Customized Christianity: Burklo's Bible

While browsing another blog, I came across an article by Jim Burklo entitled "How To Live As a Christian Without Having to Believe the Unbelievable." Within, Rev. Burklo--the Associate Dean of Religious Life at the University of Southern California, an ordained United Church of Christ pastor, and the author of books on progressive Christianity--lays out his vision of a Christianity which allows the adherent to pick and choose buffet style which beliefs to accept provided a set of core ethical values is maintained.

There is a great deal of commendable observation in Burklo's article, provided of course it is read in isolation of his broader argument. In particular, his assertion that the Bible is not self-aware is a sermon that I never tire of preaching. His recognition that the full scope of Christianity with its manifold traditions, doctrines, and mythology is a hard pill to swallow for many modern seekers is perhaps the defining problem for Western evangelism in today's world. The reminder that Christianity is neither an ancient legal code nor a modern political ideology is among the most necessary messages for American Christians.

Nevertheless and unsurprisingly, I find most of Burklo's points as well as his overarching message to be severely flawed, both by his own internal logic and by legitimate external standards. I am certainly not one to suggest that the Bible should be confused with a history book or, worse still, a science book. Just the opposite. Moreover, I have never been one to use the forms of creeds as tests of fellowship. Barton Stone would turn over in his grave. I admit a great deal of latitude in recognizing and drawing conclusions from the human components of Scripture, at least by majority Christianity standards. With all that said, however, I have the following objections to Burklo's vision of Christianity.

1. Burklo mistakenly implies an oppositional relationship between believing creeds, doctrines, and "fantastic stories" on the one hand and living like Christ on the other.
2. Burklo fails to make any meaningful distinction between essential and non-essential data in Scripture when suggesting what might be disregarded as non-factual.
3. Equating the "divine spark" in Christ with the divine spark in all is idolatrous, anachronistic, unbiblical, and reenforces the need for the Christological dogma found in the creeds.
4. The desire to focus only one what Jesus said and not what he did is self-defeating.
5. Burklo confuses ethics with religion, and thereby fails to grasp the comprehensiveness of Jesus' mission.

I will treat each of these more fully over the next few days, hopefully with uncharacteristic brevity, with the intent of moving toward a Christianity that can be forward thinking without divorcing itself from its past and, equally importantly, away from a Christianity which is comfortable with sentiments such as, "If [doctrines] don’t make sense to you, don’t worry about them."

Quantifying Christianity?

Are you really a Christian? I mean, really. You may answer yes, but Changing the Face of Christianity reserves the right to disagree. They have constructed this very scientific quiz to determine just who makes the grade and who doesn't. (Though, rest assured, "This index is not intended to pass judgment on you. Instead, use it as a gauge of how well you reflect Jesus Christ both internally and externally.") There are four categories of classification: far from Christ, worldly Christian, good Christian, and spiritually mature. I am ashamed to admit--so deeply, deeply ashamed--that, upon completing rigorous ten question assessment, I just barely made the cut for "good Christians."

Now normally I am a wise enough person not to put much stock in the results of online quizzes. (I lost all faith after Quibblo told me I was a Ron when I am clearly a Hermione...a very manly Hermione.) Unfortunately, however, this quiz seems to actually be making news--or at least popping up regularly in my news feed from a variety of sources--with its claim that one out of every three professed Christians in America actually falls into "worldly Christian" or below category. According to Changing the Face of Christianity founder R. Brad White, people in this group have admitted through his test that "they rarely live the teachings of Jesus Christ."

Of course, the biggest problem with this project is the nonsensical idea that one can quantify Christianity on a multiple choice quiz. Perhaps in an age when there were fixed, catholic formulas for orthodoxy (and such an age exists only in the ignorant imaginations of nostalgic minds) that sort of cut-and-dry ten question litmus test might fly, but who is and isn't a Christian becomes much more difficult in the real world. What we have today, and have always had, is more of an ethical sampler platter where we can all identify Christian positions and non-Christian positions, but for the most part we can also all recognize that there is a tremendous field of uncertainty where confident categories cannot be widely agreed upon.

