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JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR, LOOKING FOR GOD, CATHOLIC CHURCH
Jesus Christ Superstar, looking for God, Catholic Church, the demise of Christian faith in Modern Society, is Christianity needed or are we capable of choosing our own morals without the fear of going to hell
The Catholic Church's system does not allow for the variations brought about by the circumstances of individual situations. As a result, it is not uncommon for Catholics to find themselves in positions where their loyalties are split between their professions (perhaps as doctors asked to perform abortion, or researchers wishing to work with embryos) and what their faith demands. In many instances this results in a challenge to the Church's authority, as people reject its narrow teachings and follow their own consciences. The Roman Catholic Church claims, however, that it is now seeing to replace "the juridical outlook of the nineteenth century" with a more understanding authority.22
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In the Anglican tradition, with its lack of a defined law, it is certainly harder to find simple yes or no answers to moral dilemmas. Anglicans view the ultimate source of authority as lying in God's kingly rule23. Melinsky, a former Chief Secretary of the Advisory Council for the Church's Ministry, sums up the Anglican approach to authority when he says that the most important decisions must come locally first; the local church may be wrong, but if it does nothing it will certainly be wrong. Anglicans see authority as dispersed, rather than centralised, with many interacting elements. In practice, this means that there is no central source of authority in the Church of England. Instead, authority is vested in individual bishops. This was especially true in the early period: for the first 250 years of Christianity, the churches were all run on a local basis. Ignatius, in the early part of the second century, viewed Christianity as a series of churches, each centred around its own bishop, without whose authority there could be no sacraments.24 This system of local rule was maintained until the first ecumenical council (Nicaea) being summoned, partly through Constantine's desire for imperial unity.25 Today the purpose of such councils is seen not as being to impose authority, but to strengthen the unity of local churches.26
The Church of England itself says that authority is single in that it is derived from a "single Divine source" but that it is distributed among the various aspects of Christianity.27 This means that different answers will often be given by different figures of Anglican authority, which portrays the Church of England as less unified but more flexible. But for those who seek definitive rules, the Anglican Church can therefore appear lacking in authority. As the Lambeth Report says:
"..authority of this kind is much harder to understand and obey than authority of a more imperious character."
However, the advantage of this, it concludes, is that it makes a greater appeal to personal faith. This emphasises the Anglican view that God, not the Church, is the ultimate personal authority. An example of this view can be seen in the writing of American philosopher and poet, Ralph Emerson, who said that:
"The faith that stands on authority is not faith." 28
The problems with the Anglican approach to authority are demonstrated in the dispute over the ordination of women. The recent acceptance of women priests by the Church of England shows some concession to our changing conceptions of women in society. Unfortunately, this has given rise to some interesting challenges to the Anglican Church's authority, for there are those who are opposed to the ordination of women and who can be said to have undermined the authority of their Church by leaving it or by joining the Roman Catholic faith. Also, because authority in a diocese lies with the bishop, we can find some areas where women priests will not be ordained, and others where they will.
Thus, it can be seen that the approaches of both strands of institutional Christianity to the administration of authority leads to problems: either in people ignoring the Church in Catholicism, or being presented with a picture of an 'un-unified' body in Anglicanism.
Having examined the authority of the Church in matters of belief and morality, there remains the question of authority in the field of how to worship. The Church's authority in the area of worship is displayed through its liturgy, the purpose of which is to set limits on how Christians should worship. By the fourth century, Christian worship had developed to the point where fixed, written forms of service were felt necessary. Initially, these written services consisted of fixed wording, but with the opportunity for extempore prayer. During the fifth and sixth centuries, East and West began to diverge, with the Eastern liturgy becoming quite rigid, and the western form varying according to the time of year. As prayer books were developed in the West, they all provided some fixed written prayers, but no two mass-books were exactly the same in content. Gradually, the Roman rite spread across the West, replacing other local rites when it was made official by Charlemagne in the late eighth century. With the development of the Christian Year, lectionaries with set readings for each day were compiled.
