Afterthoughts - "The Bible Made Impossible"

Peter Enns: "The high view of the Bible is one that recognizes its lowliness..."

Because the Lord has used this book, The Bible Made Impossible, to make a major shift in my thinking related to God's purpose in giving us the Bible, I want to share a few unorganized thoughts about it and its impact on me personally. I'm aware that such a book will hit different people in different ways, so I want to clarify that I am writing this from where I "sit" now in my journey with God. I am now in my 60's having lived my entire life as a minister/leader in the evangelical-holiness/charismatic-missions stream of the church and having been brought up with a biblicist view of the Bible (though I didn't know to call it that). In recent years the Lord has been leading me into new ways of walking with Him and His people, changing mindsets in various areas, and this has been one of them. Others are on different journeys so may respond differently to this book...

As I said in my original post introducing this book (http://nitasbookclub.blogspot.com/2011/12/increase-of-truth-looks-like-error.html), its appeal to me was that the author boldly and unashamedly argues that the primary intention in God's giving us the Bible is to reveal His Son Jesus. That was enough for me to want to explore more in light of the increase of differing opinions today about what Scripture says.

I was not disappointed, and I am grateful to the Lord for bringing this book (and others) to my attention, and I am grateful to Christian Smith for writing it. I'll begin with a summary statement in the book about the purpose of the Bible and then share a few thoughts about why this has meant so much to me personally (without trying to flesh them all out, which would take many pages).

Notice in this summary statement of the purpose of the Bible that everything listed is with Jesus at the core of it: "It witnesses to the incarnate person and work of Christ. It offers apostolic theological reflections on Christ for the church and the world. It shows the difference that Christ made in human life during the earliest years of the church. It tells us who and what we really are in light of Christ. And it sends us on a mission in life in response to the good news of Christ..."

How The Bible Made Impossible impacted me

1. It affirmed and has given me language and boldness for what I have intuitively understood for many years - that Jesus is always the center of God's focus in scripture.
2. It has urged and encouraged me to begin reading and listening to scripture with more intentional focus on Jesus - I'm discovering that this is easier said than done.
3. It has deepened my love for God in seeing once again how much He has condescended to fallen humans in the writing of scripture by the way He has given us the Bible.
   
4. It has moved me away from trying to find fool-proof biblical evidence to emphasize particular doctrines and secondary issues; this has made it easier to genuinely listen to my brothers and sisters with love and acceptance without having to agree about everything.
5. It has made me even more aware of how deeply marked our generation of western Christians has been by the Enlightenment, resulting in our being severely self-conscious analytical people who find it very difficult to accept ambiguity and mystery as a real part of a loving God and His ways. This is inspiring me to pray for the healing of our mind as God's people in America.
6. It has renewed in me an appreciation of the importance of living my life dependent on Jesus (tree of life) rather than on a "manual" that will answer all of my needs and questions (tree of knowledge).

Why I think the truth in this book matters

1. First and foremost, I'm convinced that it really does matter to Jesus that His people genuinely accept and have affection for one another. Geoffrey Bromiley says: "...the Bible can serve as a means of Christian unity only when Jesus Christ is placed at its center..." We'll always have different viewpoints on many issues, but we should be known for our love for one another, not for our attacks on one another (John 13:35). Really loving one another is difficult to do at a deep heart level if our mindset is such that we see our main calling to be that of defending secondary issues using the Bible because we believe we aren't being true to God if we don't.
2. It can help us as people of God to be less "vicious" and defensive in the eyes of the unbeliever if we are willing to be honest about confusing parts of the Bible.
3. It helps move us away from idolatry related to the Bible and puts the Living Word squarely in the place of highest honor and worship.
4. It pushes the follower of Jesus to follow Jesus, a person (as opposed to following instructions from a handbook) - to seek to know Him (with the help of scripture and God's people throughout history), to listen to Him and to obey as best we can.
5. It helps us approach God and scripture and others with a humbler, more open mind and heart.

This is sketchy, and there's more I could share, but I'll close by recommending a couple of others books that are along the lines of this book, in case you're wanting to look further into the topic. If you read the reviews on them at the amazon.com site, you'll get an idea of what they are about:

• The Blue Parakeet by Scot McKnight (http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Parakeet-Rethinking-Read-Bible/dp/0310331668/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330544536&sr=8-1)
• Inspiration and Incarnation by Peter Enns (http://www.amazon.com/Inspiration-Incarnation-Evangelicals-Problem-Testament/dp/0801027306/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1330544669&sr=1-1)
• Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today by N.T.Wright  http://www.amazon.com/Scripture-Authority-God-Bible-Today/dp/0062011952/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1330640066&sr=1-3

My prayer for myself and for God's people, particularly in the west, is that the Spirit of Jesus would cause Him to loom so large both in His written word and in our hearts that all other issues will lose their ability to distract and derail us from loving Him and others. Grace and peace to you!

The Bible Made Impossible - Chapter 7(b)

Chapter 7 - "Rethinking Human Knowledge, Authority, and Understanding" (part b)

This is my final post for covering this book; next week I plan to share personal thoughts about why I believe the ideas presented in "The Bible Made Impossible" are important and how I have been affected by this book. I will also recommend some other books along similar lines for those of you that may want to investigate further.

Understanding Different Ways of Doing by Saying
In this section Christian Smith points out some principles of communication that affect how we humans understand. He distinguishes between "locutionary" acts, "illocutionary" acts, and "perlocutionary" acts. For the sake of brevity, I'll simply quote a couple of summary statements about what this means.

"In short, locutionary acts utter or inscribe words, illocutionary acts use uttered or inscribed words to perform communications concerning the purpose or disposition of the speaker or writer, and perlocutionary acts rely on uttered or inscribed words to accomplish a particular effect in the hearer or speaker...The point of distinguishing these three speech acts is to help us to recognize that the use of speech to communicate is not a simple matter of speakers intending to make clear propositional statements that, when properly interpreted, reproduce the original propositional meaning in the minds of those receiving the statements. It is more complicated than that..."

This section is enlightening in terms of helping us understand how easily we can misinterpret the Bible because of this reality of "speech acts". (See the book for more explanation on this...) Suffice it to say that not all speech communications in scriptures are straightforward. Smith goes on to say, "Given the richness of the variety of kinds of speech acts that appear to be at work in the Bible, it seems quite inadequate to try to describe or defend scripture's truthfulness, reliability, authority, and whatever else we might say on its behalf with single, technical terms like 'inerrancy.'" The word inerrancy, which is a favorite of evangelicals, is too flat and limited and weak to represent all the virtues of the Bible in terms of what God is intending to communicate through it.

