Edgework

Modern Christian pilgrims who are prepared to move intentionally into the second half of life, as Richard Rohr describes it, are gradually confronted with the question of how the Bible helps them along the way. The problem is that the Bible, as perceived in the first half of life with all its black and white certainty, does not resonate well with those encountering suffering, uncertainty, paradox and mystery in the second half of life. Evangelical “Biblicism” is found wanting and so the search begins for a different paradigm for using the Bible in the quest for deeper spirituality.

Christian Smith has helped us come to grips with the need to rethink how we read the Bible. I have commented in earlier essays extensively on his book, The Bible made Impossible: Why Biblicism is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of the Scripture, (2011). It definitely was a wakeup call for me to think how I read the Bible in this stage of life.

Smith defines “Biblicism” as “…a theory about the Bible that emphasizes together its exclusive authority, infallibility, perspicuity, self-sufficiency, and internal consistency, self-evident meaning and universal applicability” (viii). He goes on to say that Biblicism is “…a constellation of related assumptions and beliefs about the Bible’s nature, purpose and function” (4). These include the following: Everything in the Bible is identical to God’s very own words. The Bible is the only mode of God’s communication with humanity and contains the totality of God’s revelation. Any reasonably intelligent person can understand the plain meaning of the biblical text if it is read in a literal, commonsensical manner. Theological formulations can be built up directly out of the Bible whose truths fit together perfectly like pieces of a puzzle and are universally applicable unless revoked by subsequent scriptural teaching.

This was the window through which I read the Bible in my youth and early adulthood and it remains the default window many Christians still use today. And, on the surface, it has a lot going for it. One can cling to the Bible as God’s perfect will and plan written directly to me. And, to a certain degree, it works. Many of us have found comfort, direction and “divine encounter” through the Bible in this way. What I have noticed, however, is that those who keep using this window are often not serious students of the Bible. But this window works for them when reading selected passages from an evangelical devotional guide where Biblicism, as defined by Smith, seems to emerge effortlessly.

I do not wish to argue with those who insist on reading the Bible through the Biblicist window. But I do want to offer some encouragement for those who find themselves ready to move on. The change doesn’t come easily or automatically and there certainly is a level of grief and loss involved. Two resources I have found helpful in this move are The Myth of Certainty, by Daniel Taylor (1992) and more recently the book by Peter Enns, The Sin of Certainty, (2016).

Often our journey starts with a few niggling questions: How can Genesis One be historically accurate when plants appear before the sun? Was God really in favor of polygamy and slavery? Why all the historical discrepancies within the records of ancient Israel’s history? Did God really command Israel to commit genocide? Why is the story of Jesus constructed so differently in the synoptic gospels than in the Gospel of John? Were Paul’s racist comments about the Cretans included for my benefit? And the struggle deepens when one becomes aware that the world view of biblical times is not consistent with the one we all live with today.

A book I have recently found very helpful in my own journey is Peter Enns’ work, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament, (2nd Edition, 2015). I appreciate Enns’ refusal simply to go with liberals who maintain that the Bible is purely an ancient human text or with Biblicists who resist any rethinking even though the need to do so is obvious. He has a great respect for the Bible but insists there is overwhelming evidence for the need of a paradigm shift in how we read it.

The main thesis of the book, already hinted at in the title, is that there is an analogy to be made between the incarnation of Christ and the inspiration of Scripture. I will quote Enns at length to make this point clear:

The starting point for our discussion is the following: Christ is both God and human, so is the Bible. In other words we are to think of the Bible analogously to how Christians think about Jesus. Christians confess that Jesus is both God and human at the same time…He is not essentially one and only apparently the other. Rather one of the central doctrines of the Christian faith…is that Jesus is 100 percent God and 100 percent human – at the same time.

This way of thinking about Christ is analogous to thinking about the Bible. In the same way that Jesus is – must be – both God and human, the Bible is also a divine and human book. Although Jesus was “God with us,” he still completely assumed the cultural trappings of the world in which he lived…

So too the Bible. It belongs in the ancient worlds that produced it. It was not an abstract, otherworldly book dropped out of heaven. It was connected to and therefore spoke to those ancient cultures (5).

In what follows, Enns compares Old Testament and other literature from the ancient world, theological diversity in the Old Testament, and the way in which the New Testament authors handle the Old Testament. He insists that, in light of these realities, we must begin to imagine new ways of engaging with the biblical text in our modern age.

I will expand on what this might look like in future essays.