I'll try and be uncharacteristically brief this time, because I don't want to threadjack!
But that's not my view at all. I was only trying to point out that there are difficulties in interpretation, specifically with questions about the historical Jesus. It doesn't follow from that that there is no "right" answer. We are not faced with only two options - one where the meaning of a text is utterly clear to everyone and one where there is no "correct" meaning and it's everyone for themselves. The New Testament is an obvious example of a text whose meaning is often difficult to establish and where there are many scholarly disputes over how to interpret it, but where much of the general shape of interpretation is not too hard to work out.
Take, for example, the dispute over how to interpret Paul's dichotomy between "faith" and "works". On the one hand you have scholars such as Barrett who argue that Paul means by this much the same as what Luther meant, that is, he is distinguishing between different activities that people believe will save them. But on the other hand you have scholars such as Sanders who argue that in fact Paul means something completely different, that he is talking about the distinguishing features of the members of the community of salvation, not about the means of salvation at all. The existence of disputes such as this demonstrates the difficulty of establishing the meaning of texts like that, and with it, the point I was trying to make, which is that one can't just assume unproblematically that the Bible offers some kind of clear position which people are able to adopt themselves if they want.
Yes, that's a good point.
Well, first, the teachings of Jesus (even if we assume that the reports of it in the Gospels are accurate) are not the same thing as the Bible. You can find sources of Christian morality in other parts of the Bible. For example, one of the most important influences on Christian morality is the notion that God is love, a claim which is found in 1 John, not in any of the material attributed to Jesus. And some Christians, such as Reinhold Niebuhr, have sought to develop systems of morality based upon that principle; hence the rise of Christian "situation ethics". And it's worth pointing out that this way of moralising has incurred the wrath of the Vatican repeatedly. Here you have an example of where different Christians differ absolutely fundamentally over how to proceed in moral thinking: on the one hand you have the absolutism of traditional Catholicism, according to which there are immutable moral laws laid down by God, and on the other you have the partial relativism of situation ethics, where all moral laws are subordinate to (and constantly revisable in the light of) the law of love alone.
There's nothing on which all Christians agree, even the things you mention. It's perfectly possible to be a Christian and think that Jesus was utterly mistaken about many things (Schweitzer thought that Jesus was utterly mistaken about virtually everything!). There are Christians who see nothing wrong with war and violence at all if it is done for a good purpose. In fact, most Christians have agreed with Augustine that what makes an act right or wrong is the intent with which it is performed, not the nature of the act itself; on that view it's easy to construct an argument that war can be entirely good (not a necessary evil) if it is done with a wholly good intent. Of course, you could also use the same principle to construct an argument that war is never good (because it is impossible to go to war with a wholly good intent if you hope to kill people). Thus you can get wildly different viewpoints from the same basic principle. Of course it doesn't follow that all these viewpoints are equally valid (don't think I'm being a deconstructionist again) - the point is that even people who agree on basic principles can disagree on everything else.
Right, but as I tried to explain, I don't think the New Testament is entirely opaque, I think it is quite opaque in places and more transparent in others. The point is that it is very difficult to establish both the probable meaning and (in the case of the historical Jesus) the probable authenticity of each bit. And for every question, there is usually a fairly wide range of possible answers that are plausible. That's even when we have ruled out the wacky ones. For example, it can be plausibly argued that the "beloved disciple" of the Fourth Gospel is simply a literary device, and it can be plausibly argued that he is actually a real person, considered an authority by the community in which the Gospel was written. But which of these, or the other plausible alternatives, is true? This question remains even when we've ruled out wacky ideas like the claim that he's Jesus' son with Mary Magdalene.
