The Battle for the Bible: Renewing the Inerrancy Debate

Early this past summer "evangelical" magazines carried a striking advertisement for a new book by the editor of Christianity Today, the major organ of the postfundamentalist "evangelical" coalition. In boldface type it quoted the author’s assertion that "a battle is raging today. More and more evangelicals are propagating the view that the Bible has errors in it." The publisher of the book added the ominous admonition to "read it and act!"

Neither the advertisement nor the book (which by June had gone into a third printing) makes explicit what this call to action might involve. But evangelicals, for whom the intense struggles of the fundamentalist/modernist controversy are still a living and determinative memory, are jittery, fearing that the book might herald a new era of faculty purges and organizational splits -- a replay of earlier conflicts, this time rending the evangelical world apart. Such nervousness produced over the summer and into the fall a flurry of behind-the-scenes consultations, public clarifications and responses, and other efforts to reassure constituencies and channel the discussion in constructive directions.

‘Authority’ or ‘Inerrancy’?

The author of The Battle for the Bible (Zondervan, $6.95) is Harold Lindsell, who served on the faculties of Chicago’s Northern Baptist Seminary and Pasadena’s Fuller Seminary before succeeding Carl F. H. Henry, founding editor of Christianity Today. The book carries an appreciative foreword/endorsement by Harold J. Ockenga, president of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary near Boston and a major force behind the post -- World War II "neo-evangelical renaissance" that spawned Christianity Today, the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) and Fuller Theological Seminary. All of this blue-chip evangelical clout is brought to bear in support of the doctrine of biblical "inerrancy" against a growing party of theological compatriots inclined to speak more of the "authority" of Scripture with regard to "faith and practice."

Lindsell flatly argues that the Bible "does not contain error of any kind" -- that it may be absolutely trusted in all its references to history, cosmology, science and so forth. For him this doctrine is not only the fundamental discriminator whereby one discerns the "true Christian" but also the universal teaching of the Christian church -- at least prior to the rise of biblical criticism.

Claiming authority primarily as a "historian," Lindsell adduces a string of quotations to support his position and then devotes the larger and more controversial part of his book to detailing the supposedly modern declension from this stance in the Lutheran Church -- Missouri Synod, among the Southern Baptists, at Fuller Theological Seminary, in the Evangelical Covenant Church, and even among the members of the ETS (the Evangelical Theological Society, whose members are required to subscribe annually to a single statement -- that "the Bible alone, and the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written, and therefore inerrant in the autographs"). The final chapters of the book use the Unitarian / Universalist denomination, the late Bishop James Pike, Union Theological Seminary (New York) and other examples to illustrate the "deviations that follow when inerrancy is denied" and "how the infection spreads."

Even this short summary will indicate the quality of Lindsell’s case and its lack of theological and historical subtlety. Lindsell reveals little awareness of the exegetical difficulties of his position and no "feel" at all for the critical problems and the "phenomena of Scripture" forcing other evangelicals to qualify their doctrine of Scripture. His historical analysis is simplistic and dichotomous, for the most part ignoring contrary evidence and the scholarly debates surrounding the interpretation of the material he quotes. Tending to rely on an older scholarship reflecting the polarities of the fundamentalist/modernist controversy, he shows little awareness of the blurring of these lines (in both biblical and historical scholarship) since that struggle. Even the ethics of the book have been called into question. In his zeal for the cause Lindsell has not hesitated to use private correspondence without permission, taking material out of context for his own purposes in a way that distorts its intentions.

Some of us might be more sympathetic to Lindsell and his aims if we could read his book as a defense of biblical authority or as an analysis of the failure of the church (including the "evangelical" church) to find a mode of life and witness that seems authentically "biblical." We could even respond to a sensitive analysis of the theological and religious impasse to which some of the dominant forms of "historical" and "scientific" biblical criticism have brought us. But while Lindsell obviously intends to meet these concerns, his book is actually a repristination (and often less subtle than earlier expressions) of a particular timebound formulation of biblical authority that is being seen by increasing numbers of evangelicals not only to have outlived its usefulness but to have become a positive hindrance to the understanding of the fuller and deeper significance of the Scriptures.

Placing Lindsell’s View in Context

Though Lindsell intends his analysis to be broader, clearly the view he advocates (one espoused by the NAE and the ETS) derives, at least in its precise formulation, from the late 19th century writings of A. A. Hodge and B. B. Warfield, representatives of the so-called "Princeton theology" rooted in the earlier work of Charles Hodge and ultimately in the post-Reformation scholastic traditions, especially that of the Genevan François Turretin. In his Protestant Thought in the Nineteenth Century, Vol. 1 (Yale University Press, 1972), Claude Welch indicates that this theology "became a haven sought (properly or not) by all sorts of conservative revivalists and fundamentalists in the face of the threats of biology and biblical criticism." In this experience was formed the somewhat uneasy coalition that has found expression in the institutions of modern post-fundamentalist "evangelicalism."

The determinative feature of the view of Scripture conveyed in this tradition is found in a seldom articulated "suppressed premise" grounded not so much in exegesis as in the rationalist and scholastic tendencies of post-Reformation orthodoxy. The syllogism goes something like this: God is perfect; the Bible is the Word of God; therefore the Bible is perfect (inerrant). The "suppressed premise" here is actually the focusing of a whole metaphysic emphasizing the "perfection" and "immutability" of God and a highly deterministic view of God’s working in the world more obviously at home in the "high Calvinism" of the old Princeton theology.

This position assumes (though exegesis is brought to bear on the question) that the Bible must be inerrant and infallible if it is in any real sense the "Word of God." This a priori leads rather directly to an immediacy and absoluteness of inspiration which, despite Lindsell’s protests to the contrary, result in a "dictation" view of inspiration and ultimately to a "docetic" view of Scripture in which the human element is present (supposedly!) but never determinative. These assumptions are generally developed in the direction of viewing the Scriptures largely in the categories of divinely given propositions, doctrines and information. As Carl Henry has put it, the Bible is "a book of divinely disclosed doctrinal truth."

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that such premises are at the core of Lindsell’s analysis. His exegesis is able only to produce results in harmony with them. Those statements most assimilable into this framework become the hermeneutical keys to interpreting the theologians of the church. History is understood one-dimensionally as the affirmation of this perspective or as the apostasy involved in its denial.

Lindsell’s understanding is, of course, not restricted to the particular theological tradition in which he stands; it is found in varying degrees elsewhere. But his book and its analysis need to be placed in context to judge the validity of the "historian’s perspective" that he claims. His delineation of "decline" and "apostasy" is more valid for groups that stand directly in the line of the "Princeton theology" and other scholastic traditions and less valid for others. Thus, there is a sense in which he has "got the goods" on Fuller Theological Seminary and certain members of the ETS. These institutions were founded self-consciously to perpetuate a view of Scripture very close to Lindsell’s. Their problem is whether the modern questions (some of them also ancient!) allow such a position to be maintained.

Similarly, Lindsell’s historical analysis has some validity for the Lutheran Church -- Missouri Synod, which took theological shape in a confessional reaction to the 19th century emergence of the "Evangelical United Front" -- a reaction grounded in Lutheran scholasticism just as the Princeton theology was grounded in Reformed scholasticism. Lindsell’s analysis becomes shakier in interpreting the revivalistic Southern Baptist tradition and highly improbable in understanding, for example, the Evangelical Covenant Church, whose pietist and revivalist roots carried an implicit critique (occasionally raised to the status of an explicit theological alternative) of the rationalism and intellectualism of the scholastic and confessional traditions.

But however one finally answers these historical questions and judges the exegetical and theological validity of the positions they express, Lindsell has pointed to currents of great significance not only for the future of the evangelical world but also for the larger American church. There is undeniably a remarkable ferment in the evangelical world and a discernible movement toward new paradigms of biblical authority. A number of factors seem to be giving impetus to these currents.

A Ferment in the Evangelical Brew

In the first place, a "cooler" and more sophisticated scholarship distanced from the heat of earlier controversies has seen new historical nuances and has begun to question the claim of the old Princeton theology to represent the "church doctrine of inspiration" adequately. Fuller theologian Jack Rogers, for example, reports in Confessions of a Conservative Evangelical (Westminster, 1974) the shattering of his inherited view that his "orthodox theology" stood in "unbroken continuity with the theology of Warfield, the Westminster Confession, Calvin, Augustine, and Paul." Rogers set out in 1963 to provide in his dissertation the historical basis for an attack on the United Presbyterians’ proposed "Confession of 1967" only to discover, to his "shock and surprise," that even the Westminster Confession conveyed a more subtly nuanced doctrine of Scripture than the Princeton theology and that the "Confession of 1967" restored important themes.

Similar insights are beginning to surface in the conservative groups that took shelter in the Princeton theology during the founding of ETS and NAE. This development is most clear among Wesleyan groups that have begun to wonder if they did not buy into too much of the Princeton legacy during the fundamentalist/modernist controversies. There is a discernible tendency among such groups to affirm a more developmental, historically conditioned and "Arminian" doctrine of Scripture that avoids the characteristic vocabulary of the absolutistic and ahistorical "inerrancy" formulation. The Church of the Nazarene, for example, has never joined the NAE, and its scholars have by and large not been attracted to the ETS. William Greathouse, the Nazarene Seminary president recently elected a general superintendent of the denomination, regularly distinguishes the Nazarene view not only from the left but also from the fundamentalist (i.e., Lindsell’s) position on the right. Under pressure from Nazarenes and scholars of the Church of God (Anderson, Indiana), other bodies affiliated with the NAE have begun to move in a similar direction. Recent revisions of the Wesleyan Theological Society’s doctrinal statement reveal a "purifying" process that avoids the characteristic expressions of the "inerrancy" position for vocabulary more at home in its prefundamentalist tradition.

At the same time, "biblical criticism" has everywhere made inroads into the evangelical world. Younger faculty members, distanced from earlier controversies and educated at ecumenical centers no longer dominated by earlier polarizations, have come to accept many forms of criticism as a matter of course. While Lindsell seems to find all criticism anathema, figures like George Eldon Ladd of Fuller would advocate a "devout criticism" (cf. his New Testament and Criticism, 1967) that affirms the method without capitulating to a reductionism based on rationalistic a prioris. Ladd also has testified that his work in biblical theology has led him to an explicit rejection of the older categories of the "orthodox" tradition and their emphasis on "propositional revelation."

Lindsell’s analysis at this point reveals an ironic weakness in underestimating the extent to which biblical criticism has penetrated the evangelical world. One finds evangelical scholars (at schools that Lindsell describes as safe!) practicing, for example, "redaction criticism" to separate genuine sayings of Jesus from the creation of the Evangelists -- a task inconceivable under the older assumptions.

‘Young Evangelicals’ and Biblical Feminists

The emergence of a socially activist "young evangelical" consciousness has also given shape to new configurations. Young evangelicals have been overwhelmed to discover the extent of biblical material related to themes of social justice -- material largely ignored in the theology and writings of their elders. The great fence of "inerrancy" that was supposed to have assured a "biblical faith" seems to have failed in this area. (One is beginning to hear this kind of comment: ‘I’m not sure that I believe in a historical Adam and Eve, but I am sure that I believe in a historical application of the Sermon on the Mount." Or this: "Why do our evangelical theologies give so much attention to questions relating to only a few obscure biblical texts while completely ignoring the topic of ‘poorology’ to which are devoted hundreds of clear texts?")

The culmination of a long process of thinking and rethinking can be seen in the May/June issue of The Other Side, a young-evangelical activist magazine. In an editorial introducing an issue on the Scriptures, editor John Alexander struggles with the apparent inverse correlation between commitment to "inerrancy" and commitment to social justice. New loyalties are emerging as such insights are combined with the values young evangelicals find in the biblical interpretations of William Stringfellow, Jacques Ellul, John Howard Yoder, Dale Brown and others who do not share the "inerrancy" assumption.

Particularly significant is one aspect of this movement -- the emergence of an "evangelical feminism." A more conservative party of feminists attempts to offer new exegesis of traditional passages while maintaining an older view of the Scriptures. But a more radical party is raising fundamental questions about the historically conditioned character of the Scriptures. Many evangelicals are beginning to grasp the fact, that certain ways of reading the Scriptures and certain doctrines about the Scriptures may actually become the means of oppression of modern women by the imposition of first century social patterns. This issue is important in part because it raises fundamental theological and hermeneutical questions in a way that is close to the experience of many and thus can be understood by nontheologians.

Hermeneutical Questions

Here the center of controversy has been another Fuller theologian, Paul K. Jewett, who also serves as dean of the Young Life Institute offering theological education to the staff of a popular evangelical youth movement. In his book Man as Male and Female (Eerdmans, 1975), Jewett argues for an egalitarian male/female relationship by calling for distinctions (within the New Testament materials themselves) between Paul the former rabbi and Paul the apostle, or between Paul’s perception of the truth and his implementation of it in the first century. Particularly inflammatory has been Jewett’s rather casual aside that Paul was misled by his rabbinic training to misunderstand the truly egalitarian thrust of the creation narrative.

Such considerations are forcing what has been called "the neglected item of business on the evangelical agenda." Evangelicals are beginning to understand that the real questions about appropriating the Scriptures are not so much matters of doctrine as they are of hermeneutics. The journey toward this question is producing some interesting anomalies. One recent paper read at a meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society (again, by a scholar from one of Lindsell’s "safe" schools) vigorously defended the inerrancy doctrine but then rushed on to the hermeneutical level to distinguish between the timebound Weltbild of Scripture which may be discarded and the eternal Weltanschauung of Scripture which must be preserved. By this means the scholar was able to free himself of the Pauline cosmology while remaining within acceptable theological limits.

The Church Growth Movement

Such hermeneutical discussions receive added impulse from what may seem a strange source, the highly influential and popular "Church Growth Movement" (also centered at Fuller -- in the School of World Mission). What appears on the surface to reaffirm many of the undesirable features of the 19th century missions movement actually carries in its bosom the means of the destruction of the, metaphysic that lies behind Lindsell’s doctrine of the Scriptures.

The high commitment of Church Growth teaching to the social sciences, especially anthropology, has led to incorporation of a large portion of the relativism and pragmatism of the modern world view. In discussions of the "indigenization" of the church in non-Western cultures one hears that the New Testament itself is a particular indigenization and that the gospel message needs to be extracted from first century "cultural clothing" to be re-clothed in that of another age. Leaders Within the Church Growth Movement have even spoken of "Christian Marxists." Despite the mouthing of traditional formulas, when these positions are given full theological explication, they will be found to express a fundamentally different view of the Bible -- fully consistent with the radical party of evangelical feminists but irreconcilable with Lindsell’s understanding.

Rough Times Ahead

All of these currents -- and others as well -- are contributing to the remarkable theological ferment in the evangelical world. Enough is happening to justify the concern of one like Lindsell who cannot see beyond the imminent collapse of his own theology. But from another perspective one can be excited by a ferment that is overcoming the sterile options and dead ends of earlier discussions. The future is uncertain. Much will depend on the workings of ecclesiastical and academic politics, but some configurations are beginning to take shape.

There are obviously rough times ahead as powerful forces line up behind Lindsell. According to Time, Billy Graham has called Lindsell’s book "one of the most important of our generation." Hudson T. Armerding, president of influential Wheaton College and also of the World Evangelical Fellowship, reviewed The Battle for the Bible enthusiastically in the official organ of the NAE. Last spring evangelical "guru" Francis Schaeffer, in a major NAL address (widely reported and reprinted), called "inerrancy" the "watershed of the evangelical world." And next year’s convention will be devoted to the theme "God’s Word: Our Infallible Guide."

Refutations and Defections

On the other side, the ever-irreverent Wittenberg Door (June/July) dismissed Lindsell’s book with a parable about a frightened cub scout who awakened in the middle of the night with a full bladder -- but who was so frightened by the "monsters" outside that in the dark he emptied his bladder all over his tentmates. Privately other evangelical leaders -- especially college and seminary faculty -- express similar perspectives, albeit less picturesquely. One faculty member of a school supposedly in Lindsell’s camp described his book to me as the last irrational flailings of a discredited party about to be deposed.

Certainly there is emerging a firm opposition to capitulating to Lindsell’s reading of the situation. David Hubbard, president of Fuller Seminary, invited the press to a convocation at which he denounced Lindsell’s "unbiblical" understanding of "inerrancy," refuted his analysis of the contemporary theological scene, and vowed that Fuller would "sail into the winds of controversy" confident of the "seaworthiness of our ship and the correctness of our course.’ And both Fuller and Young Life appear to have closed ranks behind Jewett -- at least to the extent of affirming the validity of his position as a needed option in the emerging discussions. And Duke McCall, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, has emphatically responded that Lindsell "stirs up the snakes but kills none of them. The author will neither destroy the heresy he opposes nor divide the Southern Baptist Convention with this silly game with words."

Perhaps more significant as a weathervane is the response of others who stand less directly in Lindsell’s line of fire but who might otherwise be expected to line up behind him. Respected evangelical theologian Clark Pinnock, formerly of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and now of Regent College, defended "inerrancy" in Biblical Revelation (Moody Press, 1971) and earlier made himself a center of controversy by his accusations while serving on the faculty of New Orleans Baptist Seminary. More recently he has repented somewhat of such divisiveness; about the time Lindsell’s book was published, he issued a "truce proposal" on the issue. And in a review in Eternity magazine he criticized the book for its "spirit of suspicion and hostility" while finding it "intellectually superficial" -- even though he would still find himself to the right of Jewett and others at Fuller. Evangelical patriarch Paul Rees, a founder of the NAE, indirectly attacked the book in a World Vision magazine column titled "Are We Trying to Outdo the Reformers?"

