Luke Timothy Johnson "sometimes questions church authority"? (expose of conflict with Braxton)

Insight Scoop ^ | February 27, 2008 | Carl Olson

[NYer]

Dwight Yoakam, one of my favorite country artists, once penned a dry and rather funny number with Roger Miller titled, "It Only Hurts Me When I Cry" (on If There Was a Way, a fine album). It goes, in part, like so:

The only time I feel the pain
Is in the sunshine or the rain
And I don't feel no hurt at all
Unless you count when teardrops fall
I tell the truth 'cept when I lie
And it only hurts me when I cry

I mention it for two reasons. The first is that I really don't reference good country music enough on this blog, so figured I might as well give it a shot. The second is a news story about how some Catholics are upset—nay, incensed (in the angry, non-aromatic manner)—that a Catholic bishop is not allowing "a biblical scholar who sometimes questions church authority" to "speak April 20 at the diocese-funded Newman Center on the campus of Southern Illinois University Carbondale."

Here is the story. The bishop is Bishop Edward K. Braxton of Belleville, Illinois, and the biblical scholar is Luke Timothy Johnson, professor of theology at Emory University and author of several books and commentaries. The story is being covered in rather typical fashion: the bishop is being presented as some sort of reactionary, narrow-minded authoritarian, with Commonweal magazine condemning his action as "censorship." (Commonweal, just so you know, was to be a co-sponsor of Johnson's talk.) Johnson, for his part, refers to Bishop Braxton's action as "hardball politics", but insists he is not "some kind of martyr." He is at least correct about that. Meanwhile, the article vaguely refers to a recent Commonweal article by Johnson that "mentioned the long-standing opposition by church hierarchy to the ordination of women." And Notre Dame University theology professor Lawrence Cunningham, a regular contributor to Commonweal, notes that Johnson is well-regarded as a "solid Catholic biblical scholar," who, in said Commonweal article, "Asked for a more generous consideration of the plight of homosexuals."

To borrow from Mr. Yoakam and rewrite a rhyme:

I tell the truth 'cept when I fudge,
And it only hurts me when I hold a grudge.

One reason this story interests me is that I have heard Dr. Johnson speak in person (on the Jesus Seminar; he was excellent). I've read several of his books and have benefited much from his commentaries on the Gospel of Luke and The Acts of the Apostles (both are very good). I've read several of his books, including The Real Jesus and Living Jesus (solid, with many helpful insights).

I've also heard him (following the talk mentioned above) publicly voice his support of the ordination of women and his belief that the Catholic Church will eventually have priestettes (my term, not his). And, in fact, whenever Johnson moves from New Testament studies and Christology into the realm of Church authority, sexuality, and morality, he seems, well, to get really angry and a wee bit illogical. Worse, he consistently rejects and even mocks Church teaching. It can be seen, for example, in the tenor of his scathing critique of Pope John Paul II's theology of the body (published in—where else?—Commonweal; an excellent response by Christopher West can be read here).

Johnson's strained relationship with the aforementioned issues is both blatant and expressed at some length in his popular book, The Creed: What Christians Believe and Why It Matters (Doubleday, 2003). I wrote a review of it for This Rock magazine that can be read online ("From Creed to Screed: How Cafeteria Catholicism Leads to Dissent" [Sept. 2004]), so I won't go into too much detail here, except to note that reading the book was quite disconcerting, as it readily displayed a bewildering theological schizophrenia, as I noted at the start of my review: "When Johnson agrees with Church teaching, his writing is measured and his arguments are logical. But when Johnson parts ways with Church teaching, the tone becomes polemical and he shows little if any respect for the thinking and logic behind those teachings." That is, frankly, putting it mildly.

In short, Johnson not only supports women's ordination, he also supports "same sex marriage," thinks homosexual acts are just fine, supports the use of contraceptives, believes Jesus had brothers and sisters born of Mary, and thinks that belief in the miraculous conception and Virgin birth of Christ is silly: "The plain fact is that it is neither possible nor important to know the biology of Jesus’ conception and birth" (p 157). Not least, Johnson argues that since the Creed "says nothing about the Lord’s Supper or other sacraments," we can conclude that "they are not essential, and if they are not essential, then definition should be avoided and a plurality of observance should be allowed or even cultivated" (p 320).