However, this use of set rites and readings is not to be found in early Christian communities. Paul, for example, neither knew of nor recommended any organising of worship.29 Of course, at this time, Christians had to meet in secret, and so a standardised form of worship would have been virtually impossible. At this time, the doctrines of ministry and sacraments were means rather than ends, with the focus being on the doctrines of the Trinity, and redemption and grace.30 With the end of persecution under Constantine, the development of a standard liturgy would have leant a greatly needed sense of unity to Christianity, and helped to provide a secure platform on which to base its continuing expansion. Today, though, people are questioning the relevance of the traditional celebration of the Eucharist in a church. It is said that such worship does not allow the individual to come close to God, as there are always priests mediating. This is one of the thoughts which was at the root of the Reformation in the sixteenth century.
With all these difficulties associated with institutional Christianity and its authority, it is not surprising that many people are seeking alternatives. From the previous discussion of the far simpler authority of the early Christian communities, an obvious solution should present itself: namely for people to return to the ways of worship used in these times, and this is what is happening. This can be seen in the sheer variety of new theologies embodied in the Pentecostal, fundamentalist and charismatic movements. Some of these are very similar to the ideas of the Montanists, and have met similar opposition. The difference appears to lie more in the effects of the Montanist controversy, as compared to these modern alternative theologies.
The impact of Montanism was fairly limited, with its opponents eventually winning, although in Thyatira the whole church remained Montanist for about a century.31 This is another example of an inherent problem associated with the lack of centralised authority within the Church at this time. As to the effects of Montanism, Gerald Bonner (Emeritus Reader in Theology at the University of Durham), notes that it appears to have been:
"...one of those revivalist movements which, from time to time, disturbed the life of the Church, and as such was rather a menace to order and established authority, than a deliberate secessionist sect." 32
Chadwick argues that the Montanist controversy reinforced the idea that revelation had ended with the apostolic age, and so fostered the creation of a closed canon of the New Testament. Thus, it can be said that Montanism challenged the existing authority of the Church at this time, and encouraged the development of new authority in the form of a canon of scripture.
Whilst the Montanist heresy constituted a serious challenge to the established Church and led to a tightening of structure and authority, today's charismatic and fundamentalist movements have the reverse effect. As part of its realisation that it cannot be so dictatorial and dogmatic as in the Middle Ages, the Church today accepts these alternative theologies, and actually goes so far as to adapt its liturgies and worship to try to encompass these news ways of thinking. This is clearly easier for the Church of today, with two thousand years of foundation behind it than it would have been for the young Church facing up to Montanism.
Having examined the perennial problems and nature of authority in the Church, it seems that a number of important points emerge. Firstly, it appears that neither centralised nor dispersed authority can ever be totally effective. The first will cause alienation of those who do not like the rigid rules imposed on them; the second will leave too great an opportunity for the statements of the Church to be interpreted to the requirements of the individual. In the end, the Church has to accept that it is there to serve those who need it. Some, like Montanus, will prefer to treat God as their ultimate authority and to rely on direct contact with and experience of Him. Other people will look to the Church to interpret the teachings of Jesus and to translate these to fit their everyday lives. In today's multi-cultural society, more than ever, the Church cannot expect to impose its views on anyone. This links to the second point, which is that the vast array of knowledge which we have at our disposal makes it impossible for the Church to offer itself as a definitive authority. It can be seen throughout the Church's history that as knowledge and learning have increased (particularly in scientific matters), so has society's questioning of its authority. The Church has to learn how to adapt its teachings and authority to a constantly changing society because, in isolation, neither the Church nor the sciences which challenge it can provide all the answers. Only by adapting its authority (as it appears it is beginning to do) can the Church hope to lessen the impact of the many challenges to this authority.
22 Authority in the Church, p.20
23 Melinsky, M. A. H. The Shape of the Ministry Canterbury Press, 1992 p.173
24 Doctrine and Practice in the Early Church, pp.33-34
25 The Shape of the Ministry, p.174
26 Authority in the Church, p.11
27 Taken from a Committee Report on authority approved by the Lambeth Conference of 1948.
28 Emerson, Ralph Waldo 'The Over-Soul' from Essays (1841)
29 1 Cor 11:23
30 The Shape of the Ministry, p.173
31 The Early Church, p.52
32 Hazlett, Ian (ed.) Early Christianity SPCK, 1991 p.222
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