Natalie Burris

3 years ago: the Bible story you never heard in Sunday school

From May 2011:

Timothy Beal, in The Rise and Fall of the Bible, points out the story of Phineas, found in Numbers 25.  Israel is suffering from a plague, and Moses' explanation is that God is punishing them for their inter-ethnic marriages. A priest, Phineas, discovers an inter-ethnic couple, and impales both of them on the same spear.  As a result, God then lifts the deadly plague, blesses Phineas, and promises him an everlasting priesthood.  Today, many white supremacist groups rely on this story to bolster their ideas of racial and ethnic purity.

Chapter 7 of Beal's book paints the Bible as a library, a collection, rather than one univocal book.  In fact, the Greek word for Scripture was "ta biblia," which is a plural form of book or scroll.  Due to mistranslation, a word that was supposed to signify a collection of biblical literature now represents a single, unified, authoritative text. 

Beal quotes the philosopher Jacques Derrida, who fleshed out the idea of "impoverishment by univocality."  When we force a text to be univocal, having one voice, then we miss out on its richness.  Beal writes, "To interpret with the goal of 'getting to the point' about what a text really means is an act of impoverishment" (p. 147).  Not allowing the contradictions, tensions, and ambiguities to stand is making the Bible out to be something that it isn't.

Beal highlights the polyvocality of the Bible, to avoid forcing our univocal expectations on it.  He points out many instances of contradictory stories in Scripture - too many to name here.  Many are well aware of the contradictions.  

But Beal makes an excellent point that hit home.  This polyvocality can become difficult for those of us who emphasize the Bible's message of love and nonviolence.  

The Bible has been used to both support and abolish slavery.  It has been quoted to both oppress and liberate women.  It has served as fodder for both warriors and peacemakers.  As a progressive Christian, I get very uncomfortable, especially when I read stories like the one in Numbers 25.  Beal notes:

Countering such atrocious uses of biblical literature is not so simple as calling them misrepresentations of the Bible.  We must face the fact that stories like that of Phineas are there, generating suspicion of ethnic otherness and motivating violence against others in our midst. (p. 156)

Reading the text honestly, Beal remarks, it's difficult to deny that the text is a source of both oppression and liberation from that oppression.  If I'm going to accept the God-is-love message of the Bible, I have to come to terms with all of the Bible, even the parts that I want to push away.  I can't pretend that the verses that seemingly support a white supremacy movement aren't there.  Beal explains:

When we pretend that, deep down, all the voices are really saying the same thing and ought to be able to get along, we forfeit our responsibility as inheritors of this richly, sometimes disturbingly, contradictive literature. 

I am posting my thoughts about this book as I'm reading it, so I don't yet know where Beal will go after this.  It's times like these I wish I weren't a layperson, and that I had a biblical studies and/or theology background.  However, I don't think it should take a seminary degree to work out one's faith in the face of a Bible that can be disturbing to that faith at times.  

I will be sure to share what, if anything, Beal proposes. (Ah, how I so want everything to be all figured out and presented to me in a tidy box.  I'm afraid it won't be the case here...)

9 years ago: the inerrancy of Falwell and Bush

From May 2005:

Sorry about the semi-long absence...school usually gives me lots to blog about, so since it’s out and finals pretty much drained my brain, I’m gonna be a little light on the blogging. But I wanted to mention my Jerry Falwell book I had to read for a class. Anthropologist Susan Harding followed him around for a few years doing an ethnography about him, his Thomas Road Baptist Church parishioners, and Liberty College. She focused on the language that fundamentalist Christians use, drawing from Foucault a lot. The way she boils everything down to language, plus her lumping together of many kinds of Christians, frankly caused me and another student in the class to have mini-faith crises! It’s okay, we have those every day at Wheaton, but it definitely made us think. Well, that’s another post for another day...

But anyway, Harding discusses how Falwell’s followers assign to him the author function, which works really well within this fundamentalist context. Falwell created and controlled an “empire of words,” built on Biblical language. This em­pire produced and dissemin­ated rhetoric to millions of people across the United States. According to Foucault, an author is not necessarily an individual that has writ­ten a work. Rather, the name of the author signifies a specific mode of discourse, and the things produced by the author, which are works, receive a certain status because of the name with which it is affiliated.

