By Beth Newman
Who was the sage who observed that “no matter how cynical you become, it’s impossible to keep up?”
The latest example of this particular eternal verity is the procession of the secretary of the Treasury Department, the chair of the Federal Reserve, and other assorted experts appearing before Congress to explain that we stand on the edge of national financial disaster. Of course, these same persons were assuring us only a few days before that the foundations were basically sound. And these are the experts.
Let me say here that I see something more threatening in this drama than even the threat of another Great Depression. The breakdown in trust between a people and their leaders makes any idea of a commonwealth impossible.
Another news story illustrates the same problem, albeit on a level much less likely to receive any national attention. Lifeway Research has commented on a newly discovered “disconnect” between pew and pulpit on the issue of biblical authority. Basically, according to these surveys, while Southern Baptist pastors are united in affirming the “inerrancy of Scripture,” at least one quarter of the persons in the pews don’t regard the Bible as “the authoritative source of truth and wisdom for daily living.”
Of course, a division between clergy and laity over the authority of Scripture is nothing new. But in the past (I speak from the experience of being both a student and teacher in seminary) the questions about authority were usually on the clergy side. Anyone who has been exposed to the historical-critical method of studying Scripture has wrestled with questions about how much of what one has been taught about the Bible can actually be shared from the pulpit without risking one’s job.
The new division is something else.
On one level, I’m sure it’s a reflection of the so-called postmodern rejection of any notion of any objective and authoritative truth. Another explanation might be the supposed freedom of each Baptist to interpret Scripture for him or herself.
The deeper problem is this: the questions are framed in a way that reflects a lack of consensus as to what the Scriptures are about in the first place. Without a common vision on what the Bible is, there can be no consensus on how to allow it to form a way of life together.
On one hand, take the question of the “inerrancy of Scripture.” As an issue, this arose during the fundamentalist-modernist controversy of the early 20th century and, as many before me have observed, the inerrantists shared with their opponents one assumption: that the Bible can be properly read and understood in the absence of the gathered community of the church. An example from my youth would be Josh McDowell’s Evidence that Demands a Verdict.
The alternative is what one might call a “therapeutic” view of Scripture that is reflected in language about the Bible being a source of “wisdom for daily living.” Certainly the Bible contains much wisdom of this sort, but so does The Old Farmer’s Almanac. And in neither case do we need to accept the sources as completely authoritative to profit from them.
As I observed earlier, the differing conceptions about the role and value of Scripture reflect the difficulty we are currently experiencing at many different levels within our society. The way through (if not the way out) is not for either side of the biblical divide to convince the other, but for all of us who bear the name of Christ to recapture a full vision of what it means to be a people of the Word.
To do this, I want to suggest we need to leave behind the dichotomies of our earlier debates and enter fully into the story that the Bible narrates: God is working to restore ourselves to him. This involves God creating a people — first Israel and then, we believe, the church.
This process, of course, did not end in the first century. God continues to create a people through his Word, grafting them onto that great communion of saints that stretches across time and place.
It is certainly true that a modern myopia easily leads some to domesticate God’s Word — turning it into an historical text or private faith document. And yet, to hear God’s Word faithfully is to be drawn, by grace, into God’s adventure of re-creation. The exciting task, both for the preacher and for the congregation, is to discover for ourselves our place within this cosmic story.
