Keith Watkins A Lover’s Quarrel with His Church

Reviewing  A  Lover’s  Quarrel:  A  Theologian    and  His  Beloved  Church,  by  Joe  R.  Jones    

 The  lover  in  the  book  title  is  Joe  R.  Jones,  retired  theo-­‐logian,   professor,   and   academic   administrator.   The  beloved   church   is   the   Christian   Church   (Disciples   of  Christ)   in   which   Jones   was   reared,   educated,   or-­‐dained,   and   employed   through   much   of   his   career.  The  quarrel  is  the  author’s  contention  that  his  church  needs  theological  renewal  at  its  deepest  level  in  order  to   continue   as   a   faithful   and   effective  witness   of   the  Christian  gospel  in  the  world  today.    

A   Lover’s   Quarrel   follows   two   other   books   that  Jones   has   published   since   his   retirement   in   2000.   A  Grammar  of  Christian  Faith:  Systematic  Explorations  in  Christian   Life   and   Doctrine   (published   in   2002)   is   a  two-­‐volume  exposition  of  Christian  theology  based  on  

many  years  of   graduate   level   teaching   in   three   seminaries.   Jones   frequently   refer-­‐ences  this  book  in  his  later  publications.    

On   Being   the   Church   of   Jesus   Christ   in   Tumultuous   Times   (published   in   2005)  contains  lectures,  papers,  sermons,  prayers,  and  other  documents  (some  previously  published)  that  represent  the  wider  range  of  Jones’  theological  and  cultural  work.  As  the  title  indicates,  Jones  understands  himself  to  be  a  theologian  in  the  church  and  for  the  church  rather  than  a  scholar  who  understands  theology  primarily  as  an  academ-­‐ic  discipline.    

Jones’   latest   book   continues   the  pattern  of   the  previous   volume   in   that   it   is   a  collection  of  documents  of  varied  character,  all  but  two  of  them  written  since  2005.  These   recent   documents,   he   writes,   “are   consistent   with   the   overall   perspective  conveyed  in  the  Grammar”  although  they  “were  occasioned  by  time-­‐specific  person-­‐al  and  public  events,  politics,  and  church  life”  (viii).    

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Keith Watkins writes on history, theology, and bicycling. He lives in Vancouver, Washington, just north of the Columbia

River from Portland, Oregon. hkwatkins@mac.com Copyright © 2014 Keith Watkins  

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Jones  divides   the  book   into   four  parts   that   indicate   the   range  of  his   interests:  (1)  Ecumenical  Theologizing  with  Ecclesial  Friends;  (2)  On  Being  Mugged  by  Politics  but  Lifted  by  Gospel  Hope;  (3)  Fragments  from  Times  Past  and  Emerging  Hopes;  (4)  Sermons   Ventured   on   Behalf   of   the  Witness   of   the   Beloved   Church.   The   chapters  vary  in  length  from  two-­‐page  blogs  to  substantive  papers,  notably:  “Salvation:  Map-­‐ping   the   Salvific   Themes   of   Christian   Faith,”   and   “Yoder   and   Stone-­‐Campbellites:  Sorting  the  Grammar  of  Radical  Orthodoxy  and  Radical  Discipleship.”  

I  first  met  Jones  at  a  General  Assembly  of  our  church  some  thirty  years  ago.  Lis-­‐tening  to  him  speak  to  a  topic  of  mutual  interest,  I  was  impressed  by  his  passion  and  clarity   of   thought,   even   though   I   held   a   different   view   of   the   topic   being   debated.  Some  years   later,  he  became  academic  dean  of   the  seminary  where   I  was  a   senior  professor,  and  during  the  next  years  (until  my  retirement)  I  saw  these  same  quali-­‐ties  at  work  on  a  consistent  basis.  

One  of  the  essays  in  A  Lover’s  Quarrel  helps  me  understand  the  source  of  Jones’  passion  for  his  work.  In  preparation  for  the  fiftieth  anniversary  reunion  of  his  class  at  Yale  Divinity  School,  he  wrote  a  paper  with  the  subtitle  “Remembrance  of  Things  Past  and  Present  Discontent.”  