Using the Genesis 1-2 creation account, Smith gives an example of a possible misinterpreting of what God intended the scripture to do in the reader: "...the intended perlocutionary force of the Genesis 1-2 creation accounts could well be to banish rival pagan accounts of the world's origins and place the reader in awe and gratitude for the good world that Yahweh created, whereas the actual perlocutionary force on modern biblicist readers could mistakenly be to motivate them to mobilize a political movement to oppose the teaching of evolution in schools." 

He concludes this section by saying that the point of this isn't to drive us to "exegetical despair" over reading scripture but to complicate it enough so that we move away from simplistic and overly confident readings of scripture. Being aware and more careful in our approach to scripture reading addresses the problem of pervasive interpretive pluralism by helping us be more cautious related to our fallibility in understanding the Bible and God's intended "speech acts" and helps open us up to alternative readings of scripture. This more open and humble approach to reading the Bible "puts us back into the position of being acted upon by God through the words of scripture."

A Historically Growing Grasp of the Meaning of the Gospel
In this section Smith goes on the assumption that the canon of scripture, for all practical purposes is closed (though he has an interesting footnote on this). But even with this assumption, the church has recognized historically that the progressive understanding and working out of the full meaning and implications of the gospel has never been and is still not complete. "The authors of the New Testament did not understand and work out all the long-term implications of the gospel for theological knowledge, human life, and society. They just didn't, and there is no need for us to have to say that they did." 

What the New Testament authors did do was to give us all that we need to know as a theological starting point and also modeled "the substantial beginnings of believers working out what the gospel means in a particular sociohistorical context." Smith says that this is absolutely crucial for us and is not the same thing as what biblicism says, which is that the NT authors did understand and work out all of the long-term implications of the gospel for theological knowledge, human life, and society.

In other words, the author is saying that we cannot go to the New Testament and expect to find fully-developed and precisely articulated doctrines about God and Jesus. Generations of believers throughout church history and up until now have been doing this; he gives as examples issues such as slavery, mutual personal love in marriage, full humanity and dignity of women, etc. "The apostles understood and preached the truth of salvation in Jesus Christ. But they did not know and teach the fullness of the many implications of that truth for doctrine, relationships, and society. That was a task given to subsequent generations of believers across history..."

Smith understands scriptures such as Jesus' talking about the development and growth of the kingdom (Mt. 13:24-33; Lk. 13:18-21), His promise of the Holy Spirit's coming and guiding into all truth (Jn. 16:13); His telling His disciples that He had much more to tell them but they couldn't understand it all then (Jn. 16:12), etc., are suggestions in scripture that it would take time and learning for God's people to grasp the fullness of His truth.

This understanding helps deal with the problem of biblicism and pervasive interpretive pluralism because, unlike biblicism's limited belief about revelation and static view of knowledge that insists that all of the gospel's implications can only be found in the Bible, this view understands the Bible's presentation of the gospel to be "a dynamic, living, active force of truth in human life and history...the change in the frame of mind that this view involves entails a deemphasizing of Bible passages as collections of complete and final teachings on every subject imaginable."

Approaching the Bible in this way could help those taking different stands on issues to back away from "tightly wound arguments about the 'biblical' authority of their incompatible views. The debate could then be set within a larger, better theologically and historically informed, and hopefully more constructive framework of discussion."

Conclusion
Christian Smith acknowledges that his proposals in this book are not the complete answer to this need in evangelicalism, but he challenges American evangelicals to be willing to do the hard work together of coming up with a truly evangelical way of approaching scripture that is honest and edifying and unifying. I'll end this with one last quote from the book:

"Evangelicals need to realize that the Bible is not a 'how to' book. It is a 'HERE IS WHO' book. First and foremost it tells everyone: Here is who Jesus Christ is and therefore here is who you are and need to become in relation to him...the indicative must precede and define the imperative. What we need to do (the imperative) can only ever make sense in terms of the truth about reality (the indicative). The imperative must always be grounded on and operating from within the indicative. The indicative is the risen, living, and reigning Lord, Jesus Christ. Everything else, including imperatives, follows from there..."

The Bible Made Impossible - Chapter 7(a)

Chapter 7 - "Rethinking Human Knowledge, Authority, and Understanding (part a)

This is the final chapter of the book, "The Bible Made Impossible." In it Christian Smith proposes that part of the way we read the Scripture in a truly evangelical way is by reconsidering how we think 1) about human knowledge, 2) about the authority of the texts, and 3) about what it means as humans to understand anything. So in large part, it's a brief study of humans and how we hear and learn.

Breaking from Modern Epistomology
Smith begins the chapter with a challenge to American evangelicals, saying that the "motive to use biblicism to domesticate and control scripture and the gospel, rather than to open ourselves to be shaken and altered by its message, comes directly from a modern outlook, from modernity and the Enlightenment." 

He contends that although we evangelicals claim a modernity-resisting identity, we have unwittingly bought into Enlightenment thinking lock, stock and barrel, especially related to how we understand the way humans learn and know. This is called "epistomological foundationalism" and Smith defines it as "a conviction that rational humans can and must identify a common foundation of knowledge directly up from and upon which every reasonable thinker can and ought to build a body of completely reliable knowledge and understanding." In other words, we assume that the way to gain reliable knowledge is easy and certain if we build on a common foundation.

The evangelicals' argument has been that this foundation of sure knowledge to build upon is the Bible text and nothing else. "Without realizing it, evangelicals embraced a view of scripture that was more driven by Cartesian and generally modern preoccupations with epistemic certainty than by scripture itself and a long tradition of scriptural interpretation..." He is proposing that our modern obsession with the "certainty of knowledge" (more than gospel concerns) has been the driving factor in our approach to scripture.

The author is quick to warn that the answer to this is NOT to go the way of radical postmodern relativism. However, the legitimate fear of postmodern relativism shouldn't keep us stalled out in Enlightenment "foundationalism." He says there are alternatives and briefly touches on one: "critical realism". He goes on to explain this approach to learning as one which takes into account the variables there are in the way humans know - while insisting on objective reality so that the learners pursue truth as it is and not as they wish it to be. "Critical realism brings to the table a number of crucial meta theoretical understandings about reality and knowledge that tend to foster openness and humility in inquiry...", as opposed to taking polarizing positions that make it difficult for genuine learning and growing together in truth. (See more on this in the book.)

Not Starting with a Theory of Inspiration
In this section Smith touches on the issue of the authority of the Bible, pointing out that it wasn't until after the Reformation that Christians even tried to elaborate on a "deductive theory" of inspiration..."The doctrine of inspiration came to play an especially important role in conservative American Protestantism in the 19th century, in response to the same threats to religious authority (higher criticism, modernism, etc.) that prompted Catholicism to promulgate the doctrine of papal infallibility."