Consider this example, the first question on the quiz:

1. When someone recklessly cuts you off in traffic, do you:

• Say or "gesture" angrily at the other driver
• Not get angry, but think about what COULD have happened to you and your passengers
• Thank God you weren't hurt, and pray for the safety of other drivers
• Control your tongue/temper, but think angry thoughts

I'll go ahead and admit that as often as not what I actually do is the fourth option. What I strive for, given the options presented, is the second answer. I think it is probable, though they do not offer an answer sheet for those who have completed the test, that the "correct" answer is to thank God and pray for the safety of other drivers. Perhaps someone would like to explain to me how someone's spiritual maturity can be called into question because they do not pray for the safety of drivers whenever they get cut off. If we want to talk about living the teachings of Jesus, what he taught us to do is to go into a closet and pray privately. He lived a marvelous example of that in that most (arguably all) of the Gospel references to Jesus praying involve him going off alone to do it somewhere in private. Now if someone, say perhaps me, were to believe that prayer is a more serious matter demanding more gravitas than a few rote words muttered from behind the wheel or that being innocent as doves and shrewd as vipers allows someone to refuse anger and still be cognizant of the dangers presented by reckless driving, such a person might grade the quiz differently, declaring that those who pray every time they're cut off are good but not great Christians. Of course, I would never make a test.

It is possible, of course, that I have improperly inferred the intent of the test creators. Maybe option two really is the "right" one and option three is one of the stereotypes they are trying to combat. Even if that's the case though, the point still stands, because for everyone one who thinks that two is a better answer than three, there are those who think that true Christianity consists in constant, altruistic prayer. And therein lies the main problem with trying to quantify a population's Christianity.

There are of course other problems. The second question highlights it, asking how often you read your Bible but giving no indication of the portion of Jesus' teachings in which he commands Bible reading. After all, how could he, the Gospels not having yet been written during his earthly lifetime? I haven't read my Bible today. I don't think I read it yesterday or the day before. I'd like to believe that doesn't negatively reflect the strength of my faith or on my conformity to Christian ethics. That isn't to say that Bible reading is worthless. It isn't. It isn't to say I'm entirely satisfied with the amount of time I spend refreshing my memory about the teachings of Christ. I'm not. It is to say that cracking the spine of your Bible is not a magical means to faith nor is it a measure of faith. If I don't read it "Throughout the day, only missing occasionally," it isn't because I'm not living the teachings of Christ. In fact, I wonder how someone who spends so much time reading the Gospel has any time to live it at all.

There are innumerable problems with the quiz presented, but one more merits mention. The good people at Changing the Face of Christianity ask test takers how much time they spend worrying, with the implication being that worry (according to Matthew 7) is something Christians are commanded not to do. That's true, of course. The perfect Christian (perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect Christian) does not worry. Yet, the presence of worry does not necessarily indicate spiritual immaturity, in less you take that in an absolute and therefore meaningless sense. Think of the heroes of faith, the biblical characters that I hope R. Brad White wouldn't think of calling anything but spiritually mature, who have worried about the mundane things of life, doubted providence, and argued with God. One might even say that there is worry--or, if you prefer, anxiety--present in the garden when Jesus is praying (off alone, at a distance from his disciples *wink wink*). Later, the testers ask how often you do things privately of which you might be ashamed. Paul, who thinks himself mature enough to comment on the spiritual maturity of others, admits struggles against the baser instincts of his own flesh. Our inclination to hagiographical excess to one side, it is perhaps time we all admitted out loud that, recorded or not, it is safe to assume that our biblical heroes all sinned, even after they were redeemed in Christ.

Here we come back to an essential problem, one perhaps even more foundational than our own ethical uncertainty and tendency toward qualified pluralism. The very attempt to classify Christians in this way fundamentally misunderstands the sanctification process. Our lives are not about achieving a state of spiritual maturity. Spiritual maturity is the carrot dangled in front of us which we pursue but never achieve because perfection is an infinite virtue and not attainable concretely by finite beings. The people at Changing the Face of Christianity have some admirable goals. "Their mission is to reverse Christian intolerance, hypocrisy, homophobia, judgmentalism, and other negative Christian stereotypes, by helping Christians to be more like Jesus Christ." That's great and should be incorporated into the mission statement of every local church. Still, even if the questions were more exhaustive or more carefully chosen or if they could actually find an answer which all Christians could agree was right, it still would be a failed endeavor because the categories that matter on continuum of spiritual maturity are not qualifiers which range from worst to best. The real issue of consequence is progress versus stagnation. I feel more spiritual kinship with the angry, foul-mouthed, bigot who fights and fails to change his acknowledged flaws than the elder's wife who donates all her time to charity but confuses contentedness in her righteousness with contentedness in the saving graces of God.