Jones  had  arrived  at  Yale  Divinity  School  with  over  sixty  hours  of  philosophy  at  the  University   of  Oklahoma   “ready   to   consume  whatever   quasi-­‐liberal   YDS  had   to  offer”   (143).   Steeped   in   the   theology  of  Paul  Tillich  and  Reinhold  Niebuhr,  he  was  not  prepared   for   the   intellectual  revolution   that  he  would  experience  when  he  en-­‐countered  the  theology  of  Karl  Barth.    

He  continued  in  a  PhD  program  of  study  at  Yale  University  and  started  work  on  a  dissertation  on  Barth.  With  dissertation  not  yet  completed,  he  was  called  to  teach  at   Perkins   School   of   Theology   at   Southern   Methodist   University.   The   conviction  grew  within  him  that  some  of  the  theological  proposals  being  published  at  that  time  “were  not  merely  reformative  of  Christian  theology,  but  were   in   fact  the  demise  of  anything  bearing  an  identifiable  relation  to  Christian  traditions.”      

What  he   calls   “a  basic  question  of  honesty”  was  emerging  within  him:   “either  stay   in   church   and   get   serious   theologically   or   leave   church   and   give   up   any   pre-­‐tense  that  one   is  a  Christian.”  He  concluded  that   for  him  “the  only  theological  sub-­‐stance  worth  saving  was  a  Radical  Orthodoxy  with  a  substantive  Christology  and  a  Trinitarian   heart,   closer   to   Barth   rather   than   the   later   Milbankian   sort.   Only   a  church  with  those  theological  linchpins  could  possibly  have  sufficient  integrity  and  conviction  to  survive  the  overwhelming  sociopolitical  upheavals  surging  in  America  and  be  faithful  to  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ”  (148).  

At  that  critical  moment  (1969),  Jones  was  granted  a  semester-­‐leave  to  finish  the  dissertation   on  Barth.   “In  ways   not   easily   summarized   and   encapsulated,   I   healed  spiritually  and  became  clearer  about  my  vocation  as  a  church  theologian.”  His  voca-­‐tion,  he  was  convinced,   “was   to  help   the  church   learn  how  to  be   the  church   in   the  

A  Lover’s  Quarrel  with  His  Church                    3  

     

midst  of  that  rankling  and  social  conflict  that  did  then  and  has  ever  since  dominated  American  political  life.”  

This  autobiographical  essay  illuminates  the  thesis  that  flows  through  A  Lover’s  Quarrel:  that  churches  today,  and  in  particular  Jones’  Christian  Church  (Disciples  of  Christ)   need   to   recover   radical   orthodoxy.   In   his   essay   on   Yoder   and   the   Stone-­‐Campbell  movement,  Jones  summarizes  what  he  means:  “Were  the  church  truly  and  radically  orthodox,  .  .  .  then  it  would  consistently  be  clear  to  the  church  that  it  serves  God  first  and  that  God’s  reality  and  will  is  known  in  the  compelling  contours  of  the  life,  death,  and  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ,  very  God  and  very  human.  Only  by  bear-­‐ing  this  in  mind  could  the  church  refuse  to  identify  God’s  will  with  the  arrangement  of  power  and  politics  in  any  particular  human  government  and  culture”  (60).  

Jones   is  willing   to  mix  his  metaphors   in   the  way  he  words   radical   orthodoxy.  Note   the  doxology  with  which  he   closes   sermons   in   the   last   part   of   the  book:   “All  this,  dear  friend,  I  have  dared  to  preach  in  the  name  of  the  Father  and  of  the  Son  and  of   the  Holy  Spirit,  One  God,  Mother  of  us  all.  Amen.”  The   tone  of   this   ascription   is  similar  to  one  by  Theodore  Parker,  a  nineteenth  century  New  England  pastor,  that  I  had  proposed  as  the  title  for  my  1981  book  on  inclusive  language  in  worship:  “God  our  Father  and  Our  Mother  Nonetheless.”  (The  publisher  preferred  a  more  conven-­‐tional  title:  “Faithful  and  Fair.”)    

Throughout  A  Lover’s  Quarrel,  however,  Jones  uses  a  more  formal  statement  to  summarize  the  radical  orthodoxy  that  he  urges  the  church  to  affirm.  It  is  about  the  same  length  as  the  ancient  Apostles  Creed  and  about  half  the  length  of  the  Disciples  Affirmation  that  is  widely  used  within  the  Christian  Church  (Disciples  of  Christ).  The  first  lines  indicate  the  tone  of  Jones’  creed-­‐like  statement.    

