But How Can You Talk With a Person if They Always Say the Same Thing?

This is tough. Back in the day, the day being the time neither you nor I were alive, the Pope declared himself as being able to speak infallibly when speaking from his throne of heaven. That actual power has only been invoked to declare things about Mary that needed to be declared if the metaphysical system of Christianity is going to stand anywhere other than midair. To wit: Mary was physically drawn up to heaven without tasting death because she was sin free. At least that's the assumption.

Thank you, thank you, don't forget to tip your server.

Anyway, the Pope did this at about the same time Protestant groups were giving birth to their scriptural infallibility/inerrancy statements. For both groups this was a break from what had come before in western Christianity and a consequence of struggles against and possibilities emerging from within the features of some thing we call Modernity. That is, the concept of papal infallibility was declared in the late 19th century and was used in the mid 20th- times of ecclesial shakiness and power grasping. In the broadest, perhaps most illegitimate of senses, for western Christians, Christendom was less and less a possibility, the shrinking world called universal systems into question, the perfectability of civilization was no longer assumed, blah blah blah.

Whatever, the concept of infallibility arose during this period. Though it seems like this is a negative reaction to “modern ideas”, it is at its core a Modern proposition. Though The Church is reacting at this time against Modern concepts, like secularism, the power of a state, Rationalist bases for human rights, etc... it is an entirely Modern claim- that the Pope, as an individual, is above other bishops, as primate, a first among equals. That one person, pope or other, has a clearer sense of what is right than the body of bishops is only possible in the world of Modernity. The idea is a creation.

In the World of At Leasts, since the Second Vatican Council, in the Catholic way of doing things, there has been a return to the conciliar tradition and authority of something collectively called The Church.

But Catholics are Catholics and Protestants aren't. We don't believe in The Church, we believe in The Bible. Still, along with Catholics, we have the rise of inerrancy/infallibility statements among Protestants that root their understanding of the world, just as the Pope would theoretically root his declaration, in something certain: for Proterstants, scripture itself. I mean, a parallel development to papal infallibility is the rise of contemporary scriptural authority claims as we currently understand them, so that by the end of the 20th century, any group that's going to call itself Evangelical, probably Christian even, is going to say something like: The Bible is the final authority in all matters of faith and practice because it, like the Pope, has a special status above others by nature of its essence. Papal and scriptural infallibility are twins. Papal infallibility was struck down just as it was learning to walk. Whereas scriptural infallibility has grown to its obnoxious, pimply, cocksure adolescence: lusty, lazy, convinced of his indestructability and place at the center of the world, consuming well more than it contributes, and stinking of Flaming Hot Cheetos.

But that is not something that has always been. I know that's uncomfortable for many Protestants. Even more uncomfortable would be to pull away the layer of statement in infallibility/inerrancy and get at what we actually do. We say scripture is itself the authority for what we say or do and generally remove the matter of understanding or interpretation from the equation even though it is there. So, for example, a cogent, thorough, unified "Biblical" argument for the institution of slavery or against miscegenation may or may not hold sway given historic conditions. The use of pain relieving agents in childbirth or surgeries may or may not be prohibited by scripture depending on the interaction of gender politics, conceptions of sin and suffering, the power of titles and institutions, the nature of death, what counts as secular against what is religious, and what 1.3 billion Chinese people had for lunch yesterday. So... there are many factors that go into what it takes to make what we call beliefs. But what we do is say, "The Bible says such and such about whatnot, as plain as anything," and then expect that our actions, specifically the do or not do, follow from that. But that's make believe.

I, for one, am not troubled by our manufacturing belief. I am mildly troubled by ignoring that process in our day to day lives. I am deeply troubled by traipsing down paths of moral instruction and ethics without accounting for this process. But more to the point, I am troubled that some "we" thinks we can be (not just call ourselves) the church and get away with this. If we really want to be a people called out of the world, called to sojourn, called to be pilgrims, we're not allowed to be that safe. Firstly because the Bible says we can't. Ah ha- just kidding. Firstly because, the word god has to mean more to us than "Santa Claus" and secondly because we're a people that say the Bible means something to us, and if it's more than a catalogue of data, that is, if it's going to mean something to us we have to be honest and confront that it means nothing to us as a set of instructions.

Yeesh that's a heavy thing to leave hanging, but there it is.

What this likely means is that we'll either have to help our greasy-faced teenager mature through his adolescence into a more responsible and participatory adulthood or remove him from such a a position of responsibility all together.

It should be deeply troubling to a people that want to be this community that responds to the Word of God to say and do something like, "What does the Bible say about slavery?" and then interpret some texts in The Bible that use the word slavery as having some directly instructive relation to our understanding of slavery in the same way we would understand a sign that read "No Swimming Without Lifeguard Present" posted on a fence surrounding a swimming pool has a relation to whether we should swim- and even that's not enough information to know whether we should swim.

Oh well. One day you and I will be dead.

My Goodness That was a Sweet Altidore Goal
Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground- The White Stripes
Paranoid Android- Radiohead
Hypnotist of Ladies- They Might Be Giants
Judy is a Punk- The Ramones
Tommy- The Who
Life During Wartime- Talking Heads
Going to California- Led Zeppelin
Mr. Tambourine Man- Bob Dylan
Mr. Grieves- Pixies
Plateau- nirvana
Tired of Waiting- The Kinks
Jane Allan- Billy Bragg
Jackass- Green Day
Hidden Charms- Howlin' Wolf