But maybe that's why I failed the test.

The Wisdom of Parley Pratt

From a historical standpoint, the following obviously needs to be read in the context of Pratt's ardent Mormonism, which brings to the quote a subtle endorsement of the divine authority of Joseph Smith generally and the Book of Mormon specifically. In a strictly inspiration context, however, one can view Pratt's sentiment as a bulwark against the perennial temptation of bibliolatry; in it can even been seen a hint of the Orthodox notion that all things good and true function as icons directing a person toward God who is Goodness and Truth. In "The Fountain of Knowledge," Pratt argues:

The scriptures are sacred and true, and useful in their place. Although they are not the fountain of knowledge, nor do they contain all knowledge, yet they point to the fountain, and are every way calculated to encourage men to come to the fountain and seek to obtain the knowledge and gifts of God.

J. W. McGarvey: On Scripture

The following is part of an ongoing commentary on J. W. McGarvey's Sermons Delivered in Louisville Kentucky. For an introduction to and table of contents for the series, see Happy Birthday, J. W.
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It is both ironic and unfortunate that J. W. McGarvey’s collection of sermons should begin with the address entitled “Inspiration of the Scriptures.” It is ironic because this opening salvo in his Sermons Delivered in Louisville, Kentucky was in fact given before the YMCA of the University of Missouri. It is unfortunate because, in spite of my admiration for McGarvey and the great deal of inspiration I draw from him, there could hardly be a subject on which we differ more completely or more profoundly than the inspiration of Scripture. With dry, scientific precision that has fallen out of favor in our contemporary culture of sensationalism, McGarvey seeks to demonstrate that Scripture is inspired, that this inspiration is self-evident, and that it grounds the authority of Scripture. I have no qualms, necessarily, with the first two purposes (though I imagine McGarvey and I would differ over precisely what all the relevant terms mean), but it has been my longstanding mission to correct the erroneous notion in American Christianity that scriptural authority is rooted in special inspiration. McGarvey specifically situates his claim in response to emerging documentary theories of Old Testament authorship and new historical assertions about the authors of the Gospels. With the benefit of hindsight, we know that many of the bloated claims of late nineteenth century scholars require extreme qualification if not outright rejection. For McGarvey, however, there can be only one reply: Scripture is the work of the traditional authors under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. While I think there is value to the sermon outside this main (but misguided) theme, in historical fairness to McGarvey it seems necessary to at least outline his argument.

McGarvey has little trouble establishing from Scripture that the Bible is inspired and passes over that task without fanfare. The main body of his message is dedicated to establishing the self-evident nature of biblical inspiration, a fact which, for him, is manifest in the peculiar nature of the Scriptures. Making his focus specifically the historical books of the New Testament, McGarvey endeavors to show that—deviations in personal style not withstanding—there is a common character to the biblical text which is entirely unprecedented “almost from time immemorial.” He notes the brevity with which the authors write and their calmness in treating extraordinary events. He marvels at their candor about facts which one would expect to be glossed over and their silence about the events and topics the reader most wants to know. Consistent with the spirit of his times, McGarvey even appeals to the quasi-miraculous ability of Scripture to affect good in the world, more or less independently of human agency. With gusto, he exhorts his young listeners to seize hold of the foundational truth of biblical inspiration and to carry their infallible text into battle, into “the field of debate with the ablest of its enemies.” Many of McGarvey’s arguments about a common and unique character can be countered in modern times by discoveries of ancient documents with similar features. To his audience, however, McGarvey was almost certainly convincing.

There is no surprise there; as almost always the case, it is easiest to persuade those who already agree with your position. There is a more essential truth about the Gospel as it is presented in Scriptures that underlies McGarvey’s message and which, I would suggest, is fruitful for ongoing consideration. Regardless of our moment in history and regardless of the culture we inhabit, there is a strong sense when reading Scripture that it refuses to conform to our expectations. Of course, this sense would undoubtedly have been less pronounced to the original audience, but I suspect there are common features of the human condition which come to Scripture with a set of expectations to which the text refuses to conform. McGarvey hits on at least two which possibly have universal application: the reticence of Scripture and the absence of speculation.