Perhaps the most poignant response has been that of Carl F. H. Henry, who has dominated the evangelical intellectual world for a generation. Henry is torn between the emerging parties, insisting on the one hand that he is closer to Lindsell than to Fuller Seminary (where he once taught) but on the other hand scrambling in a number of interviews, articles and reviews to counteract the book’s threat to the evangelical unity to which he has given so much of himself. He argues as founding editor of Christianity Today that while the magazine was editorially committed to "inerrancy," it was never CT’s intention that the doctrine be used so exclusively as the sole determinant of "evangelical authenticity." Henry further criticizes Lindsell for his total rejection of historical criticism, his unkind spirit and his sweeping and unsupported generalizations.

Tensions Toward Realignment

Ironically, Lindsell’s book may very well prove to be a potent force for undermining the very position he defends. The superficiality of the book, combined with its timing in the midst of already swirling controversy, may provide the occasion for a wholesale repudiation of its stance. The rush of theologians and church leaders to dissociate themselves from The Battle for the Bible may indicate that this rejection is already taking place.

The crunch will most likely be felt at Christianity Today. Does the editor’s book inevitably pull the magazine into his corner and make of it a party journal no longer representative of the whole? Or will the magazine find a way to bridge the ever-broadening evangelical world and by implication repudiate Lindsell’s position -- which depends at its very heart on its exclusiveness?

Such tensions and forces toward realignment will be felt throughout evangelicalism in the near future. What will emerge cannot yet be predicted, but the outcome will certainly have significance for the whole American church world. Major splits would further isolate a faithful fundamentalist minority. A pulling away on the left by large segments of the evangelical world would likely result in a merging of those segments with a conservative Protestant mainstream in a way that would have a major impact on the shape and internal politics of a number of church bodies. And what appears to Lindsell as the imminent victory of apostasy may herald the emergence of new models of biblical authenticity and new realignments within American Protestantism that may actually serve to overcome the chasms opened up by the fundamentalist/ modernist controversy of two generations ago.

Evangelicalism Without Fundamentalism

Book Review:

Fundamentalism, By James Barr. Westminster, $7.95 paperback.

Of the proliferating interpretations of "evangelicalism" or "fundamentalism" and its recent. "resurgence," James Barr’s Fundamentalism is surely one of the most profound. Seldom has fundamentalism had so distinguished a critic. Barr, Oxford University’s Oriel professor of the interpretation of Holy Scripture, brings the penetrating argumentation and sharp polemic that characterized The Semantics of Biblical Language (Oxford University Press, 1961), his earlier critique of the ‘biblical theology" movement and Kittel’s Wörterbuch. Though offered as a broader interpretation of fundamentalism, this book is primarily a devastating attack on the biblical interpretation and underlying theological substructure of the recent "postfundamentalist evangelicalism" epitomized in this country by the student movement Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, Christianity Today magazine, and an earlier era at Fuller Theological Seminary.

Those who have followed his earlier work will realize that Barr has chosen fundamentalism as a dialogue partner more often than is usual among mainstream biblical scholars. Part of the reason no doubt lies in Barr’s own background in fundamentalism -- about which he is less than candid. Apart from a couple of very obscure references, one would never guess that he served as president of the "Christian Union" (Inter-Varsity) at Edinburgh a quarter of a century ago.

There is a sense, then, in which this book constitutes a belated, public exorcism of the demon of Barr’s fundamentalist past, a fact that explains both the book’s intensity (and often hostility) and its depth of perception. The result is a remarkable and often brilliant blend of the insider’s penetration and the outsider’s critique that demands the attention of all who would understand fundamentalism, whether as adherents or as observers.

Barr writes generally to the point, and often discerningly, as he delineates the "religious basis" of fundamentalism; surveys its attitudes toward such diverse phenomena as politics, science, culture, Zionism and Roman Catholicism; catalogues such variations as Pentecostalism, Calvinist and Arminian conflicts, and millennialism; and probes its anti-ecumenical and anticritical ethos. As one might expect, however, Barr is at his best when he returns again and again to his central theme -- a critique of the style of biblical interpretation that follows from the fundamentalist commitment to a doctrine of the "inerrancy of Scripture."

Fundamentalism is, for Barr, finally a pathological condition of Christianity" -- a tradition of the interpretation of Scripture which not only is untenable but which also prevents a true reading of the Scriptures and a positive relationship of the movement to the rest of the church. He suggests that the heart of fundamentalism is not, as is often supposed, a commitment to a "literal" reading of the Bible but rather a commitment to a reading that preserves the Bible’s "inerrancy" in every detail, even if its literal sense must be violated. Barr then analyzes such classics of postfundamentalist biblical interpretation as The New Bible Commentary and The New Bible Dictionary (published in Britain by Inter-Varsity and in the US. by Eerdmans) to demonstrate forced harmonization, resort to nonliteral interpretation, and other dodges used to maintain the inerrancy assumption.

In the process, Barr exposes other foibles of more recent efforts to maintain that tradition of interpretation: a tendency toward specialization in historical and linguistic cognate fields that avoids theological issues and ironically reduces them to matters archaeological and historical; a style of "maximal conservativism" that approximates earlier positions taken on dogmatic grounds by a current process of selectively appropriating the most conservative elements of a variety of more critical positions; a surprising (and again ironic) tendency to offer ‘naturalistic" reinterpretations of the miraculous within the highly supernaturalistic inerrancy framework; and so on. Occasionally Barr mentions a scholar who breaks out of fundamentalism into a genuinely critical stance (though usually extremely conservative) -- but only to call into question the honesty of such shifts without frank recognition of the break and even apology to critics whose work had been dismissed and motives impugned.

Barr’s work is not above criticism. He at times demands standards of logical consistency that other traditions of biblical interpretation would be hard pressed to meet. (I have read enough of fundamentalists’ literature to know that they sometimes have the goods on some critics.) More sympathetic interpretations could also often be offered of the literature he cites: I might even wish to defend in part the fundamentalist critique of certain radical and historicizing styles of criticism that have given the church only a historical document rather than a source of life,

Barr’s book has a certain datedness in that it analyzes primarily an earlier mood rather than the styles of biblical interpretation of more recent evangelicals" like F. F, Bruce, I. Howard Marshall, Earle Ellis, Robert Guelich and Ralph Martin, who manage to break the patterns, at least to some extent, that Barr attacks -- though usually without the public acknowledgment of the extent of that break that Barr appropriately but perhaps unrealistically calls for.

I would also be inclined to give greater emphasis to the more "classical" roots of modern fundamentalism in the post-Reformation traditions of both Reformed and Lutheran scholasticism and perhaps be willing to suggest that the line is not so totally devoid of theological insight as Barr seems to indicate. And, of course, agreement with Barr will sometimes be conditioned by divergent critical assumptions -- or even by one’s concurrence with the implicit claim that the fundamental task is to create the space for criticism.

Here, too, there is a certain dated spirit about the book that may arise from Barr’s own more immediate emergence from fundamentalism. I am more inclined to think that the task of our own generation, that battle having been largely won, is to break the hold of a paralyzing critical historicism in order to recover a theological and religious use of the Scripture that does not avoid criticism but goes through and beyond it.

Despite all such criticism -- some of which will be used by fundamentalists to avoid the impact of Barr’s book -- it must be clearly said that Barr is generally "right on." He has called the bluff of much fundamentalist biblical scholarship in a way that will make it difficult for reflective practitioners to continue in their ways. In so doing, Barr raises a number of crucial questions for both fundamentalism and the rest of the church.

Dealing with these questions, however, requires first a more precise understanding of fundamentalism. Barr defines the movement primarily in terms of three negative characteristics: (1) "a very strong emphasis on the inerrancy of the Bible," (2) "a strong hostility to modern theology" and "the modern critical study of the Bible," and (3) a sharp distinction between "nominal" and "true" Christians (i.e., fundamentalists). He then seeks the roots of these emphases in such sources as the 18th century "evangelical revivals" and the 19th century "Princeton theology" of Charles Hodge and B. B. Warfield. Though these and other comments are to the point, the picture drawn is finally too simple -- at least historically and theologically.

Here we raise the question of the precise relationship of evangelicalism and fundamentalism as historical phenomena, I do not mean here to give any credence to what I predict will be the common evangelical response to Barr -- that he fails to distinguish appropriately a modern enlightened evangelicalism from a more benighted fundamentalism. Barr is surely right in insisting that while fundamentalists have made many changes in style (as evidenced, for example, by Christianity Today) on the theological level and especially with regard to biblical interpretation, there is more continuity than discontinuity. For this reason he correctly treats both the older fundamentalism (still preserved in some quarters) and the more modern evangelicalism under the same label (offensive as it is) as the same system of thought.

Part of the problem is a modem equivocal use of the word "evangelical" to denote both a prefundamentalist experience and a postfundamentalist style. The point here is to understand that originally "evangelicalism" was much broader than "fundamentalism," This distinction may be illustrated quickly by reference to 19th century evangelist D. L. Moody, who, though he stood very close to modern fundamentalism, maintained a much broader constituency. He welcomed to his Northfield Conferences such nonfundamentalists as Henry Drummond and Bible scholar George Adam Smith. Both the more fundamentalist Moody Bible Institute and the more liberal Mount Hermon schools derive from Moody and may be said to represent genuine facets of Moody himself.

This is to suggest that fundamentalism actually represents some subset of a more classical evangelicalism. In a recent study’ of the evangelical impact on the Victorians titled The Call to Seriousness, Ian Bradley contends that the decline of evangelicalism into narrow bigotry may be dated from about 1860 and correlated with the rise of a fascination with prophecy and a more literalistic use of the Scripture. This interpretation fits well with the claim of Ernest Sandeen that fundamentalism should be viewed theologically as a strange coalition between the rising tide of premillennialism that found expression in the prophecy conferences and Bible schools of the late 19th century and the views of Scripture articulated in the high Calvinist theology of. the ‘old school" Princeton variety. Though there are problems with such a description, it does provide a rough outline of the boundaries of fundamentalism historically and theologically.

III

Such an analysis raises logical and historical questions as to the possibility of a nonfundamentalist evangelicalism that attempts to maintain the authentic concerns of the evangelical tradition without the intellectual framework of fundamentalism and its doctrine of Scripture. Illustrations of such a position are rare on the contemporary scene, but they do exist. One might mention the Evangelical Covenant Church of America (a nonfundamentalist immigrant church rooted in pietism) or the Southern Baptists as illustrations. Southern Baptist seminaries at least are nonfundamentalist, and President Carter is clearly a nonfundamentalist evangelical.

Though he does not provide such supporting historical and theological analysis, Barr hints that he would find such a position acceptable. His broad brush often covers the whole evangelical movement, but here and there he suggests that "in the ecumenical community of the church the evangelical tradition is an honored member" and that "its views of conversion, of personal salvation and so on constitute a source of riches." This theme is made more explicit in Barr’s helpful preface to the American edition of the book, where he clearly states his thesis that "fundamentalism distorts and betrays the basic true religious concerns of evangelical Christianity."

This somewhat subdued theme casts Barr’s book in an entirely new light -- one that will perhaps be missed by most postfundamentalist evangelicals if the British reviews are any indication. It is not clear finally how acceptable such a nonfundamentalist evangelicalism would be to Barr personally. It would probably still violate his sensitivity with regard to his third defining point of fundamentalism by claiming -- as have all reforming movements with a vision for the renewal of the church -- to have some insight into a "higher Christian life" than that grasped by many church members. It is to be hoped, however, that such claims could be advanced without falling back into crass and unnuanced distinctions between "nominal" and "true" Christians.

Such a position would, of course, depend in part on the possibility of articulating a strong and religiously satisfying doctrine of Scripture without the fundamentalist claim of inerrancy and its correlate theological assumptions. Continuing fundamentalists will, of course, deny this possibility and object to the erosion of what appears to them to be the only possible epistemological foundation for their faith.

Barr, on the other hand, seems to defend it by suggesting that inerrancy could be abandoned with very little adjustment in the pattern of evangelical belief -- and that the doctrine is, in fact, despite claims to the contrary, more a product of philosophical assumptions than genuine exegesis. Barr goes even further than I would to suggest, and apparently defend, a noninerrancy doctrine of "verbal inspiration" that attempts to overcome the "dictation" ideas implicit in the fundamentalist formulations of inspiration.

Barr’s book, however, serves notice that the minor adjustments of modern postfundamentalist evangelicalism are unequal to the task. The rejection of inerrancy will require a more radical rejection of the underlying thought forms that produced it. As Barr suggests. "little respect can be shown to those who maintain a doctrinal position like Warfield’s, but then cheerfully say that they are not tied to complete inerrancy." In an early review of Barr’s book in Eternity magazine, postfundamentalist evangelical Carl F. H. Henry takes this comment of Barr to suggest that Warfield remains the "strongest" conservative option and that any mediating stance is untenable.

But Henry himself has elsewhere lamented the intellectual sterility of the Evangelical Theological Society built on this doctrinal foundation (and requiring an annual subscription to inerrancy as its only qualification for membership). I take Barr to be suggesting that these facts are not unrelated and that confinement in the straitjacket of that intellectual system is a major reason that "modernized and up-dated evangelicalism has [not] attained to any conceptual framework that is intrinsically different from the fundamentalist one, or that it has even tried." I myself am inclined to agree with Barr about the poverty of this postfundamentalist theology and tradition for the future of evangelicalism -- though I would want my evangelical colleagues to understand clearly that I reject this tradition not to reject biblical or evangelical faith but to seek rather a more adequate conceptual framework through which to be more faithful to the Scriptures.

But Barr’s book finally raises the possibility of the re-emergence of such a nonfundamentalist evangelical vision. Barr is pessimistic but looks to discussions in this country more than in Britain because "American Christianity, creative in the origins of fundamentalism, may also be creative in the discovery of ways for escaping from it." I am more optimistic than Barr. Discussions with British evangelicals after the appearance of the SCM edition last summer convinced me that the British evangelical scene is more uniform and more defined by the Inter-Varsity experience and its tradition of biblical exegesis. In such a context Barr’s book is a special threat that is more likely to produce the falling back into fundamentalism that he fears.

The American scene, however, is much more variegated. Evangelicalism here is more diverse, manifesting itself in a number of nonfundamentalist (or potentially nonfundamentalist) styles less fully defined by their commitment to such a doctrine of inerrancy. There is a sense in which such traditions have stood in the wings awaiting this time and will now re-emerge, I predict, with a new creativity, offering various paradigms of nonfundamentalist evangelicalism.

Indeed, signs of such developments are already evident in several directions. One of the little-noticed but highly significant facts of our time is the quiet but persistent growing rejection among evangelicals of the fundamentalist tradition. The power of this current is illustrated in the strength of the revulsion often expressed by former adherents. In such a period of ferment, Barr’s books can, if evangelicals can see beyond its negatives, accentuate and, facilitate that development.

Evidence of such, and a sign of hope. may be seen in another early review of Barr’s book. Clark Pinnock, author of an influential defense of biblical inerrancy, concludes in a recent InterVarsity publication that "the effect of Barr’s extensive discussion of evangelical exegetical work on an open-minded evangelical leader will be to convince him or her of the burden and liability represented by the inerrancy assumption in so much evangelical thinking . . - I do not expect any return to the strict inerrancy assumption on the part of informed biblical scholarship." So be it.

The Holiness and Pentecostal Churches: Emerging from Cultural Isolation

The Holiness and Pentecostal churches, the youngest of the ecclesiastical families examined in this series, are often overlooked and sometimes avoided by their elder brothers and sisters in Christendom. Notice, however, is especially appropriate now because the rest of this century will see the culmination of a continuing process as these churches emerge from sectarian isolation into broader American church life as vigorous ecclesiastical traditions.

Distinguishing the Families

No single article can easily discern the dynamic and project the future of this constellation of churches. Holiness churches, largely a product of the Methodist tradition, follow those who in the ethos of the 19th century camp meeting preserved a variation of the Wesleyan doctrine of “Christian perfection,” emphasizing a postconversion experience of “entire sanctification.” Distinctly “Holiness” churches do not speak in tongues; they are among the sharpest critics of the practice. Pentecostal churches teach that Pentecost is a repeatable experience available to Christians in all ages and usually that its appropriation is “evidenced” by speaking in tongues. Something of the difference may be seen in the caricature that Holiness churches emphasize the “graces” or “fruits” of the Spirit while Pentecostal churches place greater weight on the “gifts” of the Spirit, especially “divine healing” and glossolalia.

Yet there is an appropriateness in treating the two traditions together. Historians increasingly agree that Pentecostalism emerged at the turn of the century largely from a radical wing of the Holiness movement emphasizing “divine healing” and the imminent return of Christ. At that time Holiness leaders were attempting to interpret Pentecost as an experience of “entire sanctification” until the emergence of tongues-speaking Pentecostalism prompted them to purge features that might cause confusion. The lines are also blurred by large segments of Pentecostalism (especially in the south and among blacks) that are also “Holiness” in that they teach “three works of grace” -- conversion, entire sanctification and a “baptism in the Spirit” with speaking in tongues. And Holiness and Pentecostal churches share much in ethos, hymnody and social/cultural experience.

This wing of Christendom encompasses incredible diversity. Both branches were movements before the formation of denominations. Thus the Holiness family includes pockets of influence within Methodism (many camp meetings and some educational institutions), pre-Civil War perfectionist antislavery radicals like the Wesleyans and Free Methodists, such products of the National Camp Meeting Association as the Church of the Nazarene and the Pilgrim Holiness Church, social-service movements like the Salvation Army, a synthesis of Holiness theology and a Campbellite-like ecclesiology in the Church of God (Anderson, Indiana), as well as a host of smaller bodies.

