The ancient world had many mythical beasts. The phoenix is one of my favorites:
A phoenix is a mythical bird with a tail of beautiful gold and red plumage (or purple and blue, by some sources). It has a 500 to 1,000 year life-cycle, near the end of which it builds itself a nest of cinnamon twigs that it then ignites; both nest and bird burn fiercely and are reduced to ashes, from which a new, young phoenix or phoenix egg arises, reborn anew to live again. The new phoenix is destined to live as long as its old self. In some stories, the new phoenix embalms the ashes of its old self in an egg made of myrrh and deposits it in the Egyptian city of Heliopolis (sun city in Greek). The bird was also said to regenerate when hurt or wounded by a foe, thus being almost immortal and invincible – it is also said that it can heal a person with a tear from its eyes and make them temporarily immune to death. The phoenix is a symbol of fire and divinity.
Unfortunately what is beautiful as a legend may not be so beautiful when we try to have it in the modern world. Mythical beasts are wonderful to contemplate in a story, and may make us sigh and wish that such existed in our world. But, in the world of politics and religion, they are most unhelpful. And, lately I have encountered them in both.
In the mornings, I tend to watch both “liberal” and “conservative” news channels, each for a little bit. (I even look at the BBC headlines.) This gives me an idea of the various arguments that are going on. As I was watching Morning Joeâ„¢, I encountered one of those beasts. As you may or may not know, President Obama has made a very strong speech to the Republicans saying to them that bipartisanship does not mean that he intends to return to policies that he considers failed policies. And, did this spark a discussion on all the networks! But, on the show, a guest economist was pressing Joe on the fact that during the Republican control of the Congress and the Presidency, the country entered into one of its biggest debts and the second biggest depression in its history. I expected that Joe would deny that it was the fault of the Republicans. But, he did not. Rather, he created a phoenix. He said that the Republican Congress had not truly been behaving like Republicans, and that the failure of the economic policies only underscores how much the country really needed to truly put in place conservative policies. The economist promptly charged him with creating a mythical Republican that did not truly exist in practice. Of course, Joe counter-argued and the debate continued for a bit. But, what struck me was that the argument that Joe was making was that the Republican Party had, in essence, immolated itself, but was now truly ready to rise from its ashes of over-spending, failure-to-regulate, and electoral defeat, to be a truly conservative bird. In other words, he was making a phoenix argument, a lot of mythology with little actual substance.
But, recently I have also read that on more than one post in more than one Christian blog. What is the phoenix there? Well, it is simple. No matter what misbehavior is pointed out, no matter whether the vast majority of people with a certain theology end up with a certain problem, the argument that comes back is that they were not truly Baptist or Catholic or Methodist or Lutheran or . . . . You get the idea, the argument is a pure hypothetical that can never be disproven. Its form is to simply argue that if only those people were fully and truly following the teaching then there would not be these problems. Since no one is perfect, since we all fail, and since we must be careful of judging, the argument implies that no amount of historical evidence could ever truly disprove whatever position it is that the writer is supporting. By disposing of history, by being willing to make everyone a thoroughly carnal Christian, all difficulties are eliminated. Each major branch of the Church suffers from some who espouse that viewpoint.
For Protestants, that argument is useful in trying to hide the fact that a Protestant theology with regards to the Church, to the Scriptures, and to individual conscience leads inevitably to the vast disarray present in modern Protestantism, to the vast inability to define what is True other than in very general terms, to the vast inability to stop the constant disintegration of Christianity that is the pre-eminent hallmark of Protestantism.
For Catholics, that argument is useful in trying to hide the fact that there have been changes in Roman doctrine over the centuries and that the Church has even, at times, reversed itself. It allows it to cheerfully ignore some of the very real and serious charges leveled against the popular religiosity that is “allowed” without regulation in many parts of the Roman world.
For the Orthodox, that argument can create a much stronger unity than is present, or ever was present, in actual practice. That argument can also create a false view of Holy Tradition that is not consonant with the Fathers, and allows that view to proceed forward with impunity.
Yes, all of us have our phoenixes, and none of us are free of them. But, let us at least be a little more conscious, when we argue and debate, of the phoenixes we use to be able to refuse to deal with a subject.
And, yes, I still believe that Orthodoxy is the True Church, but not because of our phoenixes.
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