Evangelicalism Then and Now: Biblicism
Quire 63, folio 1 recto of the Codex Sinaiticus, http://www.codex-sinaiticus.net
If you recall, the first point of Bebbington’s quadrilateral is biblicism: a particular regard for the Bible (e.g. all spiritual truth is to be found in its pages). But that was then, and this is now. My interpretation of the first point of the quadrilateral is biblicism, a particular regard for an ahistorical, context-free reading of the Bible. Here’s why I think so.
I see over and over (especially within the more ‘spirit-filled’ churches) a push for young evangelicals and new Christians to not exercise the brain in interpreting scripture, but to rely on ‘what the Spirit is telling you through the text.’ To answer the critics who will attack me (though not in the comments – that would be ok), I’m not trying to bash the Spirit – what I am bashing is the idea that individualism rules over biblical interpretation. Ours is a communal faith that requires us to learn from our elders and teachers; reader-centric, ‘Spirit-filled’ readings of the Bible strip us of the accountability we need as responsible Christians.
This individualist interpretation is rooted in the idea that the stories, letters, and songs found in the scriptures were written to us, right now, today, in Canada/U.S./England/Paraguay/Wherever you may be. This is wrong. Two of the best classes I have ever taken in any educational context were Survey of the Hebrew Scriptures with Dr. Stan Walters and Survey of the New Testament with Steve Thomson. I learned two things above all else from these men: that the Bible wasn’t written to us, but merely for us; and that the Scriptures are our holy texts, not the stories held within. Let me hash out these ideas:
The Bible wasn’t written to us, but merely for us. Many people hear that the Bible is ‘God’s love letter to Christians.’ That’s nice, but it’s tripe; the Bible is so much more than that. The Bible is an amalgamation of 2500-odd years of storytelling, meticulously written to be presented to very specific followers of the (now fully-revealed) Trinitarian God, whom we serve. To really understand what God was telling them, and from which we can derive what God is telling us, we need to know their contexts. I once read that text without context is pretext. How very true. This is not an easy thing to do, but I’ll get to solutions further down the page.
The Scriptures are our holy texts, not the stories held within. To go along with the above point, it is imperative that we remember that the texts we take as our Scriptures are more than the sum of the narratives held within: even the grammar of it all should be Holy to us. As I’ve studied 2 years of Greek and now into my 2nd year of Hebrew, I am finding that both languages are ridiculously complex, compared to lazy, boring English. Not only that, but the authors of both the OT and the NT are working in genres that are so much more complex than what we regularly deal with in our contemporary settings. Hebrew Parrallelism is pretty much mind-blowing, and don’t even get me started on the 14-odd translatory values of the Genitive case in Greek.
So why does this sound so new? Context? Grammar? Here’s what I think happened – I think that these were understood en masse by Christians in the early days of Christianity. These things were taught as tools for the interpretative process until the centralization of power by Rome’s new pet religion and the Dark Ages led into a knowledge choke-point for the people. Scholarship has been playing catch-up ever since, and really only gaining ground since archaelogy hit the ground running. Since then, it seems most pastors tend towards using the Bible as proof-text to help their congregations get through life, without really wrestling with the hard questions found within. In turn, they intuitively teach their congregations that reading the text emotionally (what they would call, ‘in the Spirit’) is how one finds the 3-point sermons of living life in Canada in the 21st Century.
Solution? It’ll be hard, but I think that those who are trained in this stuff (pastors, I’m looking at you) need to disseminate it in real, educationally-viable ways. We need to walk away from easy proof-texting to tell people how to live life and step into the dirty ground of teaching how to fully read a bible, with helps like commentaries and dictionaries and study bibles (NOT the Life Application Bible) – which will lead into some really hard questions, but I think will also lead into deeper, richer faiths for Evangelicals everywhere. For all those non-pastors out there, start by picking up a good commentary (e.g. Anchor Bible Series, NIV Commentary) and just using that as a help – a written mentor to help show you how to really read the Bible for all its worth, without having to rely on our fickle emotions of the time to influence how we think the Spirit is talking to us.