Harding’s ethnography demonstrates that Falwell’s works, wheth­er they were sermons, pamphlets, or books, automatically had a certain status because of their author. The author function in Falwell’s case is striking because fundamentalist Christians insist on a literal interpretation of the Bible, and absolute truth—as well as absolute truthfulness—exist. When Harding examines the works (not necessarily in book form) that Falwell produces, a gap exists between truth and reali­ty. Falwell’s followers, however, continue to accept him as their leader, in spite of the moral ambiguity. Harding discusses how Falwell’s autobiography requires his followers to take leaps of faith. Even beyond his childhood Falwell was embroiled in con­troversy.

How can this happen? Fundamentalists rely on a “poetics of faith,” meaning that believers place their faith in the inerrancy of the Bible, an inerrancy that extends to preachers as well. The truth that comes from Falwell is mediated, and because of his scandals and moral ambigui­ties, his truth requires harmonization on the part of believers. Falwell can, in effect, “get away” with things because he is blessed by God, because he too can assume inerran­cy. In this context, the author is privileged, that is, whatever comes from Falwell is legitimized, regardless of its ac­cur­acy. According to Harding, Falwell’s life stories, his “preacherly dis­course,” are a form of “rhetorical art” that increases his church people’s loyalty to him.

Another excellent example of the author function in Falwell’s context occurred when he claimed that he had asked then-President Jimmy Car­t­er why he had homosexuals on staff at the White House. Audiotapes proved otherwise, so Fal­well explained that he was speaking in allegorical form. This apocryphal story highlight the author function that Falwell has assumed, because his followers notice the discrepancies, yet con­tinue to be loyal to him. Because Falwell is a man of God, ordained and blessed by God, the works that he contributes to the overall discourse do not have to be literally true.

Yet another interesting event happened in the 1960’s, when Falwell distributed a sermon pamphlet titled “Ministers and Marchers” that insisted Christians be separate from the world. When his discourse started to move away from separatism and toward active poli­tical engagement, he tried to collect the pamphlets, officially rejecting his earlier position and pronouncing it “false prophecy.” None of Falwell’s sermons from the 1950’s and ‘60’s are in his archives. His staff told Harding that he did not want his words to be used against him, since his positions had certainly changed. In fact, Falwell support­ed segregation and had preached sermons in favor of it during the late 1950’s.

These incidents demonstrate the powerful author function that Falwell had through his words. He attempted to control the discourse, and in doing so fashioned a national following, rather than one that was limited to the South. He knew the power of words, carefully allowing what his community heard or read. It was not as if his community did not know of his earlier positions; rather, his followers re-construed these seemingly contrary facts to fit in with other things that Falwell had authored.

So, was anyone else thinking that President Bush has also assumed this author function? In spite of his untruthfulness, discrepancies, etc., he still has people defending him. W too can get away with things—he is blessed and ordained, right?! And as in the case with Jerry Falwell, W's followers, many holding to a literal interpretation of the Bible, ignore or harmonize his gaps between truth and reality, his “moral ambiguities.” So it seems our president too assumes inerrancy?

9 years ago: Wrecking Ball

No, not the Miley Cyrus song. :) From January 30, 2005:

 

Had the privilege of visiting LaSalle Street Church today...came home with some great thoughts:

The Beatitudes. Do we ever see an inscription like “blessed are the poor, the meek, the peacemakers” on any of our buildings? Think if those words were written at powerful places like Washington D.C. It seems there aren’t too many people in Washington who are genuinely concerned with the poor, the meek, or those who seek peace. Isn’t it funny how some campaign for the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public places, like courtrooms? Sure, it can be easy not to murder or steal, but what about caring for the poor? What about peacemaking? It seems that things would get a little uncomfortable—a little too close for comfort—if we decided to so publicly display the Beatitudes. They are a wrecking ball for our lives. If we consider the idea that Jesus may have really meant what he said, what kind of destruction does that mean in terms of how we live our lives?

