eChurch Christian Blog

What follows is a guest-post which appeared on the excellent Scientia et Sapientia blog.

Despite the fact that I’ve already linked to this in a previous post, I requested permission to feature in full on this blog, as this article absolutely ‘nailed it’ and is a timely message that needs to be heard:

Guest blog by Daniel Attaway (Student at Dallas Theological Seminary)

“Bible, Bible, Bible. Everybody is reading the Bible.” This is how one of my seminary profs chose to begin one of his classes and it was slightly shocking because it was satirical. This statement is more or less true about Evangelicals because the Bible is our authority and the written revelation of God (no argument there). Have you ever encouraged someone to read their Bible? Have you ever told them that if they want to know God’s will for their life then they need to read the Bible? Have you ever even given the slightest thought as to what you were asking that person to do?

On a large scale we as Evangelicals claim that if Christians will interpret Scripture using a historical-grammatical method and good exegesis they will arrive at an orthodox interpretation. Is this true? No, and here is one reason why: interpretation never arises from a blank slate, which is what the historical-grammatical approach claims. This approach does not take into account that everyone comes to the text with presuppositions and a predisposition to interpret the text in a certain way. Currently, we find ourselves living in a post-enlightenment world, which states, “I am just concerned with the data.” So we look at the original language, the grammatical structure, and the cultural setting for our interpretation. This method is not all-together wrong or incorrect, but is it complete?

Here is how this scenario plays out… Suppose the head pastor of an evangelical church wants to do a sermon on David and Goliath. He spends the week leading up to Sunday studying the cultural background, geography, history of the Philistine/Israelite controversy, and the fight between David and Goliath. What will likely happen is after this information has been given, the pastor will say, “Here is how you slay the giants in your life,” and he goes off on that subject. Is that a poor application to make? Maybe not, but is the interpretation whole? Is that reading distinctively Christian? I submit that it is not because it is not informed by the Christ event, namely the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Stopping at the “facing your giants” interpretation seems to be what Dr. Christian Smith calls “Therapeutic-Moralistic Deism.” So what is the distinctively Christian reading? Tim Keller gave a good answer when he said, “Jesus is the true and better David whose victory becomes his people’s victory, though they never lifted a stone to accomplish it themselves.”

So what is the alternative? A Christocentric, orthodox informed lens through which we read and interpret the Scriptures. The early church interpreted Scripture through the lens of what had been passed down to them, known as the “rule of faith.” A simple definition of the rule of faith is apostolic, orthodox teaching. Irenaeus was a mainstream defender of the Christian faith against heretical teaching and he wrote that the one standard of correct interpretation is the rule of faith, which has been preserved in the church in the apostolic succession. So what is the lens? What should inform our interpretation? Orthodoxy. What is distinctively Christian is our starting point and that informs our interpretation.

In conclusion, we should not seek to read Scripture as anyone other than a Christian. You should not want to read the Old Testament like a Jew. You are not Jewish! You are Christian. The call is that we no longer place ourselves at the center of the Scriptures and determine “what they have to say to me,” but to read the Scriptures through the lens of orthodoxy and what is distinctively Christian. Is the Bible about what we are to do, or about what God has done? I believe that we have taught our people to read the Bible. We have even taught them to read it correctly with a historical-grammatical approach. But have we taught them how to read it Christianly? Don’t get me wrong, the historical-grammatical approach to interpretation is beneficial, but I do not believe it is complete. My fear along with others is that we are encouraging people to go home and read their Bibles in isolation and we give them no lens through which to do so. Sadly, the average layperson does not view God as Trinitarian, nor do they read the Scriptures through a  Christocentric lens. This is raising up a multitude of people who view the Bible as their “roadmap to life,” and have little to no knowledge concerning historic Christian orthodoxy. This, among other things has lead many to predict an evangelical collapse. Do you agree or do you think orthodoxy as a starting point is ill conceived?

Four more fabulous blog posts for you. The Christian blogosphere is on fire today, so make sure you read these as they’re worth the time:

Scientia et Sapientia – Are You Reading the Bible Wrong?

Parchment and Pen – Beware of “Professional Weaker Brethren”

Onesimus Online – The Trinity in Evangelical and Orthodox Perspectives

Roger E Olsen – God and evil

Superb August round-up of activity in the Biblio-blogging world courtesy of our very own beloved Dr Jim West:

August 2010 Biblical Studies Carnival

As the issue of Biblical literalism seems to be a recurring theme in conversations on this blog, I’ve decided to highlight a couple of pieces which to my mind expose some of the problems endemic within the literalistic approach:

First from BioLogos:

For some Christians, it is very important to read the Bible literally unless it is impossible to do otherwise. In fact, some hold that reading the Bible literally is the only way to read it as God’s authoritative word for the church. As the logic goes, once you start down the road of not taking the Bible literally, there is no telling where that road will end. Individual Christians will be free to pick and choose what parts of the Bible are binding and which parts aren’t. At that point, the Bible ceases being the authority, and we become the authority. That would mean chaos for Christian doctrine.