The  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  is  the  Good  News  that  the  God  of  Israel,  the  Creator  of  all  creatures,  has  in  freedom  and  love  become  incarnate  in  the  life,  death,  and  resurrection  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  to  enact  and  reveal  God’s  gracious  reconciliation    of  humanity  to  God’s  self…  

   Throughout  the  book,  Jones  also  uses  a  brief  definition  of  the  church  that  does  not  have  a  close  counterpart  in  the  church’s  classic  liturgical  formularies.      

The  church  is  that  liberative  and  redemptive    community  of  persons  called  into  being  by  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  through  the  Holy  Spirit  to  witness  in  word  and  deed  

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to  the  living  Triune  God  for  the  benefit  of  the  world  to  the  glory  of  God  (xxv).    

 Illustrations  of  Jones’  radical  orthodoxy  at  work  are  found  in  his  blogs  on  cur-­‐

rent  issues  in  contemporary  life.  His  public  discussion  with  members  of  his  own  ex-­‐tended  family  about  the  Affordable  Care  Act  is  one  example.  Even  more  forceful  than  that   essay   is   another   in  which   he   refers   to   the   time  when   “the  Nazis   hijacked   the  German/Lutheran/Reformed   Christian   narrative”   and   thereby   “dismantled   and  dismembered  that  narrative,  rendering   it  unrecognizable.”  Two-­‐thirds  of  a  century  later,  the  church  in  Germany  is  having  to  work  at  re-­‐educating  “lay  and  clerical  alike  in  what  it  means  to  be  a  disciple  of  Jesus  Christ  quite  apart  from  what  it  means  to  be  a  postmodern  German”  (103).  

Jones   continues:   “Is   there   not   a   profound   sadness   that   engulfs   the   church   in  America  when  that  prime  Christian  narrative  of  what  God  has  done  in  Israel  and  in  Jesus  Christ  for  the  world  is  continually  subordinated  to  a  narrative  about  ‘righteous  and  democratic  America’  in  a  war  on  terror,  about  the  freedom  to  be  capitalists  and  escape  the  dependencies  of  ‘self-­‐imposed  poverty’  and  government  handouts,  about  the  evils  of  Islam,  about  the  evils  of  divorce  and  homosexuals?”    

As  I  reflect  upon  A  Lover’s  Quarrel,  I  recognize  a  similar  discontent   in  my  own  relations  with  the  Christian  Church  (Disciples  of  Christ)  in  which  I  too  have  lived  out  my   Christian   life   and   served   as   pastor   and   professor.   My   diagnosis   is   similar   to  Jones:  that  in  their  involvements  with  modernity,  our  churches  have  been  losing  the  gospel.  Jones  and  I  also  agree  that  the  prescription  is  to  reestablish  the  gospel  at  the  center  of  the  church’s  life.  

When  it  comes  to  prescribing  a  therapeutic  intervention,  however,  we  differ.  As  a  theologian,  Jones  naturally  turns  to  summations  of  the  faith,  expressed  in  concise  statements,  that  are  to  guide  everything  the  church  thinks,  says,  and  does.  For  Jones  radical  orthodoxy  and  creedal  orthodoxy  are  virtually  synonymous.      

As  a  church  historian,  with  special  interest  in  its  liturgical  life,  I  have  depended  upon   carefully   crafted,   theologically   careful   rites,   ceremonies,   and   prayers   to   ex-­‐press   the  church’s   faith.   In   the  same  year   that   Jones  experienced  his  crisis  of   faith  and  vocation,   I  was  one  of  my  church’s   representatives  on  a   commission   that  was  developing  a  text  for  celebrating  the  Lord’s  Supper  for  use  in  churches  in  the  Consul-­‐tation  on  Church  Union.  The  principal  drafter  was  Massey  H.  Shepherd  Jr.,  a  leading  liturgical  scholar  of  the  Episcopal  Church.  In  response  to  a  discussion  about  the  in-­‐clusion  of  a  classic  creed  in  the  liturgy,  Shepherd  noted  that,  strictly  speaking,  it  was  not  necessary.    