In a June 15th, 2007 piece in (yes, once again) Commonweal magazine about homosexuality, Johnson made it very clear that when it comes to authority, he has little use for the Magisterium or the clear teachings of Scripture:

I have little patience with efforts to make Scripture say something other than what it says, through appeals to linguistic or cultural subtleties. The exegetical situation is straightforward: we know what the text says. But what are we to do with what the text says? We must state our grounds for standing in tension with the clear commands of Scripture, and include in those grounds some basis in Scripture itself. To avoid this task is to put ourselves in the very position that others insist we already occupy-that of liberal despisers of the tradition and of the church’s sacred writings, people who have no care for the shared symbols that define us as Christian. If we see ourselves as liberal, then we must be liberal in the name of the gospel, and not, as so often has been the case, liberal despite the gospel.

I think it important to state clearly that we do, in fact, reject the straightforward commands of Scripture, and appeal instead to another authority when we declare that same-sex unions can be holy and good. And what exactly is that authority? We appeal explicitly to the weight of our own experience and the experience thousands of others have witnessed to, which tells us that to claim our own sexual orientation is in fact to accept the way in which God has created us. By so doing, we explicitly reject as well the premises of the scriptural statements condemning homosexuality-namely, that it is a vice freely chosen, a symptom of human corruption, and disobedience to God’s created order.

(See my June 2007 post on this blog for more about those comments.) Now, having delved just a bit into Johnson's beliefs, readers who have not done so prior to reading this post can now better appreciate why Bishop Braxton would offer this simple and clear statement about why he won't allow Johnson to give a talk in a parish in his diocese:

"I do not wish Catholic institutions or organizations to invite speakers into the diocese who have written articles or given lectures that oppose, deny, reject, undermine or call into question the authentic teachings of the magisterium of the Catholic Church."

There is, however, even more to the story. The impression has been given (and too easily accepted, I'm certain) that Bishop Braxton is not just being mean, he is being narrow-minded, with the implication that he is probably afraid of views that differ from his. Thus:

Steven Sanders, a Carbondale insurance brokerage owner and member of the center's pastoral council that invited Johnson, said of Braxton, "I think he's stepping in where it's none of his damn business. These kids are college kids. They should be able to hear all sides."

Ah, Mr. Sanders, if only everyone was as open minded as yourself! Besides, it seems self-evident that a bishop's business includes parishes within his diocese (if it isn't, well, I wonder if people should be buying insurance from you). The issue is not censorship, but pastoral leadership. Besides, anyone who looks at Bishop Braxton's bio (and I confess I know little else about him except what I've read there), cannot help but be impressed by the following:

The future Bishop studied for the priesthood at Quigley Preparatory Seminary, Niles College Seminary and St. Mary of the Lake Seminary , Mundelein , Ill., in the Archdiocese of Chicago, where he earned his BA, MA, S.T.B. and S.T. L. degrees. He served as a deacon at St. Raymond De Penafort Parish in Mount Prospect, Ill., and spent his first year in the priesthood as Associate Pastor of Holy Name Cathedral. He was Associate Pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Winnetka Ill., from 1971-1973. There he was deeply influenced by his Pastor, the renowned liturgist and pastoral pioneer, Msgr. Reynold Hillenbrand, one of the founders of the Christian Family Movement, which urged the Christian faithful to become genuinely involved in the life of the Church. He was a graduate student at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium from 1973 to 1975 where he earned a Ph.D. in Religious Studies and an S.T.D. in Systematic Theology summa cum laude . The focus of his studies was on the pastoral implication of the concepts of sacrament, myth, symbol, metaphor, and metaphysics in the theological methodology of the influential Jesuit theologian Bernard J.F. Lonergan and their relationship to the teachings of the Second Vatican Council....

His writings on a wide range of theological and pastoral topics have appeared in the Harvard Theological Review , Theological Studies , Louvain Studies , The Irish Theological Quarterly , Chicago Studies , Origins , The New York Times , America , Commonweal , The National Catholic Reporter , U.S. Catholic , The Priest , The St. Louis Post-Dispatch , The Ligourian , The Lake Charles American Press and many other journals and periodicals. He is the author of numerous articles on African-American Catholics, many of which have been translated and published abroad. His books The Wisdom Community and The Faith Community: One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic are widely used in Catholic colleges and seminaries. His professional associations include the American Academy of Religion, The Catholic Theological Society of America, The Canon Law Society of America and the Black Catholic Clergy Caucus. His profile is included in Who's Who in Black America and Who's Who in Midwest America . He is able to converse in French and he has a reading knowledge of Spanish and Italian.

Simply put: this is a pastor who appears to be well-educated and knowledgeable. Why, he's even written (!) for Commonweal. And America. And The New York Times. I bet he did his homework when it came to the views of Luke Timothy Johnson. As for the Commonweal "We Cry 'Censorship'!" Crowd and Dr. Johnson, perhaps a snippet from another Yoakam song—titled "Blame the Vain"—will provide some twangy food for thought:

(Don't you know that ) blame..
Is always never enough
It just keeps you in the game
Until you've only got
yourself left to bluff

[NYer]

Ping

[Raymann]

I met Braxton a few times when he was the Bishop of Lake Charles (back when I lived in Lake Charles and was Catholic/religious). Anyway he struck me as being pretty unobtrusive so for him to do this something must have really irked him.