After listing four points in the doctrine of inspiration, the author says that his point isn't that the doctrine of inspiration is necessarily wrong but that it isn't a helpful place to start the discussion of biblical authority since scripture itself doesn't start there. (He goes on to deal with the one passage in 2 Timothy 3:16,17 that uses the word "inspiration" related to scripture.)

Smith suggests four alternatives for approaching the topic of authority, and I'll list his suggestion without explaining them:

1. Begin with the content of the texts themselves, being as unprejudiced as possible by a preconceived theory of inspiration.
2. Learn about how the texts that make up the NT canon came to be there in the first place. (He points out that the early church was without the Bible as we know it for almost 400 years.)
3. Begin by paying close attention to ways that the church has interpreted scripture for the last 2,000 years.
4. Start to pay much greater attention than we have to how Christian believers read and interpret scripture in other parts of the world.

"...listening to and learning from the interpretive approaches to scripture of other (but not necessarily only) evangelical Christians from very different parts of the world can help to reveal blind spots, challenge parochial views, offer insightful perspectives on the same texts, and suggest helpful ways to resolve differences of understanding within the American evangelical world..."

I'll complete this chapter in a day or so...

The Bible Made Impossible - Chapter 6

Chapter 6 - "Accepting Complexity and Ambiguity"

The essence of this chapter is that we should accept that there are complexities to the Bible that are beyond our ability to figure out and that we learn to be content with ambiguity as followers of Jesus. I'll attempt to hit some highlights in the chapter...

Embracing the Bible for What it Obviously Is
Quoting Peter Enns, the author writes that we should "confess at the outset, along with the historic Christian church, that the Bible is the word of God (written). That is our starting point, a confession of faith, not creating a standard of what the Bible should look like and then assessing the Bible on the basis of that standard...Once we confess that the Bible is God's word, we can look at how it is God's word."

So for example, instead of saying, "Here is what God must have given us in the Bible, so let's make it so," it would be better to say, "Here are the Scriptures that God in his wisdom has delivered to us. Bless his name. How ought we best to read and understand them?" This is a humble and trusting attitude towards God and His wisdom and love for humans in giving us the Bible.

I was blessed by this quote from Gordon Fee (respected Bible teacher and theologian): "God did not choose to give us a series of timeless, non-culture-bound theological propositions to be believed and imperatives to be obeyed. Rather, he chose to speak his eternal word this way, in historically particular circumstances and in every kind of literary genre. By the very way that God gave us this Word, he locked in the ambiguity. One should not...insist that he give us his Word in another way or...rework his Word along theological or cultural prejudgments that turn into a minefield of principles, propositions or imperatives but denude it of its ad hoc character as truly human. The ambiguity is part of what God did in giving us the Word in this way."

The author recommends that we evangelicals embrace a view that has been in the church's history - the view of God's accommodation or condescension to human limitations concerning scripture. In other words, many church fathers and theologians throughout church history (see Smith's note recommending books on this topic) have believed that God took seriously the "qualitative difference" between created and fallen humanity and his own absolute transcendence. "It suggests that in the process of divine inspiration, God did not correct every incomplete or mistaken viewpoint of the biblical authors in order to communicate through them with their readers. That would have been distracting. The point of the inspired scripture was to communicate its central point, not to straighten out every kink and dent in the views of all the people involved in biblical inscripturation and reception along the way."

Living with Scriptural Ambiguities
The reality is that scripture is sometimes confusing and incomplete and ambiguous, but the biblicist insists that it is clear, easily understood, coherent and complete as God's revelation of His ways and will for humans. The truth is that Bible doesn't have all the information that we'd like it to have and some of the information it has is difficult to make sense of at times. "There is no reason whatsoever to openly acknowledge the sometimes confusing, ambiguous, and seemingly incomplete nature of scripture. We do not need to be able to explain everything all the time. It is fine sometimes simply to say, 'I have no idea' and 'We really just don't know.'"

The one greatest truth of all that we do need to know (that God in Christ came to earth and lived and died and rose to new life in order that we can rise to life in Him) is abundantly clear in the Bible! The revealing of this truth is God's primary purpose in giving us the gift of scriptures.

Smith goes on to confront our compulsion to force harmonization of scriptures, saying that we do better to allow for the tensions and inconsistencies. "Harmonization is usually not necessary. A postbiblicist, genuinely evangelical approach to the Bible can be content simply to let the apparent tensions and inconsistencies in scripture stand as they are. God is not shaken from heaven. Christ is not stripped of authority..."

Distinguishing Dogma, Doctrine, and Opinion
A key element in dealing with scripture is that of distinguishing between what is true dogma, what is doctrine, and what is mere human opinion. "Some Christian beliefs are nonnegotiable for any believer...The most central, sure, and important of these beliefs we may call 'dogmas'. Those occupying the middle range of centrality, sureness, and importance are in this scheme called 'doctrines.' Those which are the least of these let us call 'opinions.'"

Smith gives some examples of confusing these categories such as the pushing of some Christians of the "penal satisfaction doctrine of atonement" to the level of dogma to the point that they see those who don't adhere to that as outside the bounds of orthodoxy. Or the charismatic/Pentecostal/holiness streams' belief in a second experience that tends to view those who don't agree with this as lesser or second-class Christians.

"Doctrines" carry less weight than "dogmas", and "opinions" carry less weight than doctrines and dogmas. Learning to distinguish between these will save us from dismissing and excluding and ignoring brothers and sisters who see things differently than we do and will foster greater unity in the body of Christ. (I recommend again a great talk on this by Greg Boyd: http://whchurch.org/blog/3819/toppling-the-house-of-cards.)

The biblicist belief and assumption that scripture is simple and clear on all points to all people at all times makes it difficult to let go of our doctrines and opinions for the sake of sincerely loving and accepting our brothers and sisters who do agree on dogma.

Living on a Need-to-Know Basis
This final section of the chapter brought to mind again the contrast between the tree of knowledge and the tree of life. As fallen humans, and particularly western "enlightenment" people, we don't like to be in the "dark" about anything. Living by the tree of life means dependence on God for our "knowing" and implies trust in His unfailing and perfect love for us. Can I trust that He will make known to me what I need to know when I need to know and be at peace meanwhile with not knowing when that is His way? Smith says that "academics and intellectuals, perhaps especially evangelical biblicist ones, are particularly keen on getting answers to their questions, providing research findings, figuring out the systems, nailing down the loose ends, getting all the pieces on the table and put together...The problem is, God often does not cooperate with us. In his wisdom, God has chosen to reveal some of his will, plan, and work, but not all of it." 

The author challenges us to accept and enjoy that there is mystery in God, saying that this doesn't mean embracing problematic forms of subjectivism or mysticism..."It means readily embracing the awesome, sometimes partially understood, often known-yet-still-inscrutable story and reality of God's work in history and the cosmos through Jesus Christ."