Matthew 5:3-12
3 Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Literal six-day creationism is an identity marker

A couple of years ago, I wrote here about how many watertight, insular beliefs in evangelicalism actually serve as identity markers. Last night, Bill Nye and Ken Ham debated about evolutionary theory and creationism, which was a great example of how literal six-day creationism often serves as an identity marker for many white North American evangelicals.

In the context of Michael Pearl, whom I used as an example in my prior blog post, Pearl sets up "biblical chastisement," or physical punishment of children, as an ironclad "biblical" belief:  "The people who condemn biblical chastisement do not believe the Bible." He equates his system of discipline with Scripture, so anyone who disagrees with Pearl's practices disagrees with the Bible. 

Throwing down the gauntlet in this way is hostile to disagreement. Using the "biblical" label, Pearl and his followers equate his teachings to the very Word of God, so it becomes difficult for other professed Bible-believers to oppose him.  

Elevating your belief, whether it be physical discipline of children or literal six-day creationism, with the Word of God is not the only tactic that some Christians use. Another common tactic is the persecution trope. Believing you are a victim of a sinful majority is an excellent way to dismiss opponents.

 

The majority of the scientific community may have convincing evidence against your position, but if you are in the minority and are mocked by the mainstream, then surely this is a sign that your beliefs are being persecuted!

 

Framing the issue in this manner makes disagreement from within nearly dangerous. Equating an interpretation of the Bible with the Bible itself, and automatically portraying divergent beliefs as persecution, have largely formed evangelical identity. Thus, those who don't want to be alienated from a community they love face high stakes if they disagree.  

Diverging from your church's core beliefs is often a scary, emotional experience.  I have genuinely wondered if I'm going to hell, and whether my disagreement simply means I've been duped by the secular, sinful "culture at large." 

 

David Rattigan, who has great resources on leaving fundamentalism and evangelicalism, shared an essay by P. James Bowen on leaving a watertight, insular faith, and I see much of these rhetorical moves at play. Bowen describes his departure as painful and lonely. Although alienated from evangelicalism, he was reluctant to leave:

[The thought of leaving my evangelical home] terrified me. I still wanted to belong. No matter what I thought about charismatics and conservatives now, I still couldn’t bring myself to break away. I had always been one. They were my friends, my family. Where else was there? 

Once Bowen accepted he no longer belonged in evangelicalism, he realized his disagreements were often not theological, but a matter of personal identity. He became ensnared in a "fight between my desire to belong and my inability to belong."

Many white North American evangelicals (often unintentionally) view disagreement with evangelical beliefs as tantamount to heresy, because evangelicalism's identity has been grounded in unwavering "biblical" interpretations of Scripture and portraying dissenters as sneering liberals.  

Although the past decade has shown much promise, there's still little wiggle room for us questioners, even for those like Bowen who have no theological qualms.  I like Rattigan's approach in his FAQ section. He's not abandoning truth claims, but rather acknowledging that many beliefs "are open to being thrashed out, tested, verified, debated and evaluated." When Rattigan makes theological claims, he's honest about their "tentative, provisional and subjective nature." He doesn't insist others accept his interpretation, "or that there will be divine consequences (i.e. punishment)" for those who disagree.

That evangelicalism's anti-evolution stance is actually an identity marker--rather than a high-stakes "must" that can't be separated from the gospel--is a freeing, healthy realization. There are no divine consequences if I don't toe the line. 

So, if you are a young evangelical who listened to the debate last night and want to look in to Nye's claims, I encourage you to do so. If anyone questions your fidelity to Scripture or your faith commitment, I encourage you to consider a belief in a literal six-day creation as an identity marker of your particular faith community, rather than as an ironclad biblical truth from which you cannot waver. Feel free to flesh out, test, verify, debate, and evaluate both Nye and Ham's claims. All truth is God's truth, friend.

2 years ago: Mohler and MacArthur are not part of a long line of church leaders defending creationism

From November 2011:

Southern Baptist Archbishop Al Mohler (thanks to Slacktivist for that term) uses dramatic rhetoric when arguing against evolution. He stated Christians "now face the undeniable truth that the most basic and fundamental questions of biblical authority and gospel integrity are at stake." Evangelical Archbishop John MacArthur also employs dramatic language. 

