The Wittenburg Church Door

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is only a tongue-in-cheek bit of fun, based on my experiences and observations of theological trends. If you're offended by this, please try to lighten up. If you've abandoned sound doctrine in favor of modern trends and worldly fads, repent.

The year is 1517. In a historic act of Biblical courage, Martin Luther nails his 95 Theses to the Wittenburg Church Door . . .

Terrified peasants rejoice at the good news and run into the safety of the cathedral.
An angry Roman Catholic theologian rips down the 95 Theses and uses them to make a paper hat. He puts the hat on his head and stands outside the cathedral windows looking in. Later, Luther's friends put the 95 Theses back on the door.
A Calvinist goes through the door and tells everyone inside, "God sovereignly planned long ago for you to be here. You are here by His pleasure and will."
An Amyrauldian Calvinist stands up and says God made it possible for everyone outside to come in also.
A Hyper Calvinist opens the door and walks through it. He leaves the door open, waiting for God to close it for him. He turns around and tells the crowd outside they are probably not invited to come in.
A second Hyper Calvinist who is standing outside slams the door shut and boards up the church entrance.
An early Arminian takes the boards off the door and then cuts the door in half, beckoning everyone to enter. He takes the other half of the door to the local morgue and encourages the dead people to get into the church at any cost.
Later, a militant Arminian breaks the door down and stands on it, declaring that he is free to enter or leave the cathedral at will and no one can stop him. He then clarifies his meaning by saying this happens "by grace alone." He goes to the morgue to see if some of the dead people are just sleeping.

An Open Theist says God did not know about the cathedral or the door until they happened, but now He is glad they are there. He builds a robot and programs it to respond to every person's movements. He calls the robot "G.O.D."
A Universalist stands outside and tells bystanders that the Wittenburg Church door is no different from any other door in the world, but the important thing is to choose a door and go through it. He also assures those who want no door at all that this is a perfectly good option.
A "Free Grace" Antinomian stands on the church steps and tells everyone that they need only believe they are inside the cathedral, and they are. Anyone who says they have to actually enter the cathedral is a deceiving, graceless legalist.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer hits the "Free Grace" Antinomian over the head with a hardcover copy of his book, "The Cost of Discipleship." After that, Bonhoeffer disappears and everyone wonders where he went.
A Calvinistic Antinomian decides to go up the cathedral steps with a fire hose. He tells everyone inside to pretend they're in an amusement park. He then turns on the water and blasts every sacred thing in sight until it is completely waterlogged. He believes his insurance company will pay for the damages.
A Charismatic reads the first thesis and gets so excited he bursts through the door and dances around the cathedral shouting at the top of his lungs. He knocks over several candlesticks in the process. When someone tries to draw his attention to the other 94 theses, he declares they are unimportant and starts dancing again with his eyes closed.
A Reformed Charismatic walks to the microphone with the 95 Theses in hand. He shares a dream he had about the third thesis, and all of his friends start hopping and singing for sheer joy (with their eyes wide open).
A Pentecostal jumps over three pews and starts swinging from a gold chandelier. He appears to be completely unharmed when the chandelier falls to the ground and crushes him.
A Oneness Pentecostal notes that there are not three doors, but one. He ignores the three windows above the door.
An Independent Fundamentalist preacher stands up and delivers a fiery sermon about the fact that the door is wooden and rigid. Two of the three points in his sermon are about the splinters one might expect to get from handling such a door. In conclusion, he burns some "false doors" on the church steps.
A KJV-only preacher stands at the door demanding that everyone who tries to enter must use a secret password. The password is "Thou."
A Fundamental Baptist preacher tells everyone they must take a bath and wear nice clothes if they want to come inside the cathedral. He also convinces several bystanders to place one foot inside the door and assures them that they are now "eternally secure" inside the cathedral no matter what they do.
A Neo-orthodox theologian stands in the doorway with one foot on each side of the threshold. He declares that he is both "within" and "without" the cathedral at the same time.
Two Southern Baptists get into a shoving match with the Neo-orthodox theologian. One is trying to push him out of the cathedral, while the other is trying to push him in.
A Liberal Theologian sits on the church steps and writes a long article about the many possible interpretations of the word "door" as it is used in Scripture and church history. None of these interpretations has any resemblance to the actual Wittenburg church door, but they do sound quite scholarly and lead many intelligent people away from the door.
A Neo-evangelical pastor passes a survey around to everyone standing outside the church. He then places silver wallpaper over the door, sets a welcome mat in front of it and launches a full scale remodeling project using the survey as a blueprint. The sign over the church door now reads "Wittenburg Creek Community Church - home of the High-Bells."

A Postmodernist rips the door off its hinges and burns it in the town square. Later, the pastor of a prominent Emergent Church scoops up the ashes and forms them into a statue resembling Gumby. Several thousand seekers come to his "campus" each weekend to enjoy the image he has made. The pastor calls this "reinventing" the Wittenburg door and insists that this is what God had in mind all along. He goes to Starbucks and starts a long, confusing conversation with his friends in which they "imagine" a Wittenburg Church door that is covered with pink velvet and has a "doggy door." Afterward, they visit their favorite tattoo parlor to get the word "relevant" inked permanently onto their foreheads.