We'll tackle the next chapter ("Rethinking Human Knowledge, Authority, and Understanding") next week. Grace and blessings on you this week!

The Bible Made Impossible - Chapter 5(b)

Chapter 5(b) - "The Christocentric Hermeneutical Key"

This is the continuation and conclusion of chapter 5 in which Christian Smith presses the point over and over again of the importance that we see all Scripture in light of Jesus and that any internal harmony in Scripture derives from its core purpose to tell us about Jesus; such harmony doesn't come from its propositions and stories fitting together in a perfect, neat puzzle.

"It (the Bible) witnesses to the incarnate person and work of Christ. It offers apostolic theological reflections on Christ for the church and the world. It shows the difference that Christ made in human life during the earliest years of the church. It tells us who and what we really are in light of Christ. And it sends us on a mission in life in response to the good news of Christ..."

The author quotes Geoffrey Bromiley: "...the Bible can serve as a means of Christian unity only when Jesus Christ is placed at its center..."

Before there was a recognized canon, the early church had what they called a "rule of faith" which was a summary of Christian truth containing "apostolic teaching" and "tradition" and "sound doctrine" and "the faith"; at the very center of this "rule of faith" was the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Later this rule of faith was used in determining which books should be included in the canon, meaning that the centrality of Jesus was the core determining issue in the formation of the canon.

Smith acknowledges that some official statements and declarations of American evangelicals have the "germ" of this Christ-centered insight, but he adds, "...such short, isolated Christocentric statements are rarely strong enough to counter the implications of the many other declarations about complete coverage, the handbook model, and so on, which tend to lead to a flat, centerless, biblicist reading of scripture...Nobody ends up explicitly denying that Christ is the purpose, center, meaning, and key to understanding scripture. But in actual practice Christ gets sidelined by the interest in defending every proposition and account as inerrant, universally applicable, contemporarily applicable..."

A Christ-centered approach to reading the Bible means that we see all of our daily issues through the "mind-transforming lens" of the big story of Jesus and of God's reconciling the world to himself in Jesus. Once we are gripped with the stunning good news of Jesus Christ, "...perhaps God wants us to figure out how Christians should think well about things like war, wealth, and sanctification, by thinking christologically about them, more than by simply piecing together this and that verse of scripture into an allegedly coherent puzzle picture." 

The author touches on how this would change preaching, making the good news about God's love in Jesus the central theme rather than focusing primarily on issues and problem-solving and secondary doctrinal matters.

Smith tackles the issue of biblicism bordering on idolatry by acting and talking as if the Bible were God's highest self-revelation. "The Bible is of course crucial for the Christian church and life. But it does not trump Jesus Christ as the true and final Word of God. The Bible is a secondary, subsidiary, functional, written word of God, the primary purpose of which is to mediate, to point us to, to give true testimony about the living Jesus Christ. The Bible did not and could not exist or have any meaning without the higher, truer, more final Word of God, Jesus Christ."

Though there is much more in this chapter, I'll conclude with Christian Smith's words as to how this way of reading and interpreting Scripture helps deal with the problem of pervasive interpretive pluralism within biblicism. He suggests three things:

1. It keeps us from turning the Bible into an idol.
2. It provides an interpretive center to direct our scripture reading.
3. If done well, it can have the healthy effect of disarming us of arguments and thereby foster more humility and openness in dialogue with others with whom we disagree.

This chapter alone (on the centrality of Jesus) makes getting this book well worth it!  Grace and peace to you this week. Next week we'll go on to chapter 6, "Accepting Complexity and Ambiguity."

The Bible Made Impossible - Chapter 5(a)

Chapter 5 - "The Christocentric Hermeneutical Key"
 This chapter begins the second part of this book in which Christian Smith proposes ways "toward a truly evangelical reading of Scripture." For me this chapter is the most wonderful chapter of the book; however, its beauty in enhanced by the chapters before it because those chapters help remove certain mindsets about the Bible that get in the way of seeing Jesus in Scripture. Because this chapter is lengthy, I will cover it with two posts.

The author  is addressing those who want to find a way (other than biblicism) to approach Scripture that is essentially faithful to the sensibilities of the evangelical tradition. He begins the chapter by defining what it means to be "evangelical": the word evangelical is the joining of two Greek words which mean "good" and "message." "To be evangelical, then, means having one's life centered on the terrifically good message that God is reconciling the world to himself in Jesus Christ... The good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is the most important thing we will ever need to hear and know, and it has the power to reframe and transform everything else...Biblicism too often traps, domesticates, and controls the life-quaking kerygma (proclamation) of the gospel in order to provide the Bible reader with the security, certainty, and protection that humans naturally want."
(We fallen humans like the security we feel in knowing things for certain; by making the Bible an easy handbook to go to - as opposed to doing the difficult work of getting to know an unpredictable and strange Person - biblicism provides answers that are easily accessible, certain and safe.) 

Smith goes on to challenge American evangelicals' "natural historical tendencies toward entrepreneurial, activist, pragmatic, immediate problem-solving, and instead spend time needed to think through matters carefully, creatively, and in interaction with the larger, longer Christian tradition." 

The Centrality of Jesus Christ 

Most of this chapter is dedicated to Jesus being "the purpose, center, and interpretive key to Scripture." Although this reality should be obvious to evangelical believers, the truth is that we have tried to make the Bible be a divine instruction manual that is universally applicable on just about any topic it seems to address; and in doing so, we miss the point of God's giving us the Scriptures, which is "all and only about the work of God in time and space in the person of Jesus Christ for the redemption of the world."

Following are quotes from other writers pertaining to this:

 Keith Ward
"For a Christian, every part of the Bible must in some way point to Christ, to the living person   of Jesus who is the Christ, and to the unlimited, liberating love of God which is revealed in Christ. To put it bluntly, it is not the words of the Bible that are 'the way, the truth, and the life.' It is the person of Christ, to whom the Bible witnesses." 

Peter Enns
"The unity of the Bible...is a unity that should ultimately be sought in Christ himself, the living word...We believe not only that the Bible is the word of God, but that Christ himself is the word...The written word bears witness to the incarnate word, Christ...The Bible bears witness to Christ by Christ's design. He is over the Bible, beyond it, separate from it, even though the Bible is his word and thus bears witness to him. Christ is supreme, and it is in him, the embodied word, that the written word ultimately finds its unity..."

John Stott
"Whenever we read the Bible, we must look for Christ. And we must go on looking until we see and until we believe."

To read Scripture in a Christ-centered way is to help us read it better but also to provide help in revising our theological mindset and method by putting God at the center, not our own ways of knowing. This brings to mind the two trees in the garden of Eden, representing two ways of knowing: through God in Christ or through independent soulish knowing apart from God.


