More on the Bible
30 September 2005 by Gil
I appreciate all the comments on the 2nd last post. It’s clear that there’s a strong sense out there that how we read and interpret the bible matters. I hope that I am not seen to be calling for less of a role for the bible in our lives. That would place me in a very odd position give the profession I am in. I suppose that this conversation is a reflection of an ongoing struggle I have had with what role the bible ought to have in my own life and in the life of the church.
Many of us evangelicals have grown up with a deep faith in the bible. If you’re wondering what that last sentence means, good for you. That’s exactly the point. We don’t always know what it means to have faith ‘in the bible’. We believe it speaks truthfully, we believe that God continues to speak through it today and we believe that it is a record of God’s interaction with his people. These are all good and healthy aspects of ‘having faith in the bible’. Evangelicals, at their best, can serve as a powerful reminder of a strong conviction of the centrality of scripture in the life of the church.
But we also may have less obvious beliefs. We believe that it is a Christian duty to read the bible every day and that this is the primary sign of ‘devotion’ to God. This, at its worst, can lead to a view of bible reading that is somewhat analagous to ‘taking our medicine’. It doesn’t taste all that great but we know it’s good for us. See a post by Jessica Morgun for a very interesting perspective on this.
I have no wish to disparage daily bible reading and I certainly believe that a person’s relationship with God will benefit from increased exposure to scripture. Should we read the bible? Yes. Should we stop there? Obviously not. The bible leads us to Christ, it is ‘the manger in which the Christ child is laid’. If it doesn’t serve that purpose we could memorize the whole thing and miss the point entirely.
Where Hauerwas continues to challenge me is through his idea that a book was never the point. The church was and is the point. We exist now as a foretaste of God’s kingdom, a body of people who recognize and submit to God’s rule. That relationship, the relationship between a people and their king, is the point. The bible is the only guide we have and it is immeasurably valuable because of that. But the point is Jesus and the entrance into God’s kingdom that he made possible. That is, I think, at the heart of Hauerwas’ bold statement of the role of the bible in contemporary North American Christianity.
“This, at its worst, can lead to a view of bible reading that is somewhat analagous to ‘taking our medicine’.”
As a prof you are allowed - even expected - certainly from my vantage as pastor sending kids to your tutilage; to question anything you like. I hope you freak the socks out of most of your students.
however, I’m guessing that your comment as cited above indicates that you are concerned that daily Bible reading is obsuring the focus of Christianity which should be Christ. You may very well be entirely accurate with that analysis. Can ask you a favor from one of the senders to your tower of learning - - - please don’t cut these fine young people’s footing out from under them without giving them something else (hopefully better) to stand on. I know you are not such a mean professor as to do that. But the current post modern way of talking and thinking has been really good at decontructing and not so good at the rebuilding phase.
By the way Gil I just want to say infront of everyone how proud I am of you. It seems like all those tortured days around the Wacky Wheels have found some fruit end. I know of no one else I would want to trust ‘my kids’ to as much as you.
Part of the problem, as I see it Gil, is precisely that we do have “faith in the Bible”. The Bible doesn’t save me. Neither does the church. Nor even does Christianity. So, I agree with you that when the Bible serves as a signpost to that which is worthy of our faith then we are in a healthy spot - and nothing deserves our faith and commitment save God. In regards to your statement that Hauerwas avers that the the church is a foretaste of the Kingdom, I would, in the spirit of McLaren push a little farther and say that the church acts as a catalyst for the kingdom and is by no means equal to it. If the church is the foretaste of the kingdom, we miss the fact that kingdom life is often most profoundly experienced outside the walls of the church building and, even outside the influence of “churched Christians”. May I dare say that God’s rule can be experienced in lives other than only those who are called Christians and even more certainly in lives other than only those who belong to “church”. I’m enjoying this thread. Thanks Gil for being provocative.
Dale,
Thanks for your kind words, thanks also for the warning. It is a dangerous business to be deconstructing all the time. You are quite justified in asking if we are as willing to build up as we are to tear down.
So in answer to your specific challenge I think we would need to ask what we would replace obligatory Bible reading WITH. Again, I don’t want to be heard to say that the Bible is not a good way to get to know God. But our uniquely evangelical error is that we tend to say more for the Bible than it says for itself. The question then becomes: In what ways do we cultivate a relationship with God? What are the options that are available to us? I think Andrew’s post is a good start but you’re absolutely right that this question deserves at least as much attention as the more negative ones. Thanks.
Andrew,
Another helpful reminder about where it is that God rules and who it is that he rules among. I would certainly agree that God is at work in the lives of people who may never darken the door of a church. It would be a gross error to restrict the scope of God’s reign to the (often) feeble efforts of the church.
I think Hauerwas’s point has some merit in that the church is (or ought to be) the place where God’s reign through Christ is RECOGNIZED and FOLLOWED. In this way we can serve as a foretaste of what is to come.
The fact that this happens AS A BODY is also significant. It forces me to realize the fact that God is interested in a group of people and not just giving me a religious buzz (not at all what I hear you saying but I think it’s a common perception). I would be hesitant to downplay the role of the church too much because it seems to lead down a path that says, ‘You discover God in your way, I’ll discover my own.’
Again I don’t hear you saying this but I think that this is a danger when our concept of ‘what God is doing’ is loosed from the moorings of the church.
I say that with some difficulty because I know that the church is very imperfect and often frustrating place to try to find God.
The church cannot claim to be the only place where God’s rule is recognized. But neither can it be dismissed as incidental. Thanks for a thought-provoking post.
Gilbert, I most certainly agree that God is interested in groups of people and salvation is largely (and falsely) proclaimed as my own personal relationship with God and nothing beyond that. God chooses to work through groups of people. Yet allow me to push a little farther on this one point that you make in your reply to my comment - “the church is (or ought to be) the place where God’s reign through Christ is RECOGNIZED and FOLLOWED. In this way we can serve as a foretaste of what is to come.” I still believe that the church is less the place where God’s reign is recognized and more of a group of people who serve the kingdom. We don’t encapsulate the kingdom, nor are we the example of it. We serve the King and we exist as a people group called a church mainly for the purpose of equipping each other to work towards bringing kingdom redemption to the whole of creation. Perhaps we are saying the same thing, but I am enjoying the conversation.
Andrew,
I think our disagreement may be minimal on this one. Is there a difference between seeing the church as ‘foretaste’ and the church as ’servant’ of the kingdom? I’m not sure. An image that has lodged in my head is that of the church as a ‘test plot’. In the same way that Israel was to be a ‘peculiar people,’ the church is to serve the kingdom by its witness as a body. This means that the internal ‘culture’ of the church is a significant part of its witness.
I don’t think that necessarily puts us into an adversarial, us against them mentality with the world (although it has happened too often in our past). God’s kingdom extends far beyond our meager efforts as a church. But I still think that things should look different on the inside.
Well Gil, I guess the biggest issue I have with that would be that it would then require that people on the outside would have to come to us as a church to experience the kingdom. I am of the persuasion that we should be enacting the kingdom in the dark corners or our world, being catalysts for the kingdom so that it can be realized in lives of people who are far from the church or any other experience of God. As you and I both know, there are plenty of people who are dying for an experience of God but who will never darken the door of a church - nor should they be required to in order to experience a changed life and God’s presence with them.