Pentecostalism is even more diverse, especially ethnically and theologically. Pentecostals range from the most developed Assemblies of God churches (increasingly taking on the shape of wider Protestant church life) through southern Holiness-Pentecostal churches, the intensely sectarian “Jesus only” unitarian Pentecostals, and large black and ethnic churches, to the uncharacteristic extremes of Appalachian “snake-handlers,” all too often the only public image of “holy rollers.”

I will grossly oversimplify this complexity by speaking primarily of three broad groups: (1) the largely white Holiness churches, especially those in the Christian Holiness Association (CHA); (2) the white Pentecostal churches in the Pentecostal Fellowship of North America (PFNA); and (3) a more diffuse grouping of ethnic Pentecostal churches dominated by black Pentecostalism.

Growth and Vigor

We can only estimate the extent of these churches. No one knows the size of the Church of God in Christ, the largest black Pentecostal church. Guesses range from a very conservative half-million members to 2 or 3 million. The CHA claims to represent a total membership of perhaps 2 million, while American Pentecostalism would probably exceed twice that figure.

But such numbers do not tell the whole story. Until surpassed by the Southern Baptists, the Methodists were the dominant religious body in America, at a membership of about 10 million. The United Methodist Church, however, now lists a Sunday school enrollment of only half its membership, and on a given Sunday has only about a third of its membership in church. By contrast, the Church of the Nazarene claims a Sunday school enrollment double its half-million membership and attendance larger than membership totals. The Wesleyan Church often has double its membership in attendance. This suggests than on a given Sunday roughly as many people are in Holiness churches as in United Methodist churches,

Thus the picture of Holiness and Pentecostal churches as they enter the 1980s is largely one of youth and vigor. These new churches are flexing their muscles as they enter maturity riding the crest of fantastic growth. The 1977 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches identified the Salvation Army as the fastest-growing religious body in America. The Church of the Nazarene has nearly tripled in size since 1940, while the Assemblies of God have more than quadrupled and the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) has more than quintupled. According to National Council of Churches statistics (which appear not to include Pentecostal churches), five of the top eight denominations in per capita giving are Holiness bodies. Free Methodists, for example, average about four times the giving of United Methodists, Lutherans or Episcopalians.

At the same time, such growth is now leveling off. Thus the Nazarenes grew only 1.4 per cent in this country in 1977 and dropped by more than 20,000 in Sunday school enrollment. Similar patterns obtain among Pentecostals. This leveling off is correlated with other important changes. Holiness and Pentecostal folk are busily engaged in creating all those agencies and patterns of church life that their maverick forebears found too confining. Within a variety of polities, the weight of authority is being shifted away from congregations toward denominational structures. Thus the most heated debates in recent General Councils of the Assemblies of God have centered on efforts to qualify local sovereignty in favor of district and national councils.

One ominous result of this bureaucratization is that all sorts of decisions are being made primarily on the basis of political and institutional requirements without the theological and ecclesiastical controls that exist in other contexts. Thus one problem facing these churches in the next couple of decades will be to find ways to open up the decision-making processes to responsible theological reflection and wider accountability. This task will not be easy -- to judge, for example, by the resistance met recently in the Assemblies of God by various “sunshine” resolutions designed to open up administration in the wake of charges about high-level financial indiscretions.

Maturing Scholarship

One of the most significant facts about both the Holiness and Pentecostal churches is the rapid and recent growth of seminary education. Though some Holiness seminaries go back further (especially Asbury Theological Seminary and Anderson School of Theology), the late 1940s saw the beginnings of their real growth and the founding of the Nazarene Theological Seminary and Western Evangelical Seminary. The Pentecostals are just now entering the field. The first Pentecostal seminary was founded by blacks -- the C. H. Mason Theological Seminary in Atlanta’s Interdenominational Theological Center. The Assemblies of God have now launched in their Springfield, Missouri, headquarters a graduate school of theology. And to a certain extent, one must see in this line such recent efforts as the more technically “charismatic” or “neo-Pentecostal” Melodyland School of Theology and the projected school of theology at Pat Robertson’s CBN University (of the “700 Club”) in view of their tendency to build faculties on a flowering of scholarship within the Assemblies of God. And mirroring its founder’s evolution out of the Holiness wing of Pentecostalism into Methodism is the school of theology at Oral Roberts University.

Such developments have naturally led to a burst of scholarly and theological activity. The Wesleyan Theological Society (WTS), representing the Holiness churches, is now 15 years old and claims a thousand members. A smaller but initially more vigorous Society for Pentecostal Studies (SPS) was founded in 1970. The increasing sophistication of theological work in these traditions may be traced in some of their journals.

The influence of this maturing scholarship is being felt outside the denominations involved. Mainstream churches and educational institutions have had in the past a disproportionate share of leaders who were reared in Holiness and Pentecostal contexts but whose theological development led them into other ecclesiastical fields of service. With the maturation of their own churches, more of these scholars are maintaining their identification with Holiness and Pentecostal bodies. Perhaps the greatest symbol of this trend for the present generation has been Timothy Smith, who in addition to his work at Johns Hopkins University has continued to pastor Nazarene churches and on occasion to preach “special meetings.” This tendency is especially prominent among Pentecostals, who have begun to move into the evangelical seminaries. Thus text critic Gordon Fee of the Assemblies of God teaches New Testament at Gordon-Conwell, and several Pentecostals serve Fuller Seminary. Perhaps more interesting are such figures in the ecumenical centers. Union Theological Seminary (New York) now has Old Testament scholar Jerry Sheppard of the Assemblies of God and black homiletician James Forbes of the United Holy Church of America.

Theological Ferment

This maturing scholarship is growing in impact, and the strains of theological reformulation are already being felt. Both traditions suffer from a reductionism in which distinctive teachings were elevated out of proportion. Part of the theological problem faced by each is to recover perspective and balance. The Pentecostal teachings have been more easily translated into other contexts, as the rise of the charismatic movement indicates, and the most creative Pentecostal theology is taking place in that dialogue. Holiness doctrines present a greater problem of reinterpretation, and recent years have seen a variety of theological methods applied to the task. Really persuasive restatements have not yet emerged. Probably most influential for a new generation of Holiness scholars has been the work of Nazarene theologian Mildred Bangs Wynkoop, especially her book A Theology of Love: The Dynamic of Wesleyanism (Beacon Hill, 1972).

The most explosive issue in Holiness thought today is being fought out primarily in the Church of the Nazarene. Increasing historical sophistication has revealed the discontinuities between classical Wesleyanism and late 19th century Holiness thought in which the doctrine of “entire sanctification” was expounded from the accounts of Pentecost in the Book of Acts. This doctrine of “Pentecostal sanctification” not only has been shown to have shaky exegetical foundations but appears also to have been repudiated by Wesley. This tension forces Nazarene theologians into two camps -- those wishing to reaffirm classical Wesleyanism and those defending the 19th century developments. Such discussions are tremendously threatening. They not only challenge the consensus of several decades but also suggest the historical conditioning of Holiness theology, raise questions about the varieties of theologies in the New Testament, and focus issues about the historical and theological relationships between Holiness and Pentecostal traditions.

Among white Pentecostals the pressure comes from the charismatics, who are shedding certain classical Pentecostal doctrines, particularly “the baptism of the Holy Spirit” and its being “evidenced” by speaking in tongues. The most sophisticated debates center on the hermeneutical problem of how “historical precedent” determines doctrine in the case of the narratives in Acts. The controversies around the “evidence doctrine” are not about the validity of “tongues” as such, but only about the experience as the necessary evidence of having received the baptism. Ultimately, classical Pentecostals will have to follow the charismatics in discarding some of these claims, but the process will be slow because these teachings have been so central to identity that most classical Pentecostals are unable to see what might lie beyond them.

For black Pentecostals the theological issues are often different. Their theology is more fluid and less rigidly committed to the formulations agitating white Pentecostals. More important, however, at least for the theological avant-garde, is the fact that black Pentecostals identify as much with the black church experience as with white Pentecostals. Some interesting developments are taking place at C. H. Mason Seminary in Atlanta, where certain themes of liberation theology are being incorporated into Pentecostal thought.

Such ferment signals an emerging theological pluralism also evidenced by the rise of a number of irreverent “Young Turk” journals. The most spritely is Agora, originating in the Assemblies of God but broadening into a “magazine of Pentecostal opinion.” Agora’s agenda includes “promoting an intellectual tradition,” building bridges with charismatics, and articulating a prophetic word on social issues. The shock to the Pentecostal establishment is indicated by the fact that the General Council of the Assemblies of God voted to revoke the ministerial credentials of the editors before thinking better of it and backing away.

Several Holiness denominations have similar journals. The Listening Post pursues “renewal” and related issues within the Free Methodist Church. Colloquium explores such issues as race, urban ministry and the role of women in the Church of God (Anderson, Indiana). A common strategy of these journals is revealed in the name of the Epworth Pulpit, centered in the Nazarene seminary but aspiring to broader Holiness impact. The “Epworth Pulpit” was the tomb of John Wesley’s father from which the son preached in the churchyard when locked out of the parish church in which he had been reared. Today’s editors seek to speak to the modern Holiness movement from the more socially committed positions of the forebears.

Fundamentalist Forces

The meaning of all of this is not yet clear, but the older Holiness traditions may indicate what lies ahead for both traditions. One analysis a few years ago from the right wing identified three major tendencies among Holiness churches: a dominant push toward acculturation, called into question from two sides -- a young, theologically innovative and socially aware minority on one side and those attempting to hold to the old Holiness ways on the other. The latter tendency is already well established. Since World War II bits and pieces of the Holiness bodies have been pulling off to form the “conservative” Holiness movement committed to resisting cultural accommodation by holding on to the ethos of the camp meeting and the taboos against television, wedding rings and so forth.

I would suggest that the future of Holiness and Pentecostal churches will take shape as issues are fought out along four major axes. One of the basic questions facing these churches is whether they will align themselves with fundamentalism. Both traditions began to reach beyond an earlier sectarianism just as the post-World War II “postfundamentalist evangelical” coalition was beginning to emerge. Founders of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) sought to broaden their base just as the Holiness and Pentecostal churches were reaching for wider acceptance. The impact of this relationship was profound. In the wake of the founding of the NAE, the Pentecostal Fellowship of North America was set up along similar lines, and the Christian Holiness Association was restructured to match. The PFNA, and to a lesser extent the CHA, adopted the NAE statement of faith, inserting in each case an additional article on distinctive themes. The Wesleyan Theological Society and the Society for Pentecostal Studies were successively founded in imitation of the Evangelical Theological Society. The key issue for the fundamentalists was the inerrancy of the Scriptures, and one may trace under NAE and ETS influence a rush to beef up Holiness and Pentecostal statements on Scripture. In short, as one Pentecostal historian puts it privately, large segments of the Holiness and Pentecostal movements were “captured” by fundamentalism.

Recent years have seen some reassessment of this tendency in the Holiness churches, where its impact was less in the first place. Churches like the Wesleyan and the Free Methodist were readily incorporated into NAE, but other large segments of the Holiness movement, especially the Salvation Army, the Church of the Nazarene and the Church of God (Anderson, Indiana), have shied away from such identification. The forging of a full Holiness coalition in the CHA has required a blunting of fundamentalist rhetoric and doctrines like premillennialism and the inerrancy of the Scriptures. Both the CHA and the WTS have quietly excised “inerrancy” formulations over the past decade or so, and the future probably lies with the Nazarenes, whose leaders and scholars describe themselves as “conservative” and say they are as distant from the fundamentalist “Battle for the Bible” as from the dominant schools of biblical criticism. At any rate, most Holiness schools tolerate restrained forms of biblical criticism and modern theology as yet unacceptable among “evangelicals”

The situation is different among white Pentecostals, whose identification with fundamentalism is much stronger. Despite blasts from Agora, the Assemblies of God appear to be moving toward the official adoption of a tight formulation of “biblical inerrancy.” Church leaders have begun quietly to purge faculties of those with broader sympathies. Though complicated with political battles of another sort, such issues were also at the root of the recent struggles at Melodyland School of Theology that led to a split in which many of the noninerrantists went into exile.

Black Pentecostalism is another story. Largely excluded from the PFNA when the whites were joining the NAE, and more likely to find solidarity with the other black churches than with the white Pentecostals or evangelicals, these churches are much less tempted by a fundamentalist identity. Ironically, earlier patterns of exclusion and oppression have left the black and ethnic Pentecostal churches in the place of providing more creative theological leadership.

The Charismatic Movement

A second force shaping both Holiness and Pentecostal churches is the charismatic movement. There is a spiritual vulnerability produced by third- and fourth-generation ambivalence toward ecstatic religious experience in traditions trained to expect it. I am told that perhaps only 50 per cent of the youngest generations of Pentecostals cultivate the distinguishing mark of speaking in tongues. And in many Holiness churches it is difficult to find contemporary preaching of “entire sanctification.” Under such circumstances the dynamic of the charismatic movement is a special threat particularly for the Pentecostals, who earlier felt compelled to withdraw from traditional churches. To grant the validity of the charismatic movement undercuts their very rationale for existence.

One of the most creative forces, however, in building bridges between classical Pentecostals and charismatics has been historian and church leader H. Vinson Synan of the Pentecostal Holiness Church. Synan goes so far as to suggest occasionally that the primary purpose of classical Pentecostal churches in the providence of God was to preserve and mediate the Pentecostal teachings to the rest of Christendom. He therefore relates openly to the charismatic tradition, participates in Vatican dialogues with the Pentecostals, and so forth.

Much of the struggle has been focused in the Assemblies of God. Mavericks in the denomination broke through the anticharismatic taboos to build large and powerful churches by incorporating the charismatic impulse. These churches are creating new relationships between Pentecostals and charismatics and have drawn together in a distinct party that finds its voice in Restoration magazine. Such forces toward greater openness were given additional impetus recently when church leaders were caught off guard by the passing of a General Council resolution calling for more interaction in the future.

The issues are different for the Holiness bodies, which see the charismatic movement as only the most recent manifestation of an old enemy, Pentecostalism Holiness teaching usually denies flatly the existence of glossolalia understood as ecstatic utterance. Some Holiness churches, notably the Church of the Nazarene and the Wesleyan Church, have seen high-level administrative rulings against the charismatic movement whose enforcement means virtual excommunication for those professing charismatic experience. On the other side has been the founding two years ago at the large charismatic gathering in Kansas City of a Wesleyan Holiness Charismatic Fellowship. This group had its first convention in January. The beginnings were small, mostly a handful of disspirited ex-Nazarenes, but the mere existence of this group represents a major challenge and a nagging reminder of unresolved issues.

Social Witness

I would resist an analysis of the social impact of the Holiness and Pentecostal churches based solely on the styles of social witness that have dominated the major denominations in the past two decades. One could argue that these churches have been at their best socially, at least historically, in dealing directly with the radical dissolution of personal and family life under the pressures of oppression, personal vice, and the like. Still today the Pentecostals often have better success in dealing with problems of drug addiction and alcoholism through conversion and spiritual discipline than the supposedly more sophisticated programs launched by the government and various social agencies. And one should not overlook the sustaining power of Pentecostal life and worship in maintaining identity and an alternative vision of reality in the face of racial and economic oppression and deprivation. The irony is that such styles and concerns are less characteristic of these churches as they rush to adopt the styles of the mainstream.

In fact, on many social issues the Holiness and Pentecostal churches have a better historical than current record. Two Holiness bodies, the Wesleyan Methodists and the Free Methodists, were antislavery and radically reformist in their pre-Civil War founding -- and into the 20th century maintained very active “reform” committees on the district and national levels. Many turn-of-the-century Holiness bodies, archetypically the Nazarenes and the Pilgrim Holiness Church, understood their special calling to be ministry to the poor, especially those in the inner cities -- and this impulse was epitomized in the Salvation Army. And early Pentecostal church life reveals striking illustrations of racial integration -- such as whites worshiping in the black Azusa Street (Los Angeles) mission that launched the international Pentecostal revival, or integrated worship services in the south at the height of the Jim Crow era.

Such concerns are, however, largely absent today. The Holiness reform impulse is largely evaporated, and often in the recent identification with the “evangelical” world even repudiated as inappropriate for a properly “spiritual” and “evangelistic” church. Pentecostalism as well is now sharply split along racial lines with little evidence of interaction.

A similar pattern may be discerned with regard to women. A recent NCC study found one-third of all ordained women in this country in Pentecostalism and another one-third in paramilitary groups like the Salvation Army. Had Holiness bodies been properly grouped with the latter, several hundred more women ministers would have been identified and the fact discovered that perhaps 50 per cent of all ordained women are in Holiness churches.

Ironically, the institutionalization of these churches is pulling them in the opposite direction. The Church of the Nazarene, for example, had 20 per cent women ministers at its founding, but only 6 per cent by 1973. And the Salvation Army now less consistently applies its earlier feminist principles. But there is some push among the younger generation -- partly in response to the wider feminist currents -- to reaffirm and reappropriate this heritage as both a source of role models and a powerful tool in moving today’s church leaders.

One reason for the scant interest in social issues in the past few decades is that energies have been more absorbed in issues of personal ethics. The generations that matured in the 1940s, 1950s and even 1960s struggled with a legalistic code of taboos in behavior and dress. These battles are largely over. I was teaching in a Holiness college in the mid-1960s when the prohibition against movies and the theater fell. Now the issue is more likely to be drinking, and the avant-garde in Holiness and Pentecostal schools are experimenting with restrained social drinking. If such patterns of accommodation continue, Holiness and Pentecostal folk will become even more indistinguishable from other Christians.