I will complete this chapter in a day or two...

The Bible Made Impossible - Chapter 4

Chapter 4 - Subsidiary Problems with Biblicism

In previous chapters Christian Smith has made his case for the problem of "pervasive interpretive pluralism", which he believes is the biggest problem with biblicism (see chapter one for his definition of biblicism). In this chapter he tackles several other problems with biblicism that are lesser but real.

He gives nine different problems that he sees; I'll list five and give a short summary of them here:

1. Blatantly ignored teachings:  though biblicists believe that we are to obey all direct and repeated and unambiguous teachings of Scripture, there are myriad passages that we don't obey or feel no obligation to obey, such as:
• "Greet one another with a holy kiss" (five times repeated in the NT)
• "Women should remain silent in the churches" (I Cor. 14:34; 1 Tim. 2:12)
• "Do not resist an evil person" (said by Jesus Himself in Matt. 5:39)
• "...you should also wash one another's feet" (Jesus in John 13:14,15)
• etc.
2. Arbitrary determinations of cultural relativism: biblicists rightfully say that not all difficult passages should be applied to our time and culture because of historical and cultural differences, but what is not consistent or honest is the fact that biblicists typically offer no coherent explanation about which Bible passages a) are culturally relevant,  b) remain in effect in principle but may be applied in different ways depending on the particular culture, and c) remain universally binding in their specifics for all believers at all times. Examples:
• Is the passage about women being silent relevant for women and churches today?
• May God's people never eat rabbit or pork? (Lev. 11); should those who blaspheme God be stoned to death? (Lev. 24); should Christians hate those who hate God? (Psa.139:21,22); does much wisdom really bring more sorrow? (Ecc.1:18)
• Should all Christians share their material goods in common? (Acts 2:44,45); is it wrong for men to cover their heads? (1 Cor. 11:4); should unmarried men not look for wives? (1 Cor. 7:27)
• etc.
3. Strange passages: given biblicist principles, all Scripture is for our learning, but the fact is that there are some very strange passages in the Bible that are hard to know what to do with. One example is what Paul wrote to Titus (biblicists assume Paul wrote this book) about Cretans (Titus 1:12,13). What he says sounds racist and violates many of his moral teachings in other letters. So in what sense is this part of God's revealed truth and what are we supposed to learn from it today? Some other strange passages the author mentions are Gen. 6:1-4; Judges 11:29-39; I Sam. 16:23; II Chron. 18:22; Psalm 137:8,9; Deut. 21:10-14, etc.
4. Lack of a biblicist social ethic: although most evangelicals would say they believe "Jesus is the answer", not only for personal needs but for social, political, economic problems in society, "biblicism is unable to deliver one coherent, much less comprehensive, social ethic to guide a compelling 'biblical' response to contemporary social problems." One major reason (among others) for this is that the New Testament has practically nothing in it to suggest the idea of Christian political influence or social action. There are some general principles in Scripture that  can be used, but the problem of pervasive interpretive pluralism again makes a coherent Christian social doctrine impossible. "When theorists who take a basically biblicist approach try to derive a systematic Christian social ethic from scripture, they end up offering an incredibly wide range of proposals." (Smith gives examples of writings by Christians that range from one end of the political spectrum to the other...)
5. Setting up youth for unnecessary crises of faith: the author makes the point that the indefensibility of biblicism's beliefs causes unnecessary crises of personal faith for some young people when they realize that what they have been taught (the biblicist approach to Scripture) doesn't work. These young people then become prey to the teachings and influence of college and university professors who challenge the truth of the Scriptures. "Biblicism often paints smart, committed youth into a corner that is...impossible to occupy for many of those who actually confront its problems." In other words, when a young person sincerely and honestly faces the problems within biblicism, he finds himself in a place that forces him to make a decision; often that decision is to leave the faith in order to maintain integrity. (A wonderful 35-minute talk by Greg Boyd is very helpful on this topic: http://whchurch.org/blog/3819/toppling-the-house-of-cards)

 "Biblicism is not the way forward for evangelicalism. There must be a better way to understand and read the Bible. What might that be?" With this question, Smith's segues into the second part of the book, "Toward a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture."

Next week we'll cover chapter 5, a wonderful chapter on the Christ-centeredness of Scripture. Grace and peace to you this week!

The Bible Made Impossible - Chapter 3(b)

Chapter 3 - Some Relevant History, Sociology, and Psychology
The first half of this chapter dealt with the historical roots of underlying philosophical assumptions in American biblicism (see previous post). In the second half of chapter 3, Christian Smith deals with what he believes are reasons why biblicists are not troubled by the fact that there are multiple, divergent interpretations of the same biblical texts by sincere and capable evangelicals while at the same time making the claim that the Bible is easy for anyone to understand and that it speaks with one unified voice.

Why Pervasive Interpretive Pluralism is Not More Troubling to Biblicists: Sociological and Psychological Conjectures


Smith suggests that if what he's presenting is true, there ought to be great concern over it among biblicists; however, for the most part, there is none. The following are his conjectures about why this might be (I will merely "scratch the surface" of what he says about each of these):

1. The structure of social networks among biblicists. The technical word for this in sociology is "homophily (love for and attraction to what is similar to oneself)...one of the strongest forces operating in social life." Because of this force, we tend to live in relatively small worlds with those with whom we feel comfortable. Consequently, we lose touch with the distinctive beliefs and lifestyles of people in other "worlds". This serves to bolster the biblicist's sense of being correct in his way of viewing Scripture and protects him from the "existential discomfort of having to deal with contradictory beliefs, values, and commitments that such ties normally entail." (This reality is true, of course, of all social networks, not only biblicists.)
2. The common tendency to minimize the real differences of interpretation and the importance of those differences. The claim that the disagreements are about minor issues is like a member of a conflict-ridden family telling a friend that her family gets along pretty well. It's a form of denial since "disagreements among biblicists (and other Bible-referring Christians) about what the Bible teaches on most issues, both essential and secondary matters, are many and profound. If biblicists hope to maintain intellectual honesty and internal consistency, they must acknowledge them and explain them."
3. Another possible reason for not being troubled by biblicism may be that being at odds with another group can actually give my group a sense of identity and importance. For example, the "Duke and North Carolina basketball programs need each other, even as they hate each other, simply to help promote the being and identity of Duke and NC." Smith argues that it is this reality that has given many American evangelical groups their vitality. If so, he says there are consequences for those groups involved:
1. Biblicists may subconsciously resist the idea settling their differences since they are dependent on those that don't agree with them to sustain their existence and sense of distinctiveness. (It's common that entire organized ministries are birthed around a particular "revelation" from Scripture, and that revelation is the group's distinctive identity; if all believers interpreted the Scripture in a similar way concerning this revelation, there would be no need for "my" ministry to exist.)
2. Secondly, the inevitable effect of building this "in-group identity and commitment difference from out-groups" is that they no longer take the claims and positions of those out-groups seriously; in other words, there's no genuine attempt or desire to understand or honor the others but rather, the point becomes one of remaining on guard so as not to be contaminated by the out-group nor allow them to gain influence.
3. Summarizing this point, Smith says, "...various Christian groups 'benefit' from conflict, disunity, and fragmentation...This...is highly problematic when considered in light of what the Bible says about Christian unity."
4.  Another possible reason could be fear of "ecumenism," which to many evangelicals sounds like liberal Protestantism which is considered bad. "Better...to be divided in absolute commitment to truth than to be unified in flaccid, liberal compromise...We may be utterly fragmented, biblicists tell themselves, but at least we have not compromised."
5. The final possible reason biblicists aren't troubled by the problem of "pervasive interpretive pluralism" falls more in the area of psychology than sociology. Smith suggests that there is a particular need within biblicism to create order and security in an environment that would otherwise be chaotic and in error. This aversion to disorder and falsehood is common among humans but stronger in some than in others. The author suspects that biblicism is attractive to many because of this fear. He proposes that the heritage that we have of the modernist-fundamentalist battles of the early 20th century could have a hidden effect on our desire to keep things orderly and certain.

