Really?…
I grew up with this statement ringing in my ears and I am guessing I may have even cited it a few times myself in my younger and more ‘knowledgable’ years.
It sounds convincing, authoritative and difficult to argue with. But it isn’t a statement I see much value in these days at all.
Now its more a case of ‘the Bible says it’, ‘I believe it’, but chances are you may read the same Bible, be a genuine follower of Jesus and arrive at a totally different place to me in your convictions.
And that’s ok…
‘The total statement offers an apparently logical progression in thought, that is actually far from logical. The first part is fine. The Bible does ‘say it’. But the fact that I believe it actually settles nothing. It simply offers you my take on how I see the text. Any student of hermeneutics (biblical interpretation) will know that few things are as cut and dried as this statement makes them sound. In practice, this claim really means, “My view of the Bible is the ultimate authority.” It doesn’t allow any room for debate or disagreement, because you would be arguing with the Bible…
The statement has its roots in a fundamentalist paradigm – one that will call people back to the Bible as an authority (which is all well and good) but that will only read it one way – their way.
The other day Sam asked me if the story of Jonah is historical or allegorical. He has asked me about the flood – a worldwide flood?… Really dad?… He’s only ten but he’s wondering about stuff. Its easy to refer him to the above statement and simply say ‘yes – the Bible says it – it is therefore as you read it.’
Except that plenty of people from the evangelical tribe would choose to interpret differently these days. These are people who hold the scriptures as authoritative and inspired but who ‘read’ these stories thru a different lens.
I can’t give my son short answers to questions that I also hold. I have no doubt that God could have made a fish swallow a man, or flooded the whole earth – but I also know its possible to read these texts differently.
Those who may come from a more fundamentalist perspective generally don’t make their wives wear head-coverings to church… even though Paul clearly states it. Why not?…
Why not ‘believe’ that part of the Bible?…
We all have our points of interpretation and our texts that are not negotiable. But the great danger in speaking ‘biblically’, as Rob Bell has said, is that we can use that word as a weapon to batter others into submission. I reckon he’d be feeling just a little smashed around by it at the moment.
Bell isn’t towing the party line on gay marriage and this follows on from his rather ambiguous discussion of hell in Love Wins. He is a high profile Christian leader in the US – – but I continue to be stunned at the way the guy gets belted for no longer fitting within the fold.
I get that he’s a teacher and an influence on others, and therefore has a higher level of accountability, but he’s not advocating salvation by works, or denying the deity of Christ. He’s switched teams on an issue that matters deeply to evangelicals and for that he will ‘pay’. Those who are ‘in’ have been very quick and decisive in now locating him as ‘out’. I can’t say I see that as a wise decision let alone a grace-filled one. There has to be a better way to navigate paths of difference than hanging someone out to dry because they no longer wear the uniform.
Earlier I said that its ok to read the Bible differently – and in case you are wondering I don’t offer that as a blanket statement, true of every aspect of belief. I think there are some core convictions that will see us come unstuck if we let them go, but outside of them I’m happy to accept that the family is bigger and broader than I had once thought and that God is more generous with who he welcomes than I might be.
Thank you for this. Part of the reason I haven’t walked away from my faith, that I am still able to hang onto it at my core, is because of you. Thank you for seeing outside the small box others try to push things in to.
Thanks Kylie – really appreciate your encouraging words 🙂 Who’d have though we’d still be in touch nearly 30 years on… That was my first year of teaching – lots of wonderful and tragic memories from that year!
Great Hammo …… Love the knowledge u bring! Keep breaking the Ned Flanders world view!
Thanks for sharing- really helpful for where I’m at right now.
I found this interesting as it’s exactly what I’ve been pondering on lately. Growing up in a fundamentalist household I was taught this kind of thinking but as an adult I’ve struggled with seeing all the bible in a literal sense. I still have unanswered questions but good to know there are thinking Christians out there and perhaps I don’t need to suspend all logic to have faith.
Hi Rhonda – For sure – and I think the beauty / danger in growing up fundamentalist is that we have an appreciation for the Bible, but also a rigid way of interpreting it, often accompanied by a fear of ‘heresy’ if we think differently.
I always find it fascinating the way people pick and choose the bible verses that they believe apply to the world today. Paul is pretty clear in his condemnation homosexuality, which most Christians agree with. He is also clear about a woman’s place in the church, yet most churches today ignore what he says about that. We pick and choose dependent upon our own and/or our chosen denomination’s beliefs.
I think that Paul is a lot less clear about a woman’s role in the church than he is about homosexuality. A woman leading, for example, or being out of their ‘place’ does not occur in any ‘sin list’. Paul’s literal words are pretty strong, it is granted, especially in many of today’s cultures, which are totally different to his. However, they do seem to jar with what the Bible taken as a whole seems to me to say about women. There are lots of questions I’d love answers to, not least how the people who received Paul’s letters in the first few generations after they were written understood them. I wonder if Paul was around in an age where women are born and grow up with almost the same advantages as men, would he write the same things?
