A question for modern churchpeople!
The word “Chronolatry” is rarely used but it is a word that can serve a useful purpose. Its origins seems to have been from the pen of the philosopher Jacques Maritain in his Le paysan de la Garonne (Paris 1966), pp.25-28. And I learned of it from hearing Dr Crouse of Nova Scotia, Canada, use it.
Chronos is time and latria is reverence or worship. So chronolatry is the worship of the present, or the placing of the mind and opinions of ourselves or persons today above those of yesterday.
Now in matters purely scientific and concerned with such studies as mathematics, physics and cosmology, the theories of the leading scientists in these fields are obviously to be preferred to those of a former times. And the same applies in other modern scientific study as well. However, the opinions of today are not necessarily better than those of yesterday in all areas of human knowledge and experience.
Regrettably, what is happening today in society, church and culture is that too often we assume that modern opinions about morality and religious doctrine and practice are superior to those of yesterday. In Church synods in the mainline Churches of the USA (Episcopal, Methodist, Lutheran, etc.) there has been an increasing tendency since the 1970s to elevate “contemporary experience” and the “opinions of the elite” above the received tradition of faith and morality, assuming that the latest opinions held by the finest are obviously the best and thus to be made church doctrine!
In this ongoing Chronolatry, Church synods, working on democratic principles (with all the accompanying political activism of working for votes) assume that when they pass a measure, which introduces an innovation (which is itself a rejection of the wisdom of yesterday), then that majority vote is the “leading of the Spirit.” In their counting of votes, however, they do not count the saints who have gone before them and who had “voted” for that which the innovation displaces and replaces!
Have you noticed how both Episcopalians and Methodists now speak of the four-legged stool of theological method -- Scripture, Tradition, Reason and Experience? In this new formulation (it used to be: Scripture, Tradition and Reason, only) contemporary experience (not only personal and corporate, but also the supposed assured results of the human “sciences”) has the final word as to the place and use of the others.
In the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, claims for the “leading of the Spirit” because innovations were introduced through majority votes have been common since the 1970s. What has happened is that the Bible and Tradition are now sources that can be used to supplement or support doctrines which emanate within the enlightened mindset of modern leaders of cultural change. The authority is “experience” understood in a large sense and the worship offered is Chronolatry. No vote is given to the Apostles, to the members of the Ecumenical Councils, to the great teachers, female and male, of the Church through history, and to the faithful millions of the centuries. Contemporary opinion becomes doctrine for today and tomorrow even as it is given God-names and descriptions. Obvious examples in the Episcopal Church from one decade, that of the 1970s are: a new doctrine of marriage to take account of the growing divorce culture, 1973; a new doctrine of the Ministry to take account of the campaigns of the feminists for equality in all areas, 1976; and a new prayer book with the old title to replace the historic BCP, to take account of the latest opinions in liturgical studies, 1979. From the present decade there is the new doctrine of sexual relations which permits two persons of the same gender/sex to live together as though they are married and as such to be exemplars of holiness.
No area of received doctrine, morality, discipline, devotion or polity is safe from chronolaters, who inhabit the seats of power in the committees of synods and conventions. And they have developed the art of speaking about treasured things of the past in such a way that most people think that they take these things most seriously. Yet what they are often doing is using a very selective harvesting of teaching from Scripture and Tradition in order to use this to buttress their novel doctrine and morals. Presiding Bishop Griswold has often spoken of and cited great spiritual and mystical writers of the past in such a way as to make people think that he is teaching a doctrine like theirs, when he is actually offering very different views of holiness and union with God.
But let us come nearer home. Chronolaters are also found even amongst those who call themselves “the orthodox” over against those they term “revisionists”. To give a few examples: they prefer versions of the Bible rendered into English by dynamic equivalency rather then by a careful literal translation; their way of talking about morality is determined more by human rights theory than by the statutes of the Lord; their modes of evangelization give great weight to contemporary theories of communication and marketing which cause the Gospel message to be trimmed to fit the customer; and their way of running the church, and organizations connected to it, owes more to modern political activism than to biblical pastoral principles.
Chronolatry is a sin. It excludes both the wisdom of the Scriptures and the lesser but still important wisdom of the holy teachers of 7 councils of the Church from the creation of worship, doctrine and discipline in the present. Not that we are to hide in the past and become irrelevant today, but that we are to exhibit to God and his world that we are members of a people who have received the Faith and have witnessed to the Gospel through space and time. We today are a small minority in terms of the total membership. We have only a few votes in reality and we are outvoted. And we are certainly in a minority by far in terms of wisdom and knowledge of the Lord our God -- the Blessed, Holy and Undivided Trinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
A final word from Greek mythology. The god of chronolaters is obviously the Greek god, Cronus, who looses Titans upon the earth, and reigns in heaven, consuming his own children, until the great god, Zeus, banishes him to Tartarus. Likewise, the god of present-day chronolaters will be cast from “heaven” and with him all who bow before him.
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon MA., D.Phil (Oxford)
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