While this chapter is the author's conjectures over the biblicist problem, I found it enlightening for me personally for two reasons: one, as I read this, I recognized that I have been participant in some of them - this caused me to cringe at times and to realize afresh my dependence on the great mercy and forgiveness of the Lord toward me; and second, it gave form to some things I've understood intuitively but haven't had confidence in. I am grateful for this.

Next week we'll move on to chapter four, which is the final chapter dealing with the problems of biblicism before going on to the "positive" second half of the book!

The Bible Made Impossible - Chapter 3(a)

In the first 2 chapers Christian Smith defined "biblicism" and made the case for why the countless ways of interpreting Scripture that pervades evangelicalism makes biblicism impossible. He goes to great lengths to back this up in a convincing way (to me), so again I encourage you to get the book if you want to dig deeper into this.

Chapter 3 was exciting for me personally because parts of it affirmed something that I've taught over the years related to Scripture - and that is that if my knowing God is based primarily on figuring out with my mind what the written Word says, that will not be trustworthy because of the inability of any fallen human to interpret it in a purely objective way - there are many forces at work with each of us that shape the grid through which we read and interpret the Bible. Smith deals briefly with this reality in this chapter by looking at the impact of history, sociology, and psychology on our way of receiving information.

Chapter 3: "Some Relevant History, Sociology, and Psychology"

Philosophical Assumptions Underwriting American Biblicism

The author starts by presenting the historical roots to the philosophical assumptions that undergird American biblicism:
"Most crucial among them...are certain teachings of Charles Hodge (1797-1878) and Benjamin Warfield (1851-1921)...both highly influential professors at Princeton Theological Seminary. (Their) teachings were set within and governed by the then-reigning philosophy of Scottish commonsense realism and the Baconian inductive-empirical philosophy of science." Based on this assumption that the mind is capable of knowing words directly and that these words correctly represent the object being studied, Hodge "defined theology as a science whose method is to 'begin with collecting well-established facts, and from them to infer the general laws which determine their occurrence.'"

And so, according to Hodge, theology consists of "collecting the relevant facts from the Bible and inductively piecing them together...", guaranteeing that the biblical facts would be clear. The idea was to remove human subjectivity and let the facts speak for themselves. This represents a very optimistic view of human knowledge. One reason this approach was attractive to Hodge was that it was a way to have clear arguments against the attacks on the Bible in a time when German idealism and theological liberalism was growing. Warfield carried this on into the 20th century. Smith says of them, "...as their teachings later passed through the scorching flames of the modernist-fundamentalist battles of the early 20th century, it was often their weaker, more simplistic ideas that shaped the thinking of subsequent generations of evangelicals. The problematic influence of Hodge and Warfield on evangelical biblicism is evident today."

Smith then shows that this problem goes even further back to two centuries earlier with the Westminster Confession of Faith. (Smith recommends a book by Carlos Bovell, "By Good and Necessary Consequences", which is a genealogical study of biblicist foundationalism. In it Bovell points out that the clause entitled "by good and necessary consequences" in the Westminster Confession of Faith contributes an important plank that supports today's evangelical biblicism, and that this clause was not inherited from the early church fathers...but was devised by the creators of the confession of faith in response to wide-spread 17th century philosophical skepticism. It was this context that drove the Protestant theologians of that day to get their theological knowlege from scriptural propositions and logical deductions - it is this approach that we have inherited in modern evangelical biblicism.

In other words, the philosophical underpinnings of biblicism are largely based on the reaction of the Church to attacks on the Bible, starting in the 17th century but coming into full bloom in the late 19th century and early 20th century.

The author is quick to warn that this doesn't mean that the solution is to resort to "Kantian idealism, arbitrary subjectivism, or theological liberalism." Later in the book Smith proposes a better alternative that he contends is a truly evangelical way of approaching Scripture.

I'll finish this chapter in a day or two - we'll look at what Smith believes are reasons why biblicists aren't troubled by pervasive pluralistic interpretations of the Bible...

The Bible Made Impossible - Chapter 2

Chapter 2 - "The Extent and Source of Pervasive Interpretive Pluralism"

This chapter takes what the author said in chapter one to another level; his purpose is to convince the reader of how far-reaching the problem of multiple and different interpretations of the same Bible is and why the biblicist claims (see chapter one for biblicism assumptions) don't hold up in light of this. Because it's more or less an amplifying of part of chapter one, I will give a greatly reduced summary of the chapter and would encourage you to read it for yourself if you want to understand his argument more fully. It's well worth the read.

