My Issues With the Antioch Declaration

 The Antioch Declaration is an “anti anti-Semitic” statement of faith signed by various confessional Protestants. Leaving aside the question of if the conscience of a Christian is bound to post-biblical historical facts, the Antioch Declaration has several other glaring issues.

To begin with, the Antioch Declaration rails against the Enlightenment, without understanding what rejecting the Enlightenment would actually entail, as though going back to the Good Old Days of the early 17th century would mean equal rights for all. There is no true reactionary conservatism, of the type of Metternich or Charles X of France in the Anglosphere, who truly wants to undo the Enlightenment, and return the medieval style “throne and altar” conservatism. 

In the United Kingdom, the most reactionary politicians of the 19th century believed in constitutional monarchy and the values of the Glorious Revolution of 1689. They were hesitant classical liberals, resisting change, but making no serious attempt to roll back liberal reforms, and less so of reestablishing a Tudor-style monarchy. The most reactionary American politicians of the era were even further to the left, embracing the American revolution and its consequences, embracing republicanism, and rejecting monarchy and a hereditary nobility with special legal privileges. 

I would ask what specific philosophical theories the writers of the document are rejecting by denouncing the “Enlightenment.” It is easy to rail against modernity, and long for the good old days. It is hard to articulate the exact cause of what went wrong, and even harder to roll back the clock, as it were. 

Many, but by no means all, of the problems of the current age are simply the result of modernity itself. Many of the “advancements” in society came with tradeoffs, tradeoffs which were well worth it, but not without cost. It is important to understand why things have changed, and the reason why old traditions cease. As an example, one may bemoan the loss of the extended family structure, but the extended family involves overbearing relatives and in-laws. 

The writers of the Antioch Declaration would realize that they don’t want to go back to the reign of Charles I of England, if they put some thought into the matter. Baptist ecclesiology implies an “Enlightenment” understanding of church and state. However, to prove their confessional bona fides, they denounce the Enlightenment, while the document itself assumes post-Enlightenment philosophical and social norms. 

On a related note, the document’s theory of history is wrong. Quoting the 6th paragraph:

We deny that neo-pagan secularism with its utopian religious motive arose as a consensus after World War II. Rather, it manifests itself as the political outworking of the so-called Enlightenment during the French Revolution and gradually won the hearts and minds of Western nations, being well expressed in the political philosophies dominating Europe prior to the outbreak of the two great global conflagrations.

The document falsely claims that Europe was dominated by Enlightenment political philosophies on the eve of the First World War. This would have been news to Tsar Nicholas II and Emperor Franz Joseph. Of course, one might wonder what they mean by an “Enlightenment political philosophy.” One might assume that an anti-Enlightenment political philosophy would be rule by a semi-absolute sainted Emperor governing in reaction to the French Revolution. One might think that an Emperor who was titled, “By Grace of God, Tsar and Autocrat,” and was later made a Saint by the Eastern Orthodox Church was an anti-Enlightenment ruler. 

But again, I would ask what the authors of the document consider an Enlightenment or anti-Enlightenment political philosophy to be. The time from the end of the Napoleonic Wars to the start of the First World War was a time of political and social reaction against the French Revolution. After 1848, the extreme post revolution reaction gave way to gradual liberalization. France, and Portugal secularized in the early 20th century, but one would hardly call the social order of 1913 radical or left wing. Most of Europe was still under semi-constitutional to semi-absolutist monarchies. 

The rules and statesmen of the 19th century saw the evils of the French revolution, and governed with the intention of avoiding the evils of secularism, mass democracy, and the like. In that sense, the European order was more conservative on the eve of WWI than it was in the years leading up to the French Revolution, as the Enlightened Despots of the 18th century accepted many of the Enlightenment principles. 

Perhaps one should not expect scholarly levels of historical knowledge from a theological declaration. However, the subject matter of the declaration is history, and binding historical facts on the conscience of the Christian. If history is binding on the conscience, then pastors and theologians must become historians. That brings up the next point.

If the Christian’s conscience is bound to believe historical events, then there must be a list of undeniable historical events. As the declaration is currently written, signing the declaration may be a crime in several central European countries. The offending passage is as follows:

We deny that any particular view of the Allied leaders, their strategies, or tactics during World War II should be a test of Christian orthodoxy.

I presume that the authors forgot that the Soviet Union was among the Allied powers of the Second World War. As the declaration is written, this is a borderline denial of the Soviet war crimes. To be technical, the declaration is not actively denying that the Soviet war crimes happened, but it is actively saying it is a matter of indifference if Soviet war crimes are denied, while anathematizing those who deny German war crimes from the same war. 

