Traditional Christianity Is an Oxymoron

See, the former things have come to pass, 
and new things I now declare; 
before they spring forth, I tell you of them.
Isaiah 42:9

Traditional Christianity is an oxymoron.

I have said that many times. 

I keep hoping it will become a meme.

Jesus was a devout and observant Jew. But he was not a traditionalist. 

He was continually breaking new ground. He redefined the role of women and the definition of neighbor. He continually challenged his disciples to see the world and their neighbors in new ways. And he preached a message about the Kingdom of God that turned the world upside down.

And Paul made it clear that to be in Christ was to die to old ways and live into a new reality. “When anyone is in Christ,” he told the church in Corinth, “the old has passed away and there is a whole new world.” Everything is made new.

Of course it really begins long before Jesus and Paul. The prophets continually pressed forward in the face of the cultic tradition.  Rather than burnt offerings they demanded justice and mercy. The parables of Ruth and Jonah broke new ground, rejecting exclusionary doctrines in favor of  a new openness. Throughout the Hebrew Bible and through the Greek New Testament there is a continual push toward new insights and understandings. And the movement is always away from the past and into the future.

The genius of great Christian thinkers and theologians is that they were innovators. They looked at things in new ways. They developed new ideas and perspectives. That was true of Augustine, of Luther and Calvin, of Wesley, of Gladden, Rauschenbusch, Barth, Bonhoeffer, Tillich, and Niebuhr.

If John Wesley were with us today he wouldn’t be looking at eighteenth century solutions to our twenty-first century dilemma. He would be looking at how we can use what we know today to solve today’s problems.

And that brings us to the Wesleyan Quadrilateral.

Although it represents a significant advance in biblical and theological reflection, and provides a key insight into Wesley’s thought, the quadrilateral has been under attack by traditionalists ever since Albert Outler articulated it as a key Wesleyan methodology. 

Simply put, Wesley believed that sound biblical interpretation requires testing individual texts against the whole of the biblical witness, and then reasoning about that text, using the tradition of the church as well as every aspect of our experience. Similarly, ethical decision-making means more than searching the Bible for a text that will tell us what to do. It requires using the whole of the biblical witness, and then thinking it through in terms of the wisdom of the past and the experience of the present.

The traditionalist critique has reshaped the quadrilateral to make it clear that scripture is primary. In one rendering it is pictured as a pyramid, with Scripture in large letters at the top, and Reason, Tradition, and Experience below. In another image, Reason, Tradition, and Experience are pictured as overlapping circles within a larger circle labeled Scripture. 

Paul Wesley Chilcote, a professor at Asbury Theological Seminary, writing for Good News magazine, begins his critique this way:

 “I will never forget a conversation I had one August afternoon in 1982 at Oxford University with Professor Albert Outler. We were talking about the many terms he had coined over the years. He said rather abruptly, ‘There is one phrase I wish I had never used: the 'Wesleyan Quadrilateral.' It has created the wrong image in the minds of so many people and, I am sure, will lead to all kinds of controversy.’”

Fortunately, Dr. Outler gave a much more complete and nuanced explanation of his “regret” in a 1985 essay in the Wesleyan Theological Journal.

"The term 'quadrilateral' does not occur in the Wesley corpus—and more than once, I have regretted having coined it for contemporary use, since it has been so widely misconstrued. But if we are to accept our responsibility for seeking intellecta for our faith, in any other fashion than a 'theological system' or, alternatively, a juridical statement of 'doctrinal standards,' then this method of a conjoint recourse to the fourfold guidelines of Scripture, tradition, reason and experience, may hold more promise for an evangelical and ecumenical future than we have realized as yet—by comparison, for example, with biblicism, or traditionalism, or, rationalism, or empiricism. It is far more valid than the reduction of Christian authority to the dyad of 'Scripture' and 'experience' (so common in Methodist ranks today). The 'quadrilateral' requires of a theologian no more than what he or she might reasonably be held accountable for: which is to say, a familiarity with Scripture that is both critical and faithful; plus, an acquaintance with the wisdom of the Christian past; plus, a taste for logical analysis as something more than a debater’s weapon; plus, a vital, inward faith that is upheld by the assurance of grace and its prospective triumphs, in this life."

At the time he gave us the Wesleyan Quadrilateral, Dr. Outler was the foremost Wesleyan scholar and theologian. And the Quadrilateral came to us in a time when Methodists believed deeply in theological pluralism and embraced Reason and Experience as the necessary companions of Scripture and Tradition. We were proud to say that in the United Methodist Church, “you don’t have to park your mind at the door when you come to worship.”