Mohler and MacArthur place themselves in a long line of Christians who have defended six-day creationism. Their language makes one think the church has always supported a literal creation account. To reconcile Scripture and evolution, then, would be the church's first--and dramatic--capitulation to "secular" thinking.

But throughout history, not everyone affirmed six-day creationism. Not all church fathers furthered a dichotomy between Scripture and science. The origins issue was not the controversy some have made it today; in fact, it was often a non-issue. 

Robert Letham's Westminster Theological Journal article, In the Space of Six Days: The Days of Creation from Origen to the Westminster Assembly, argues that some church fathers did not spend time defending a literal Genesis reading. To counteract some modern church leaders' misconceptions, here are some thoughts from Letham's article, which I read for my human origins class in college.

Third-century Origen didn't believe in a literal six-day creation, as it is impossible to interpret the creation account literally when the sun wasn't created until the fourth day, per Genesis 1.

Augustine believed in a simultaneous creation, so Genesis' days were actually one day repeated seven times. "God accommodated himself to the capacity of weaker intellects and presented creation as if it were a process" (157).  

Up until the 1200's, most exegesis centered on the perfect number of creation's days and debates about when angels were created. Whether creation occurred in six literal days wasn't important.

Calvin's Genesis commentary doesn't discuss the days of creation, which Letham thinks is significant in itself. Like Augustine, Calvin believed in divine accommodation. God accommodates his works to human capacity, to our level, "speaking to us in the prattling babble of baby-talk" (166).

Calvin believed Genesis did not teach astronomy or other sciences.  He didn't dismiss science, but valued it. To Calvin, Genesis was written in a popular style for ordinary people, while astronomers dealt with more complex knowledge. Astronomy was "very useful to be known: it cannot be denied that this art unfolds the admirable wisdom of God" (167).

None of the sixteenth-century Reformed confessions state earth was created in six literal days.  It was simply not an issue in the Reformed church at that time.

Moving on to English Puritans up until the Westminster Assembly, Letham says their theology has a "virtually complete absence of interest in creation" (173). They never attempted a serious interpretation of the creation accounts - it was not a matter of controversy.

If the creation account is clear-cut and vital to the gospel message, why were there so many divergent interpretations--or none at all--pre-Westminster Assembly? When Mohler and MacArthur defend a literal reading of Genesis, they fail to realize they're defending a relatively new interpretation, which differs from early church fathers' interpretations. "Claims that a literal reading of the days of Genesis 1 is obvious fall down when the history of interpretation is taken into consideration" (174).

Even past North American Christians would disagree with Mohler and MacArthur: Mark Noll points out in The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind that theologically conservative Christian and Harvard botanist Asa Gray was the person most active in bringing Darwinism to the U.S.

Lastly, those who reject evolution and read Genesis literally still selectively interpret based on scientific developments. Genesis 1:6-8 states:

And God said, "Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water."  So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it.  And it was so.  God called the vault "sky."

Thanks to modern-day astronomers and space exploration, we view this separation of waters as an ancient Near East understanding of the atmosphere.  Hardly any literalists today believe an ocean is above the sky, because science and simple observations prove otherwise. Why, then, do literalists insist those who accept evolution disrespect the gospel's integrity? Aren't literalists also allowing "secular science" to influence their interpretation of Genesis 1:6-8? 

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Mohler and the threatening papyrus fragment...

One of the more intriguing news items this week is the discovery of a fourth-century papyrus fragment that suggests that Jesus had a wife, or at least that some early Christians believed that Jesus had a wife. The fragment also suggests the existence of a woman disciple.

When I listened to NPR's segment on this exciting revelation, I got the first hint of conservative Christians' reaction to the suggestion that Jesus may have had a wife and a woman disciple. Barbara Bradley Hagerty pointed out that "the reference to a female disciple goes to the heart of a worldwide debate about the role of women in the church." Darrell Bock, New Testament scholar at Dallas Theological Seminary, made sure to minimize this new finding:

It's a small, extremely fringe, light text with no context, and so to think about doing something about a tradition simply on the basis of, of that kind of a text, it's making a change on the basis of an asterisk.