With regard to the first, McGarvey marvels at the great omissions in Scripture, its refusal to answer the questions which seem naturally foremost in the mind. He offers, as one example, the extensive treatment given to the martyrdom of Stephen and the equally brief report of the martyrdom of James. Without in any way trying to diminish Stephen, McGarvey rightly observes that the death of James ought naturally to assume a higher priority in the Christian narrative. After all, James was not only one of the twelve but one of three members of Jesus’ “inner circle” (if it is meaningful to talk about such a thing). His death certainly meant more to the Jerusalem community and to the church at large than Stephen’s who is, in narrative terms, merely a flash in the pan. It could be that the original audience had already heard the story of James and needed to be told of the trials of Stephen. More likely, the martyrdom of Stephen functions in the Lukan scheme in important ways that the death of James does not. In either case, there is a longing on the part of any interested reader for a fairer treatment of the material. The lust is always for just a little more information where something is suspiciously lacking, in spite of the knowledge that a comprehensive story would fill the earth. Whether it is glaring omissions, such as the entire adolescence of Jesus, or more subtle silences, the Bible by design or by necessity firmly declares: “You will know this much and no more.”

Similarly, there is a marked rejection on the part of the biblical authors to engage in the kind of speculation that has characterized most great religious thought since. McGarvey speaks of it as the infallibility of the biblical authors, but, when the baggage that term carries is removed, what he is really interested in highlighting is how more-than-human the biblical authors sound. “On all subjects and on all occasions they speak with a confidence which knows no hesitation, and which admits no possibility of a mistake.” With none of the characteristic tentativeness with which all authors subsequent (and many parabiblical authors previous) write, the biblical authors do not invite us to question whether they are right or wrong. They leave no space for disagreement (even in Paul’s insistence that Christians should have space for disagreement), no wiggle room where often times we would want it most. “Was this the result of stupidity and of overweening self-conciousness?” McGarvey thinks not, and I am inclined to agree. He suggests it was inspiration; I suppose it was confidence in the messiah being proclaimed. In either case, people in every time—and increasingly in our age of customization—have always demanded room to maneuver and, if they are wise, have always been proportionally qualified in their assertions as they become increasingly grandiose. (A statement, perhaps, on the wisdom or folly of American politicians.) The biblical authors never offer speculations, however; they offer declarations “on some themes which have baffled the powers of all thinkers, such as the nature of God, his eternal purposes, his present will, angels, disembodied human spirits…”

McGarvey’s list goes on, as could a list of the ways Scripture refuses to bow to our expectations of it. Like Pharisees bring questions to Christ, we find our own demands of Scripture paradoxically and simultaneously met and rebuffed. It answers us in riddles or on questions we had never thought to ask; it answers us with stories we cannot shake and commands we cannot meet (or help but meet because they are commanded of us). Given what it purports to be, the Bible is spectacularly troublesome book. It lacks the fluidity and vagueness of a loosely defined religious philosophy such as many found in the East or manifesting now in the West. It lacks the clarity and exhaustiveness of legal codes, past or present. It demands that we balance its spirit with its letter and recognize that the two are inseparable. Ultimately, it is an icon which directs us to a God who is at once fundamentally inaccessible and lovingly beckoning us to Himself. Of course, this was the not the message McGarvey primarily aimed at conveying, but I would like to think that his image of a Scripture which pointed to the Holy Spirit as its ultimate author would admit an understanding of the text whose unusual nature served as a vehicle for encountering an unusual Father.

More Press for the NIV

The fourth quarter edition of the Magnolia Messenger includes a surprisingly balanced, level-headed critique of the new NIV under the relatively inoffensive title "Not Your Father's NIV." It is by no means the kind of thoughtful, scholarly analysis that should be given priority in the discussion, but it does, at the very least, rise above the level of frothing invective. Go figure.