 

This more broadly raises the question of what historical events a pastor must affirm. Now, a layman can be forgiven for a lack of technical knowledge, and perhaps it is sufficient for a layman to merely refrain from spreading historical misinformation, rather than actively affirm historical facts. However, in order to minister to the congregation, a pastor needs to know what sound doctrine and heresy are. If history becomes a test of orthodoxy, then the pastor must also become a historian in order to shepard the congregation. If a pastor does not know historical facts, how can he know if historical misinformation is being spread. 

The obvious solution to list every historical event that a pastor must affirm, as the confessions attempt to fence out all heresy. However, this is simply impractical. Otherwise, the Antioch Declaration would have done so, rather than committing soft denial of the second most infamous set of war crimes of living memory.

On the subject of history, the Antioch Declaration has a Judiazing tendency. It states that:

We deny that Jews are in any way uniquely malevolent or sinful, that Judaism in its multifarious expressions is objectively more dangerous than other false religions, or that it represents an exceptional threat to Christianity and Christian peoples.

There are two ways to read this: either all false religions are equally bad, or Judaism is the least worst false religion. The former leads to absurdity, as the logical consequence is that open Satanism or Aztec paganism would be no worse than Judaism or Sikhism. The latter would be an outright form of Judiazing, declaring that Judaism is the least worst (or at most, tied for least worst) false religion. 

The various false religions threaten Christianity in different ways, and manifest their evil in different  manners. For example, Islam has historically threatened Christianity with conquest and forced conversion more than Taoism. Aztec paganism is more violent than Jainism. Christians are more prone to syncretize with Judaism than Hinduism. 

Judaism poses the greater danger of syncretism to Christianity than other religions. It is for that reason that Judaizing heresies were rebuked in the New Testament. To deny this fact would be to accuse the Apostles and the author of the epistle to the Hebrews of Judaizing. 

The general tone of the Antioch Declaration is not in keeping with Christian professionalism. The declaration seems more concerned with insulting the opposition than crafting confessional statements to guard the standard of doctrinal orthodoxy. As example, what is the meaning of the following statement:

 We affirm that there is a vital biblical difference between the self-loathing of men in the grip of disillusionment over a failed idol, and the true repentance of the Christian man.

Who says otherwise? Who says that true repentance is mere disillusionment over a failed idol? Has anyone in church history asserted that the mere rejection of a false belief is the whole of repentance? What purpose does the adjective “self-loathing” serve, but to insult the opposition? 

Or let us look at another paragraph from this declaration:

 We deny that it is possible to recover an ethic that honors our fathers and their momentous sacrifices while actively and openly dishonoring them.

First off, the commandment is to honor your father and mother, not multiple fathers, but I digress. If taken at face value, this would oblige one to support the political causes of your forefathers out of filial piety. If applied consistently, this would oblige a man to be a Neo-Confederate if his fore-fathers were Confederate veterans, and would have patently absurd consequences if one was the descendent of World War II era German veterans.

This paragraph assumes that the reader is an American, descended from veterans of the Second World War, and that their own fathers and grandfathers were anti-racists. It is reduced to absurdity if one has “villainous” ancestry. 

I could go on, but I will limit myself to one further example:

But We FURTHER deny that a Christian congregation has the right to arbitrarily exclude any person based on prejudice, malice or bigotry toward their ethnic group.

According to the literal wording of this paragraph, it is perfectly fine to exclude minorities from a church, so long it is not based on prejudice, malice, or bigotry. The unprofessional tone neuters the meaning of the words. The declaration is so quick to denounce its opponents as bad people, and losers, that it undermines itself. 

Fixing this declaration would require a complete rework, and probably by a different author. The language lacks the precision and professionalism to function as a doctrinal standard. The statements of the declaration should be in a form of propositions that reasonable men could affirm or deny.

With regards to the Declaration’s primary intent, to bind the conscience of historical facts, that would require a list of sacrosanct historical facts. I do not believe that is possible, as it would implicitly give permission to deny everything not on the canonical list. However, it does not follow that pastors and theologians are free to deny reality. 

Perhaps the most helpful route would be to clarify what exactly the Antioch Declaration attempts to condemn when it speaks of the “so-called Enlightenment.” I would assert that Protestantism in general, and Baptist theology in particular prefigures much of Enlightenment philosophy. What does it mean to reject the Enlightenment? Does it mean going back to medieval throne and altar monarchism, or are only a few theories of the Enlightenment rejected?