Thread by @ektrit

Okay, thread about these comments by @nntaleb .

I will not provide any links as my laptop died here at the beach apartment. I'm doing the thread from my cel phone while eating half of an watermelon.

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https://twitter.com/ektrit/status/1554778139074650112

As the very influential orthodox theologian Father Thomas Hopko used to say: The debate of what is Dogma in the church will never end.

As Prof. Aristotle Papanicolaou has explained: Apart for Christ death and resurrection and Holy Trinity, there isn't much else Dogma.

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The last 20 years, due to Digitalization of Archives and Internet, there have been immense historical discoveries which have the potential of overthrowing current theologies (plural on purpose).

A professional historian no longer needs to book a seat at the Venice Archive.
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Manuscripts can now be accessed online for a fee by any professional historian via their institutions.

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One example I can give, we were told during catechism in the orthodox church in the 1990s that church dogma is that one must be married or become a monk. Being single would be against church dogma.

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Whereas in reality that was the church submitting to Roman Law. Which obligated the church to have the same prayer service for marriage and for becoming a monk/nun. Monasticism was theologised as getting married in order to simply submit to Roman Law, zero dogma involved.

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Fast forward now.

Just like Copts or Armenians who tweaked theology to just NOT become Romans, just like Martin Luther who tweaked theology to fulfill the challenge that elitarian German nationalism had against elitarian italian nationalism, right now we see the same.

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Major orthodox churches are tweaking theology as they please in order to fulfill local political goals.

Local catholic churches are doing the same vs Vatican now.

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In the middle ages, Latins (Italians), Illyrians (Albanians) Hellenes (Greeks) and Phoenicians (Levantines) became Roman citizens and then just Romans 300-400 years later by 7th century, thus being unified in one theology adopted and imposed by the Roman Emperors overtime.

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A bit later Lombards, Normans, Franks etc invaded Latinum (Italy) thus halting and reversing the Romanization process, separating it from the Christianization process.

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Whereas in the Eastern part of the empire, the existence of a Roman Emperor made that Romanization and Christianization of Albanians, Greeks and Levantines be complete.

That led to Charlemagne again tweaking the theology with Filioque, local purpose again.

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Fast forward now, another localisation of theology under way.

Greek church preaches Greek supremacy in Christ's name, local spin.

Outdoing the Greek church, Slavic churches compete with each other hard as to which one the favorite of Christ to be superior. Local spin.

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Let's shift to what is called the Catholic Church.

Croat Church has disregarded catholic universal theology since moment 0, by fervently preaching croat superiority in Christ's name, to the point of supporting the Ustashe even now, though not as horrible as the Serb Church.

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Polish church clearly supports Polish survival vs an alliance of Orthodox Russians and Protestant Germans (Prussians). Universal catholic theology is of no interest in Poland.

Local spin.

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In Germany the Catholic church has adopted LGBT theology officially, disregarding the rest of Catholicism

Another local spin.

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As far as Protestants, they even see personal interpretation of theology as entirely normal, though they are still "protesting" against the Pope (strangely).

The spin here is super or ultra local.

Each protestant city has its own theological tweak.

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So as history and current reality has shown us, Dogma is a very tiny part of theology, Localism is the most part of theology, or what is called Tradition.

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So to conclude this thread inspired by @nntaleb review of @holland_tom 's book, again, All Theology Is Local.

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