The Trojan Horse of Error

The July edition of the Gospel Advocate has a scathing article denouncing the most recent update of the NIV as "a Trojan horse of error that will destroy the faith of many." The author further charges the translators with having suffered an "erosion of faith" and embracing "the errors of current Protestant theology that [the translation] poses a threat to sound doctrine." In short, "the updated NIV is a greater danger to faith than any other major English version of Scripture."

While I certainly do not agree with all the changes being made, I am equally opposed to this kind of alarmist language which attributes to the discretion of translators the power to make or break faith or distills differences of opinions into a loss of true Christian piety. I find the spirit of the article objectionable, but--since facts are more easy to quantify an objection to--I will turn to the two features of the translation which the author.

The first supposed flaw of the updated translation is its embrace of feminist theology. As expected, this takes the form in part of a shift toward gender inclusive language. A general skepticism is, of course, warranted by the politically motivated shift to take gender exclusive language from a language that has gender inclusive terms and translate it into gender inclusive language in a language that is notoriously resistant to gender inclusivity. Certainly the more intellectually honest approach is to leave the text as it stands and allow readers to infer inclusivity rather than to misrepresent the language in an effort to offer what the translator has decided is an accurate representation of the spirit. Where I stop short, however, is joining the author in his judgment that "the feminist agenda is rampant in the revised NIV."

What the new edition displays is at most an overcorrection for centuries of failures--due mostly to the shortcomings of English, but perhaps in part to the androcentrism of our culture--to correctly render genuinely inclusive biblical language. For every Acts 18:27, which the author points out scandalously implies that "the sisters were involved in writing the letter" of introduction for Apollos, there is a counter-example such as 1 Corinthians 7:24 which, in the traditional gender exclusive, is theological nonsense. In fact, the verse in 1 Corinthians provides a particularly potent example. The 1984 NIV, which the articles author voices few if any objections to, renders the text "Brothers, each man, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation God called him to." Taken literally, Paul seems to free women here to do as they please relative to their social status: slaves can revolt, wives can desert, and so on. Of course, such a suggestion is nonsense since Paul only verse before explicitly included women in his teaching. What's more, the verse itself does not have the gender exclusive "each man" as the translator renders it. It merely says "each" and leaves the reader to supply the noun (which in this case is probably the gender inclusive, grammatically masculine term anthropos). It is almost as if the newer translation gets it right in rendering the text "each person."

In fairness to the article's author, however, there is more to the "feminist" shift than simple gender inclusive language. Specifically, the author cites a change in the language of 2 Timothy 2:12, which the old version rendered "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent" but which in the new edition reads "I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet." Outrageous, no? The author suggests that, with this shift, "the revised NIV is parroting theories advocated by feminist theologians" which allow for a woman to lead provided she is offered this authority rather than seizing it for herself. While clearly not the scholar of feminist thought that the article's author is, I can certainly tell you that the shift from "have" to "assume" (which is within the semantic range of the term authenteo) does not change the four principle features of this verse: (1) women cannot teach, (2) there are restrictions on women's authority, (3) women ought to be quiet. The fourth, of course, is that this passage will still represent the number one reason that feminists are angry at the Bible no matter how you try to blunt the translation.

The second flaw, which curiously is offered less space than the feminist invasion, is the way the new NIV seems to undermine a young earth theory of creation. The author notes a troubling "attempt to destroy a literal reading of the creation account" through "imposed" formatting which "indicates the creation narrative is to be
read as poetry." The article takes aim at those who would capitulate to theories of an old earth or evolution which just happen to be en vogue at the moment. "The translators of the NIV brush aside a literal understanding of creation and reduce all difficulties to poetic incidentals. You don’t want to believe in six days of creation with God specially calling everything into existence? No problem. The opening section of the revised NIV lends itself to theistic evolution or any other theory you might want to embrace." What the author does not address is how simply breaking the text up into metered lines can somehow open up new hermeneutical possibilities not before available. Does he not realize that theories of theistic evolution and non-literal readings of Genesis antedate not only this aesthetic change by the editors but also such trivial historical events as the fall of the Roman Empire. Not being a scholar of Hebrew, or much of a poet, I have no idea whether or not the decision to represent Genesis 1 as poetry is warranted. I am, however, quite certain that a literal reading of the Genesis text is not dependent on the text's formatting as prose any more than a non-literal understanding is dependent on a poetic presentation. The change in text alignment is certainly not, as the author's subtitle claims, a "Destruction of Foundations" unless one's faith is founded on the span of time it took God to create the earth.