No, I think this is the major misunderstanding between us. When I said that the Bible isn't like the Koran I didn't mean just in the way it's written, I meant also in the way that it is used. Christians are not "restrained to the text in the Bible". There is no universal law for all Christians that says they have to believe what is in there. Some Christians think that they do, but others do not. Of course the Bible has had an enormously important effect on the development of Christianity and it is still one of the major sources of theology. But it is hardly the sole source. Even in the first centuries of Christianity, Christians did not regard the Bible as the sole source of doctrine; the usual view was that sound doctrine was what had been passed on by the apostles, both orally and in writing. The New Testament was regarded as the written component of that heritage, so it was part of the authoritative tradition, to be taken in conjunction with church teaching. Thus many doctrines arose which had only tangential support from the Bible (such as the doctrine of the Trinity), and others which had no support whatsoever (such as the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity). This was all within the first couple of centuries of the church's existence. And today, of course, there are plenty of Christians who regard the Bible as of primarily historical interest, describing what the early Christians did and believed, but who don't feel constrained to do and believe the same things any more than a modern Briton feels constrained to do and believe what is attributed to his ancestors in a history book. And there are other Christians who do believe that the Bible is an important authority, but not an infallible one, and not the only one. There are those who think it is infallible but not the only authority, and must be interpreted in the light of tradition. And there are those who think it is the sole authority in all matters. There is a thus a vast range of attitudes among Christians. This is one of the reason why there are such deep divisions among Christians, even within the same church. Just look at the huge row over homosexuality within the Anglican churches. This isn't a minor quibble over how to interpret a text or how much weight to give to different shared principles; it's fundamentally (and among other things) about which authorities you accept and what you understand the nature of their authority to be.
And the nature of the text itself plays a part in that. You just can't say that the Bible offers "a clear system of principles or tenets". Can you be saved by works? Paul says no, James says yes. Each Biblical author has his own viewpoint and they are not always in agreement. Of course they can be interpreted in such a way as to make them agree (for example, you can say that works are necessary for true faith, so you can't be saved without both, although it's faith that actually saves, thereby making Paul and James agree). But such interpretation goes far beyond what the text itself actually says. This is how even the most Biblically-minded theologians must operate; it's not a matter of just reading what the text says and sticking with that.
That's true, but my point was that any definition of "Christian nation" which doesn't allow us to distinguish between "Christian" and "post-Christian" is probably not a very useful definition. Because I think most people would be inclined to think that there is a difference.
But one could take an alternative route and, instead of trying to define it first and then apply the definition, first consider which nations we would instinctively call "Christian" and which "post-Christian", and then see what distinguishes them.
I suppose the US could be considered a Christian nation, at least in many ways. Spain and perhaps Italy could count too. In all of these countries, Christianity is a majority faith and plays a major role in national life; it is highly prominent in society.
Well, that depends on how you define it, of course! Personally I would be inclined to think that a Christian population living under Islamic law would count as a Christian country in at least some important sense. I think that culture is more important for this kind of thing than the legal system. But then "culture" is itself a notoriously difficult thing to define.
Hmm, well, that was brief for me, at any rate...
But that's not my view at all. I was only trying to point out that there are difficulties in interpretation, specifically with questions about the historical Jesus. It doesn't follow from that that there is no "right" answer. We are not faced with only two options - one where the meaning of a text is utterly clear to everyone and one where there is no "correct" meaning and it's everyone for themselves. The New Testament is an obvious example of a text whose meaning is often difficult to establish and where there are many scholarly disputes over how to interpret it, but where much of the general shape of interpretation is not too hard to work out.
Take, for example, the dispute over how to interpret Paul's dichotomy between "faith" and "works". On the one hand you have scholars such as Barrett who argue that Paul means by this much the same as what Luther meant, that is, he is distinguishing between different activities that people believe will save them. But on the other hand you have scholars such as Sanders who argue that in fact Paul means something completely different, that he is talking about the distinguishing features of the members of the community of salvation, not about the means of salvation at all. The existence of disputes such as this demonstrates the difficulty of establishing the meaning of texts like that, and with it, the point I was trying to make, which is that one can't just assume unproblematically that the Bible offers some kind of clear position which people are able to adopt themselves if they want.
Yes, that's a good point.
Well, first, the teachings of Jesus (even if we assume that the reports of it in the Gospels are accurate) are not the same thing as the Bible. You can find sources of Christian morality in other parts of the Bible. For example, one of the most important influences on Christian morality is the notion that God is love, a claim which is found in 1 John, not in any of the material attributed to Jesus. And some Christians, such as Reinhold Niebuhr, have sought to develop systems of morality based upon that principle; hence the rise of Christian "situation ethics". And it's worth pointing out that this way of moralising has incurred the wrath of the Vatican repeatedly. Here you have an example of where different Christians differ absolutely fundamentally over how to proceed in moral thinking: on the one hand you have the absolutism of traditional Catholicism, according to which there are immutable moral laws laid down by God, and on the other you have the partial relativism of situation ethics, where all moral laws are subordinate to (and constantly revisable in the light of) the law of love alone.