[RobbyS]

I like Johnson’s biblical scholarship. which seems to be, more or less, orthodox. But like Dr. Luther—and so many biblical scholars—he think his expertise entitles him to disregard the tradition of the Church whenever it conflicts with his personal opinion.

My own concern about modern Biblical criticism is that it seeks to interpret the Bible against what we know about the societies and cultures of the ancient world rather than as the Church Fathers did, which saw the Jewish Scriptures as full of hints about the Triune God. Modern scholars look upon the allegorical approach of the Fathers and the scholastics as naive when they saw hints of the presence of Christ everywhere. Yet this is precisely what the New Testament tells us we should do.

The method of the apostolic fathers and the apologists and the Church Fathers—most explicitly and most excessively in Origen—forms a continuum with the New Testament. The early Christians wrote as men intoxicated by
the knowledge that God had visited them, a knowledge that separated them from their fellows and given an insight to which their fellows were blind. Their writings glow with that knowledge and the same spirit informs later generations.

Modern scholars, on the other hand, examine the Scriptures with the same coldness that others examine the works of Plato—admiring and appreciative but willing to place their own experiences against his as we might judge the actions of a Lincoln or any other great man of history.

[Raymann]

Well one could argue that the “coldness” as you put it is necessary to ensure an objective scholastic approach to examining the Bible. I do understand what you’re saying though, essentially the Bible is saying “This is how you should view the world in order to fully understand me.” I would say that while that perspective is important, it is also very limiting…it’s also important to be able to answer questions such as “Why did this author say this when we know this to be true?”

[thegreatbeast]

The feel good story of the day. It is so nice when the Faith is defended.

[RobbyS]

I think it is a mistake to think that what we call “ancient history” is necessarily a reliable standard. It is an examination of what remains, and what remains is very limiting. Recently I saw an old Gene Hackman movie Called “The Conversation,” and it centered on the conversation between a man and woman caught at long distance by professional wire-tappers using sophisticated microphones and recorded on tape. The protagonist, played by Hackman, listens to the tape over and over again, trying to figure out what the man and woman are saying, and what they mean. There is a lot of backgound noise, and only by eliminating this is he able to hear the entire conservation. He becomes interesting in the lives of those involved, including the husband who has ordered his wife and the man suspected of being her lover to be spied on. In the end he misinterprets what the couple has said, even though he is supposedly the best wire-tapper in the country, and goes a little mad when he realizes this.

My point being this: Our knowledge of the period covered by the Bible is at once fragmentary and at the same time too much to comprehend. Inadequate to make judgements, yet there are those who try.

[Raymann]

That just gives me another reason to promote greater objectivity, the Bible is not a historical text nor should it be treated as such. It might be useful as a jumping off point but nothing more.

[bethelgrad]

Johnson is IMO strange to classify. He’s a commited Catholic, but most of his readers are Protestants who believe Jesus literally rose from the grave but are liberal on most everything else. He teaches at a Methodist seminary, seems like he’d fit in better as a Methodist.

[RobbyS]

The Bible can be taken as an historical text but not a history that is interesting to secular historians. It is as if one found a family history that concerns a family that lived in Springfield, Illinois from 1840 to 1870 but mentions Abraham Lincoln only in passing and which is more interested in the events of the local Methodist Church than the details of living in the town. Most historians would flip through it and then quickly deposit it back on the library shelf. It doesn’t talk about the “important things” History is not something real: it is something created by historians and its limits are the limits of the historians. They have a hard enough time understanding the past; they are almost without exception poor prophets of the future. Biblical scholars have become so tied to the historical critical method that they are culture bound, prisoners of the group think of their profession.

[Faraday]

I think it important to state clearly that we do, in fact, reject the straightforward commands of Scripture, and appeal instead to another authority when we declare that same-sex unions can be holy and good. And what exactly is that authority? We appeal explicitly to the weight of our own experience and the experience thousands of others have witnessed to, which tells us that to claim our own sexual orientation is in fact to accept the way in which God has created us.

Anyone who can make the above statement is clearly not a Christian in the ordinary sense of the term. We can pick off any of the Biblical moral strictures and commandments by similar argument. Faith requires submission of one's "experience" (read:concupiscence) to the Truth of scripture and the Church. "The path is narrow..." is a hard teaching. Good for Bishop Braxton--another shepherd on the look-out for wolves.