In  the  commentary  that  he  prepared  to  accompany  the  published  liturgy,  Shep-­‐herd  explained:  “the  recital  of  a  Creed  has  never  been  a  necessary  or  invariable  us-­‐age  in  the  liturgies  of  the  Lord’  Supper.”  The  reason  is  that  “the  great  Thanksgiving  

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Prayer  of  the  service,  not  to  speak  of  the  doxological  hymns  such  as  the  Gloria  in  ex-­‐celsis  and   the  Te  Deum  laudamus,  are   themselves   synoptic   recitals   of   the   essential  faith  of  the  Church  and  summaries  of  its  gospel”  (An  Order  of  Worship,  60).  

As  I  reflect  upon  Jones’s  book,  however,  I  realize  that  we  differ  in  a  more  signif-­‐icant  way  than  this  distinction  between  creedal  and   liturgical  modes  of  preserving  the  gospel  core  in  the  church’s  life.  In  his  book  The  Heretical  Imperative:  Contempo-­‐rary   Possibilities   of   Religious   Affirmation,  Peter   L.   Berger   discusses   three   ways   in  which  Protestant  Christians  have  responded  to  modernity:  (1)  The  Deductive  Possi-­‐bility—Reaffirming  Tradition,  with  Karl  Barth  the  exemplar;  (2)  The  Reductive  Pos-­‐sibility—Modernizing   Tradition,  with   Rudolf   Bultmann   the   exemplar;   and   (3)   The  Inductive  Possibility—From  Tradition  to  Experience,  with  Friedrich  Schleiermacher  as  the  exemplar.  One  of  my  disappointments  with  Berger’s  exposition  is  his   failure  to  use  a  twentieth  century  theologian  as  the  representative  of  the  third  form  of  re-­‐sponse.    

Jones   clearly   works   within   the   framework   of   the   reaffirmation   of   tradition,  whereas  my  work  is  closer  to  what  Berger  calls  the  inductive  possibility.  Both  of  us  shy  away  from  Berger’s  middle  form  of  response,  and  for  much  the  same  reason:  our  sense   that  when   the  Gospel   is  demythologized,  with  classic  doctrines  and   liturgies  translated   into   psychological   and  philosophical   categories,   the   substance   of   Chris-­‐tian  faith  dissipates  and  little  is  left.    

Jones  writes  with  poignancy  as  well  as  with  passion,  as  can  be  seen  in  a  homily  that  he  gave  at  the  funeral  of  a  friend  in  2007.  Their  friendship  had  included  strong  and   vigorous   conversations   about   the   theology   of   Paul   Tillich   about   whose   work  their   judgments  differed  significantly.  These  conversations  had  sometimes   focused  on  Tillich’s  book  The  Courage  to  Be.    

Jones  summarizes  the  meaning  of  that  phrase  by  saying  that  this  courage  is  the  “refusal  to  give  up  or  give  in  to  despair  in   the  midst  of   the  whirlwinds  and   tumults,  the  disappointment  and  grievous  harms,  that  human  beings  so  often  encounter.  It  is  the   strong   and   consistent   resolve—and   thereby   the   courage—to   trust   that   at   the  depths  of   life   and  death   there   is   a   sense-­‐making  Presence  that   cannot  be  defeated”  (191).    

He   references   the  affirmation   in  Romans  8   that  nothing   can   separate  us   from  the   love  of  God   in  Christ   Jesus,   thus   renewing   the   thesis  of   this  book  and  his  own  life-­‐long  ministry:  “It  is  precisely  this  triumphant  love  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus  that  is  the  Gospel—the  utterly  true  and  disarming  good  news  that  has  been  revealed  to  us  in  the  life,  death,  and  resurrection  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.”      

My  thanks  to  Joe  Jones  for  this  book  that  helps  me—and,  I  hope,  many  others—find  the  courage  to  live  courageously  as  long  as  life  shall  last.        

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Notes:    A  Lover’s  Quarrel:  A  Theologian  and  His  Beloved  Church,  by  Joe  R.  Jones.  Foreword  by  

Stanley  Hauerwas  (Eugene,  OR:  Cascade,  2014).    Faithful  and  Fair:  Transcending  Sexist  Language  in  Worship,  by  Keith  Watkins  (Nash-­‐

ville:  Abingdon,  1981)  The  Heretical   Imperative:  Contemporary  Possibilities  of  Religious  Affirmation,  by  Pe-­‐

ter  L.  Berger  (Garden  City,  NY:  Anchor,  1980).