Miers / White

[Scarberry, Mark]

First, with regard to Marci's post, it does not seem that Valley View
Christian Church is one of the new nondenominational churches, like
Saddleback Church in southern California (pastored by Rick Warren, author of
"The Purpose Driven Life") or Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois
(pastored by Bill Hybels). (I'd take issue to some extent with Marci's
description of such churches, but that would be beyond the scope of this
list.) Instead, as I said, Valley View Christian Church seems to be part of
the Restoration (or Stone-Campbell) movement. Stone and Campbell ministered
in the 1800s; the Restoration movement has a substantial history in America.
(And please, please, please do not confuse it with the unrelated, much more
recent theocratic Christian Reconstruction movement. The Restoration
movement is not theocratic.)

 

Second, with regard to Sandy's post: First, I want to thank him for his kind
words. Second, I'm not an expert on the notion of authenticity in the
Restoration movement. I've forwarded Sandy's question on to a colleague who
knows more about this, and I'll either get him to join the conversation or
else forward his response. Should that conversation continue on for more
than an exchange or two, we probably should take it off list. 

 

Third, Bob Sheridan posted the following comment:

 

"The Restoration movement looks to this stranger like an exercise in 

originalism/textualism without all the historical reference material 

available for 1787.  This suggests to me that the claim of such 

believers, in either the field of religion or U.S. Constitutional 

interpretation, is that they are really just exercising their own right 

or power to choose the current meaning or interpretation of doctrine but 

alleging that it is really that of the founders of yesteryear.

 

"Isn't this an old game, similar to Virgil attributing the origin of Rome 

to Aeneas, a Greek?  New wine in old bottles?"

 

I'll let someone with more knowledge of the Restoration movement comment
further on this criticism. Meanwhile: It seems that presence or absence of
historical reference material is not central to Bob's point. He says that
the Restoration movement lacks the material for the First Century (AD or CE
as you choose) that is available for 1787, but then he equally criticizes
the Restoration movement and U.S. Constitutional originalism/textualism. In
any event I'd suggest that there is a lot of historical reference material
available for the First Century (though we always must be aware that our
present conceptions may shape our understanding of such materials). Finally,
I thought Virgil attributed the founding of Rome not to a Greek but to a
Trojan (Aeneas) who fled after the Greeks sacked Troy. (That's not as
important to me as it might be to fans of the USC Trojans football team -
which I assume has more "sacks" this year than its opponents.) 

 

Mark S. Scarberry

Pepperdine University School of Law

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Sanford Levinson [mailto:SLevinson at law.utexas.edu] 
Sent: Monday, October 03, 2005 8:32 PM
To: Scarberry, Mark; CONLAWPROF at lists.ucla.edu
Subject: RE: Miers / White

 

Not for the first time (and, I am confident, not for the last time), I am
happy to be illuminated by Mark Scarberry's posting.  

 

Needless to say, I am fascinated by the notion of "authenticity" behind the
Restorationist aspiration.  As some of you know, Jack Balkin and I have
written on the "authentic performance" movement in music.  Is there any
reason--and this is a serious question--to believe that early Christian
congregations had designated leaders, including "preachers"?

 

sandy

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