Given my largely agnostic views about the scientific origin of the universe, I find the author's protestations about Genesis 1 misguided but mostly innocuous. In contrast, it is always so unnerving for me, as someone with thoroughly conservative views about gender economics, to hear the hue and cry raised over any incursion of "liberal" or "feminist" sentiments into translations. Do we really believe that the biblical view of man- and womanhood is so vague, so fragile that it can really be undermined by translational subtleties? More importantly, what does it say about Christians when we inject such vitriol into these issues. I believe that women should stay out from behind pulpits. I do not believe that their failure to do so constitutes a lack of faith, a surrender to liberal, secular feminism, or a disqualification from salvation. While I know many, the Gospel Advocate author likely included, disagree, but even so the perceived (and I cannot stress that term strongly enough) endorsement of a different gender economy by the translators of the new NIV surely does not represent, on their part, a lack of faith, a surrender to liberal, secular feminism, or a disqualification from salvation. The divisive rhetoric that says that it does is what undermines not only all prospects of Christian unity but also any hope of evangelism in a world which already believes that Christianity's métier is infighting and unbridled dogmatism. It is, in short, bad form.

"Reason and Revelation"

During the course of my adventure into the 1880-1881 issues of the Gospel Advocate, I have chanced upon a number of amusing articles. I have particularly enjoyed some of the marital advice contained therein. It has, at one and the same time, a kind of amusing antiquity and a certain timelessness. I had something of the same reaction when reading an article by F. D. Srygley titled "Reason and Revelation." (I regret that I do not have the exact date for the purpose of more accurate citation.) Srygley, who was very nearly the subject of a recent term paper of mine, wrote the article to correct a misprint in his "Missionary Spirit vs. Missionary Plans" which said that "the Bible was given to supplant human judgment." Srygley clarifies:

It is far more reasonable to conclude the Bible was given to supplement, not supplant, human judgment. In fact, this is the only view of the matter which will comport with reason.

My immediate reaction to that was pronouncedly negative, given my belief about the fundamental nature of Scripture. Nevertheless, as I read on I was struck by the way he expressed this belief. His language in several places (particularly when presented out of context as I am about to do) has a ring of orthodoxy - dare I even say Orthodoxy - that appealed very directly to me.

It is the province of the Bible to supply what reason cannot furnish.

The axioms which constitute the foundation and beginning of revelation are wholly without the scope of unaided reason. To the mind enlightened by revelation these principles are clearly axiomatic, but to the mind destitute of inspired light they are darkly incomprehensible.

If the Bible does not occupy ground beyond the reach of human reason, it is not a revelation. Can it in any sense be considered a revelation to tell a man what he already knows?

In the article, Srygley develops the idea of complementary provinces of reason and revelation such that they form a mutually exclusive but "harmonious whole." He reacts to two opposite and equally dangerous extremes. Some make reason all sufficient and revelation only a marginal improvement on reason:

...they seem to consider the Bible only a better guide than reason concerning matters of which both have jurisdiction.

Others reject reason altogether in a perverse pietism:

Some seem to think a total rejection of human judgment an indication of great fidelity to God.

Srygley rejects both of these. Reason and revelation both have their root in God. They must each have their ordained purpose. To reject either outright or even to diminish either is to reject or diminish God. One can just as easily reject reason as proper to the human person as he can reject the Bible as the revelation of God. "Both sins are rebellion against things of divine origin. Both proceed from a common cause." This whole philosophy gives Srygley a very healthy view of the role of Scripture in my opinion. I certainly reject the idea that the Bible is somehow synonymous with revelation - something Srygley would undoubtedly affirm - but when it comes to questions of the Bible and science or logic, I think Srygley hits the mark:

To talk about a conflict between science and the Bible, is about as sensible as to apprehend an actual quarrel and assault between one's manhood and boyhood.

God never explained in the Bible what man by reason could find out. There can never be a conflict between the Bible and geology because the Bible proposes to give no light upon the science of geology.