Meanwhile, a few bedraggled peasants, bearing old rugged crosses on a narrow road, flee into the church to find refuge in the living and true, eternal, gracious, sovereign God.

Compatibilism - a Term for Biblical Balance and Paradox

It's always encouraging to find examples of thoughtful Christians humbly embracing paradox in a way that gives honor to God and holds to His Word in an uncompromising way. Recently, Barry Wallace did this on his blog, Who Am I?

Check out this post on Barry's site for a great discussion of "COMPATIBILISM" - a Biblical approach to the dilemma of human responsibility and divine sovereignty.

Compatibilism differs strongly from Neo-orthodoxy's dialectical theology and the Hegelian concept of THESIS-ANTITHESIS-SYNTHESIS. If we take the Scriptures seriously, the dialectic method of producing a "synthesis" becomes unacceptable. Dialectical theology requires us to take something away from each side in order to find a working alternative somewhere in the middle. This forces us to deny some of the things God has said in His Word. Such an approach should never be called paradox. It would be better described as reducing Biblical truth to the lowest common denominator (a.k.a. "liberalism"). Compatibilism, on the other hand, assumes that everything taught in the Word of God is completely true. It refuses to reduce any of God's revelation. It resists the temptation to rip pages from the Bible to make our own paper-mache truth. Instead, it declares the human mind incapable of reconciling all that God has said. This conclusion exalts God, and in this way theological paradox becomes the best friend of orthodoxy - not a path to liberalism.

God is TRUE, and every man IS a liar until he surrenders to the Truth of God.

Neo-Orthodoxy, Paradox, The Bible, and Bonhoeffer

Here's a little diversion from our study on Psalm 32 . . .

I just listened to Curt Daniel's lecture on Neo-Orthodoxy, found here:

Lectures on the History and Theology of Calvinism (monergism.com)

Concerning Neo-Orthodoxy, Dr. Daniel states, "It is not paradox, it is simply unbiblical contradiction. It is also theological fiction. It simply does not match the facts of Scripture." Although his criticism of supposed paradox in Neo-Orthodoxy is harsh, in other lectures I have found Dr. Daniel to be fond of theological paradox within the framework of true orthodoxy.

I once believed the Neo-Orthodox idea of paradox was quite in line with what I write here at THEOparadox. Now, I am horrified by that thought. Let me officially state for the record: THEOparadox has no relation whatsoever to Neo-Orthodoxy. If Neo-Orthodoxy is even half as bad as Dr. Daniel makes it out to be, I am forced to disavow it completely.

Many things in Scripture strike us as contradictory, or at least illogical to a certain degree. These things are not errors or mistakes, they are signs which call us to dig into the text and discover God's brilliant logic. His logic is above ours, so it sometimes leaves us in mystery and wonder. But it is NEVER NEVER NEVER in error. God's Word is THE TRUTH. The point of THEOparadox is precisely opposite to that of Neo-Orthodoxy. It is the weakness of man and man's logic that leaves us sometimes in a place of paradox. To God, everything makes perfect sense and there are no real contradictions in His self-revelation, the Bible. How could there be, if God is its source?

I'm still a big fan of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's writings, especially The Cost of Discipleship. In Christ the Center, I find him speaking the language of liberalism, but shredding its foundational premises at the very same time. Life Together is simply a masterpiece. Whatever Bonhoeffer may have learned from Karl Barth, I have not yet encountered Barth's more obvious errors in his writings. I now know better what to look for, however. Perhaps if Bonhoeffer had survived the concentration camp, we would know more of his thoughts. But those he left us have great value as far as I'm concerned, even if he proved himself to be comfortable with liberals and a friend of the Neo-Orthodox. In any case, he was a better disciple of Christ than I am, by at least a hundred times.

So let us find inspiration in many places, but ultimate TRUTH in God's Word alone. And let all things - including our lifestyles (especially our lifestyles) - be tested by the Word, lest we ourselves go astray.

PARADOX FILES, VOL. 1

Editor's UPDATE: When I first posted this, I didn't know much about Dr. Bob Utley. As it turns out, he describes himself as a "1 point Calvinist and a 4 part Arminian." He is the first paradox-embracing Arminian I have ever encountered (other than myself in the past), and he seems to be influenced strongly by the idea that Scripture contains dialectical pairs held in tension. Historically, this might indicate a leaning toward Neo-Orthodoxy, but Dr. Utley might simply be striving for balance. In any case, he serves as an interesting example of the application of theological paradox to the science of hermeneutics.

This quote comes from freebiblecommentary.org, where retired hermeneutics professor Dr. Bob Utley has presented some great insights about interpreting the Bible. Here's one that perfectly encapsulates the idea behind Theoparadox:

"Look for a possible paradoxical pair within your subject. Many biblical truths are presented in dialectical pairs; many denominational conflicts come from proof-texting half of a biblical tension. All of the Bible is inspired, and we must seek out its complete message in order to provide a Scriptural balance to our interpretation."

Amen to that!