There's nothing on which all Christians agree, even the things you mention. It's perfectly possible to be a Christian and think that Jesus was utterly mistaken about many things (Schweitzer thought that Jesus was utterly mistaken about virtually everything!). There are Christians who see nothing wrong with war and violence at all if it is done for a good purpose. In fact, most Christians have agreed with Augustine that what makes an act right or wrong is the intent with which it is performed, not the nature of the act itself; on that view it's easy to construct an argument that war can be entirely good (not a necessary evil) if it is done with a wholly good intent. Of course, you could also use the same principle to construct an argument that war is never good (because it is impossible to go to war with a wholly good intent if you hope to kill people). Thus you can get wildly different viewpoints from the same basic principle. Of course it doesn't follow that all these viewpoints are equally valid (don't think I'm being a deconstructionist again) - the point is that even people who agree on basic principles can disagree on everything else.
Right, but as I tried to explain, I don't think the New Testament is entirely opaque, I think it is quite opaque in places and more transparent in others. The point is that it is very difficult to establish both the probable meaning and (in the case of the historical Jesus) the probable authenticity of each bit. And for every question, there is usually a fairly wide range of possible answers that are plausible. That's even when we have ruled out the wacky ones. For example, it can be plausibly argued that the "beloved disciple" of the Fourth Gospel is simply a literary device, and it can be plausibly argued that he is actually a real person, considered an authority by the community in which the Gospel was written. But which of these, or the other plausible alternatives, is true? This question remains even when we've ruled out wacky ideas like the claim that he's Jesus' son with Mary Magdalene.
No, I think this is the major misunderstanding between us. When I said that the Bible isn't like the Koran I didn't mean just in the way it's written, I meant also in the way that it is used. Christians are not "restrained to the text in the Bible". There is no universal law for all Christians that says they have to believe what is in there. Some Christians think that they do, but others do not. Of course the Bible has had an enormously important effect on the development of Christianity and it is still one of the major sources of theology. But it is hardly the sole source. Even in the first centuries of Christianity, Christians did not regard the Bible as the sole source of doctrine; the usual view was that sound doctrine was what had been passed on by the apostles, both orally and in writing. The New Testament was regarded as the written component of that heritage, so it was part of the authoritative tradition, to be taken in conjunction with church teaching. Thus many doctrines arose which had only tangential support from the Bible (such as the doctrine of the Trinity), and others which had no support whatsoever (such as the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity). This was all within the first couple of centuries of the church's existence. And today, of course, there are plenty of Christians who regard the Bible as of primarily historical interest, describing what the early Christians did and believed, but who don't feel constrained to do and believe the same things any more than a modern Briton feels constrained to do and believe what is attributed to his ancestors in a history book. And there are other Christians who do believe that the Bible is an important authority, but not an infallible one, and not the only one. There are those who think it is infallible but not the only authority, and must be interpreted in the light of tradition. And there are those who think it is the sole authority in all matters. There is a thus a vast range of attitudes among Christians. This is one of the reason why there are such deep divisions among Christians, even within the same church. Just look at the huge row over homosexuality within the Anglican churches. This isn't a minor quibble over how to interpret a text or how much weight to give to different shared principles; it's fundamentally (and among other things) about which authorities you accept and what you understand the nature of their authority to be.
And the nature of the text itself plays a part in that. You just can't say that the Bible offers "a clear system of principles or tenets". Can you be saved by works? Paul says no, James says yes. Each Biblical author has his own viewpoint and they are not always in agreement. Of course they can be interpreted in such a way as to make them agree (for example, you can say that works are necessary for true faith, so you can't be saved without both, although it's faith that actually saves, thereby making Paul and James agree). But such interpretation goes far beyond what the text itself actually says. This is how even the most Biblically-minded theologians must operate; it's not a matter of just reading what the text says and sticking with that.
That's true, but my point was that any definition of "Christian nation" which doesn't allow us to distinguish between "Christian" and "post-Christian" is probably not a very useful definition. Because I think most people would be inclined to think that there is a difference.
But one could take an alternative route and, instead of trying to define it first and then apply the definition, first consider which nations we would instinctively call "Christian" and which "post-Christian", and then see what distinguishes them.
I suppose the US could be considered a Christian nation, at least in many ways. Spain and perhaps Italy could count too. In all of these countries, Christianity is a majority faith and plays a major role in national life; it is highly prominent in society.
Well, that depends on how you define it, of course! Personally I would be inclined to think that a Christian population living under Islamic law would count as a Christian country in at least some important sense. I think that culture is more important for this kind of thing than the legal system. But then "culture" is itself a notoriously difficult thing to define.
Hmm, well, that was brief for me, at any rate...