"The many four-views and three-views books noted in the previous chapter address only some of the myriad issues, topics, doctrines, and questions about which Christians - including biblicists - disagree on biblical grounds...many biblicists seem accustomed to easily ignoring or dismissing the 'biblical' convictions of others who read the Bible differently than they happen to, or to minimizing those disparities by suggesting that they are only slight variations on what are commonly shared Bible-based interpretations and convictions. Yet the differences cannot be ignored, dismissed, or minimized. They are real and concern important matters." Some of his examples of these differences:

1. Church polity (how should a local congregation be governed?).  "The Christian church today exists in the fragmented form of literally untold thousands of denominations, dioceses, conventions, and individual congregations..."
2. Free will and predestination. "Each side is certain that its view is biblical, yet holds its position at the expense of having to exert mighty efforts to reinterpret away the rather plain meaning of the Bible passages that seem to support the other side."
3. The morality of slavery.  "Previous decades (before the Civil War) of heated debate by biblical scholars and ministers who trusted the Bible as God's authoritative word simply could not resolve the conflict by an appeal to the divine texts." Abraham Lincoln observed that people on both sides of the conflict "read the same Bible and pray to the same God."
4. Gender difference and equality. "...different contemporary books reading the same biblical texts come to very different, often contradictory conclusions."
5. Wealth, prosperity, poverty, blessing.  "Some say the Bible teaches material prosperity...as blessings from God for faithfulness...Others that the Bible teaches the need for voluntary simplicity or poverty...Yet others that the Bible teaches a prudent responsibility and balance concerning money..."
6. War, peace, and non-violence. "...the good news of the evangelical Mennonite is very, very different from the good news of the conservative Republican evangelical."
7. Charismatic gifts. "Each side marshals lots of Bible verses to argue its case, and each ends up, in my view, making a fairly convincing case."
8. Atonement and justification. "At the heart of Christian faith stands the cross on which Christ died for the salvation of the world...But what exactly did the cross - presumably along with the incarnation and resurrection - accomplish? Christians have appealed to Scripture and disagreed about this for 2,000 years..."
9. Etc., etc.

Smith continues by proposing six likely responses to this problem of the pervasiveness of multiple interpretations of biblical texts:

1. Some would argue that most Christians study the Bible with "problematic motives, interests, or skills that prevent them from seeing the coherent truth"; or, said more bluntly, "We are right and the rest, unfortunately, are wrong." Smith labels this the "blame-the-deficient-readers answer."
2. Some might say that none of this would apply to the "original autographs" of the original manuscripts written by the hands of their first authors...Smith calls this the "lost-original-autographs explanation."
3. Others could say that sin has so damaged humans' capacity for inner thought and knowledge that we cannot see the single truth in the Bible clearly enough...Smith calls this the "noetically-damaged-reader reply."
4. Another speculative possible response could be that God only gives understanding of biblical truth to some, not all; or the negative side of this - that Satan has such a hold in some Christians' lives that they can't properly read the Bible. Smith calls this the "supernatural-confusion explanation."
5. Still another reply might be that the different interpretations "represent something like the different parts of the proverbial elephant touched and reported on by the ten Indian blind men - each is right in his own way, but to get the full truth they need to put all their knowledge together." Smith labels this the "inclusive-higher-synthesis response."
6. Finally, some could suggest that God has purposely made Scripture ambiguous in order to cause disagreement so that we would have to learn humility and openness...Smith labels this the "purposefully-ambiguous-revelation thesis."

The author agrees that some of these responses may be correct. But his point is that given the biblicist assumptions, these biblicist responses should be unacceptable to the biblicist.

He goes ahead to explain this in detail and concludes at the end of this chapter that the Bible "consists of irreducibly multivocal (i.e., it can and does speak to different listeners in different voices that appear to say different things), polysemic (multiple meanings), and multivalent (many appeals or values) texts...To deny the multivocality of scripture is to live in a self-constructed world of unreality."

On to chapter three next week: "Some Relevant History, Sociology, and Psychology." God bless you this week!

The Bible Made Impossible - Chapter 1(b)

Chapter 1 (part b) - Biblicism and the Problem of Pervasive Interpretive Pluralism"

We'll look now at the second half of this chapter and Christian Smith's dealing with what he sees as problems with "pervasive interpretive pluralism."

What the author is referring to is the reality that "the very same Bible - which biblicists insist is perspicuous (clear) and harmonious - gives rise to divergent understandings among intelligent, sincere, committed readers about what it says about most topics of interest. Knowledge of 'biblical' teachings, in short, is characterized by pervasive interpretive pluralism."  In other words, while the biblicist insists in theory that Scripture is clear and that anyone can understand it, the reality is that we all read the same Bible but come up with very different understanding and interpretations on the same topic.

This is a problem that has been acknowledged by many evangelical writers/scholars over the years. Smith quotes several respected Bible scholars such as Geoffrey Bromiley, Mark Noll,  N.T. Wright, D.A. Carson, and more - all of whom acknowledge that our claims that Scripture is authoritative while not being able to arrive at anything like agreement on what it says is self-defeating.  (N.T. Wright says, "It seems to be the case that the more you insist that you are based on the Bible, the more fissiparous (divisive) you become; the church splits up into more and more little groups, each thinking that they have got the biblical truth right.")

Smith suggests that rather than deal with this problem seriously, we have preferred to try to make this into a "virtue" by presenting our divergent viewpoints in popular books about "Three Views...", "Four Views...", etc. Some examples:

• The Nature of Atonement: Four Views
• Four Views of Hell
• Divorce and Remarriage: Four Views
• Women in Ministry: Four Views
• Four Views of the End Times
• Science and Christianity: Four Views
• Three Views on the Rapture
• Five Views on Apologetics
• etc., etc.

The very existence of so many of these types of books bears out the fact that "the Bible apparently is not clear, consistent, and univocal enough to enable the best-intentioned, most highly skilled, believing readers to come to agreement as to what it teaches..."

(The author challenges the well-known mantra, "In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; in all things, charity" saying that "there simply is not unity on many essentials"; in fact, "...not only are Christians divided about essential matters of doctrine and faithful practice; they are also sometimes divided on what even counts as essential.")

The chapter concludes with this question: "if the Bible is given by a truthful and omnipotent God as an internally consistent and perspicuous text precisely for the purpose of revealing to humans correct beliefs, practices, and morals, then why is it that the presumably sincere Christians to whom it has been given cannot read it and come to common agreement about what it teaches?" 

Next week we'll cover chapter 2 which deals with the extent and source of pervasive interpretive pluralism...

The Bible Made Impossible - Chapter 1(a)

As we start into the first chapter of this book, my prayer once again is that we can see light in His light. This is my continual prayer as we go through this book together... because of the length of these chapters, I may send them in two parts in the course of a week. This particular post will cover the first half of chapter one. Because of the nature of this book, I encourage you to hang in there through the entire book in order to understand the message of the book; although at first the author may suggest things that go against what we're used to, he's actually fighting for the Bible to be understood in a truly evangelical way.

Chapter 1: "Biblicism and the Problem of Pervasive Interpretive Pluralism"

Christian Smith deals with two main issues in this chapter: a) what he means by "biblicism", and b) the problems there are with "pervasive interpretive pluralism".