A Longing for the ‘Good Life’

Probably the greatest temptation facing these churches today is materialism. Marginality, both cultural and economic, has produced its opposite in successive generations -- the push toward “respectability,” a strong desire to be close to the centers of power, and a longing to enjoy the “good life.” One result is the lavish style of conspicuous consumption that dominates such institutions as Oral Roberts University and the Christian Broadcasting Network, where it has become normative doctrine that the pious will prosper. A black Pentecostal bishop recently confided that such currents are the greatest threat his church faces. As Presiding Bishop J. O. Patterson observed at the 1975 “Holy Convocation” of the Church of God in Christ: “God has blessed us to ride in the best automobiles, live in the best homes, wear the finest minks and exclusive clothing, and to have large bank accounts. Our churches are no longer confined to the storefronts, but we are building cathedrals.”

Such movement is obviously out of step with the broader church interest in discovering and defining a ministry to and with the poor. Holiness and Pentecostal folk are still fleeing the life of the poor. But as one might expect, there are third- and fourth-generation efforts to reverse this pattern, especially among those coming to maturity in the 1960s and 1970s. Thus Free Methodist Howard Snyder, author of the popular Problem of Wineskins (InterVarsity, i975), has called his church to recover its early ministry of “preaching good news to the poor” via a return to ministry in the central cities. Nazarene Tom Nees recently left a prestigious Washington, D.C, pulpit to found the Community of Hope, with links with the Church of the Saviour and the Sojourners community. His work, especially a project of “Jubilee Housing” that attempts to involve the community in the reclaiming of slum housing, is having wide impact in his denomination. And Ronald J. Sider of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, the major force behind the “Chicago Declaration of Evangelical Social Concern” and “Evangelicals for Social Action,” holds ministerial credentials in a Holiness denomination, the Brethren in Christ.

I expect such themes and ministries to gain force in Holiness circles in the years ahead. A strong history of social concern and the nagging presence of the Salvation Army help keep these themes more alive than in Pentecostal and evangelical contexts. The 1974 annual convention of the Christian Holiness Association became the largest body to adopt the “Chicago Declaration” as a resolution -- despite some concern that such action would admit too much complicity in recent evangelical failures in this area.

Among Pentecostals such themes are more muted -- though one must recognize the ministries modeled after the work of David Wilkerson’s “Teen Challenge” with urban youth and the role of Pentecostals in the Hispanic community in New York city. The merging of Pentecostal power and enthusiasm with social concern is an exciting possibility, repeatedly promised but not often achieved. Perhaps the most significant work in this direction will come from the blacks and other minority Pentecostals whose history of oppression and alienation has given them a different consciousness that may yet have a significant flowering.

Ecumenical Trends

Finally, I would notice some trends in inter-church and ecumenical relations. Here again, the terrain is complex. Though little noted on the outside, Holiness and Pentecostal churches have been involved in numerous mergers in the 20th century. Bodies like the Church of the Nazarene and the Assemblies of God were built up by a complex agglutinative process as various independent ministries, small groups, and local or state associations came together in merger. My own church, the Wesleyan Methodist, absorbed the Reformed Baptists in 1966 before merging with the Pilgrim Holiness Church in 1968 and voting in the merging conference to begin negotiations with the Free Methodists. Those talks have since foundered, but such activity led to some speculation, especially in the 1960s, about the emergence of a sizable new church in the Methodist tradition composed of Holiness bodies. I doubt that now, but I do predict a greater self-consciousness of a Holiness bloc of denominations grouped under the CHA, where there is already very close cooperation in such areas as publishing and preparing Christian education materials.

Internal Pentecostal relationships are more complex -- with splits along racial lines, according to commitment to the Holiness doctrine of sanctification, and even more deeply over the issues of the “Jesus only” doctrines of the Trinity. Such variety even raises questions as to whether it is possible to find a common denominator other than the speaking in tongues. Perhaps me most creative dialogue among these branches is occurring in the Society for Pentecostal Studies.

Relationships between Holiness and Pentecostal churches are almost nonexistent except in the National Association of Evangelicals, which incorporates some Holiness bodies and a good part of white Pentecostalism. Direct dialogue is confined to the most avant-garde academic circles, where representatives of the WTS and the SPS have been quietly slipping into each other’s annual meetings.

Relationships with the rest of the church world will probably move along a variety of trajectories. In some parts of the world, aspects of the Pentecostal movement and the Salvation Army have found it natural to gravitate toward the conciliar movements. In America the context of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy has skewered the identification in the fundamentalist and evangelical direction. We may expect the Salvation Army, the Church of the Nazarene, and the Church of God (Anderson, Indiana) to provide a center of gravity that will continue to pull Holiness identification away from the National Association of Evangelicals into some suspended position between the NAE and the NCC.

White Pentecostals will continue to find stronger identification with American fundmentalism and evangelicalism, despite the protests of some Pentecostal academics. In the early years of the NAE, the Assemblies of God made a clear choice to follow the lead of figures like Thomas Zimmerman into the NAE by disfellowshiping David DuPlessis, who reached toward the ecumenical movement. Black Pentecostals will find even more of their identity in being a part of the black experience, and the highly sectarian “oneness churches” will remain somewhat isolated for the time being. No uniform pattern emerges, but the variety will be a source of ferment as the Holiness and Pentecostal churches continue to assert themselves and to emerge from isolation to claim a significant place among other churches of Christendom.

The Use of Scripture in the Wesleyan

The more I have tried to comprehend the nature of the Wesleyan tradition and to develop a theological method informed by its distinctive vision of Christianity, the more I have had difficulty understanding my own tradition and myself within the outlines of what most people seem to mean by evangelicalism. On one level this is very puzzling and perhaps ironic because it would seem that the Wesleyan tradition ought to be paradigmatic of what it would mean to be evangelical. After all, John Wesley was perhaps the major figure in what came to be known as the "Evangelical Revival," and the heyday of the evangelical experience in American life is often described by American church historians as the "Age of Methodism in America."

Because of this ambiguity we need to give some attention to the question of in what sense the Wesleyan way of using Scripture in theology represents an "evangelical option." My own efforts to probe the present and historical uses of the word "evangelical" have caused me to wonder if it is possible to give the word a common meaning applicable to all the contexts in which it is used. I have come to agree with those who would argue that evangelicalism is, to borrow a phrase from the British analytical tradition of philosophy, an "essentially contested concept." This is to say that the core meaning of the word is necessarily under dispute-alternative visions of evangelicalism fill the word with such different content that its use in other contexts is confusing without consideration of that transformation of meaning.

My own efforts to bring clarity to this discussion have centered on an analysis which suggests that the word evangelical is used in three primary ways. Each of the ways of using the word is derived from a historical paradigm and struggle in which there emerged an "evangelical" party. Because of the historical particularities involved in each period and the differing nature of the struggle in each case, these uses of the word evangelical convey a different vision of Christian faith. They arrange the elements of Christian faith differently and, as a result, use and understand the nature and purpose of the Scripture in significantly differing ways.

These three basic paradigms of evangelicalism derive then from the period of the Reformation centered in the sixteenth century, the "awakenings" of the eighteenth century, and the fundamentalist/modernist controversies of the last hundred years or so. Any effort to describe, and especially to contrast, these ways of being evangelical will necessarily be subject to the sorts of criticisms often leveled at efforts to think "typologically" or to describe "ideal types"; namely, (1) that the emphasis on defining major motifs may over-accentuate differences, (2) that the resulting analysis may be somewhat abstract, (3) that historical illustrations of the types will generally be mixed and intermingled, and so on. But I do believe that such a typology can bring clarity to many discussions, and I will attempt to describe my own emerging understanding of the use of Scripture in the Wesleyan tradition primarily through this sort of analysis.

The Reformation Paradigm

The Reformation defined itself basically over against Roman Catholicism. To be evangelisch was to be "Protestant" and, more particularly, Lutheran. The core of this Protestant faith could be described in several ways, but perhaps the most useful is through the great Latin slogans of the Reformation: sola scriptura; sola Christe; sola gratia; and sola fide. These expressions direct our attention to issues of authority and soteriology. On the level of authority, the Scripture is set over against reason and tradition (understood both ecclesiastically and as the cumulative and collected wisdom of personal experience). On the level of soteriology, the focus may be said to be on both the personal appropriation of grace understood christologically and the theme of "justification by faith alone." This has resulted in a way of understanding Christian faith that maximizes the "forensic" rather than the actual impact of grace and tends to contrast faith and reason, faith and works, and so on. In this way of conceiving evangelicalism the issues may be focused on questions of anthropology where the basic starting point is an Augustinian tradition of human inability (the "bondage of the will") leading as a necessary consequence to the classic Reformation articulations of election and predestination.

The "Awakening" or Wesleyan Paradigm

This paradigm was anticipated in the Puritan transformation of the Calvinist tradition and the Pietist reaction against the efforts of post-Reformation orthodoxy to articulate systematically the insights of the Reformation. A certain soteriological orientation was maintained, but there was a basic shift away from the organizing motif of justification-at least as understood forensically-toward themes of regeneration and sanctification. The result is basically a "convertive piety" with its call to self conscious conversion, the experience of the "new birth," and a life of "holiness" that is demonstrably and empirically distinct from the rest of the world in its expression of "actual righteousness." The enemy in this paradigm is primarily a nominal Christianity that is not serious in its appropriation of the faith but is too often satisfied with orthodoxy that fails to make Christianity a genuine "disposition of the heart." This led to an activism that produced, at least within the Protestant experience, both the great missionary impulse and the massive efforts at social transformation not characteristic of Reformation Christianity. And in the process there was an erosion of Augustinianism that emphasized the soteriological significance either of human will in a form of synergism or of human cooperation with the divine and a growing attack on such classic Protestant doctrines as limited atonement and predestination. This form of evangelicalism is so distinct from classical Protestantism that the Germans, for example, would not describe it as evangelisch but would speak of Pietismus or the Christianity of the Erweckungsbewegung (the "awakening movement").

The Fundamentalist Paradigm

Both of the above two paradigms of evangelicalism have faded into the background, especially in the American experience, because of another major controversy in the church-the fundamentalist/modernist controversy that may perhaps best be viewed as a fight over the extent to which the Enlightenment, the rise of the scientific world-view, and the emergence of a heightened historical consciousness require a theological reformulation of classical Protestantism. In the nineteenth century a growing secular rationalism, such new sciences as geology and Darwinism with their implications for traditional interpretations of the Scriptures with regard to human origins, the rise of biblical criticism, and so forth, all raised fundamental challenges to accustomed ways of conceiving of Christianity and especially biblical authority. The emerging struggles produced within American Protestantism two basic parties: the fundamentalists, who were committed to the defense of the shape of classic Protestantism and feared that any accommodation to these new currents of thought meant the demise of Christianity; and the modernists, who felt that intellectual integrity required some form of adaptation and rethinking of classical modes of articulating Christian faith. (Other issues were also at stake, especially a shift in eschatology in which premillennialism tended to erode the commitment to social reform and probably various sorts of social class sortings out, but the themes sketched above better represent the fundamentalist self-consciousness.)

Much intellectual confusion would have been spared if the label "fundamentalist" had been (properly I think) maintained. The problem, however, is that after World War 11 a Party of fundamentalists again adopted the evangelical label to express a "neo-evangeliical" agenda that included an intellectual apologetic for the theological articulation of classical Protestantism, a repudiation of fundamentalist separatism in favor of a more inclusive ecclesiology, and a renewed social agenda. Because many of the leaders of this movement had roots in the revivalist experience, as currently represented by the rise of Billy Graham, there were some points of continuity with classical evangelicalism, but the fundamentalist experience had shifted the orientation of this form of evangelicalism along a new axis. Now the fundamental issue had become the preservation of orthodoxy and the classical or pre-critical view of the Bible over against the liberal reformulators. The rallying cry became the "inerrancy of the Scriptures" (the doctrine that defined for its advocates the limits of the post-fundamentalist, "neo-evangelical" coalition which found expression in the National Association of Evangelicals, the Evangelical Theological Society, Christianity Today, and other institutions of the movement). Evangelicalism, in this paradigm, is now no longer a distinct theological tradition (i.e., "Reformation Christianity," though it tends to be dominated by a "Reformed" articulation of Christian faith) or a particular piety and ethos (as it tended to be in classical evangelicalism) but has become a theological position staked out between conservative neo-orthodoxy and fundamentalism on a spectrum from left to right that is defined essentially by degrees of accommodation to modernity. And, again, this form of evangelicalism so differs from the others that the Germans have had to invent a new word, Evangelikal, to describe the growing evangelical self consciousness in Europe after the Lausanne Congress on Evangelization that represented the neo-evangelical coalition.

This is not the best place for detailed analysis of this typology and its strengths and weaknesses. The point here is basically that each way of conceiving of evangelicalism produces a different population when each net is used to pull out of both church history and contemporary experience a coherently related and defined subset. Thus consistent articulators of the Reformation paradigm tend to dismiss Roman Catholicism, liberalism, and Wesleyanism as equally unevangelical because they are predicated on a defective anthropology. Similarly, consistent advocates of the second paradigm find equally unevangelical all forms of nominal Christianity, whether Roman Catholic or Protestant, orthodox or liberal, and are likely to receive genuinely "born-again" Catholics, say from the charismatic renewal, as "evangelicals." And only when one begins to understand the neo-evangelical coalition in terms of its opposition to modernity can one comprehend recent convergences like the influx of neo evangelicals like Carl F. H. Henry and faculty members of such colleges as Wheaton and Gordon into the orbit of the New Oxford Review with its roots in the reaction of the traditional (and high church) party within the Anglican tradition. Such illustrations could be extended indefinitely.

The Distinctive Shape of Wesleyan Theology

With this typology in the background we can better understand the shape of Wesleyan theology. Much of the distinctive way in which the Wesleyan tradition uses Scripture is wrapped up in theological context and method. Only as we grasp this more fully can we understand the significance of the Wesleyan mode of handling Scripture. Complete explication of the themes of Wesleyan theology would be beyond the limits of this essay. Here we will only hint at some of the basic differences that set the Wesleyan tradition off from the other two types.

Wesleyanism shares much with Reformation evangelicalism-so much so that many interpreters (William Cannon, Franz Hildebrandt, Philip Watson, George Croft Cell, and others) have emphasized the continuities and basically seen the movement as a recovery of the basic impulse of the Reformation. On some levels this is true. One may notice the personal soteriological orientation of both Wesley and Luther in the emphasis on the pro me significance of the work of Christ. One must also understand the Wesleyan movement as preaching a gospel of free grace that at times sounds very much like the Reformation theme of "justification by faith."

But there are other significant levels on which Wesleyanism must be understood as a corrective to the Reformation thought and even in many basic ways as a reversion to basically Roman Catholic patterns of thought. The "solas" of the Reformation are basically a disjunctive way of thinking while Wesleyanism is more conjunctive in its thought. While Luther was inclined to speak of faith or reason, gospel or law, faith or works, and so on, Wesley was much more inclined to speak of faith and reason, gospel and law, faith and works, and so on. It is true that Wesley had his Aldersgate experience under the influence of a public reading of Luther's preface to the commentary on the epistle to the Romans, but when he got around to reading the commentary he found Luther blasphemous in his treatment of law, works, and reason. Wesley was inclined to the text that the "law is established by faith" and was offended by the Lutheran denigration of the law and works. Several of Wesley's key texts were taken from the book of James which Luther so devalued. Indeed, it was characteristic of Wesley that he spoke easily the language of both the epistle to the Galatians and the book of James.

In most of these moves Wesley was more like the Roman Catholic tradition. Another way of saying a similar thing is to notice that, for the Reformation, faith tended to be the organizing virtue. But Wesley was quite dear that faith was instrumental to love. For Wesley love was the organizing motif of his thought. The image of God in Eden was the ability to love, and it was this ability to love that was lost in the fall. justification brings forgiveness for Wesley, but the real point is the therapeutic work of grace in restoring the ability to love in regeneration and sanctification. The goal of the Christian life is to be found in the experience of "perfect love," and the eschatological hope is expressed in similar language. This is a significant shift of axis and a movement away from the "forensic" categories of the Reformation to the "organic" and "biological" categories of Pietism and some branches of the Reformed tradition. The emphasis is on regeneration more than justification, on the impartation of grace and virtue rather than its imputation. All of this may be viewed as corrective to the Reformation and something of a reversion to Catholic patterns of thought.

Such a shift has great implications for theological method in the Wesleyan tradition and for its view of biblical authority. It may be overstating a significant truth to notice that, in part because of the emphasis on faith, the generations after the Reformation were devoted to the clarification of the faith and they left us the legacy of great creeds and doctrinal symbols. The Wesleyan tradition, on the other hand, has left us a legacy of works of love-the crusade against slavery, concern for the poor, campaigns for the reform of society, and so on-in its effort to " spread scriptural holiness across the land and to reform the nation."

Unfortunately, historians of doctrine and theology have most often stood in the Reformation tradition and have concluded that Wesleyanism made no lasting theological contribution because its legacy was not one of speculative theology. Wesley did not play on their turf, and their usual response was either not to notice him at all or, if they did, to place him in the category of ecclesiastical leadership rather than theologian. But this is to miss much of the point. Wesley's mode of doing theology differed from theirs, but it was no less theological or rigorous. Wesley plumbed the whole of the Christian tradition and the Scriptures but bent this work to practical rather than speculative purposes-to issues of the shape of Christian life and existence. In all of this he was doing creative theological work and articulating a significant theological vision but not primarily in the mode of speculative theology.