Cue Southern Baptist Archbishop Albert Mohler. Even before clicking over to his article on the fragment, I could already tell on Twitter that Mohler was on the defensive:  

@albertmohler

The real agenda behind "The Gospel of Jesus's Wife." It is the rejection of normative biblical Christianity. http://ow.ly/dQVOm 

In Mohler's panicked post, which exhibits a characteristic fear of non-evangelical scholars, he accuses Harvard Divinity School professor Karen King of "over-reaching." Delicious irony, indeed. Mohler himself seems to be over-reaching--and overreacting--to minimize the notion that Jesus could have had a wife or a woman disciple. 

Brian LePort rounded up some reactions to this discovery (including Bock's reaction), and no one seemed as riled up about it as Mohler. So why does Mohler use such dramatic language, like "sensationalism," "heterodoxy," and even calling King's work "an effort to replace biblical Christianity with an entirely new faith"? I am intrigued that Mohler feels so threatened by this tiny piece of papyrus, which is nowhere near conclusive proof that Jesus was married or had called a woman disciple. 

Perhaps I found the answer in Mohler's characterization of the "ambitions" that drive so-called heretic scholars' efforts to study ancient texts:

Feminists have sought to use the Nag Hammadi texts to argue that women have been sidelined by the orthodox tradition, and that these Gnostic texts prove that women were central to the leadership of the early church, perhaps even superior to the men. 

[...]

Professor King, along with Princeton’s Elaine Pagels, has argued that the politically powerful leaders who established what became orthodox Christianity silenced other voices, but that these voices now speak through the Nag Hammadi texts and other Gnostic writings. Writing together, King and Pagels argue that “the traditional history of Christianity is written almost solely from the viewpoint of the side that won, which was remarkably successful in silencing or distorting other voices, destroying their writings, and suppressing any who disagreed with them as dangerous and obstinate ‘heretics.’”

Although the evidence weighs heavily in favor of Jesus not having had a wife, Mohler's fearful reaction is telling. The suggestion that a woman disciple may have existed is threatening to Mohler's carefully-constructed "biblical, orthodox Christianity." Even if the evidence is scant, it seems Mohler feels he has a duty to dismiss an alternative theory of Jesus' life and ministry. It comes across as offensive to Mohler that a woman would be central to the leadership of the early church, perhaps even superior to men.

Perhaps King is right. The powerful have silenced those voices on the margin. In immediately and strongly dismissing the suggestion that Jesus may have had a woman disciple, Mohler places himself squarely on the side of the powerful, the side that won.

What was there all along...

The next section in Christian Smith's The Bible Made Impossible deals with "A Historically Growing Grasp of the Meaning of the Gospel."  It provides a helpful tool for thinking about a closed canon.  Smith writes: "[T]he Christian church’s historically progressive understanding and working out of the meaning and implications of the gospel as mediated to us through scripture has never in church history been complete and is not now complete."  

The common evangelical belief is that the New Testament provides all we need to know theologically, and modeled how believers work out the gospel in a "particular sociohistorial context.  This does not mean the New Testament authors "understood and worked out all the long-term implications of the gospel for theological knowledge, human life, and society."  Later generations continued to develop the authors' theology in new ways.  It took over 350 years "to work out orthodox, catholic, christological, and trinitarian doctrines, which most evangelicals still affirm as theologically nonnegotiable today." I loved his description of this process, "theological wrangling."

"What was embryonic in scripture needed to develop and grow into a more mature theological expression of what was there all along."  Smith argues the New Testament authors had simply not "worked out the full implications" of the truth they so cherished, but which later generations of Christians have formulated.

Slavery is a prime example of this "unfolding."  The New Testament authors did not work out the gospel's moral implications for slavery.  This has caused many to reject Christianity, which is understandable.  I believe the doctrine of inerrancy keeps this stumbling block in place, ossifying what is supposed to be inchoate.  

Smith notes early Christians were, "like all humans, limited in time, place, and range of vision." For them, slavery was an unalterable fact of life.  The Gospel merely meant slaves should submit to their masters and masters should treat their slaves well.  But, the Gospel started planting seeds, "in the form of the then-radical idea that slaves and masters were equals and brothers in Christ."