A. Biblicism
Smith gives the definition of biblicism that he is working with throughout this book, acknowledging that the word "biblicism" means different things to different people. In his use of the word he is referring to a particular theory and style of using the Bible, which is made up of a constellation of assumptions and beliefs related to the Bible's nature and purpose and function. This constellation is made up of 9 basic assumptions or beliefs which result in a 10th summary viewpoint:
1.  Divine writing - the details of the Bible's words consists of and is identical to God's very own words written inerrantly in human language.
2.  Total representation - the Bible represents the totality of God's communication to and His will for humanity...
3.  Complete coverage - God's will about all relevant issues to Christian belief and life is contained in the Bible.
4.  Democratic perspicuity - any reasonably intelligent person can read Scripture in his/her language and understand correctly the plain meaning of the text.
5.  Commonsense hermeneutics - we best understand the Bible texts by reading them in their explicit, plain, literal sense as the author intended them (which may or may not take account of their literary, cultural, and historical contexts).
6.  Solo Scriptura - theological formations can be built directly out of the Bible from scratch with no need of any other help such as creeds, confessions, historical traditions, etc.
7.  Internal harmony - all related Bible passages about a particular subject fit together into a unified and internally consistent body of instructions for correct or incorrect beliefs and behavior.
8.  Universal applicability - whatever the authors taught God's people at any point in history applies universally for all believers at every time, unless explicitly revoked by subsequent scriptural teaching.
9.  Inductive method - all issues of Christian belief and practice can be learned by piecing together through careful study the clear "biblical" truths that it teaches.

These 9 assumptions or beliefs generate a 10th viewpoint that is common in popular biblicist belief and practice:

10. Handbook model - the Bible teaches doctrine and morals in its affirmations, and these affirmations together comprise sort of a manual or handbook for Christian belief and living, covering an array of topics from science to economics to health to romance, etc.

The author goes on to explain that different persons and groups emphasize and express a variety of these points in different ways, so his point isn't to say that biblicism is a unified doctrine practiced and believed in the same way by all believers. His point is to say that to one degree or another these 10 interrelated assumptions and beliefs are behind and give life to the viewpoints and practices of major parts of institutional and popular conservative American Protestantism, particularly evangelicalism.

Smith gives examples of biblicism as found in evangelical popular (folk) culture, in Christian institutions, and in Christian scholarly declarations. These examples range from the cruder folk sayings to the more sophisticated expressions of belief by scholars and church leaders. Some examples are the following:

• Sayings such as: "God said it, I believe it, that settles it!"; "BIBLE - Basic Instruction Before Leaving Earth"; "Confused? Read the Directions!"(picture of the Bible)...etc.
• Book titles: 
• Bible Answers for Almost All Your Questions
• 100 Biblical Tips to Help You Live a More Peaceful and Prosperous Life
• Cooking with the Bible
• Business by the Book
• God's Blueprint for Building Marital Intimacy
• God Honoring Finances
• Politics and the Christian
• etc., etc.
•  Doctrinal statements of Christian institutions, such as divinity school which includes this: "We believe the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, to be the inspired Word of God, without error in the original writings, the complete revelation of His will for the salvation of me and the Divine and final authority for all Christian faith and life."
• A well-known Bible institute states a commonly held view: "...the authority of the Bible, which declares timeless truth that is relevant today."
• A theological seminary states in its beliefs: "...the Holy Scripture contains a system of doctrine. We deny that the Holy Scripture lacks doctrinal unity on any point of doctrine, or that it does not always agree with itself. We affirm that the Holy Scripture is harmonious in all its teachings..."
• Evangelical parachurch organizations typically have doctrinal statements that include declarations such as: "We believe that the Bible...is the revelation of God to mankind, is verbally and fully inspired by Him, is sufficient for the knowledge of God and His will that is necessary for the eternal welfare of mankind, and is infallible and inerrant in its original manuscripts, and is the supreme and final authority for all Christian faith and conduct."

Smith is not saying that none of these statements are true but that there are assumptions and mistaken conclusions that we make about the Bible because of a mindset that has developed within Christianity (particularly evangelicalism) which expects the Bible to be and do what he contends God never intended for it to be and do. He deals with this in the second half of chapter one when talking about "pervasive interpretive pluralism." More on that in a couple of days!

The Bible Made Impossible - Author's Introduction

If you have followed some of my posts recently, you know that the topic of the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is one that I have written about. As I was reading "The Bible Made Impossible", it occurred to me that, without necessarily using this language, the author is essentially proposing that we can either use the Scriptures primarily as a source of knowledge (a manual) or as a source of discovering the tree of life (Jesus). He contends that we western evangelicals have turned it into a manual rather than seeing it primarily as God's revelation of His Son Jesus.

This week I'll go through his introduction and give a general overview of the content of the book. He begins by saying, "The goal of this book is not to detract from the plausibility, reliability, or authority of the Christian faith or from scripture. The goal is to persuade readers that one particular theory of Christian plausibility, reliability, and authority - what I call biblicism - is inadequate to the task...
By 'biblicism' I mean a theory about the Bible that emphasizes together its exclusive authority, infallibility, perspicuity (clarity), self-sufficiency, internal consistency, self-evident meaning, and universal applicability...all together (these points) form a constellation of assumptions and beliefs that define a particular theory and practice..."

Christian Smith goes on to defend himself from any idea that he is promoting theological liberalism, going so far as to state that he believes that such liberalism is not part of true Christianity. Having said that, Smith contends that "biblicism" is not the way to handle such liberalism, as most evangelicals believe.

The book is divided into 2 major sections: 
1) "The Impossibility of Biblicism"
In the first section Smith deals with what he calls the problem of "pervasive interpretive pluralism"; in other words, the reality that "even among presumably well-intentioned readers - including many evangelical biblicists - the Bible, after their very best efforts to understand it, says and teaches very different things about most significant topics..." So he deals with the relevance of biblicist theory as it relates to claims of scriptural authority and infallibility.

He then deals with the defensibility of biblicism in general, focusing on "the fact that the Bible contains a variety of texts that are problematic in different ways and that biblicist (among other) readers rarely know how to handle." But in order to defend their theory, biblicists respond in 3 ways: a) ignore the problematic texts; b) "interpret" the problematic texts as if they say things that they don't say; c) develop elaborate contortions of scenarios and explanations in an attempt to make it all fit the biblicist's theory.

2) "Toward a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture"
The final 3 chapters of the book are the author's proposals for overcoming American evangelical biblicism. "Contrary to the fears of some biblicists, leaving biblicism behind need not mean losing the best of evangelicalism but, instead, can mean strengthening an evangelical hermeneutic of Scripture." In this section he turns towards Jesus as the primary interpretive key to understanding Scripture (http://nitasbookclub.blogspot.com/2011/11/jesus-purpose-center-and-interpretive.html) and helps the reader toward the acceptance of ambiguity and towards rethinking how we humans know and understand.

Christian Smith is a sociologist and brings this perspective into his study. I find this valuable because he deals with the reality of how our thinking has been and is shaped by history, sociology and psychology.

God bless you this week and may the Word of God lead us to Jesus, the Source of all life!