Under the influence of the recent varieties of liberation theologies we are learning to appreciate this way of theologizing, and some of the more creative work in the interpretation of Wesley and the Wesleyan tradition has drawn on correlations of theological method with the liberation theologians. While there are of course many differences, there are also some significant convergences on the emphasis upon praxis, on the use of a different model than that of abstract truth being applied to a context, and so on. This work may be most easily seen in the report of the Sixth Oxford Institute of Methodist Theological Studies (1977), published as Sanctification and Liberation (Nashville: Abingdon, 1981) and edited by Theodore Runyon of Emory University. Again the common Catholic background of much, especially Latin American, liberation theology and the basically Catholic matrix of Wesley's thought-and these congruences are not entirely accidental.

With regard to biblical authority the picture is similar. At many points Wesley sounds like a son of the Reformation in his emphasis on the finality of biblical authority and in his desire to be, in the much quoted phrase, a homo unius libri (a "man of one book"). But Wesley's conjunctive way of thinking puts Scripture in a larger context of authority quite different from that produced by the "solas" of the Reformation. Wesley was quick to castigate his ministers who read only the Bible. The Book could be understood only through the study of books. Wesley restored the Scriptures to a matrix of authority that gave a more positive value to reason, experience, and tradition. The Scriptures held pride of place in this matrix but in a conjunctive rather than disjunctive mode. This will be developed more fully momentarily in a fuller discussion of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral.

Similar contrasts may be drawn with the more modem fundamentalist paradigm of evangelicalism. Here the discussion is more complicated and perhaps more speculative. It is very difficult to try to understand how an eighteenth-century figure would have reacted to the later struggles of the nineteenth century and how the tradition should be interpreted with integrity in a new age. As a result the Wesleyan tradition, like most other classical traditions, has had both its fundamentalist and its more liberal wings of interpretation. But even the more conservative wings of the Wesleyan tradition (which because of their basically orthodox stance and their commitment to a "supernatural" articulation of Christian faith, have often felt some affinity with the fundamentalist wing of modem Protestantism) have not been able to find a home in the circles of either modem fundamentalism or more recently in neo-evangelicalism. This has been symbolized in recent years by the founding of the Wesleyan Theological Society. Some theologians in the Wesleyan tradition, especially those most under the influence of neo-evangelicalism, in the early years of the post-World War II Evangelical Theological Society attempted to work in the neo evangelical coalition. But this was so dominated by modes of theology so foreign to the Wesleyan tradition that in little more than a decade the Wesleyan Theological Society was founded to begin to articulate its own style of theology.

There are still those, of course, who will argue that Wesley would find his place today among the fundamentalists. Wesley did make some comments that sound like the "slippery-slide" argument of Harold Lindsell: "If there be any mistakes in the Bible, there may as well be a thousand. If there be one falsehood in that book, it did not come from the God of truth" (citation from the standard edition of Wesley's journal, volume 6 [1915], p. 117, the entry having been dated Wednesday, July 24, 1776).

Wesley's comments on the Scripture often reflect the classical doctrines of the inspiration of the Scriptures and a view of them as the "oracles of God" directly. But, as with other classical figures Eke Luther and Calvin, Wesley reveals another side which is illustrated in his dealing with problems of chronology, his understanding of the biblical use of non-biblical sources, his judging of much of the Psalms as "unfit for Christian lips," and so on. These debates will no doubt continue as they do for other classical figures whom the fundamentalists wish to claim for their side of the argument. The growing consensus of the Wesleyan Theological Society is that the tradition is not well stated in the logic and ethos of the fundamentalist tradition. And the basic reasons for this are larger considerations about the shape of Wesleyan theology that set it apart from fundamentalism. Among these would be the following.

(I) The neo-evangelical tradition has its roots in the fundamentalist effort to preserve intact the structure of classical post Reformation Protestant orthodoxy (indeed, it is here that the doctrine of inerrancy received its classical expression). This tradition, however, produced the reaction of Pietism with its alternative strategy of how to "complete the Reformation." Wesleyanism stands in this latter tradition. It will be a while before the question is resolved about whether these traditions were significantly different in their approach to Scripture. Some would argue that Pietism merely assumed the orthodox doctrine of Scripture. I am more inclined to accentuate the differences. Orthodoxy tended to locate the doctrine of Scripture in theological prolegomena as the transcendent grounding of speculative reason; Pietism was more inclined to see in the Scriptures the charter of the church and consider it under a different theological locus. The traditions of exegesis of the key text of 2 Timothy 3:16 differ: orthodox exegesis (restated among the fundamentalists by old Princeton theologian B. B. Warfield) emphasized the once-for-all givenness and absoluteness of the process of biblical inspiration; Pietist exegesis (as illustrated by Bengel and adopted by Wesley and most of his followers) emphasized the ongoing process of inspiration in the church and the present work of the Holy Spirit in making the Scriptures alive and vital today. And perhaps most significantly we should notice that some would trace the emergence of early forms of biblical criticism to Pietism and its attack on the abstract doctrinal character of orthodoxy. There is a sense in which the intention of early biblical criticism was an effort to restore a "biblical theology" in which the Scriptures were freed from their dogmatic imprisonment. In all of this the Wesleyan tradition is more naturally seen in the Pietist rather than in the orthodox line.

(2) It is not often noticed that the Wesleyan tradition is the first major Christian tradition after the Enlightenment. In this it differs from classical Reformation theology, and we have already hinted that the difference may be seen in the different attitude that is taken in the Wesleyan tradition toward reason. The new social and intellectual context required a different articulation. And, again, the pietist and the enlightenment critiques of orthodoxy were often intermingled and mutually supporting. On the other hand, modem post-fundamentalist evangelicalism generally seems committed to the maintenance of the structures of classical Protestant theology in the face of enlightenment critique. These are quite different theological agendas and lead to different methods and concerns. The Wesleyan openness to reason and the fact that the Wesleyan tradition was more easily adapted (contextualized?) to the new intellectual environment, combined with the fact that Wesley did seem easily to appropriate the emerging biblical scholarship of his day, are grounds for suggesting that the Wesleyan tradition is more appropriately viewed as non-fundamentalist, even among those who wish to live in more direct continuity with the spiritual dynamic of the founder.(3) Related to this enlightenment location of Wesleyanism is the fact that Wesleyanism differs from fundamentalism in its analysis of the human problem. Modern neo-evangelicalism focuses on the problem of belief and the maintenance of orthodoxy and makes the modem crisis of unbelief the key issue. While orthodox in a broader sense, Wesley did not locate the basic problem here. He was fond of quoting the suggestion of the book of James that the devils are orthodox but obviously not examples of true or scriptural Christianity. For Wesley, true Christian religion was not a matter of opinion or even of mere orthodoxy but more a matter of the will and a "disposition of the heart." This orientation and the fact that Wesley was working along a different axis of thought have meant that the Wesleyan tradition has not been so traumatized by the Enlightenment. The problem of Christian faith may be complicated by the rise of secular rationalism, and Wesley was quick to repudiate its manifestations in his own time, but the basic problem of Christian faith, at least as perceived by the Wesleyan tradition, remains the same both before and after the Enlightenment. And, on the other hand, since the Wesleyan tradition is working on a fundamentally different axis, it is more easily able to adapt to a new intellectual context.

(4) One may make the same point in a slightly different manner. Perhaps more significant even than the rise of the rationalism of the early era of the Enlightenment is the rise of the historical consciousness" of the late Enlightenment and the nineteenth century. Modem forms of biblical criticism, for example, are probably more clearly rooted in this development. Also a part of this was the emergence of the social sciences which, in the application of the psychology of knowledge and the sociology of knowledge to classical modes of thought, had a significant relativizing impact. One may view the fundamentalist wing of modern Protestantism as that branch which was unable to assimilate these modern forms of thought because of its roots in more rationally articulated forms of theology and its ahistorical and biblicist patterns of thinking. Certainly the recent neo-evangelical polemics against any forms of relativism or situationalism would seem to confirm this tendency. It could be argued that Wesleyanism is more capable of assimilating these modern modes of thought. One reason for this would be that, in the shift to regeneration, the category of change is imported into the center of Wesleyan thinking. This would be true both with regard to the individual, where the Christian life is developmentally described as a series of stages, and more broadly in society. Thus the Wesleyan tradition has an inherent affinity to historical process and movement, which puts it at odds with the more absolutistic traditions that try to deny relativity and the historical conditionedness of Christian life and thought. This may perhaps best be seen in the Wesleyan attitude toward the ministry of women. While the fundamentalist experience on this question has been quite slow in allowing the ministry of women, lagging far behind the churches of the mainstream, the Wesleyan churches have often been the pioneers of this practice, especially in the nineteenth century when the conservative Wesleyan churches were far in advance of the more established denominations. The Wesleyans did not see the biblical injunctions against the ministry of women as providing a norm and pattern for all time. Instead they saw the Bible as the medium of a new source of life and power which changed persons and the world so that application of the spirit of the Scripture could not be achieved by a mechanical application of the letter of the Scripture.

(5) All of this is to argue that the very logic of the Wesleyan tradition is basically at odds with the fundamentalist experience and that this extends to the understanding of the nature and function of Scripture. A final illustration will have to suffice. The fundamental contrast between Wesleyanism and fundamentalism (including neo-evangelicalism) became clear to me when I happened on two late nineteenth-century charts. The first derived from the dispensational pre-millennial tradition and was a classic dispensational chart of the outline of history and eschatology. (Ernest Sandeen has argued in his Roots of Fundamentalism that dispensationalism is in many ways the defining characteristic of the modern fundamentalist experience which lies behind neo-evangelicalism.) The second was a chart in the front of the classic statement of the Salvation Army by its founder William Booth, In Darkest England and the Way Out. It is hard to describe how violently different these are. The Wesleyan chart, as represented by the Salvation Army, pictured sin in historically concrete terms: infidelity; drunkenness; greed; oppression; racism; etc. The "salvation" pictured was also historically concrete and actual, involving a range of dimensions from personal salvation and transformation through all kinds of social agencies and reform from credit unions for the poor to day care centers for working mothers. By contrast with this vision, embedded as it was in history and actual transformation, the dispensational chart appeared contrived, ahistorical, and almost gnostic in character. The function of Scripture-its role, its product, its use-is fundamentally shaped by these differing contexts.

The Wesleyan Quadrilateral

In summary, then, of what has been hinted at above we should note that, as much as theological method has been formulated in the Wesleyan tradition, it has often been described in terms of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral of Scripture, reason, tradition, and experience. Wesley does not use this formulation in his own writings, but it does echo patterns of thinking that are demonstrably characteristic of Wesley. One of his major treatises, for example, was entitled The Doctrine of Original Sin, According to Scripture, Reason and Experience. This title does not fully reproduce the quadrilateral, but the terms change in various of Wesley's statements and usages so that the quadrilateral may be said to systematize Wesley's thought and to describe the method of theological reflection within the Wesleyan tradition. Only very recently, with the formation of the merged United Methodist Church in 1968, has this really been formalized in a statement of "Our Theological Task" which appears regularly in The Book of Discipline, though similar analyses have been developed elsewhere, for example, in Colin W Williams, John Wesley's Theology Today.

This articulation speaks quite self-consciously of four norms or sources of theology. Within these it is generally understood that Scripture is the "norming norm" or the fundamental authority in theological reflection. But the Wesleyan vision includes a high respect for the tradition of the church as a source for theological formulation and a willingness to be judged by it, though flexibly, with Scripture as the final judge of the value of tradition. We have already indicated Wesley's more positive appreciation of reason, especially as a tool of reflection and analysis; one of his most characteristic types of writing was various "appeals" to "men of reason and religion." And, finally, Wesley not only wished to find true religion expressed experientially, but he also had a more positive role for experience in judging and correcting his theological formulations.

We have already provided several brief illustrations of how these norms have influenced theological reflection within the Wesleyan tradition. A final illustration will have to suffice. One place to see easily the variety of theological norms coming into play is in Wesley's Plain Account of Christian Perfection, perhaps both the key text for those who wished to sustain continuity with the spiritual experience of classical Wesleyanism and a source of much controversy with outsiders who found the key doctrine of the Wesleyan tradition offensive. In this tract Wesley seems to come to his high ideal of "perfect love" in his reading of Scripture informed by a variety of the great spiritual teachers of the church who emphasized similar themes. His understanding of the possibility of the achievement of this ideal and the fact that it often was achieved in a "crisis experience" seems to be elaborated out of an analysis based on the collected experiences of a number of his followers-a sort of "phenomenology of Christian experience." And in the process he appeals regularly to what is required by logic and reason, as well as to themes of a sort of natural theology in which he makes analogies to the experiences of birth and death. The result is a very subtle interplay of theological norms and sources that Wesley understood to be guided and directed by the Scriptures.Much of the debate about the Wesleyan Quadrilateral has centered on the theological pluralism that it necessarily leads to. The interplay of the various sources is subtle and the judgments are often "aesthetic" and dependent upon a variety of factors that include the personal history and psychology of the theologian as well as the extent to which the sources have been grasped and understood. This is certainly an issue, but it is both a strength and a weakness at the same time. From one angle the use of the quadrilateral merely brings to self-consciousness factors that seem to be present in all theological reflection, even among those who deny that they are operating with multiple norms. And it is precisely because of these dimensions that Wesleyan theology can assimilate modern patterns of thinking and can find contextualization in a variety of situations. It is for such reasons that I have found within the Wesleyan tradition a useful pattern of theological reflection and the resources for trying to think theologically in the modern world.

Just War Tradition: Is It Credible?

Public dialogue in the U.S. about the Persian Gulf war has drawn heavily on the language of the just war tradition—more so than has been the case with any war since at least the 1860s. The tradition has been appealed to by journalists and politicians, as if it were common knowledge, as a basis for making (or denying) the claim that the war in the Persian Gulf should go on.

Most of the time, the just war tradition is used to test a particular war (or a strategy or a weapon) for its moral and legal acceptability. That was done recently in the CENTURY by James Turner Johnson and Alan Geyer (February 6-13). The reciprocal approach is also needed: the tradition can be tested by a war. Does the tradition in fact facilitate shared moral and legal decisions by so labeling issues that they can be adjudicated?

Johnson is right that the just war tradition is "deeply rooted in both Christian tradition and international law." He is also right, in the several books he has written on the theme, in reporting that it has never been universally accepted or applied by Christian moralists or statesmen. It has never been promulgated ex cathedra by Rome, though it is in the Anglican, Lutheran and Reformed confessions. Deep rootage does not make the tradition morally true; but it does set the stage for giving it a fair test. The gulf war, both in the ways it is like all wars and in the ways it is unique, makes the testing both concrete and urgent, while also heightening the chances that the "facts" available when this text is drafted will have been changed by the time it reaches readers.

There is no reason for me to survey the current debate as concerns the substance of the arguments, nor to suggest my own verdict on each of the contested points, as I would do in a setting where time and structure would permit a serious debate in just war terms. What I want to do is to view the debate as a test of whether the entire just war mode of moral discourse is adequate to guide the responsible citizenship of people who claim that their first moral obligation is to the God whom Jesus taught them to praise and obey, and their second to the neighbor, including the enemy, whom Jesus taught them to love.

The just war tradition does serve, some of the time, as an agenda, a checklist of questions which it is fitting to ask in considering war. If your concern is not on that list (for example, if you think "love your enemy" is itself an adequate moral guide), it will be denied standing in the debate. If on the other hand you ask about "last resort" or "innocent immunity," others will grant your fight to put the question. That being the system’s intention, there are three questions we obviously can pursue: a) Does the system as system have integrity in that its concepts are so defined as really to serve as criteria? b) Do the people claiming to use the system have moral integrity in that they will renounce the strategies and actions which the system rejects? c) Is the system compatible with the other elements of Christian moral commitment which it does not expressly include? The first of these questions is our first concern here. My more basic concern as a Christian pacifist would of course be with the third.

Does the just war tradition work? Let’s consider some instances.

1) The facts of the case. As distinguished from people holding to pacifism or the "holy war," people holding to the just war tradition claim to make decisions on the empirically knowable facts of the case. It is assumed that these facts are knowable in principle and known in fact: Has there been naked aggression? Is the belligerent government legitimate? Has everything else been tried? Moralists have assumed that these facts could be ascertained. In our present experience that is not so easy. The control of information is a science and an art (known in the trade—in the language of billiards—as "spin"). In early February this reached a new level of brazenness. Margaret Tutwiler informed us that when the President had told conservative Protestant broadcasters that the U.S. wanted unconditional surrender and a war crimes trial, he was expressing his emotions, not policy; that when Secretary of State James Baker and his Soviet colleague Alexander Bessmertnykh said that the coalition would accept a cease-fire and would promise a regional peace conference, that was inoperative because it had not been checked. For "spin" purposes, it helps to have several different statements, each supposed to please somebody or send some message, with none of them binding and no call for consistency among them. From mid-January to mid February we were told almost daily both that there is no schedule and that the war is proceeding on schedule. On February 13-14, Generals Kelly, Schwartzkopf and Neal gave significantly different readings as to whether the tragedy of the bunker bombing in Baghdad would lead to changes in targeting policy. All the media commentaries interpret these discrepancies more in terms of spin control than of truth.