Next on the docket for Evangelicalism: the regard for Christ’s atoning work…as fire insurance.
WK
This entry was written by , posted on November 4, 2008 at 12:32 am, filed under Christianity, Church and tagged Bebbington, Bible, Evangelicalism, Interpretation, Teaching. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Let’s talk about Sex, baby.
Some time ago, Lauren Winner found herself on our campus, doing a series of lectures on Christian Spirituality. Those lectures were quite good, she also did a lecture on sex for our first years, since she wrote a book called Real Sex, that everyone just thinks is the bee knees. I haven’t read it, but it’s on the list.
Winner had 3 myths the Church promulgates that she wanted to dispel for the recently de-Youth Group’d (generally – some like me matriculated much later). They were:
1. If you have pre-marital sex, you will feel awful about it.
While I don’t have the personal experience of this, Winner says this is wrong. Some will feel this way, yes, but some will feel good, indifferent, hungry, tired, lazy, sublime, wanting more, etc. The truth of the matter is that it is wrong, and we need to find a better way to discourage young people from having sex. Instead of trying to scare them straight, we should lay a better theological foundation for these kids impressionable minds.
2. Men and Women are fundamentally different when it comes to sex.
Without getting too deeply into the apparent differences between men and women, Winner really wanted people to know that most of what you read in Christian Relationship books is that Men want sex all the time, and women want to cuddle. But lots of men want to cuddle too, and women definitely want sex. Winner implied subtlely that this is a form of masked Christian sexism, and I think I’m inclined to agree. I think that if one were to accept this, then further differing attributes can be made between the sexes that leads to things like “women shouldn’t lead over men because they are too emotional, blah blah blah, etc.” Catch the drift? Good. Everyone wants sex. Don’t forget.
3. It’s an unforgiveable sin.
People generally don’t say it in those terms, but there are many metaphors used to convey this point, like: You are a rose, and every sexual encounter you have is like plucking a petal, until you are a thorny stick; or Every pre-marital sexual event leaves scars, and scars don’t go away. If you are one who has been through sexual sin, then you can understand the metaphors, but they aren’t right, because they ignore the redemptive and healing work of Jesus in our lives. I’m not saying that things will totally be ok right away, but what hope do we have if we can’t be healed of poor decisions and broken relationships? Out of everything else, we need to offer hope of healing to those who’ve already stumbled in this area of life.
Certainly 3 myths to think over. Is she right? wrong? what do you think? What do we need to do in the area of sex to help out young Christians?
WK
This entry was written by , posted on October 28, 2008 at 1:02 am, filed under Christianity, Church and tagged Lauren Winner, Myth, Sex. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Evangelicalism: then and now.
For awhile, I have been thinking about what exactly evangecalism is, and the other day I was directed to David Bebbington’s Quadrilateral definition:
- biblicism, a particular regard for the Bible (e.g. all spiritual truth is to be found in its pages)
- crucicentrism, a focus on the atoning work of Christ on the cross
- converionism, the belief that human beings need to be converted
- activism, the belief that the gospel needs to be expressed in effort
Those are great ideals to strive for, and they make sense, at a macro-level, within Protestant Christianity (I say Protestant Christianity, because I just don’t know about Roman Catholicism or Orthodox Streams to speak into them.) Sadly, I think North-American Evangelicalism has narrowed these ideals into the following:
- biblicism, a particular regard for an ahistorical, context-free reading of the Bible (e.g. read what you want to read)
- crucicentrism, a focus on the atoning work of Christ on the cross as fire-insurance.
- converionism, the belief that human beings need to be converted to a very particular ideology
- activism, the belief that the gospel needs to be expressed in effort to make Christianity the predominant Culture, ridding the evils of any one else’s point-of-view.