For all Christians to unequivocally understand that the Gospel means the end of slavery took time and struggle--wrangling.  Today, all Christians look back and clearly know the truths of the Bible unfold in such a way that slavery is wrong.  The denouncement of slavery was not itself a teaching found anywhere other than in embryonic forms in the New Testament. But eventually all Christians grasped this truth by fleshing out the Gospel's ramifications.  Smith explains: 

[T]he total meaning of the gospel did not land on the apostles’ doorsteps the day after Pentecost, like a cognitive FedEx package containing everything the church would ever need to know, think, and believe until Jesus returns in glory. 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 church history.

He later describes this process as a "slow but ultimately revolutionary leavening of the gospel in human life," not overtly prescribed but nevertheless a valid result of New Testament teachings.  

Smith's use of slavery as an example, to me, highlights the necessity of decolonizing our faith.  Of course there were those who knew from the start that slavery was unequivocally wrong - slaves themselves!  And I'm wary of describing the process as slow.  Just as Martin Luther King Jr. warned against white moderates' desire to take the civil rights movement more slowly, I wouldn't want the gradual, historical unfolding of the Gospel to sanction a delay in ensuring the liberty for all at the foot of the cross.

But back to Smith - he cites a litany of verses to support this premise (in a...biblicist sort of way), but his point remains that evangelicals only apply the "working out" and "growing" verses individualistically. Rather than strictly personal spiritual growth, what if these verses addressed the church's collective understanding of the Gospel?  What if truth itself is developing, unfolding, and dynamic, like a mustard seed, or yeast spreading through rising dough?

Pervasive interpretive pluralism frames the Bible as the complete and final teachings on all subjects.  But let God-fearing, Bible-believing Southern Christians in the nineteenth-century U.S. remind us: failure to grasp a historically progressive understanding of Scripture results in support for one of the ugliest times in human and American history, undergirded by what appears to be the Bible's defense of slavery.  

If a developing, dynamic truth sounds uncomfortably close to postmodernism, most of us would acknowledge that denouncing slavery didn't require a radical postmodern turn away from "objective truth."  I still believe truth has roots, but perhaps we've got to keep watering seeds and wrangling, careful not to let the Gospel fossilize.  Or perhaps we should be more careful not to let our understanding of the Gospel ossify, lest we fail to see what was there all along.

The authority of Scripture: in what do you place your faith?

A couple of months ago, I shared Christian Smith's thoughts about Scripture's ambiguity from The Bible Made Impossible.  This spurred a Twitter exchange  with Ben (check it out on Storify here), who disagreed with my characterization of the Bible as a polyvocal book which, spanning centuries, is not meant to be unified into one consistent narrative.  He didn't think this view allowed us to understand God's revelation, and wondered, "In what do you place your faith?"

This question revealed a telling aspect of biblicism, which seems to result in a faith placed more in the Bible rather than in Christ.  If inerrancy and infallibility are in peril, consequently one's faith is on shaky ground.  So once we deconstruct biblicism, where do we look to for authority?  

Smith addresses this issue in Chapter 7 of The Bible Made Impossible.  Biblicists view authority as one-dimensional: the Bible's words are actually God's words, without error, which provide an infallible doctrinal system that is applied to our lives as a divine handbook.  

However, only a handful of books actually provide moral and theological instruction, as most of Scripture is narrative.  (Notice my "Twitter debate-partner" stated, "narratives are for people who don't believe in truth.")  The rest of Scripture is poetic, legal, or some other non-explicitly-didactic form.  

The most common type of authority is "legitimate power," or the ability to get people to do things they might not want to do.  It's a collective belief that something is valid, even if undesired.  Taxes are a great example.  Most people don't enjoy paying them, but we all do, because of government's authority to tax.  

This definition of authority doesn't work out well when applied to the Bible.  Rather than "power over," the Bible's authority can be cast in terms of "power to," a transformative capacity.   A person with this kind of authority can "intervene in the world that in some way alters it."  The Bible

has the justified, valid, and legitimate power to “get things done” in our lives, to intervene with us to make a difference in outcomes. [T]his “power to” involved in the Bible’s authority is a “transformative capacity,” not merely to force the unwanted, but to change things in the world and our lives with a real justification and validity.