But the Quadrilateral does not rest on Dr. Outler’s imprimatur alone. 

Although Wesley himself never used the phrase it is easy to see the quadrilateral in his writing. Scripture, Reason, and Tradition were (and are) the foundational interpretive elements of the Anglican theology in which Wesley was nurtured, and even a cursory glance at his writing shows the importance of experience as a key element in his thought.

There may be many reasons why the traditionalists despise the Quadrilateral, but two of them are critical.

First, if we apply the Wesleyan Quadrilateral to questions of LGBTQ inclusion in the full life of the church, we come down on the side of inclusion. Both scientific reason and personal experience weigh in heavily for openness.

Second, in this dispute and in wider context, the traditionalists want to assert a more literal interpretation of Scripture, believing that this has conservative theological and political implications.

On this second point we can easily go back to Wesley himself to observe how he approached Scripture.

In a sermon “On Charity,” based on the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, he begins this way:

"We know, 'All Scripture is given by inspiration of God,' and is therefore true and right concerning all things. But we know, likewise, that there are some Scriptures which more immediately commend themselves to every man's conscience. In this rank we may place the passage before us; there are scarce any that object to it. On the contrary, the generality of men very readily appeal to it. Nothing is more common than to find even those who deny the authority of the Holy Scriptures, yet affirming, 'This is my religion; that which is described in the thirteenth chapter of the Corinthians.' Nay, even a Jew, Dr. Nunes, a Spanish physician, then settled at Savannah, in Georgia, used to say with great earnestness, 'That Paul of Tarsus was one of the finest writers I have ever read. I wish the thirteenth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians were wrote in letters of gold. And I wish every Jew were to carry it with him wherever he went.' He judged, (and herein he certainly judged right) that this single chapter contained the whole of true religion. It contains 'whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely: If there be any virtue, if there be any praise,' it is all contained in this."

Wesley did not believe, as many literalists do, that all Scripture is of equal value. And for Wesley, the importance of a passage is judged in part by reason and experience, even the reason and experience of non-Christians.

An even more telling example is found in his sermon on “Free Grace.” 

With a theological position firmly rooted in Reason and Experience, he declares that the “blasphemous” lie of Predestination is false and it does not matter to him how many passages of Scripture the Calvinists can cite. 

“No scripture can mean that God is not love, or that his mercy is not over all his works.”

Here is the full paragraph from “Free Grace:”

"This is the blasphemy clearly contained in the horrible decree of predestination! And here I fix my foot. On this I join issue with every assertor of it. You represent God as worse than the devil; more false, more cruel, more unjust. But you say you will prove it by scripture. Hold! What will you prove by Scripture that God is worse than the devil I cannot be. Whatever that Scripture proves, it never an prove this; whatever its true meaning be. This cannot be its true meaning. Do you ask, 'What is its true meaning then' If I say, 'I know not,' you have gained nothing; for there are many scriptures the true sense whereof neither you nor I shall know till death is swallowed up in victory. But this I know, better it were to say it had no sense, than to say it had such a sense as this. It cannot mean, whatever it mean besides, that the God of truth is a liar. Let it mean what it will it cannot mean that the Judge of all the world is unjust. No scripture can mean that God is not love, or that his mercy is not over all his works; that is, whatever it prove beside, no scripture can prove predestination."

For Wesley, Reason and Experience are not the end he seeks. They are the means. They are tools to be used in the understanding of scripture and of the world. But the fundamental theological affirmation on which everything rests, is grace. Wesleyan theology is always about grace.

In 1984, the bicentennial year of American Methodism, Martin E. Marty interviewed Dr. Outler for an article in The Christian Century:

Marty asked him what he has learned about how one translates the insights of Christian history and theology into a sermon for everyday people. The answer says a lot about Albert Outler and about Methodist theology:

“Three things. Somehow you have to be gracious. Then you have to show graciousness, and talk about it. It can be talked about. Finally, you call forth from people some sort of response to grace as unmerited favor, to the fact that our lives are gifted.” 
(Pounce: the mind triggers, “This really is a Methodist!”) 
"Life," Outler goes on, “is not merely fortune or luck, good or bad. When we preach, we tell people that God loves them -- and then we let them go.”

And then he concluded, “The preacher has to say, ‘I live by grace. You live by grace. We can therefore be thankful. We can love.”’ 




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