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Embedded with the enemy Peter Arnett, a war correspondent formerly of CNN (1999), formerly of NBC (March 2003), and for the time being of the London Daily Mirror, was widely condemned in late March for going on Iraqi television as a “professional courtesy” during a time when most were under the impression that professional courtesies to the Hussein regime had been permanently — if not rudely — suspended. Arnett defended himself on the grounds that he got fired for simply telling the truth. Well, no. First, there was disagreement as to whether it was the truth Arnett was telling, and second, even if it was, the truth need not, indeed should not, be told to one’s enemy. Arnett, embedded with NBC, was found in bed with the Iraqis, and being caught in flagrante dilicto, NBC rightly canned him. This incident, as you recall, evoked considerable discussion about the role of journalists in the war and the virtue of placing news hounds like Geraldo Rivera with our troops, especially if doing so could endanger their lives. It’s a metaphor, however, for our role in the world — Christians of one world, embedded in another; Christians of one age, time-shifted into another age; Christians living in one culture, but employed in another, often hostile, culture. This is not an uncommon idea. The writer of Hebrews calls people of faith “sojourners.” Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon famously referred to Christians as “resident aliens” in their book by the same name. The concept is simple: As citizens of another realm, we’ve got to remember that we’re here in this present realm only on a temporary basis, embedded, if you will, with the enemy, working subversively to bring about regime change in a hostile world and to convert others to our side. The problem is, that too often while embedded with the enemy, we go over to the dark side. Being found in material breach of our covenantal relationship with fellow citizens, we’re said to have committed the theological equivalent of treason — we call it heresy. Heresy is not in vogue these days even though it has a long and revered place in Christian history. But I suspect that in this post-postmodern age it is going to make a comeback — everywhere except perhaps in mainline Protestant circles that, alas, run the risk, like the United Nations, of becoming irrelevant. In a postmodern world the heretic became invisible. There is no orthodoxy against which the heretic can be clearly seen. That’s why many have tried to paint themselves as heretics or theological iconoclasts, a tendency even G.K. Chesterton observed a century ago when he derided those who called themselves heretics and stood around waiting for applause. Of course, many in the faith community are functionally heretical if not self-professed heretics. These are the theologically bulimic who consume large helpings of classic theology on Sunday, and then with the finger of relativism, secularism or indifference — take your pick — induce reverse peristalsis and hurl the whole thing up on Monday. I suppose there are still a few postmoderns ambling about these days in this post-9/11, neomodern world. But they are beginning to look ridiculous. Postmodernism is a middleclass, bourgeois luxury that the rest of the world can’t afford. You may still find it — prominently in the academy — but elsewhere people are recovering a certain sense of moral and theological modesty; while postmoderns are wearing fashionable see-through blouses, neomoderns have strapped on flak jackets to confront the moral crisis, and they’re the ones still embedded with the enemy trying to effect change, who have resisted the impulse to extend professional courtesies to the agents of moral relativism and secular rationalism. One person caught in the crosshairs of a heresy inquiry is Professor Clark Pinnock of McMaster Divinity School in Hamilton, Ontario (see our interview with Dr. Pinnock forthcoming in the September-October issue of Homiletics). A champion, with others, of “open theism,” Dr. Pinnock, author of Most Moved Mover: A Theology of God’s Openness, has been accused of heresy by Roger Nicole, a founding member of the Evangelical Theological Society. The ETS, founded in 1949 “to foster conservative biblical scholarship by providing a medium for the oral exchange and written expression of thought and research in the general field of the theological disciplines as centered in the Scriptures,” has kicked out only one person in over 50 years, and that was Dr. Robert Gundry in the early ’80s because of his work on textual issues concerning the gospel of Matthew. The problem is that the ETS doesn’t have a doctrinal statement except a brief statement about the authority of Scripture: “The Bible alone, and the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written and is therefore inerrant in the autographs. God is a Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, each an uncreated person, one in essence, equal in power and glory.” Not much to go on, but Nicole claims Pinnock has “violated the inerance [sic] clause” of the statement. Nicole and his supporters in the ETS will submit arguments to support their view next month (June), after which Pinnock and John Sanders (co-author with Pinnock and three others of The Openness of God) will have an opportunity to reply before a vote of the society late next fall. I’m not going to comment on the merits of this case. But I applaud the notion. If Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Baptists, et al., embrace certain creedal and doctrinal statements, then they ought to ask, and have every right to expect, that those who are embedded with them play by the rules, even if they are their rules, and perhaps — as with many human instruments — wrong.
But we’ve got to do the best we can.
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