Smith finds this approach similar to N.T. Wright's, as detailed here: How Can the Bible Be Authoritative?.  Last May, I wrote a little about this great article, and thought it fitting to re-post a snippet because it works so well with Smith's critiques.  Authority isn't correctness or validity, but rather is rooted in the church living out and re-creating God's redemptive story.  This is why Scripture has narratives.  Wright explains:

Story authority, as Jesus knew only too well, is the authority that really works.  Throw a rule book at people’s head, or offer them a list of doctrines, and they can duck or avoid it, or simply disagree and go away.  Tell them a story, though, and you invite them to come into a different world; you invite them to share a world-view or better still a ‘God-view’.  That, actually, is what the parables are all about.  They offer, as all genuine Christian story-telling the does, a world-view which, as someone comes into it and finds how compelling it is, quietly shatters the world-view that they were in already.  

Wright concludes:

Scripture contains many things that I don’t know, and that you don’t know; many things we are waiting to discover; passages which are lying dormant waiting for us to dig them out.  Awaken them.  We must then make sure that the church, armed in this way, is challenging the world’s view of authority.  

Smith and Wright's reframing of authority reminded me of the old hymn, Tell Me the Story of Jesus:  

Tell me the story of Jesus,
Write on my heart every word.
Tell me the story most precious,
Sweetest that ever was heard.

I found it interesting that one line of the hymn is "Love in that story so tender, clearer than ever I see."  Clarity?  Doesn't allowing ambiguity and narrative-driven authority result in the opposite?  

I don't think so. Narrative is powerful.  Rather than preaching at others or warning they're on dangerous ground for not accepting Western notions of correctness and legitimacy, let's tell and live out redemptive stories.  Write them on hearts.  Quietly shatter world-views with them.  Perhaps then we'll understand the Bible's words more clearly than ever, and won't worry so much about placing our faith in the Bible when it's deconstructed by modern definitions of authority.  

Inerrancy is weak

The next section in Chapter 7 of Christian Smith's The Bible Made Impossible encourages an understanding of various meanings the written word can take on, which biblicists often fail to appreciate.  As a result, biblicists find themselves in some tough spots.   

A written phrase can simply make a descriptive statement, or it can evoke commands, promises, warnings, criticism, surprise, inspiration, insults, etc.  

Smith points out "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." When translating written utterances into different contexts, "significant problems of meaning arise."

Smith continues: "the meanings of terms such as 'error,' 'mistaken,' 'inaccurate,' and 'fallible' become not entirely straightforward when speech acts are understood in this way."  In imposing these categories (which I argue are very modern Western notions), what does it mean for warnings, expressions of surprise, insults, appeals, promises, expressions of honor, etc., to be in error?  Smith writes:

Given the richness of the variety of kinds of speech acts that appear to be at work in the Bible, therefore, 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.” That particular term—a favorite of many evangelicals—tends to zero in on matters of accuracy in reporting on facts and events as a matter of correspondence between propositions and the real states to which those propositions refer. But that term tends not to capture the multitude of other ways in which the locutions of texts and their illocutionary and perlocutionary acts may or may not be reliable, authoritative, compelling, powerful, inviting, and so on.

We don't parse the accuracy of a comforting word given during a time of grief - and inerrancy as applied to the Bible works the same way:

Evangelical defenders of biblical inerrancy are used to the typical charge by more liberal critics that “inerrancy” is too strong, extreme, or demanding of a concept to accurately describe what the Bible is. What I am suggesting here is quite the opposite. “Inerrancy” is far too limited, narrow, restricted, flat, and weak a term to represent the many virtues of the Bible that are necessary to recognize, affirm, and commend the variety of speech acts performed in scripture.

Genesis 1-2 is an excellent example.  What was the intended effect of the written words of these chapters?  Was it to convey to the reader that the Yahweh God created a good world with his power?  Or was it to communicate a literal scientific account about the precise method and time period of the creation of the world?  Was it to banish rival pagan narratives of the earth's origins?  Or, anachronistically, was it to motivate followers of the Yahweh God to mobilize against teaching evolution in schools?  

To impose our categories of literalism and factual accuracy onto a rich, ancient text disrespects the intended effect of Scripture's written words.  Inerrancy forces the Bible to look like a collection of "error-free propositions with which to construct indubitably true systematic theologies[.]"  But the living God of the Bible "actively promises, confronts, beckons, comforts, invites, commands, explains, encourages," and more.  

