Book Review

A book review by Gene TeSelle

of

Parker T. Williamson, Standing Firm: Reclaiming Christian Faith in Times of Controversy (PLC Publications, 1996). 209 pp. $12. ISBN 0-965602-0-8.

In my capacity as a historian of the patristic period I wanted to take a look at this book, since it is one of several, all from the Presbyterian Lay Committee (hence PLC Publications), with which Presbyterian Pipeline was launched by the Presbyterian Publishing House (PPC). After the Witherspoon Society raised questions about the agreement, and John Bush and Nancy Whitely filed a commissioner resolution asking that it be reconsidered by the 1999 General Assembly, Parker Williamson tossed several books (including this one) onto the table during the committee hearing and asked, "Which of these would you burn?" Well, we weren't talking about book- burning, as Mr. Williamson knows. But we did want to raise questions about the PLC-PPC agreement.

The theme of this book is the Council of Nicaea in 325 and the role of Athanasius during a fifty-six year controversy. You might predict that Williamson would find parallels with the current crusades of the Lay Committee; if so, you are right. The Re-Imagining Conference of 1993 is recalled on page 1, and many new religious themes are termed "merely modern versions of ancient aberrations" on the theory that "Those who know Nicaea have seen them all before" (p. 3). The Presbyterians who have deplored the Lay Committee's tactics are compared with Constantine on the grounds that they "recast the argument as a political assault rather than a theological concern" (p. 16), suggest that public controversy over doctrine is inappropriate because it disturbs the peace (p. 17), and seem interested only in "group building" (pp. 73-74).

Drawing parallels in this way is not new. John Henry Newman, who confessed to a certain "fierceness" during his disputes with the Church of England, clearly identified with Athanasius, exiled five times by bishops or emperors. His theory of the development of doctrine was based largely upon the Trinitarian controversy, and Williamson is seconding Newman when he says that "controversies . . . , far from damaging the Church, have contributed to its vitality" (p. 2), that "Debate clarifies differences" (p. 22). During the Nazi era there were at least four scholars (Erik Peterson in Germany, Hendrik Berkhof in the Netherlands, Charles Cochrane in Canada, and G.H. Williams in the U.S.) who independently drew parallels between the Nicene party and the opponents of Hitler. We cannot help looking to the past for heroes, role models, or confirming precedents. But a typological approach to history can also be dangerous, and we must pay scrupulous attention to differences as well as apparent similarities.

In his haste to elide ancient and modern heresies, Williamson commits various lapses of historical judgment. Constantine is credited with "[d]eclaring people Christian, simply by virtue of their citizenship" (p. 8), when all he did was extend the same toleration to Christians that continued for others. Arius is said to have considered Christ an obedient human being (pp. 10, 34-37, 49), when in fact he thought of him as a created deity who assumed human flesh alone. And Athanasius is given too much credit for Nicaea (pp. 67, 70, 77-78).

The violent acts ascribed to Athanasius or his followers, termed "thuggery" by recent historians, are explained away with the theory that his "vigorous oral arguments led to attributions of violence by those whom he defeated"--just as radical feminists today "charge critics of their work with 'terrorism' and 'spiritual rape'" (p. 68). Similarly Williamson cannot believe eyewitness accounts that the majority at Nicaea seized the Arians' draft and tore it to shreds (p. 70). It seems that Williamson has stern scruples of conscience against the overt exercise of force. He might also consider the ways language can be violent in both content and manner, how speaking is also a form of action in the physical world, and how it has tangible physical consequences. Language is never "merely" language.

There is some serious confusion about the terminology of the Trinitarian controversy. So much is made of homoousios that the alternative term, homoiousios, "like in essence," is given short shrift (pp. 54, 86-87), and the crucial council of Alexandria in 362, where both terms were acknowledged, is mentioned only in passing (p. 102). In fact the "orthodox" doctrine of the Trinity grew out of this merging of two streams, one emphasizing God's oneness, the other God's threeness. Williamson pays considerable attention to current British restatements of the Trinitarian doctrine, emphasizing that God is "essentially relational" (p. 130), or that "God's being consists in community" (p. 152), or, putting both together, that God is "a relational being, a communion of persons" (p. 155). He seems unaware that he might be affirming conflicting ideas, for today there is continuing controversy between those who follow the Western emphasis on God's unity and those who follow the Eastern emphasis on threeness and a "social Trinity." There are many today who think the "social" doctrine of the Trinity means that God is perfected through the Trinitarian relations--a position that was explicitly rejected during the fourth century, when the orthodox position was that God's perfection "overflows" in the Trinitarian relations. And yet the Trinity is somehow "more" than God's unity. Nicaea and Athanasius did not resolve all problems, even for those who take the tradition seriously!

Since you know that the Lay Committee is concerned about many other matters than Trinitarian doctrine, you may be reassured that these also are touched upon. There is an attack on the welfare state and especially on non-religious public education, which is put down as a system of "government schools" (pp. 41-44, 199). Affirmative action is called "reverse discrimination," and laws specifying several protected classes are accused of a splintering of society into antagonistic interest groups (pp. 129-30). The General Assembly of 1978 which denied ordination to homosexual persons is accused of being "discomfited by their victory" and bending over backward to make "concessions" to the losers (advocacy of the civil rights of gays and lesbians, compassionate ministries toward them, condemnation of homophobia). When General Assemblies should have made "the tough decision," the church has been kept in "constant turmoil" by these concessions (pp. 91-93). Some may be surprised to find, at the same time, that there is strong endorsement of stewardship over the environment (pp. 120-21, 136).

Finally, I might note that a comprehensive theory of religion is developed. Ancient and modern heresies arise from "dualism," the theory that the divine is unknowable, the other side of a divide which can be bridged only by revelation (pp. 40-41, 57, 61, 117, 144, 174, 202). In this connection, much is made of Lesslie Newbigin's contrast between Hindu tolerance of diversity and Christian unity of love, which Newbigin did in fact generalize into a fundamental religious alternative (pp. 118, 164-65).

One might wish for more attention to some of Newbigin's other emphases--his responsiveness to his times (to the extent that he was one of the originators of the secularity movement of the Sixties, though he partially repented for it during the Seventies) and his insistence that election is not merely to privilege but to service of others as a channel of grace, first for, then with others. May that spirit grow in all of us!

Eugene TeSelle