2) Who in fact does decide? The just war tradition was not originally intended to be used in democracies. It was originally assumed that decisions about war belong to sovereigns. The democratic vision which makes the citizenry "sovereign" changes how the system has to work. Disinformation and spin control invalidate the administrators’ claim to legitimacy. Civilian and military administrators are not trained to distinguish dissent from disloyalty, secrecy from security. They thus can refuse to provide "the people" with the wherewithal for evaluating the claimed justifications.

This change makes the availability of usable nonsectarian language like that of the just war tradition all the more necessary, because there must be debate. Yet in the sovereign’s eyes the debate seems to be unfair and disloyal. Both George Bush and Margaret Tutwiler would rather that we not all consider ourselves entitled to share in moral decisions about the killing done in our name. This phenomenon is not new, however. Ferdinand and Isabella did not appreciate the questions Francisco de Vitofia was asking about their treatment of Native Americans.

I do not propose to side simply with the media in their complaints about access and censorship. Yet it is clear that without reliable sources of information there is no basis for evaluating most of the claims on which a just war decision is based. When the head of the Joint Chiefs parries a factual question with "trust me," I don’t.

3) Reality is deep and wide. The just war paradigm for decision, like much of the rest of ethical casuistry, assumes a punctual conception of legal-moral decision. The decision to go to war, or to use such and such a strategy, it is assumed, is made at one time, not before or after that instant. What is either right or wrong is that punctual decision, based upon the facts of the case at just that instant, and the just war tradition delivers the criteria for adjudicating that decision. This procedure undervalues the longitudinal dimensions of the conflict. Here Geyer’s reading is truer to the facts than Johnson’s, as he takes account of what he calls "the burdens of history." During the first Reagan-Bush decade, other cases of "naked aggression" somehow did not need to be punished so rigorously. Iraq was textually told in July that the U.S. would not intervene; the classical distinction between "moral" just cause and "material" just cause becomes pertinent at this point.

In real life most decisions are not punctual. They have longitude—they were prepared for by a lot that went before. Setting mid-January as a firm deadline, counter to most of the wisdom of ancient diplomacy and the modern social science of conflict resolution, was done weeks before. As the date approached, Bush’s definition of its degree of firmness escalated to the point that by the 15th he in fact had no freedom to do otherwise. Yet the just war paradigm had not illuminated the weeks spent painting the U.S. and Iraq into their respective corners in the way it looked on January 15. Even less did it take account of the till longer predisposing factors for which the U.S. is more to blame than Saddam Hussein: the decade spent competing with the U.S.S.R. in building up Hussein’s forces, and the explicit statements made in July to the effect that what Hussein might choose to do with border problems was not our concern. The full amplitude of the just war tradition would be capable of considering such components of complicity and even entrapment as part of the definition of just cause, but our public discourse has consistently described the case as if the history of Mesopotamia began in August.

The claim that the UN resolutions suffice to assure "just authority" is belied by destruction in Iraq unrelated to freeing Kuwait (bridges, roads, municipal water and sewage systems) and by restatements of war aims (asking Iraqis to replace Saddam Hussein, demanding unconditional surrender and a war crimes trial) which go far beyond the UN objective (note as well the elements of bad faith in the UN appeal to which Geyer pointed).

Does a vote in which despite enormous pressures 47 senators opposed the resort to military force (and some of the "yea" voters said the president had acted wrongly throughout the fall but now they would rally ‘round the flag) constitute a moral mandate? One can grant that this consultation of Congress is better than stonewalling completely the right of Congress to be consulted, and that the UN actions constitute more backing than we ever even thought about requesting for Panama or Grenada. Thus the criterion of "legitimate authority" is more nearly met than at some other times. Yet the scale of the air war has gone far beyond the UN authorization, as did the continuing escalation of the war aims so that by February 15 Pentagon projections were assuming the demand for unconditional surrender rather than withdrawal, and by February 25 flanking actions were undertaken to prevent withdrawal.

4) Shared definitions? The public is deceived by the tacit assumption that because the "criteria" can be listed in common-sense language there must be a shared definition of most of the operational terms, as there is in a natural science or even in law. A criterion is something you can measure with; that can be done only if its meaning is shared by the several parties. In real use, however, most of the just war "criteria" are so subject to bias that they do not serve to adjudicate with any semblance of objectivity. The words like "legitimate authority" and "just cause" provide a common language, but they serve only to talk past each other. The contrast between my esteemed colleagues and good friends Geyer and Johnson exemplifies this brilliantly; the words are the same, but they use them to describe two different worlds.

5) What is the alternative? In most cases we are deceived by the tacit assumption that if and when the criteria are not met, one does not go to war. The doctrine can (theoretically) have teeth at several points: refusal to obey an unjust order, "selective conscientious objection" when called to serve an unjust cause, suing for peace when one cannot win without using unjust means, prosecuting a war crime. Yet no nonpacifist church has prepared its members for such hard choices. No independent information sources assure the availability of the facts that would demand or enable such resistance.

6) The rubbery claim of discrimination. The hopeless debate over the Ash Wednesday bunker attack demonstrates how rubbery is the claim of discrimination. Johnson is right that "smarter" weapons can be discriminating; yet the exponential escalation of the number of sorties throws away much of that gain. More is abandoned when the concept of "military target" is expanded to include the main highway between Baghdad and Amman, so that when Jordanian refugee buses and fuel trucks are destroyed it is the drivers’ fault. When antiaircraft artillery is placed on the roof of a home it is the householders’ fault. When scores of women and children take overnight refuge in a bunker it is Saddam’s fault. Assigning blame is not the same as moral discernment. Such reallocation of "fault" may have some pertinence for the sacrament of absolution (where "intention" matters in a particular way), or as mitigation in a war-crimes procedure, but it does not protect innocent lives. When General H. Norman Schwartzkopf said the next day that "all Saddam Hussein needs to do to stop our killing civilians is to surrender," he replaced a restraint in bello with an accusation ad bellum.

Discussion is radically distorted by assuming that the only "legitimate means" question is civilian immunity. There are many more treaty commitments, all the way to the October 1980 conventions on "excessive use of conventional weapons" (Certainly a fair description of the scale of the air war since mid-January).

7) How, does one measure "proportionality"? We must weigh the devastation of Iraq (even if there were no civilian deaths) and the promise of decades of future trouble in the region against the evil of failing to reverse promptly the August 2 annexation. By what coefficients do we do that weighing?

What then is the tradition good for? The current debate, and the Johnson-Geyer exchange as one instance, suffices (other evidences, other hard-to-apply criteria, could be added) to demonstrate the incapacity of the system to yield a clear and commonly accessible adjudication of contested cases. What the just war tradition is really good for is that together with pacifism it can identify and denounce the less restrained views which in fact dominate public discourse and decision-making. These views are in principle three:

1) Many people think that since war consists by definition in the breakdown of civility, it is not only counterfactual but also counterproductive to try to retrieve the notion of moral accountability within the struggle. A maximum effort subject to minimal scruples will best end the anarchy and the suffering. Michael Walzer calls this stance "realism," emphasizing by the quotes that its claim to self-evidence is spurious. Reinhold Niebuhr espoused the term with less restraint, though his view of the moral issue was highly nuanced. Charles Clayton Morrison called war "hell"; hell is where there are no moral decisions, only the outworking of earlier sins. Against this, the just war tradition maintains that moral accountability and the possibility of restraint do not end when war looms. The a priori presumption against recourse to war needs to be overridden by fact-based warrants (jus ad bellum); once hostilities are undertaken the means must be legitimate and proportionate (jus in bello).

2) Many people think that what justifies war is a transcendent cause, discerned by a prophetic person. Overlapping with the "just" alternative in early medieval thought, "holy" war or the Crusade differs from the just war (properly so-called) as to cause, last resort, and probable success, and usually with regard to the human dignity of the enemy/infidel. Against this view, the just war tradition maintains that even wrong belief does not deprive humans of their rights, and even a religious rationale does not justify wrong means.

3) Many people think that war frees its actors from moral restraints by offering a unique setting for the proof of the virility of a political elite, of military personnel, or of a nation. The conflictual activities delicately referred to by some of our rulers as "ass-kicking" must be understood not so much ethically as ritually. The adversary is not a fellow human with dignity (before God and the law) equal to one’s own, but an opportunity to prove one’s manly qualities by facing danger and shedding blood.

When held to honestly, the just war tradition agrees with pacifism in rejecting these three views. It is these three views, however, which in fact dominate real politics. The fundamental deception imposed on our public discourse is that despite the use of just war categories by sincere people, the overall shape of the macro decisions is determined by the other three kinds of dynamism.

Sometimes this deception may be intentional and cynical; but that is not my present claim. More prevalent and more insidious is the fact that just war discourse deceives sincere people by the very nature of its claim to base moral discernment upon the facts of the case and on universally accessible rational principles. It lets them think that their morality is somehow less provincial and more accessible to others than if it referred explicitly to the data of Christian faith, including the words and the work of Jesus.

"Has there ever been a just war?" Cynics ask this because they think that their disregard for restraint is thereby validated. Pacifists ask it because they wonder how seriously to take the just war thinkers’ claim not to have sold out morally. The question is wrong. The basis of moral obligation is not the record of past successes in doing right. Has there ever been a perfectly monogamous spouse? A faithful Christian church? The fitting question is whether in the current case those who claim that heritage are in fact letting it set the limits of their action. On that question the jury is still out. The claim of my nonpacifist colleagues that the system they are using is more socially responsible, more understandable to ordinary people, more culturally accessible to people of other value communities, more able to manage with discrimination the factual data of political decisions, than is my testimony to Jesus’ words and work, still has the burden of proof.

The Use of the Bible in Theology

To ask how the Bible functions in theology is like asking how the ground floor functions in a house: there are several possible right answers, and any one of them looks a little silly when spelled out. The self-evident answer is holistically that it is the ground floor. In terms of traffic patterns, you can say that you have to go through the ground floor to get to the stairs which would lead to the other floors. In terms of architecture, you can say that it carries the weight of the upper stories. In terms of frequentation, you can say that the rooms there tend to be used by more people and to be more public. Any one of those answers is true, and any one of them is less than simply to say that the ground floor is the ground floor.

The utility of any specific answer to this question depends then on the particular sub-questions which the one putting the question has in mind. Is the person asking about traffic patterns or about the weight of the building or about the channeling of pipes and wires or about rental values per square foot? Most of the questions which might be interesting from one perspective will be uninteresting from another. How then are we to proceed? My first concern is to elaborate on the obviousness of our situation, in ways that do not immediately promise to decide any controverted question.

How Do People Theologize in a Believing Community?

Theology has a catechetica function. This will naturally be the first function encountered by a seeker or believer new to the faith community. Here it is appropriate that formulations of what we believe will need to be developed, which select from a much wider heritage those particular elements that one needs to know first. Priorities are established among the various things which older Christians know, or which the community at large knows and which are all good to know, by hfting out the minimal number of things which a new believer needs to know first. This must be done in the fight of the total biblical heritage.

The Bible itself does not sort out any such minimal statement for us. It does record, sometimes explicitly, as in the account of the encounter between Philip and the Ethiopian, but more often implicitly, some wordings of baptismal confessions, but such a confession is less than a catechism. Some scholars suggest that the book of Matthew was developed to serve as a catechism in some early Syrian community, but that is to use the term "catechism" in a broader sense.

The decision about what to teach first will not only be based in the traditional materials, mainly the biblical resources from the early church's experience. It will not only seek to annunciate this primitive gospel. It will also need to take account of the prophetic and evangelistic clash with the particular world of unbelief from which that specific seeker or convert has come. The church must be open to recognize some priority denunciations or renunciations as a necessary part of Christian decision in any particular world. In Psalm 24:3-7 we have an example of such theological affirmation and negation. Two items are named which describe a generally pure character; one is ethical, and one says that the person has not served idols. There are thus both behavioral and conceptual components in the definition proffered. The renunciation of idolatry in 4:6 is an integral part of the definition, a specimen of denunciation which applies if the surrounding culture is idolatrous. One recalls that Jesus said in Luke 14 that readiness to bear a cross is a prerequisite for following him.

The theological ministry of the catechete deals then with the criteria of appropriateness in selection and accent. The Bible will serve both as the first but not the exclusive source of the affirmations to be made and as the total value frame in which priorities need to be determined. Yet at two points the Bible is clearly not sufficient or self-expositing. It can replace neither the contemporary charisma of the teacher who makes that selection in a given circumstance nor the substance of the encounter with the world in which the particular catechumen has been nurtured and to which the corrective and informative impact of the message must be directed.

Persons who grow up within the believing community may never need catechism. They are surrounded with another kind of theology which might simply be characterized as Christian culture. There are the stories of faith told from one generation to the next. There is the language of worship and the several languages and styles of preaching. There is the way in which ethical deliberation draws upon the heritage of the believing community for illumination and adjudication. With this variety of communication going on, most of it nonprofessional and unsystematic, the child of a believing family grows up knowing a certain corpus of theological notions, understood more contextually than conceptually, their definitions more supposed than spelled out. This, too, is theology. The Bible constitutes its ground floor, but again its total composition will be determined by processes of selection and exchange which the Bible undergoes rather than directs. It will include considerable language originating later than that of the canon. More of it will come from hymns, sermons, and children's stories than directly from the text of Scripture.

The Bible is at the center of a larger field of teachings and testimonies from which the catechist will select what needs to be learned first. But precisely since catechesis is correlated with the particular unbelief from which a particular catechumenistic, and without final logical force. If, on the other hand, there is some common court of appeal or superior criterion, then the continuing dialogue about their difference can hold some promise of change which may be called "education," "repentance," reconcihation," or "training," depending on the perspective in which we want to look at it.

In the specific Christian case, that ultimate court of appeal in the corrective use of theology is the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. To go back one step further we should of course say the ultimate court of appeal is God in se, since the functional meaning of the word "God" is such ultimacy. But apart from revelation in Christ we would not know which God or what kind of God we are talking about. Therefore, that last hypothetical degree of ultimate reaching back does not need further attention.

Obviously the label "Christ" as designating a revelatory authority is not simple but instead designates a semantic field. At the center there is the historic reality ofjesus. Surrounding that reality and mediating it to us, there is a circle of immediate interpretations by qualified witnesses who spoke about him in reliable Aramaic and Greek reports. Some of those reports were immediate testimonies about the life and work ofjesus. Others were less immediate in that they talked about the difference he made to them in terms of hope or atonement or initiation into community. The deposit of such testimonies is our New Testament.

Equally indispensable but one notch further out is the circle of assumptions and prerequisites, cultural backgrounds, and definitions of terms within which the primary testimonies have to be interpreted in order to know what those first testimonies meant. A dominant component of that context was the Hebrew heritage of which the Old Testament is our primary document. Another element of it is the contemporary Zeitgeschichte which is accessible to us only through the very fauible and fuzzy tools of literary and archaeological history, aided but also called into question by the ancillary disciplines of linguistics, literary analysis, anthropology, etc.

This way of schematically subdividing the kinds of theological discourse has intentionally left aside one of them. That one is the sense in which we are also talking "theology" when we talk to unbelievers. An unbeliever by definition is someone with whom we do not share an ultimate court of appeal, although we may very well share common penultimate criteria. With most of our unbelieving neighbors we agree to try to talk sense according to the laws of grammar and logic. With some of them we agree to try to argue according to the rules of rational debate. With most of them we get along most of the time assuming verifiable common readings on such matters as the price of eggs and the sovereignty of the United States of America. But on the matter concerning which they are unbelievers, those common criteria do not reach to convince or to condemn. Or, if they do, it is because through some special gift of providence some penultimate value is raised to a higher level of redemptive power. It may for instance be that some deed of loving service will touch a neighbor at a point of common humanity to communicate what argument could not. It will usually not be a biblical appeal. I thus conclude, within the oversimplification which is excusable for this kind of capsule argument, that apologetics or evangelism should not be thought of as constituting a distinctive mode of theological discourse for which we would need a specific definition of the place of the Bible.

How Did the New Testament Church Theologize?

The New Testament records indicate the presence in the early communities of a particular functionary known as the teacher (didaskalos). Which of the above functions are we to think of this person as exercising: a catechetical one, or a corrective one? Perhaps there was still something else which was done under that heading. The teacher's function is unique among those to which we find reference in the apostolic writings in the fact that it is specifically described in the epistle of James as a risky function which not many should seek to discharge. This is quite different from the general Pauline pattern which encourages everybody to seek all the gifts (I Cor. 14:5, all speak in tongues, all prophesy; I Timothy 3: 1, it is fine to want to be bishop).

The reason for this caution, we are told, is that the tongue is an unruly member." Our subjective individualism makes us think of "tongue" as the individual's capacity for speech and of the "unruliness" then as a tendency to speak impulsively, unkindly, or carelessly. One must doubt whether James was so modem. The "tongue" in any Aryan language means the language, the phenomenon of language, and the social reality of communication. Language is unruly in that playing around with words or trying to be consistent in our use of words or dealing with issues by defining terms is a constant source of contestation and confusion. Here is James' caution. So it is, too, that Timothy can at the same time be invited to "follow the pattern of the sound words" which he had received from Paul (2 Tim. 1:13) and be warned against "disputing about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers" (2 Tim. 2:14). The teacher is then someone charged with care about verbal formulations, who must serve in the awareness that such instruments of the faith are at the same time both indispensable and misleading. It is with language as it is with the rudder of a ship, the bit in the horse's mouth, or the flame igniting a forest: there is a multiplier effect whereby any mistake in balance or aim produces greater damage through the leverage of language.