In the end, however, Srygley still comes out with a position on the adequacy of reason that I cannot endorse. "Human judgment properly cultivated, like revelation correctly interpreted, is absolutely safe as guide on all matters in its jurisdiction." This sentiment was enough to make me suspicious (especially because I know that Srygley is part of a tradition that sees the "correct" interpretation of revelation as being dependent on the powers of human reason), but where he finally concludes was enough to make me recoil.

Where reason is guide at all, revelation never interferes to offer a more excellent way. In fact, I apprehend that it is absolutely impossible for God by revelation to give a light superior to reason on themes within the scope of human judgment.

I agree with Srygley that reason has its proper province. I even support that it is ultimately reliable within that province (though I would say it was functionally reliable while Srygley would say its reliability is unqualified). What I cannot agree on is that God's self-revelation is in any sense restricted by human reason. I not only affirm that God's revelation can overrule, overwhelm, and even contradict human reason, this is one of the fundamental realities of the faith as far as I'm concerned. Revelation is the light which is superior to reason, even regarding things which reason purports to have grasped.

I suppose the real difference is that Srygley has confidence that what reason apprehends is in fact reality. I am more skeptical about our ability to adequately apprehend reality by the means of reason. Reason, for me, is only competent to allow us to function within reality. Reality cannot be circumscribed by reason. After all, God is real.

Rational or Spiritual Creatures?

We must believe that the Bible was addressed to rational creatures, and designed by God to be understood for their profit. When we open the Bible under the impression that it is a book of mysteries, understood only by a few learned ministers, we are at once discouraged from reading and investigating its contents. But believing it was written for our learning and profit, and therefore addressed to our understanding, we are encouraged to read and diligently search its sacred pages. - Barton Stone

I think Stone may have more closely approximated the truth if he had begun this thought with "We must believe that the Bible was addressed to spiritual creatures, and designed by God to be understood for their profit." The text of Scripture gives no indication that its contents are primarily rational, not in the way that Stone indicates, and it certainly gives just the opposite impression of divine truth. In 1 Corinthians 2:13:16, Paul writes:

This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment: "For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.

Paul explicitly denies that human wisdom can grasp the truth about God. He contrasts human discernment with a "spiritual discernment" that is rooted in our redeemed, indwelled state. Spiritual truth is expressed in spiritual words, words that presumably do not accord with human modes of thinking. For this reason the unspiritual man is incapable of accepting or even adequately grasping truth about God. It is, to him, foolishness.

Paul explains, so far as I can tell, that this is because of the radical otherness of God. Who can know the mind of God from which spiritual truth flows? It seems self-evident to Paul that humanity is incapable of knowing God apart from His spiritually discerned truths. Normal human methods, what he terms "human wisdom" earlier in the chapter and what Stone would call rationality, are inadequate because God ineffably transcends our standard modes of thinking. Only through the transformative work of the Spirit, conforming our minds to "the mind of Christ" can we begin to grasp God. Only when we teach ourselves to "think" as God "thinks" is truth made known.

It is amusing to me that if the first sentence of Stone's quote is corrected in the way I suggested, the remainder of the quote seems to follow Paul's thinking quite nicely. It becomes a critique of hyper-rationalism and the belief that the truth of the Bible rests in the hands of an intellectual elite rather than, as I think Paul would assert, in the hands of a spiritual elite. Read it again:

We must believe that the Bible was addressed to spiritual creatures, and designed by God to be understood for their profit. When we open the Bible under the impression that it is a book of mysteries, understood only by a few learned ministers, we are at once discouraged from reading and investigating its contents. But believing it was written for our learning and profit, and therefore addressed to our understanding, we are encouraged to read and diligently search its sacred pages. - Barton Stone, with revisions

The Way the Bible Reads the Bible

I am always delighted, though never surprised, to find serious flaws in the application of the supposed ideological presuppositions of the Churches of Christ. (It’s that immature, rebellious child in me that likes to lash out at my spiritual parentage.) It was a major turning point in my spiritual development when my wife asked the very innocent question, “Where does the Bible talk about selecting elders?” It took about two hours for us to finally conclude that the Bible not only never outlines the democratic selection process so popular in the Churches of Christ but actually speaks exclusively of an appointment process. Another month of posing my wife’s question to every professor I could lay hands on did little to impede my growing realization that the very framework of Restorationist belief and practice was in fact little more than a thin façade hiding rationalism and capitulation to a nineteenth century culture that is now obsolete. Calling Bible things by Bible names, doing Bible things in Bible ways, speaking where the Bible speaks and being silent where the Bible is silent - in short, restoring the first century church based only on what can be derived from Scripture - make for good slogans and bad founding principles.