As our culture changes (and seriously, people, it is changing), Evangelicals need to re-assess the quadrilateral and expand it from being 4 points for person-centered judgement to 4 points for spirit-led love. To help people think about these, I think I’m going to break this up and talk about each one of these points in a pattern of origin, fall, and redemption. This means some research on my part, so they’ll show up eventually. Until then, think about the 4 points and what you think about my subversion of the definition.
WK
This entry was written by , posted on October 26, 2008 at 12:33 pm, filed under Christianity, Church and tagged Bebbington, Christianity, Culture, definition, Evangelical. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
What probably amounts to Evangelical Heresy.
Among Evangelical Christians, King David is seen as a pillar of the Christian faith, one whose love for the Lord was unparalleled and whose actions were (almost) perfect. From his anointing as a young boy, to his defeat of Goliath, to his flight from Saul, to his dancing before the ark through to the end of his life, David is perceived to be a penitent man of forward-moving faith for the Lord, who is blessed with an eternal dynasty by God in return. This tends to lead to theologies that emphasize ‘faith’ as a quantitative factor within blessings from God.
This probably comes from within Evangelical circles through historically faulty readings of the books of Samuel, most notably 2 Samuel, that emphasize a need for Israelite kings (despite Samuel’s warnings in 1 Samuel 8 ) a need for a centralized temple within Israel (despite having a centralized Tabernacle), and a belief in the saving faith of the believer (Sinner’s Prayer anyone?).
What if, persay, the blessing bestowed onto David was not based on the faith of David, but on the faithfulness of the God of Israel?
We hear that David was a man after God’s own heart, and we infer that to mean that David was all about doing God’s work, with the exception of flubbing up with the whole Bathsheba debacle. What is implicit (and sometimes explicit) in the text however, is that David also had people murdered, lied, stole wives, had many wives, horses, silvers, and golds (breaking specific laws for kings in Deuteronomy). Basically the only thing David didn’t do was commit idolatry – good for him. So David was not a nice dude. So what do we do about this whole ‘man after God’s own heart’ stuff?
How about this: ‘man after God’s own heart’ doesn’t have to do with the man following God, but God following the man ‘after his own heart’?
This would mean that no matter what evil stuff David did, God was always with him, through thick and thin, and for his descendents too. David’s faith had nothing to do with his blessing by God.
I think this is an important thing to drive home, because prosperity doctrines and their ilk are running rampant in our churches and, I think, have seeped into our daily prayer lives, subliminally. God will do what he will, when he will, how he will – you can’t stop him. And God’s will is that none shall perish and creation will be made new. We serve a mighty God, and we have no need to pray, ‘with more faith.” Faith in a loving God is good enough.
WK
This entry was written by , posted on October 25, 2008 at 12:22 am, filed under Christianity, Church and tagged Bible, Christianity, David, Prayer. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Emerging Church Vision Made Easy.
(Originally Published April 21, 2006 on http://www.wkinchlea.blogspot.com)
After strolling around on the internet the other day, I found myself upon the Web 2.0 Bullshit Generator.
Some of my regular readers (and by some I mean the vast majority) have no idea what Web 2.0 is, and for the matter at hand, that’s ok. The point is, I found it funny, and I thought others would too.
So I emailed the Tall Skinny Kiwi, thinking he would get a kick out of it, too (he does know what Web 2.0 is). A week later, I get an email saying he enjoyed it as well and thought there should be one for the Emerging Church too. (Y’know, lighten the atmosphere, add some humour….for kicks) He then asked me to see if I couldn’t hack it and come up with my own.
Having never touched Javascript before, naturally I said “why not?”, and began to reverse engineer the website to create The Emerging Church Vision Generator. Originally, I had just sent Mr. Jones the html file for his own amusement and usage, (I didn’t have my own extra website hanging around) but I got impatient and decided to publish it for free at Bravenet.
For those at all involved with talking about Emerging Church junk, I hope you find this funny!
This entry was written by , posted on April 8, 2008 at 3:08 am, filed under Church, Humour, Internet and tagged Church, Emerging, Humour, Vision, Web 2.0. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
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