St. James (if you want to go all the way back).
I think from the Orthodox perspective what you are leaving out about the schism is that the Roman Catholics made an addition to the Creed. The Creed was set by the Ecumenical Councils. No bishop has the authority to alter doctrine set by the Ecumenical Councils on his own, let alone enforce that alteration on the whole church. This is where the heart of the issue is for the Orthodox.
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