I don't want the flat and weak version of Scripture that inerrancy hands us.  I want the complicated, perplexing, diverse, active, and living Scripture that isn't forced into categories such as "factually-correct," "error-free," or "literal."

The next section in Chapter 7 that I plan to post about is a discussion of biblical authority, which inerrantists usually bring up in response to the idea that the Bible was never intended to be viewed as factually error-free.

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Problems with the theory of inspiration

The next section in Chapter 7 of Christian Smith's The Bible Made Impossible criticizes the deductive theory of inspiration.  Deductive reasoning starts with a theory, and then moves on to the observed object, which is the Bible in this case.  

Smith argues that evangelicals get into trouble when starting with the theory of inspiration, and describes the common logic:

(1) all scripture is in the biblical canon because it is inspired by God (per 2 Tim. 3:16–17);

(2) “inspiration” definitely means “plenary verbal” inspiration (every word and grammatical form is divinely inspired);

(3) since God does not err, tell falsehoods, or say useless things, everything in the Bible is not only inerrant but also meant to communicate divine truth, which readers must learn; and, therefore,

(4) in every statement the Bible, most often read in its “plainest” sense, communicates binding theological and moral truth.

Nowhere in Scripture is this model used to describe Scripture itself; inspiration is an external theory biblicists impose on the text.  And the point of 2 Timothy 3:16-17 was to describe Scripture's pastoral usefulness, not its factual correctness.

Similar to Timothy Beal's argument in The Rise and Fall of the Bible, which I discussed here, simply looking at the early church's concept of "the Bible" causes the doctrine of inspiration to collapse.  Early Christians had no concept of a closed canon, and passed around different versions of the authoritative version of Scripture until the final canon was determined in the late fourth century.

While most of what ended up in the New Testament canon had been written by the end of the first century, few communities had copies of all of these texts.  And, some texts many Christians considered scriptural weren't even included in the later official canon, while some texts considered non-scriptural ended up in the final canon.  Smith points out:

This means that the early Christian church lived without “the Bible” as we know it canonically for nearly four hundred years, even if many churches possessed copies of many of the documents that eventually went into the New Testament. That has big implications for the role of the church, the Holy Spirit, and the “rule of faith” in the function of scriptural authority for Christians.

Noting how the church has interpreted the Bible for the past 2,000 years is another aspect that pokes holes in the theory of inspiration.  Evangelicals have a tendency to be anti-traditionalist and to not lend as much credence to those who are not American (or, I would add, Western European).  Smith calls this tendency "foolish and arrogant."  We miss out on the benefit and insight of our predecessors.  

We have no reason to pretend to be "biblically or ecclesially self-sufficient" or feel superior to our predecessors and to non-Western believers.  Smith writes:

American evangelicals should pay much greater attention to how Christian believers read and interpret scripture in other parts of the world, across space, particularly perhaps in the Global South. “The church today must be open to listening to how other Christians from other cultures read Scripture and live it out in their daily lives” [quoting Peter Enns]. American evangelicals have already learned and can still learn a great deal from Christian believers outside their subculture and normal social networks.

Non-present-day and non-American interpretations won't always necessarily be better, but at least bucking this anti-traditionalist and ethnocentric trend will "reveal blind spots, challenge parochial views, offer insightful perspectives...and suggest helpful ways to resolve differences of understanding within the American evangelical world."

Not surprisingly, this is one of my favorite points of the book, because I believe the theory of inspiration aggrandizes the perspective of those who have the loudest voices when interpreting Scripture within North American evangelicalism.  When the Bible is read in its “plainest” sense, and thus communicates binding theological and moral truth, this truth often ends up reflecting the viewpoint of the most influential and loud interpreters, who are usually middle- to upper-class, white, straight males.  And a purportedly "plain" reading of Scripture disregards the cultures in which both the text and the reader are rooted.  

My intent is not to marginalize middle- to upper-class, white, straight males, but rather to recognize that the logic that undergirds the theory of inspiration may keep helpful alternative views from informing how we look at Scripture.