Bill Uhrich: Phony theology around since early Christianity

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The phrase "phony theology" has been floating around recently.

In an Ohio campaign stop for the Republican presidential primary a couple weeks ago, former Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum accused President Barack Obama of possessing "some phony theology."

"Oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology," Santorum said. "But no less a theology."

Santorum, a Roman Catholic, is right in one sense.

There is and has been plenty of phony theology out there.

And of course, it's always the other guy's theology that's phony.

Phony theology has been with us since the dawn of Christianity.

That's why creedal statements emerged. Credo is Latin for "I believe."

It wasn't until the middle of the fourth century that a Christian Trinitarian theology was puzzled out and expressed definitively in what became known as the Nicene Creed, which reads as though it was put together by a committee of lawyers to quash all the other phony theologies of the time.

The Nicene Creed worked for over 700 years before the filioque controversy finally divided the Eastern and Western, or the Greek and Latin, churches in 1054.

In a nutshell, the controversy over the filioque, which is Latin for "from the son," spanned many centuries, but the Roman church gradually adopted an interpretation of the creed that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son.

The Greek church believes the Holy Spirit proceeds solely from the Father.

There were other issues that split the churches, such as papal authority, but the filioque has been considered the main stumbling block that continues to divide the Eastern and Western churches.

So we have here two churches that believe the other's theology is phony.

The Protestant Reformation of 1517 is a whole 'nother story involving charges of phony theology.

But what has played out today, particularly among Protestant independent Bible churches, is the non-creedal creedal statement that proclaims: "No! creed b ut the Bible."

These churches believe any creed that isn't found directly in the Bible is phony because that statement would have been formulated by humans and not by God.

The problem with the non-creedal creed is that there isn't any agreement about what the Bible actually says or means.

Cue an avalanche of phone calls and letters to the editor.

For instance, the primary Christological confession is found in Matthew 16.

Jesus asks his disciples who the people say he is. The disciples reply that the people believe he may be John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah or one of the other prophets.

Jesus then asks his disciples who they think he is, and Simon Peter responds: "You are the Messiah, the son of the living God."

Jesus praises Peter and declares to him, punning on Peter's name with the Greek word for rock, petra: "And I tell you, you are Peter (Petros), and on this rock (petra) I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it."

Jesus then gives Peter the keys to the kingdom of heaven.

Roman Catholics point to this passage as support for papal authority, that Peter is at the head of a long line of Bishops of Rome.

Many Protestants, of course, reject the primacy of Peter in apostolic succession and maintain that Peter isn't the rock upon which the church is built, but that the rock of the church is Peter's confession: Jesus is "the Messiah, the son of the living God."

Talk to a Roman Catholic, and he or she will tell you that the Protestant's theological view on the rock of the church is phony, or the term that Catholics like to use, "anathema."

And vice versa.

I don't have enough space to get into the sacraments, whether infant baptism is phony or whether adult believer's baptism is phony.

And I could fill the entire newspaper over the Eucharist, or the Lord's Supper or Communion.

Take your pick of whichever term you prefer, but be careful you don't pick the phony one.

Christians have! dispara te theological views about the meaning and purpose of the bread and wine (or grape juice, aka phony wine) that span the Roman Catholic view of transubstantiation, the Lutheran view of consubstantiation, the Calvinist view of a mystical presence and the Zwinglian view of a symbolic memorial.

Whichever one that any particular Christian believes relegates the other three views to the realm of phony theology.

And I only mention the two sacraments that Protestants recognize. Roman Catholics celebrate seven sacraments.

So what is proper Christian orthodoxy, or right belief?

Hey, don't ask me.

I'll just give you some phony answer.

Contact Bill Uhrich: 610-371-5090 or buhrich@readingeagle.com.

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