My most recent reinforcement of this dismal perspective came during a course I took under Fr. John Behr at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. In the course, he addressed at length the importance of a person’s theological presuppositions in forming one’s hermeneutical presuppositions. In the context of juxtaposing Jewish and early Christian hermeneutics, Fr. Behr discussed some of the most basic beliefs about the character of Scripture in general which were shared by Jews and Christians as well as the theological disparities which yielded such radically different interpretations of the text. He made the point in passing that our own presuppositions have made it very difficult to conceive of Scripture in the way the early church did. Even simply understanding why it is certain fathers, or even the apostles, understood a text the way they did requires a complex harmony of history, theology, and exegesis. The modern person has no less a distinct starting point for biblical interpretation than did the Jews who rejected early Christian “misappropriation” of their Scriptures.

The Churches of Christ are no less guilty of this charge. In spite of claims to be restoring a first century church, a simplified Christianity with an authentic Christian mindset, Churches of Christ adopt the same basic hermeneutical launching point as most major Protestant denominations. They cling quite readily to principles of interpretation which locate relevant meaning first and foremost in a thorough and accurate exegesis of the text. Quite contrary to antique views of Scripture which held a text to be cryptic and perpetually speaking to the present, modern hermeneutics begin by stripping away any sense of mystery through scientific evaluation of what a text meant in the past. If that should happen to give insight in the present, all the better, but that is by no means an inherent characteristic of Scripture as such.

In fact, Churches of Christ may be guiltier than other groups. Their acceptance of historical-critical presuppositions is logically prior to their engagement of Scripture. The historical concept of a first century church in need of restoration and the critical belief that the plain sense of Scripture is readily accessible are the founding beliefs of the Restoration Movement which thus cloud every engagement with Scripture. Only by accepting fundamentally unbiblical ways of engaging the Bible a priori can the Churches of Christ uphold “key” beliefs, e.g. the plurality of elders, the radical autonomy of the local church, and a capella worship.

Were we to apply the “Bible things; Bible ways” principle to hermeneutics, the result would not be a historical-critical framework which locates meaning in right exegesis. That assertion ought to be self-evident, but a few simple examples should suffice to prove it nevertheless. Matthew 13:35, Mark 12:10, Luke 4:21, John 5:39, and Acts 2:16 serve as obvious illustrations of the primarily Christological interpretation of the Scriptures in the Gospels and Acts. The same basic hermeneutic continues in the epistles, e.g. 1 Cor 15:13 and 1 Pet 2:6. Other interpretations of the Scriptures include ecclesiastical (1 Tim 5:18) or theological (Gal 4:27) appropriation of Old Testament texts. The common thread, of course, is that none of these interpretations of Old Testament texts (and perhaps a New Testament one in 1 Tim 5:18) adopt the rationalistic interpretive strategy on which the Churches of Christ base everything from their ecclesiology to their deepest theology. There is little regard, if not positive disregard, for the historical context of a passage. Meaning, for the New Testament authors at least, comes not from human evaluation but only when God has “opened the Scriptures to us” (Luke 24:32).

As a closing disclaimer, let me clarify that my point is neither to undermine historical-critical hermeneutics nor to propose primarily Christological hermeneutics as an alternative. My purpose is only to illustrate a deficiency, even hypocrisy, in the way Stone-Campbell churches (of which I am a part) apply their hermeneutical presuppositions. There is a great deal of discord over a variety of issues based on whether or not the Bible approves of them. Can we have extra-congregational superstructures? Can we have instruments in worship? Can we have kitchens and gyms and fellowship halls in church buildings? What does the Bible say about this? This last question is often the first question posed. The original question, if consistency is to be maintained, would be “What does the Bible say about how to read the Bible?” Frankly, I am of the opinion that anyone honest enough to pursue that question first will be unsatisfied with the implications of the answer. I admit, however, that someone who genuinely undertakes to do Bible things in Bible ways is better than someone who only pretends to do so.