Thanks Hammo. Once again you have captured the paradox of faith. I find that helpful in my own thinking. And good on you for allowing your kids to ask questions and for resisting the need to dive in shape the answer. There is something very powerful in allowing our kids to wonder. In fact, I am discovering with my own son that it is a far more constructive conversation if I respond to his deep theological questions with something like, “I don’t know. What do you think?.”
Great post. I think some people take that phrase, or saying you mentioned to mean that even if we’ve got no evidence for our beliefs, we just need to take a ‘leap of faith’ and believe anyway. That might be enough for us but it’s not enough for the people we mix with, if we expect them to take the Christian message seriously. And chances are, come difficult times, it won’t help us much either. I don’t think the Bible ever calls us to ‘blind’ faith. When John the Baptist is doubting whether Jesus is the Messiah (fascinating in itself) Jesus doesn’t ask him to just believe anyway. He points him to the evidence. But back to your discussion, great point you’ve made. We need to be more aware that just because someone disagrees with an interpretation, doesn’t make them immediately wrong, nor does it make them a heretic or a liberal.
Mind you, just because there are different views doesn’t mean nobody is right either. I just means we need to be careful and sensitive.
Thanks for this.
great response – bring back Francis Schaeffer, we need him more than ever
Good thoughts Hamo.
I’d be interested in how you’d feel about someone claiming to be a Christian who would undermine some of the most fundamental parts of our faith: the deity of Jesus, justification by faith etc? Are there some truths that are so plain and obvious that they cannot be negotiable (i.e. plain error) or are all truths open to interpretation. That’s not trying to snipe at you, but is an obvious conclusion to me if one starts accepting that ‘we cannot know’.
you didn’t read to the end did you?… 🙂
I did, and then came back to read-read before commenting and overlooked that bit having thought I’d seen it and then been unable to find it. :p
I did have another comment, but I’ve forgotten what it is and dinner is read (literally right now – lasagne). 🙂
so what are the basics, the untouchables. Because I agree with the basics of what you have said.
Do we go back to the Nicene Creed?
or is that placing a human condition on the bible?
But for the record, my view is that Bell is dangerously close to straying from the fundamentals of the faith.
But thats my view. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg-qgmJ7nzA
I don’t think that interview reflects that at all actually. I agree with Bell that there are many views on the issue of hell within the Christian tradition and we would be naive to think we have it right.
If Bell is close then was Stott close? Was CS Lewis close?
I would see not negs as things like authority of scripture (yes that is a loaded term), identiy of Jesus as Messiah/God/triune, bodily resurrection.
Hell is a subset of authority of scripture. You can take the Bible very seriously, follow Jesus and not necessarily have the same beliefs on Hell.
Is Bell close because of his views on Hell and Gay marriage, because I would suggest neither of these are fundamentals
I agree with your final statement Andrew. i did not say he had strayed. Reality is, as someone who has really enjoyed and been enriched by Bells work of years gone past, his latest stuff is disappointing.
I really object to the idea that seems to be proposed by many that we should suspend rationality to have faith. Rhonda, surely if God gave us a rational mind it was so we could use it and celebrate it as part of being made in his image? Have just finished a book by mathematician Lennox about the rational basis for faith, if you’re interested. Part of his argument (I hope I’m on track) is that the rationality of the universe, laws of science etc., are themselves evidence of a rational God.
And on another note, I can’t help thinking that the church’s persecution of individuals in the glbt community is exactly the sort of thing Jesus was pretty keen to put a stop to (not an original thought of mine, credit to Gary Wills).
Hamo, not trying to hijack your thread. I have serious reservations about the ‘authority of scripture’, however I appreciate how you have pointed out here that one can hold one’s own interpretation along with the knowledge that one’s interpretation is not the only possible one and may therefore be incorrect or incomplete.
And good luck to Sam. And Jonah. 😀
Scripture is sufficient. I believe that all truth necessary for our salvation and spiritual life is taught either explicitly or implicitly in scripture. It is not the claim that all truth of every kind is found in them e.g. DNA helix. But to which it speaks it must have the supreme authority. There are things to which it is silent. Further, a post modern hermeneutic is not the best way to read the scriptures. Is the reader in charge of the text? On the contrary, who inspired it and why did He inspire it? Therefore, how should it be read?
A few excerpts and letting the scriptures speak for themselves;
2 Timothy 3 v 14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom[a] you learned it 15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God[b] may be complete, equipped for every good work.
2 Peter 1v 19 We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. 20 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. 21 For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
If the scriptures have less authority (and not the whole truth sufficient)
Hi Ivan – no question at all over the ‘authority of scripture’ but the simple fact is that we bring our own presuppositions to the text and (to use extremes) a liberal reader and a fundamentalist reader will both do this.
I don’t think a post-modern hermeneutic is particularly helpful as a starting point.
My point here is that we must recognize that we never come to this text neutral – and if we think we do we are kidding ourselves.
Interesting post, thanks. I addressed the topic a little differently, but perhaps with the same objective – to avoid the Bible being used as a cudgel to beat others with. http://philhemsley.wordpress.com/2012/08/06/things-that-a-minimalist-christian-does-not-have-to-believe-the-bible-is-the-complete-and-perfect-truth/