What does this have to do with how the Bible functions in theology? First of all, the Apostle warns that the Bible itself is the victim of that flexibility and leverage. Canonical scripture used by communities to shape their identity has that characteristic of being subject to manipulation in order to support whatever the later interpreters of the tradition want to have ratified. There is a sense in which the objectivity of the scriptural text in its unchanging wording can be appealed to as a corrective against the most highly fanciful flights of redefinition, but it would be part of the naivete against which the Apostle warns us if we were to take that objectivity as a guarantee. It is rather the risk of abuse to which canonical texts are subject that calls upon the teacher to be more restrained than the poets and prophets in the interpretations which he or she allows people to commend to one another. The wording of the Bible is not an empowering ratification giving the theologian a special advantage in the knowledge of truths qualitatively different from the truths other people can know. The Bible is, rather, the victim of the corrosive and distorting effect of the leverage of language, and the theologian is its defender.

Everyone ought to read the Bible, and all ought to be free to interpret it soberly in relevance to their own situations. What we need the didaskalos for is to defend the historical objectivity of what the text said in the first place against the leverage of overly confident or "relevant" applications. Already in the early church this was a task that called for linguistic sophistication. One needed to know how discerningly to control the tongue. Today it is far dearer how such discernment can and must use the tools of linguistic science. The ancient concept of a "simple sense" of Scripture to be played off against the "fuller sense" and the allegorical sense of the text is obviously over simple, but the concern which it represented is still appropriate. There are forms of articulation which are fruitlessly speculative, destructively relativizing, or unwholesomely accommodating. The task of the didaskalos is to defend the difference between the organic fidelity of our interpretation now and the meaning of the message then as well as to oppose other "adaptations" or "applications" which rather constitute betrayal.

The fact that people are tempted to abuse Scripture by calling upon it to support whatever they believe is one of the reasons it is inappropriate most of the time to think that the primary theological debate is about whether the biblical text is authoritative or not. Too many people are affirming its authority by claiming its support for interpretations which a more adequate hermeneutic will reject. The theologian's task is more often to defend the text against a wrong claim to its authority rather than to affirm in some timeless and case-free way that it has authority.

How Does the Bible Function Authoritatively?

Thus far it has been sufficient to look "phenomenologically" and then "biblically" at how a believing community will be seen thinking. There is no need to theorize about why the Bible has authority when one finds oneself living in a community in which that authority is presupposed and which is constantly being renewed through the simple experience of its operation. The "apologetic" notion that the appropriateness of that authority's being operative should be dependent upon our being able somehow to explain it in terms exterior to itself does not arise in the ordinary life of the believing community. In making this observation I am not expressing any interest in debating a systematic position of "presuppositionalism." That is also an apologetic stance. It is much more simply, descriptively the case that Christians gather around the words of the Word and that its message bears fruit in the ways described above without needing constantly to be pulled up by the roots in order to see why it should be working that way.

It is unavoidable, nonetheless, that within the process of reading this story acceptingly there should be in particular cases some selectivity as to which of the texts are found most central. This is true of the theologian serving the readers of a particular culture and class. When a culture is preoccupied by fear of the dark powers which rule the world, one will find especially the message of release from that fear. When a society is preoccupied with death, one will hear the message of resurrection and eternal life. When a society is anomic, it will be open to be illuminated by the Torah. There is no reason that in all times and places such initial priorities should not dictate a kind of "canon within the canon." It will be the responsibility of the theological discipline both to exercise this selectivity reasonably and to criticize it. The ultimate canon within the canon must in the end, however, be the person of Jesus and, in a broader sense, the narration of the saving acts of God. This follows from the fact that the Bible as a whole corpus of literature is narrative in its framework, although some of its fragments are not. That framework itself dictates the priority of the historical quality over levels of interpretation which would be less historical by being more abstract (ontology, systematic dogma) or individualistic.

As Paul Minear indicated long ago, we are most likely to learn from a text something which will constitute genuine learning if we attend to the points at which what a text seems to be saying is not something we already know or have under our control. This is true for any kind of human understanding, whether it be applied to the phenomena of physical or biological nature or to a piece of literature. Even more must it be the case for the Christian Scriptures, of which we confess that they testify to us of uniquely revelatory intervention. As the expository ministry of Minear did not cease to illustrate, the points at which we will most likely learn will therefore not be those already previously reduced to rational system but the odd, forgotten, or systemically erratic blocks within the literature.

One very fitting example from my own work is the "exousiology" of the Pauline writings. It can hardly be doubted that the handful of texts in the Pauline corpus which refer to "principalities and powers, thrones, angels . . ." represent in the minds of the Apostle and his disciples a coherent segment of a larger coherent cosmology. The work of Christ has an impact upon that cosmos. Christian interpretation since medieval times has assumed that this was repeating something about "angels" which we already knew and has therefore paid little further attention to those texts. Scholastic Protestantism gave them still less attention. Liberal Protestantism consciously excised them from its practical canon, knowing that they describe something which we already know cannot be; namely, a world of familiar spirits behind the causation of events. As a result, a major segment of Paul's understanding of the universe and of redemption has been made inoperative.

A series of Reformed theologians-Berkhof, Caird, Morrison, Markus Barth, and others-have revitalized our awareness of the relevance of this material. When I drew from them in a secondary synthesis in one chapter of my Politics of Jesus, there were those who felt it to be an inappropriate expression of my Mennonite bias, even though all of the sources I used, both the scriptural and the systematic theologians, were consistently in the Reformed tradition. But my present concern is not that my reading was Reformed, but that it was new yet old. The text was always there, but a new age opened our eyes to read it. This has been happening throughout the centuries, at least since St. Francis if not since Augustine. Scriptural orientation sharpens the ability to discern the signs of the times, but it is just as true that temporal orientation sharpens our ability to discern the signs in Scripture. This is a concrete case, in our age, of the fulfillment of the promise of which the puritan John Robinson has spoken: "The Lord has yet more light and truth to break forth........."

It is most lively and productive to think of one body of literature, the Bible, representing in any time and place the testimony of the narrative stretching from Abraham to the Apostles, which can be juxtaposed to any other age by its Psalms being sung again, its letters being read again, its stories and parables being retold. Then in the juxtaposition of those stories with our stories there leaps the spark of the Spirit, illuminating parallels and contrasts, to give us the grace to see our age in God's light and God's truth in our words. This picture of how it works is more representative of the experienced facts but also more rigorous than the classical scholastic vision of an unchanging body of timeless propositions needing to be twisted to fit a new age by the special skills of rationalistic linguists.

Accepting the Bible's Own Shape as Defining "Theology": Toward a "Biblical Realism"

In the context described above, "theology" is not an end in itself, as it seems to be in some literary and academic contexts. The vocation of teacher is a ministry to the body, just as are the vocations of deacon and elder. The construction of a system is not valuable in its own right; we need to know to what end consistency or completeness is valued. The translation of older affirmations of faith into a new language is only worthwhile when we clearly identify the limits of faithfulness which keep that reformulation from selling out to the assumptions of the new language. The Bible itself can be a safeguard against theology as a system becoming idolatrous or an end unto itself, since the Bible itself is not what we would call theological in its style.It speaks about God faithfully in pastoral, ministerial, and argumentative contexts, not in systematic or historical or expository ways. We still need to do theology as well in those ways, but the Bible will help to remind us to keep those operations both subordinate to the larger imperatives of the life of the body and relativized by their greater subservience to the demands of one's respective host culture. If we take the biblical authors as role models for theological discourse, they can protect us against overvaluing the didactic and the systematic modes.

The Bible is not simply a document of churchmanship with pastoral preoccupations. The particular kind of church of which it is the testimony is a missionary, aggressive, and subversive movement. We misunderstand even the practical/pastoral thrust of the Bible whenever we compare or equate it with the pastoral concerns of an established religion-with the maintenance of the life of parish and clan in a society where there are no longer any challenges being addressed to the powers that be, no longer any new believers coming in across the boundaries of nation and culture, and no longer any new threatening issues needing to be wrestled with on the missionary frontier. Pastoral care in the established church and in the minority missionary movement are two quite distinct operations. Scholastic theology tends to abstract out of that awareness; the Bible sustains it. "Biblical realism" is a tendency-hardly a school-which tries to make more of the Bible as a formal model.

We are accustomed to considering as "theological" those forms of expression that seek abstraction and generality. The Bible itself was not written that way. I do not argue that the reflexes of abstraction and generalization have no function at all, but we need to be more honest about their derivative quality and about the normalness of narrative or hortatory genres as good theology. The scandal of particularity and the vulnerability of faith as not being coercive are intrinsic to the gospel, and they are made more evident by the occasionalistic quality of the literature. When, for the sake of apologetic or missionary conprehensibility or for the sake of internal coherence, we step back from that concreteness and express ourselves in more general terms, it must not be with the thought that this will make the faith more credible. Apologetic rationalism, whether conservative like that of Clark or Van Til, moderate like Brunner, or liberal like Gordon Kaufman or David Tracy, is a rear guard exercise.

The real foundation, both formally and materially, for Christian witness is the historic objectivity of Jesus and the community he creates. Any other kind of "foundation" we can seek to make in a particular world is the footing for a bridge between that world and first-century Palestine.

By its nature, as a method seeking to reflect in its own structure the qualities of the text being read, "biblical realism" must be pluralistic with regard to styles and formulation. Therefore, it will, not by accident or misunderstanding but by virtue of its structural commitments, fall short of meshing satisfactorily with the methodological assumptions of scholastic orthodoxy which is committed to constructing a system which ideally would be rationalistic, stable, and closed. The reason for this flexibility of method is not a desire to be "liberal" either in the sense of an optimistic vision of human nature in general or in the more restrictive methodological sense of being optimistic about the power of one's critical tools. The reason is, rather, modesty about the power of our human instruments of interpretation, which leads appropriately, in the face of the choice which God obviously made to become manifest through a multiplicity of literary forms that are mostly narrative in framework and doxological in tone, to skepticism about the adequacy of any system-building of our own. Only in that way can the Bible be served and not become the servant in a communication event. just as we are willing to receive our message from an authority we do not challenge, so we should properly subordinate our methods. Rational scholastic orthodoxy errs in filtering the given texts through the grid of its independent ordering operation.

This is not to say that the questions with which scholastic orthodoxy was concerned can be shrugged off as unreal or uninteresting. It must be doubted, however, that they must always come first or always be answered in the same way. The authentic prolegomenon is not the rational presupposition of another axiom which alone would permit us to say what we want to say. What needs to be said first is that we are already together in the believing community, praising God and supporting and admonishing one another.

Although some of its critics make that accusation for their own reasons, there is nothing about this "biblical realist" position that is primitivistic in the sense of promising that it would be possible to recreate a first-century world or a first-century world-view or a first-century church. No such naive vision is intended. In fact the biblical realist position is only possible as a post-critical phenomenon. It is scholastic orthodoxy which is naively pre-critical when it assumes that the scriptural text standing there alone can be interpreted faithfully and can be equated with our systematic restructuring of its contents. What is at stake is not whether the Bible can be interpreted at this great distance without linguistic and hermeneutic tools but whether, at those points where it is clear what it says, we are going to let that testimony count rather than subjecting it to the superior authority of our own contemporary hermeneutic framework.

It is also not accurate, although there are also some critics who for their own reasons make that claim, that this view includes any disrespect for human rationality, for the natural knowledge which we share with our unbelieving neighbors, or for the appropriateness of meaning systems not derived only from the gospel. This position is one which can only be exposited with the aid of rationality in all its identifiable forms. It involves as well more claims upon an esthetic sensitivity, also a form of natural culture, than do some earlier views. A commitment to biblical realism will heighten rather than weaken our ability to converse with our neighbors in their own language, if we become clear about the differences which distinguish one language game from another. I grant that some Barthian rhetoric, which I would reject if it be taken as systematic theology, although it may be quite appropriate as pastoral theology (e.g., Barmen), may have played into the hands of this misinterpretation. The point is not that all the truth is in Jesus or in the Bible. it is that the truth which is in Jesus is the truth that matters the most, which must therefore regulate our reception and recognition of other kinds and levels of truth rather than being set in parallel or subordinated thereto.

Perspicuity and Change

In describing the need for criteria within the corrective task, I noted that to know what "Jesus Christ" means requires acquaintance with a widening circle of "assumptions and prerequisites, cultural backgrounds, and definitions of concepts." No text has a clear meaning without a dictionary to define its terms. There is no infallible "dictionary," not even in the minimal literal sense of a collection of definitions for specific words and even less in the wider sense of what symbols, sentences, and social structures mean. Therefore, the choice made by God to use human events and human reporting of those events makes the task of faithful interpretation endless. On a given issue one can, by continuing dialogical disciplines, approximate more and more the confidence that one understands basically what the original testimony meant. But at the same time new issues arise and new challenges are addressed to old formulations in such a way that the task is never finished.

With regard to translation in the literal sense, Eugene Nida used to say regularly that no translation from one language to another can ever be perfectly accurate, but that in every specific interlinguistic interface it is possible to find a substantially adequate rendering of the central point of the original text. What is thus said about moving from Greek to Swahili or Chinese can also be said mutatis mutandis of restating in 1983 what was at stake when Jeremiah or John was writing. We can never know perfectly, but we can understand substantially. The disciplines of doing that may be exercised under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, but they are never infallible.

It is specifically with reference to future questions not yet named that the Jesus of John 14- 16 promised further leading and "greater works." There is no reason to exclude the ministry of theological articulation from the scope of this promise. It is therefore inappropriate to accentuate, as has been done in some past evangelical experience, the immutability of Christian truth once formulated, as if that authority were enjoyed by our articulations rather than being reserved to the canonical texts themselves and the historical events behind them. Formulations can and will keep changing and it is most fitting that we should expect them to. The proper issue to be concerned about is the ground rules and guidelines for articulating such changes, not whether they should happen.

Having made use of the analogy to a linguistic model of translation," let me also suggest certain qualifications regarding its adequacy. First we note those dimensions of the reading of the canonical witness which are mentioned specifically in the New Testament as distinct workings of the Holy Spirit. One of these is the process of dialogue about moral matters for which Jesus used the rabbinic expression "binding and loosing" and of which he said that, when it is done in his name, it receives the seal of his presence and stands in heaven. We may appropriately read the narrative of Acts 15 as a specimen of God's keeping this promise. An issue had been raised by the collision between the missionary methods of Paul and his colleagues and the disciplinary concerns of some people from Jerusalem. The matter was given head-on attention rather than being dodged or papered over. Arguments were brought to bear from experience and from Scripture. Everyone who had anything to say was heard, until the assembly fell silent. Then the concluding compromise, proposed by the presiding elder of the host congregation, was described as having "seemed right both to the assembly and to the Holy Spirit." There is no tension or contradiction between saying that this result was the work of the Holy Spirit and saying that it was the result of proper procedures of conflict resolution and decision making.

Secondly, we are explicitly urged to consider the variety of gifts as one special sign of the guidance of the Spirit. The gifts of prophet, teacher, moderator, etc., all contribute to the process of theological articulation. They contribute best if each has maximum liberty to contribute in its own way and if the exercise of those liberties is itself coordinated in the right way (which coordination is also one of the gifts). The one thing which the New Testament language on these matters gives us no ground for is the notion that the theological task could be exercised in isolation from the bearers of other gifts or from the surveillance of the total community.

In the spiral movement whereby the mind of the church constantly links the world's agenda and the canonical texts, one does find a degree of progress in any given context in becoming clearer both about what it is in the present challenge to which Scripture speaks and about what the answer is. This growing clarity cannot be imposed on other times and places, but we do learn about some of the priorities in our time and place if we keep the circuit open. That the God of the Bible cares about the future of this earth and the human race, rather than intending to leave it behind as a radioactive cinder in order for disembodied souls to enjoy themselves timelessly in a placeless heaven, is a truth which grows on anyone who reads the Scriptures with that question in mind, even though for centuries it was possible for readers not to notice that testimony, so thoroughly had they been taken in by neo-Platonism.

That the God of the Bible wants captives to be freed, the poor to be fed, and the exercise of authority to be accountable to those who are led is likewise becoming increasingly clear, though we knew something of it before theologians of the "Third World" made more of it. The agenda of oppression had been faced by Christian believers in other times-by the Lollards and Levellers, by Wesley and Finney. But in our age those themes have been given a much more acute vitality by spokespersons for the minorities and majorities whose human dignity has been denied by oppressive social structures. More than was the case for Wycliffe or Wesley (at least more in quantity if not in quality), this sensitizing impact of awareness has pushed readers of the canonical Scriptures to find new depth and breadth, new detail and sharpness, in the stories of Moses and Jesus and the apocalypse.

The biblical appeal of the contemporary theologies of liberation has once more given occasion to fulfill the promise of John Robinson that "the Lord has yet much more light and truth to break forth from his holy word." It is an affirmation and not, as many conservative evangelicals have reflexively assumed, a questioning of biblical authority when the language of liberation and empowerment prove fruitful in understanding further dimensions of what salvation always meant according to the scriptural witness, even though we had not previously been pushed to see it that clearly. It was the alliance of official Christianity with oppression which kept it from being seen for a millennium. One must assume as possible, and I would hope as likely, that there could be yet other such further clarifications ahead of us. Thus the function of the Bible is to continue correctively to stand injudgment on our past failures to get the whole point.

How Does the Bible Function in the Christian Life?

The Lord has more light and truth yet to break forth out of his holy Word.

John Robinson

To begin our discussion of Scripture with the question of how we use the Bible in theology may in itself be misleading. It might imply that Scripture is something I control and which I can manipulate according to my needs. But if the Bible is God's word and therefore a powerful presence in my life, the proper question may be: how does God's word use me? In any case a study of the function of the Bible must begin with the recognition that the Bible cannot be considered in isolation from my life and faith and that of the community of which I am a part. It will be my purpose to argue in this chapter that the Bible does not function in a vacuum and that statements about its power and authority must reflect on its context as well as its nature.

