No closed questions. . .

In a discussion on a forum of ideas, the point was made that it is not helpful when certain things are treated as closed questions and therefore not open to discussion -- at least in the sense that they can be changed.  Though this was initially framed with respect to the sex and gender issues, it is not exclusively so.  The issue seems to be this.  Unless you are willing to talk about any doctrine and the conversation is open to an end that might be different than what the Church has always said, it is not a conversation worth having.  So if you cannot talk about same sex marriage or the gender alphabet as something that could end up at a different place other than the rejection of homosexual behavior, same sex marriage, or the idea that gender is an individual construct, it is not worth talking about.  Every end must be suspended for the sake of the conversation.  I get this.  Those who want to talk are looking to change minds and change positions and change doctrines.  They have no interest in defending themselves over and against those who believe the Church has long ago decided these things but they also find it narrow minded, judgmental, and a failure to be open to the Spirit if those who believe the Church has long ago decided such things do not want to treat them as open questions.

As much as some want to rush into such hot button issues as sex and gender, what about the bread and butter of Christian dogma?  Is the Trinity also a subject for conversation in which the Trinitarian statements of the Creeds are not allowed to be the end?  Can we talk about God as if the Trinity were not settled doctrine?  Should we?  Is original sin also a subject for conversation in which what the Church has said and believed is not necessarily where we might end up?  Should it be?  You could add in any number of things Scripture says and the Church confesses and has confessed through the ages that now some want to talk about because they no longer like where the conversation went.  My question is more basic.  If that is the definition of the conversation, then we cannot talk about anything unless we are willing to forego the conclusion the Church has made and turn a closed question into an open one.  Who does that benefit -- apart from those who do not want to end up where the Church has?

Accordingly, the only purpose of the conversation is NOT to end up where the Church has and to introduce a different conclusion.  While this is the modern penchant, it is alien and destructive of the Church's faith and confession.  What good does it do to make cultural-specific or relative what the Church has confessed, without any real change, for a couple of thousand years?  There can be only one justification for such a conversation and that is to make a change, to depart from what has been taught and confessed through the ages, to ignore what Scripture clearly says, and to invent another conclusion.  

There is also something else.  Failure to allow the conversation to end at a point other than what the Church has always believed and confessed is itself judged negatively as intolerance or unfriendliness or arrogance.  There are those who believe if you could make a case for a different end, you must make that case and you must allow that conclusion to stand at least along side what the Church has always believed and confessed OR you must replace the sacred deposit with the new invention.  Now you get what is the problem in the modern theological conversation.  While it is hard to made the case for change strictly from Scripture, it is possible to make the case on "theological" grounds.  Herein lies the problem.  Theological and Biblical are allowed not simply to compete but to conflict and the weight lies on the theological over the Biblical.  This is the fallacy of the modern era and one that makes what Scripture says and the Church has confessed as a mere starting place and not an ending point.  This is also the modus operandi of liberal and progressive churches -- put a question mark where the Church has put a period and put doubt where Scripture has put confidence.  The end result is that love becomes the only thing and love is so weak that it can only affirm and must approve whatever the individual has deemed right and true in his own eyes.