Confessing Evangelical

I just don't seem to be able to leave this subject alone at the moment.... The print edition of the May/June 2001 issue of Modern Reformation included a fascinating extract from Peter Berger's book, The Heretical Imperative, in which Berger argues that we are all, in one sense, "heretics", because we are all now required to choose our religious beliefs rather than merely accepting a surrounding orthodox consensus:

The English word "heresy" comes from the Greek verb hairein, which means "to choose". A hairesis originally meant, quite simply, the taking of a choice ... The heretic denied the authority [of the surrounding religious tradition], refused to accept the tradition in toto. Instead, he picked and chose from the contents of the tradition.

While "this possibility of heresy has always existed in human communities ... the social context of this phenomenon has changed radically with the coming of modernity." In a pluralistic religious setting:

...individuals now must pick and choose. Having done so, it is very difficult to forget the fact. There remains the memory of the deliberate construction of a community of consent, and with this a haunting sense of the constructedness of that which the community affirms. Inevitably, the affirmations will be fragile and this fragility will not be very far from consciousness.

Berger gives the example of Lubavitcher Hassidism, "which constructs an artificial shtetl for its followers":

The difference from the old shtetl is, quite simply, this: All the individual has to do to get out of his alleged Jewish destiny is to walk out and take the subway. Outside, waiting, is the emporium of lifestyles, identities and religious preferences that constitutes American pluralism. It is hard to believe that this empirical fact can be altogether pushed out of the consciousness ... [The neotraditional] existence, consequently, has a fragility that is totally alien to a genuinely traditional community.

So however doctrinally orthodox we may be, however committed we may be to our church and its teachings, we can never quite escape that nagging thought at the back of our minds that (in human terms) we could easily have chosen a different path:

In the matter of religion ... the modern individual is faced not just with the opportunity but with the necessity to make choices as to his beliefs. This fact constitutes the heretical imperative in the contemporary situation. Thus, heresy, once the occupation of marginal and eccentric types, has become a much more general condition; indeed, heresy has become universalized.

The great weakness in Berger's approach is that he treats "heresy" as a sociological category rather than a theological one. While the discussion here over the past few days has (to my mind) yet to generate a completely convincing definition of the word "heresy", I'm sure we can all agree it is not merely a synonym for "dissent".

But Berger still makes some very perceptive points, in particular as to how modernity renders "orthodoxy" far more fragile and insecure than in previous eras. Certainly, as a recent convert to what is a tiny branch of the church in the UK context, I can feel the force of his point about the continuing consciousness of the "chosen-ness", rather than their "given-ness", of Lutheran beliefs; of being a sociological heretic.