I have heard the term "open source" used regarding theology in the past couple of years. Open source is a term meaning that the code that makes the software run in the computer you are using is not proprietary. This means that it is not something limited to a few people who have special ownership, rights, or license to modify it for their own use. Open source means that anyone who is able can download the code and modify it however they want often only having to give credit to the origin of the code itself.
The term "open source" has been used in reference to a theological construction that is not limited to a priesthood or special elite group that has been given special permission to modify it. If we look at the term "orthodoxy" as correct teaching, there have been those in the history of Christianity, and arguably all religious movements, who have kept the correct teaching of the church regarding revealed Truth. Those who keep the correct teaching protect it and so, close it off from any outside modification. If you do not have special license to access it, you also have no rights to modify it. Modification of orthodoxy is called "heterodoxy" and is often declared "anathema" or "heresy."
The term "open-source" may often be used as a subversive term to suggest a revolt against those who seal off revealed truth as orthodoxy from others and thus cordon off who has rights to modify it. It is subersive because it deconstructs the social boundaries between those who see it as their calling to protect orthodoxy from those who see the very core of orthodoxy as something quite mutable and ever-changing by its relation to its specific socio-cultural context. Open source theology seen this way is as much a political act of social protest as it is a theological reconstruction to refigure what "orthodoxy" actually means.
In fact, as Wentzyl van Huyssteen has argued, this idea of open-source has created not just one theology and not just one rationality, but multiple theologies and rationalities. To take this further, there is thus never one "orthodoxy" set off from often radically different cultures, but orthodoxy is something that is itself constituted by its often radically different cultural settings. The idea of Orthodoxy has never really existed, but has always been a jumble of orthodoxies that cannot exist apart from often radically different and oppositional social frames.
So what is the problem? Not everyone in a given culture has the wherewithal to access the source "code"! While Western and even Northern cultures have made rather profound strides in terms of access to this "code" of orthodoxy for the classes of the knowledge producing and holding elites among minority races, genders, and slowly those of differing sexual preferences, the idea of class continues to evade the common language around so-called "open-source" theology. The question is if we are going to promote an "open-source theology", who is it that actually has access and then the power, ability, and influence to make significant and lasting changes?
The truth, as it is with open-source code in information technology, is that only those with the educational and social abilities, far more often than not constituted by their social class, to gain access can participate in anything "open-source." It moves a dejure political boundary between elite (priesthood) and other classes (laypersons) to a defacto class split between those with the knowledge and influence to make changes to a received orthodoxy. These are those with the affluence, political power, and social influence who are able to reconstruct the source code in the theology itself. Those who do not have this kind of access may be left to construct their own local theologies. At best this creates multiple and local orthodoxies that may not have any impact beyond such local contexts. What is amazing is that even this will be constructed by those with the class position who have the ability to do so and without clear opportunity for social mobility! The problem of class only replicates itself all the way down. Thus, the multiplicity of orthodoxies become increasingly incommensurate and perpetuation of social class segregation will continue.
So… If you have ever heard the term "open-source theology" as something revolutionary and subversive to existing political and social structures that control the meaning of "orthodoxy", step back and ask yourself, who is actually here participating in the reconstruction? Who really has access to change the theology? If there are those who probably sould be here but are not, why are they not here? If they are not here, have we oly perpetuated a sinful class segragation that even Jesus was adamant about Christian communities eliminating? It is not open source and never will be until the problem of class in our theology and our churches is left ignored or left to segregated enclaves from which the majority remains virtually unaffected.
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