Monday, October 31, 2005

Why it begins, but doesn't end, with the Bible

In my wishful summary of the Wesleyan Church, one of the characteristics I mentioned was "catholic in spirit, but all discussions begin with the Bible." The inference was that while they begin with the Bible, they can't end with the Bible.

At first hearing, this statement sounds wrong, even heretical. But it is not a matter of should, it's a matter of "can only be this way."

The only way that a discussion could end with the Bible was if we were only talking of one statement in the Bible. For example, Leviticus 19;19 says not to wear cloth of mixed thread. It is conceivable that you might begin and end the discussion of cloth-wearing right there.

But when we are talking about the Bible as a whole--and that's the way people refer to the Bible in these contexts, "What does the Bible say...?"--it is impossible for the discussion to end with a single verse unless that single verse is the only statement on that topic. In this case, I think Leviticus 19:19 may very well be the only verse on wearing mixed threads. Yet do we really think God forbids us from wearing polyester? There must be something beyond Leviticus.

In the end, there are two reasons why reading the Bible in context demands that discussions do not end with the Bible:

1. Because the task of fitting together teaching in the Bible is something we do from the outside looking in. The Bible itself does not tell us how to fit James and Romans together. We must therefore settle the question of justification by faith or works beyond the pages of the Bible as we look on both of these books.

2. Because the task of relating what God said to various ancient contexts to what God would say to our context is something we do from the outside looking in. The Bible itself does not tell us what a "holy kiss" might look like in our world or for that matter whether "living good lives among the pagans" today would involve wives calling their husbands masters (1 Pet. 3).

Of course most Christians mistake the joining together and time bridging activities they do--sometimes as individual thinkers, sometimes as a part of a particular Christian tradition--for the Bible itself. They dub something the "biblical view" when it is in fact a product of their own paradigms. In either case, whether a person is conscious of it or not, the discussion rarely if ever really ends with the Bible.

But all discussions should begin with the Bible, for it is a sacrament of revelation and the "deposit" of the foundation of the apostles and prophets. It gets the greatest weight in the great discussion, even if the final touches were and are being put on in the church of the ages. We are simply suggesting something akin to what has been called Wesley's quadrilateral, which takes tradition, experience, and reason into the equation.

This is a call for greater maturity for modern evangelicalism. Rightly recognizing developments in the medieval Roman Catholic Church that had little to do with the foundations, the reformers rightly championed a movement "back to scripture." But in the end, the idea of sola scriptura ultimately threatens orthodoxy by denying authentic developments in the church of the ages. It is a recipe for cults and 10,000's of Protestant denominations as each group sews Scripture together and proclaims their own Frankenstein the meaning of the text alone.

I cannot predict what will happen to evangelicalism in the future--religious belief is persistent and generally ignores truth when it is paradigmatically inconvenient. On the other hand, I see strong signs that many evangelical thinkers are becoming more honest in their exegesis. And as they are, they recognize that we will need a bit of the church beyond the Bible to remain orthodox. This is the "catholic in spirit, while all discussions begin with the Bible" that I mentioned in that previous post.

At least that's the way I see it...

7 comments:

Heather Cooper said...

Great post Dr. Schenck. Yet it's a scary thing. Scripture gives us the foundation on which to build our theology but there is so much "midrash" out there that it blurs the Truth. As I study scripture more and more it seems that mainline Christianity in America is "fluffy" and enjoys having their ears tickled. Or maybe i'm being a bit to pessimistic. Is the future of evangelicalism amounting to a buffet in which you serve up a hearty portion of whatever comfort theology that satisfies your hunger?

Scott D. Hendricks said...

Dr. Schenck, what you said is SO TRUE. I just reconnected with a friend from high school who is now attending an Apostolic church, which believes in the Oneness of Christ theology, a kind of Jesus modalism. It makes me wonder how important truth, or "getting it right," is to our salvation.

Ken Schenck said...

You know, that movement was strong on campus last year it seems. I wonder how fast it is growing. It started back in the 20s I think, but seems to be compelling to many who don't know how to handle tensions in the biblical text.

::athada:: said...

Ken Schenck sounding like Rob Bell?! What has happend to my pretty universe that once existed?

In "Velvet Elvis", Rob says something to the effect of your post. He talks about how people want to go to a Church that "just preaches the Bible". What s/he really means is that they preach the Bible the way s/he sees the Bible interpreted. Sure, sola scriptura. But God used to Church herself to decide what the Bible actually consisted of! Is that a circular definition?

Interpreting and dechipering the scriptures, to me, feels like a great wrestling match - my thoughts, my experience, and this volume of works that is supposedly just "Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth". I've been exposed to so much that I hardly know who to turn to and who to believe. I almost want a Church (one holy... catholic... church) to tell me what it means and supercede my puny spin on it all!

Then I suppose someone will come up with 95 reasons why that can't be so...

(Is that a valid historical connection? Oh, my theology and my writing need a bit of work...)

Kevin Wright said...

I think we owe much of our inherited view of interpretation to Mr. Wesley's time and place of birth. Perhaps if he had been born on continental Europe in the mid-1500's we wouldn't have a quadrilateral. Thankfully, Wesley's Anglican roots as well as distance from the echos of Luther's "Sola Scriptura" helped him formulate a well rounded hermenutic that allows for an elastic reading of the Bible not constrained to fundamentalistic practice.

Jake Hogan said...

I have to say that I agree with you, Dr. Schenck. The Bible alone is a poor base for one's beliefs. As much as protestants want to pretend they ignore tradition, the truth is that many take just enough to be considered Christians but not enough to be considered authoritative. Of course, then you have those Jesus-centered modalist pentecostals that Scott mentioned... They don't have authority or Christianity.

Mike Cline said...

They don't have authority or Christianity?
Apparently, we, the "real Christians," don't have a lot of generosity either.

But I suppose that statement wasn't all that generous either. Sorry, bad night I guess.