Charity in Diversity (midweek)

 

 

Charity in Diversity

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

July 12, 2017

 

In my office there is a picture of the Daqin Pagoda from near Xi’an China. Though the subject of some academic controversy, this building may not be an ordinary Pagoda, however. Some have identified it as the tower of a monastery library built in

A.D. 640 by Church of the East Christians during Tang dynasty China’s great period of openness and welcoming of foreign religions and business people. 

 

The Church of the East for several centuries was the biggest branch of Christianity, both in terms of numbers and geographic coverage, from Eastern Turkey through the central Asian area, to China. Because Islam later took over much of this area, the Church of the East has been greatly reduced, and yet still barely exists in some areas of Syria and Iraq. It is called “Nestorian” by Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox who claim that it is a heretical sect that split from the body of the Church after the Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451) defined the two natures of Christ, human and divine, and approved of the use “Mother of God” to describe the Blessed Virgin Mary. Nestorius was a Metropolitan Patriarch in Constantinople who urged the use of the term “Mother of Christ” and was deposed after Chalcedon. After Chalcedon, many who agreed with him fled persecution from the Roman Empire and travelled East. 

 

Scholars now believe that much of the conflict between Nestorius and the Chalcedonian fathers was the result of cultural misunderstandings between those whose native language was Greek and those whose native language was Syriac (a late form of the Semitic language of Jesus, Aramaic). Much of the “heresy” attributed to Nestorius is now seen to be unfair exaggerations and caricaturing of his positions by his opponents. 

 

Such unfair and triumphalist misrepresentation of an opponent’s position is a common scene in situations where Christians accuse each other of “heresy.” Another example is found in Augustine of Hippo’s vilification of the British monk who dared to question his extreme version of the doctrine of original sin: Pelagius. It is now clear that many of the words put onto Pelagius’ lips to get him excommunicated and declared a heretic are Augustine’s distortions and not anything that Pelagius actually taught. 

 

It is important that we try to understand our faith in line with the teaching of the apostles and their successors, the early bishops. I accept Chalcedon and the gentle recognition of human dependence upon God that the bishops saw as key in censuring Pelagius. But I also recognize that the Church of the East was a major historical part of Christianity, and reject Augustine’s extreme doctrine of depravity conveyed to all humanity through the sexual act of generating new babies.   

 

It is also important to try to avoid the trap that the early bishops fell into early on: insisting on only one way of understanding and hurling anathemas and labels of “heretic” on any who disagree with us. “Love one another” said Jesus, and “bear with each other’s weakness.”  

 

Grace and peace. 

 

    ~Fr. Tony+