Literalism is seen as the safest way to maintain the doctrinal health of the church. That is why some consider it to be the default position of faithful readers of the Bible.

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Some Christians apply this line of thought is applied to the creation stories in Genesis. It is thought that, since there is no announcement or any other indication to the contrary, we have no option other than to accept this as a literal account of history.

Literalism is designed to insure that Christians not go down the slippery slope to relativism. Literalism builds a fence around the Bible. Occasionally it is necessary to take some things non-literally, but by and large all biblical interpretation is well inside the literalist fence.

As compelling as this logic may be, it runs up against some significant problems. Those problems are generated by the Bible itself. That doesn’t mean a totally literal interpretation of the Bible is always wrong. Not at all. But it does mean that literalism is not the default position that Christians should take.

Read All

Ed Stetzer has just posted a blog article entitled; Calling for Contextualization Part 6: Loving and Hating the World and although he’s not explicitly tackling the issue of Biblical liberalism, his very first paragraph highlights to me the problems that can arise if a person always adopts this approach and never contextualises:

The Scripture has a lot to say on the subject of “the world” that, on a cursory reading, can seem contradictory. Consider, for example, what the Apostle John says. In John 3:16 he wrote: “For God so loved the world…” But then in 1 John 2:15 he wrote: “Do not love the world or the things that belong to the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in Him.” He records Jesus’ words in John 12:47, “For I did not come to judge the world but to save the world,” but relates Jesus’ admonition in 15:19, “If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”

It seems like poor John can’t seem to make up his mind about “the world,” and whether we should love it or hate it.

Read All

Taken literally are we supposed to love the world as God did, or hate it, or neither?

Another example that jumps to mind is Luke 14:26:

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters–yes, even his own life–he cannot be my disciple”

So, even though I’m exhorted to love as God loves, in the literalist world view presumably I’m to hate my family?

Any thoughts?

We haven’t done any psychobabble for a little while and although I’ve not received any complaints, I suspect this must have been a sad and grevious loss to your lives.

In order to redress this appalling and atrocious neglect I have an interesting piece for you.

This piece written by Dr. Stephen Diamond looks at demon possession and the recent growth in exorcisms from a psychiatric perspective.

Obviously Dr. Diamond does not view demon possession as a valid phenomena and as usual for this discipline, this piece throws up more questions than it answers.

Interestingly it’s almost as if demon possession/ exorcism presents a threat or challenge to psychiatry / psychology itself.

Still this is an interesting piece and worth a read. I’m going to feature the conclusion of the piece below (which is on page 2) and you can view page one of the piece here.

Enjoy:

Despite its continued prevalence in varying forms, most psychotherapy does not adequately treat the possession syndrome. For some bedeviled individuals, the traditional ritual of exorcism or myth of “demonic possession” serves to make more sense of their suffering than the scientific, secular, biochemical explanations and cognitive-behavioral theories proffered these days by conventional mainstream psychiatry and psychology. If psychotherapy as a healing of the soul (not just the mind) is to survive and thrive into the next century, our obsession with cognition, behavior, genetics, neurology and biochemistry must be counterbalanced by the inclusion of the spiritual and depth psychological dimension of human existence.

The truth is, most psychotherapy patients need far more than what pharmaceutical intervention and/or cognitive therapy–the two most popular so-called “evidence-based” or empirically supported modalities today–can provide. They need and deserve support and accompaniment through their painful, frightening, disorienting, perilous spiritual or existential crises, their “dark night of the soul.” They need a psychologically meaningful method to confront their metaphorical devils and demons, their repressed anger or rage, and the existential reality of evil. They need a secular spiritual psychotherapy willing to ask the right questions. In a time where so many have lost faith in God, rejected organized religion, yet still seek something transpersonal to believe in, something spiritual, something transcendental or supernatural, the notion of demonic possession has diabolically tempting appeal. For to believe that the Devil and his demons can take possession of one’s body, mind and soul is to find evidence also of God’s existence. And to make meaning from meaninglessness. This “will to meaning,” as existential psychiatrist Viktor Frankl called it, is a fundamental human drive, one which abhors a meaningless “existential vacuum.” For those who have lost faith, the myth of demonic possession can–in addtion to providing a possibility of attributing responsibility for our darkest, most despicable or spiritually unacceptable emotions, impulses and evil deeds to something or someone other than ourselves– paradoxically provide a path back to God, since God and the Devil are but two sides of the same spiritual coin. Unless psychology can provide a better or at least equally satisfying, meaningful alternate explanation of the possession syndrome–and a more effective way to deal with it– belief in demonic possession and the practice of exorcism are bound to escalate.