The model I would propose in the use of Scripture might be called the interactionist model.(1) This way of thinking suggests that Scripture actually functions in an interaction between my own experience, the encounter with the text, and the reality of God through this. I will argue that my experience with Scripture will certainly come to include theoretical knowledge about Scripture but that this only becomes relevant in the fight of my concrete experience with the truth of Scripture, much of which can never be fully articulated. Indeed, as the reader becomes mature in Christ, it is the actual experience of scriptural truth that is more important. For it is this that enables the reader to judge more ' clearly the organic meaning of Scripture. Contrariwise, when theoretical constructs about Scripture continue to dominate we run the risk of noting the Holy Spirit's use of the Bible to particular modes of working, and thereby we fail to allow new light and insight to break upon us. We will seek to present this model in three parts -- telling our story, hearing God's story, and allowing these stories to merge.

We Begin by Telling Our Story

To understand Scripture properly we must begin not with a doctrine of Scripture but with our life in the world. This follows not only from the importance of our particular starting point but also from the way we come to know anything at all. A recognition of this fact has been reflected in recent studies in theological method. For example, Bernard Lonergan points out, "A theology mediates between a cultural matrix and the significance and role of a religion in that matrix.(2) Previously, he notes that culture was understood in a classical sense: classical values were viewed as static and unchanging. Now we have come to see culture more empirically as the changing values and meanings that inform a way of life. Our faith therefore is necessarily expressed and understood in terms of our particular setting. This need not be seen as a handicap; it is rather a recognition of our existence in society and history. This means moreover that our reflection on and use of Scripture must also take their impetus and starting point from the forces that shape our consciousness. In our day particularly momentous and complex issues face us-diminishing resources, economic affluence and poverty, and arms escalation, to name only a few. On a personal level many people carry heavy burdens of suffering or discouragement. These factors are surely relevant to the way we use Scripture.

This particularity of our starting point has been highlighted by the social and historical sciences. These show us the ways we are products of our environment and the history and traditions lying behind it. We must begin here because we simply cannot begin anywhere else. We cannot jump to some privileged place of neutrality or complete objectivity. We can neither dose out all sense data (as Descartes wanted to do) nor bracket all ultimate questions (as Husserl sought to do). Nor do we perceive our life in discrete impressions (as Hume claimed) or in individually verifiable facts (as the logical positivists insist). Rather we are aware of a totality of experience making a dynamic whole. And it is within this context that we must five as responsible persons.

Rudolf Bultmann has been one theologian anxious to recognize the role that our modem pre-understanding plays in the interpretation of Scripture. He insists that it is impossible for a modem person who uses electricity and yet planes to understand the New Testament as it is written. In contrast to people in biblical times "modern man acknowledges as reality only such phenomena or events as are comprehensible within the framework of the rational order of the universe ... the thinking of modem men is really shaped by the scientific world-view, and. modem men need it for their daily lives."(3)

Now it can hardly be doubted that whatever modem people comprehend must be put in terms that are congruent with other things they know to be true. just as Scripture must be put into a language we can understand, so it must be translated into a cultural framework we can relate to. But it does not follow that our framework of understanding, any more than our language, is fixed and unchanging. Bultmann has followed Kant here in making our point of view into a normative and critical principle.(4) We must allow that the framework in which we see things needs correction or indeed transformation. As Peter Berger comments, "We must begin in the situation in which we find ourselves, but we must not submit to it as to an irresistible tyranny."(5)

In another place Berger elaborates this caution. He notes that modem (Western) consciousness may find traditional conceptions of God and the supernatural highly improbable. Long held and highly dispersed habits of thought may incline the average person toward secularism and naturalism. But this interesting and helpful sociological analysis is purely descriptive. These methods uncover the habits of thought with which the average person approaches Scripture. These mind-sets may well be hostile to the truth of the Bible; indeed, its messages may often be dismissed out of hand. But this does not mean that Scripture must be ignored or transformed to suit our way of thinking. It is possible of course always to assume in principle that one's modem ideas are right, but this does not put one in a position to learn much of anything new. The defect, after all, Berger points out, may he in the modern consciousness and not with the truth of Christianity.(6) Though we must recognize where we are in our thinking, we must always be open to change or to altering our point of view if growth and maturation are to take place.

But it is clear that we ignore our presuppositions to our peril. As we noted, looking at Scripture in isolation from its context may tempt us to overlook the mind-sets and cultural predispositions with which we come to Scripture. We may then be blind to our tendency to focus on particular themes in the Bible while overlooking others. While teaching in Asia I became aware how often Western readers tended to see the truth of Scripture in abstract terms, while Asian readers tended to focus on narrative and concrete images. They did not find it necessary, as we do, to isolate single meanings and eliminate nuances and allusions. I have even heard of a situation in Africa where believers are particularly attracted to the genealogies in the Old Testament. Surely, they insist, here is a sign of authenticity.

The other side of this same point is that by ignoring the particular settings in which Scripture is read we risk losing the richness that varying perspectives may bring to our understanding of the truth of Scripture. Although we are sinners and we live in a fallen world, because of God's sovereignty and providential presence, there is always positive value in what we bring to Scripture.(7) And we must not be ungrateful for these preliminary signs of God's grace.

On a more personal level individuals may be more conscious of some immediate need or crisis which motivates them to turn to Scripture in the first place. As God heard the cries of the Hebrew people suffering under oppression in Egypt, so also God hears the cries of people today and sees their tears. It would be both inhuman and theologically deficient to fail to take such predispositions into account, for these are the particular openings which give opportunity for Scripture to speak with special power

.In summary we may say that, since we are products of our setting and the particular values of our community, it is this concrete experience which we must bring to Scripture and in terms of which we must understand its message. The principle at stake here is what the Reformers called the perspicuity of Scripture. The truth of Scripture is accessible and clear to all who can read it for themselves. When we by contrast present Scripture in the first instance in terms of some particular theological framework or in the light of specialized or critical issues, we not only fail to address the questions that trouble us, but we may also place a barrier between the reader and the text of Scripture. It might even be argued that much that passes for biblical study in our seminaries and graduate schools has in fact the effect of creating barriers between the lay reader and the Bible.

The use of Scripture, however, is not a special property of professional interpreters; it is a function of the whole body of Christ. Professional exegetes have the important role of helping Christians to learn to read Scripture for themselves. They provide historical and corporate perspectives which protect from individual excesses. This extremely important process is described in Ephesians 4:11- 16. There it is clear that the goal of ministry is the maturity of the whole body. The gifts poed out on the church by the ascended Christ have as their final goal that "we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ" (vs. 13, NIV). Those whom we call professional exegetes are then servants of the church who are to help people read Scripture in the light of their own questions not in the light of problems scholars (or their German teachers!) say are important. It does not take much interaction with lay readers to see how enormously different are the problems they see in Scripture from those theologians are taught to see. One often hears the lament that theology has not penetrated into our churches. The reason for this may in part he here: individual Christians must be challenged to reflect on their commitment and to work from a biblical point of view.(8) For authentic commitment will always be relative to times and places. Indeed the biblical picture portrays a God who wishes to enter fully into the fabric of human life-one who leaves the ninety-nine in the fold and goes out and seeks the one sheep that is lost. So today we must believe that God is seeking us out, coming to us where we are and seeking to bring redemption into our lives, our homes, and our communities. But how does Scripture mediate this coming?

Scripture Functions in Allowing Us to Hear God's Story

In various ways the Word of God comes into our situation. But as we are exposed to it we soon learn that it does not come simply as another source of knowledge about ourselves or the world, but as a dynamic call which demands a response. This awareness comes from the interaction of two factors in the text. First, we see in Scripture particular people and communities that represent times and places very different from our own. Yet they are seen to be real people who cry and laugh just as we do. Second, we find God coming to them, speaking to them, and interacting with them in pursuit of his good purposes. These purposes are realized in a series of events that Gabriel Fackre calls the red thread through Scripture-the central and defining narrative of Scripture, what we might call God's story of redemption or renewal.

We find in Scripture a God who is actively present not only as the creator but also the sustainer of this order of things. We see God enter history, meet people where they are, but actively transform situations in which he is present. Both elements of the record are indispensable. It is a real human world we meet with. The authors of Scripture give an authentic witness to the crucial events of God's redemptive program climaxing in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. As Conrad Boerma puts it, "From within their own social situations its authors described how God changed their world. . . .(9)

This human point of view calls for further elaboration, for one often sees reference to the cultural and historical conditionedness of Scripture as though it were a cause for concern. The particularity, it is held, is a source of problems for the interpreter. Indeed, one is led to believe that the ideal form of revelation would have been a set of abstract propositions. I believe it is time that we saw the mistake in this line of thinking. Because of the particular intellectual heritage that we enjoy in the West, we have come to believe that propositional statements are the purest form of truth. In fact, however, the proposition most often reflects the abstraction of truth from its circumstantial expression. Now one ought not belittle the factual or cognitive dimension of Scripture. There are statements of fact which reflect the transcendent purposes of God, but these are often given figurative, poetic, or ironical expression. And they always have a historical and cultural context. As Bernard Ramm put it a generation ago, "propositional revelation" is an unhappy expression because "it fails to do justice to the literary, historical and poetic elements of special revelation."(10)

In fact the conditionedness of Scripture is an asset to interpretation rather than a liability. The particular and circumstantial expression of revelation underlines the truth that God has entered into actual history and has made himself known to particular people at special times and places. All of this is a great advantage. For we too are subject to historical exigencies and cultural patterns. And, if it can be shown that God spoke to such a people in the past, we can more readily believe that the living Lord of history can come into my life today and transform it by his presence. Indeed we may well discover in those biblical figures our own historical "roots." It is precisely the struggle of real people with God's word and, in turn, God's patience and mercy toward them that can, as Hebrews 11 shows, stand as an example for us.

But we must go beyond this. For the important thing is not merely that God spoke to actual people and entered real events. Rather, it is what God has said and done in those events. For in creation, in the call of Israel, in the life and work of Christ, and in the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the church we find the great defining events of all histories and the story around which we must in our turn orient our lives. Initially, however, in, these events and their interpretation we discover an alien voice. We encounter something completely outside our experience that forces us to say with Nicodemus, "How can these things be?" Moreover in this strange order of things I am confronted with a personal God who not only called Abram out of Ur, but is clearly seeking me in the ministry of Jesus Christ. By reflection on this God and his interaction with his people, I am led to see myself not only as misinformed about this or that fact about the past but also as a sinner, someone standing guilty before a holy God. I come to see that my need is not more information, as I might have thought, but conversion, which I could never have guessed. Scripture's own witness is very clear about the purpose of the written word-"these [signs] are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that befieving you may have life in his name" (John 20:3 i). This experience with Christ is ultimately the source of power that is often associated with Scripture (Rom. 1:16; 2 Tim. 3:15-17; Heb. 4:12). This too was a common emphasis in the faith of Reformation churches as M. E. Osterhaven explains: "Scripture presents a unified message concerning God's grace made manifest in Jesus Christ and the Christians call to live unto him. That is the Bible's single theme, and everything drawn from Scripture must be related to that theme."" It is this message of the finished redemptive work of Christ which we call God's story and which is the absolute unchanging element in Scripture.

So in the encounter with the Bible I come to see that the dependence on its truth must be of a wholly different kind than my relation to other sources of truth. Here is a claim before which I cannot remain indifferent, here is a call which I cannot ignore. Moreover, in responding to this truth in faith we find that it snatches us from ourselves, as Luther put it, "and places us outside ourselves, so that we do not depend on our own strength, conscience, experience, person, or works . . . (12)

Now we are in a position to understand the Reformation slogan, sola scriptura. While we began in a situation in which both our experience and Scripture play a role, we are driven to the place where Scripture is seen to possess a unique authority and where my experience is subject to transformation. Only Scripture possesses this power to renew us by virtue of its message of the gospel. However, the truth of the gospel cannot have its full impact on my life apart from a real interaction with my experience. Notice that we are not saying that revelation occurs in this interaction, but that the meaning of revealed truth is only appropriated in this process (what we traditionally call illumination). Moreover, we are affirming that only through this process does God confront people during these last days while we await the return of Christ. This differs in no substantial way from the Reformers' teaching on Scripture. For Calvin, though the word of God is the only reliable source of knowledge of God, its authority is realized in the reciprocal relation between the word and the spirit as these are active in the life of the church.(13)

Another way of putting this is to emphasize that the authority of Scripture is self-authenticating. This is not to say we are made to have some mystical experience of certainty, but that through the ministry of the Holy Spirit we are made to taste the reality in our own life and times-of God's goodness and love manifest in Jesus Christ. It is primarily through the experience of God's power, whereby our lives are affected in a concrete way by God's presence, that we come to understand its authority. John Calvin put this well when he reminded us that "the word of God is not intended to teach us how to chatter, or to make us eloquent or subtle, but to reform our lives."(14) And, we might add, to reform the lives of our families and communities.

I believe it is important to recognize that our view of the authority of Scripture results not only from what the Bible teaches about itself but also from the way the Bible has functioned in the experience of the church. The reflection on this scriptural self-witness and our continuing experience with the text lead to our confession of the nature of Scripture. Of course our doctrine of inspiration does not grow out of our experience with the Bible, but from the teaching of Scripture itself But that truth does not become actual apart from a real interaction between the text and my experience. The authority of Scripture may certainly be understood theoretically. But this expression of things is a second-order reflection upon the actual course Scripture takes in the fife of the believing community. The authority of the text is a comprehensive one involving theoretical and experiential factors by which God moves us through the Holy Spirit to transform our lives, initially by conversion, then through the discipleship that necessarily follows this. Our reflection upon this is meant to illumine our experience and not to replace it.(15)

Let us summarize where we have come. Our understanding of the function of Scripture must be carried out in the fight of the particular situation in which we find ourselves. The word of God enters this situation through preaching or private reading. There we meet a God who has entered into a unique relationship with a particular people at a special time, a people who are in many ways like those I know. In these events God shows himself Lord and, in his Son, a Savior who seeks me and calls me to follow him in the particular place I find myself. The authority of Scripture is mediated to me by my actual experience of power whereby the Holy Spirit renews my heart (the process the Reformers called the internal witness of the Holy Spirit). In this experience I find my habits of thought and even my personal crises challenged and confronted by a whole new order which we have called God's redemptive story. The challenge now becomes to see my own story, with which I began, in terms of God's story which has now grasped me and taken me out of myself

Scripture Functions as God's Story and Mine Merge

The final stage in the interaction between Scripture and the believer occurs when I see my story and the story of God in the Bible as a part of a single story. The goal is not only a deeper understanding of the truth of Scripture but also a more comprehensive experience of the grace of God which is revealed therein. Few would care to argue that the goal of Scripture is a deeper embodiment of God's grace, what Scripture calls Christian maturity, becoming like Christ (Eph. 4:15). But we have not done enough to draw out the implications of this for the use and interpretation of Scripture. For, as we are drawn into the full meaning of the central events of Scripture, we see that a continuing response is called for and therefore an ongoing experience (interaction) with the text. This truth enters our experience with cognitive weight but also with symbolic richness and spiritual power.

In this process of interaction with Scripture we must guard against two dangers both of which have been prominent in our Christian communities. On the one hand, since we wish to continue to learn and grow, we ought never to fix our experience with Scripture in such a way that a given Christian practice becomes normative. I am not speaking here of the norms of Scripture which do not change. But I am referring to our practice of understanding and applying these norms to a particular time and place. The methods of study and interpretation, just as much as the cultural expression of Christian truth, must be seen as relative to times and places. For, just as at the beginning our modem secular world-view must not be allowed to determine what Scripture will say, so also no stage of Christian growth can be allowed to impede further growth. For, as Paul reminds us, we all see through a glass darkly and we must always be open to further clarity.

On the other hand, in our questioning of Scripture we must never fix in advance what Scripture will say. We will surely have our confessions and our convictions that God's word is dependable and sure. Scriptural truth does not fundamentally change at the whim of the interpreter. But when we have reached that point where we believe that Scripture has said its last word to us and we are always sure what its message will be, when all around us major events are causing great changes in our understanding of ourselves and our world, then we may be finiiting the actual authority of Scripture in our lives. For a progressive understanding of Scripture issues in an ever deeper reflection on our daily lives. Our goal is progressively to interpret our vocations, our personal and family lives, in the light of God's program. We come to see our unfolding story as a part of God's story. For Scripture is given not primarily to inform me but to interpret me and my world. As far as I am personally concerned, Scripture has been given for the sake of this world in which I live, for it is this world which Christ came to redeem and where we pray to see God's kingdom come.

Just as the Beroeans of Acts responded to the events around them by searching the Scriptures daily to see if what Paul said was true (Acts I7:II), so we must interpret our experience afresh in the light of God's word. It would be foolish indeed to ignore the experience of past Christians and their confessions of faith, for this is all relevant to our own confession. We are products of one or another tradition of Christian experience and we surely find there rich resources for our present understanding. But we best honor these examples by bringing even these creeds and confessions to Scripture to see if there is genuine congruence. For only here, we believe, God speaks with the authority that has transforming power.

Paul reminds us in I Corinthians 1:28 that the lowly things of this world which God chose are to "break up the existing state of things" (author's translation). This lowly gospel message continues to break up existing states of affairs. As the Reformers put it, the church therefore is "always being reformed" by the word of God. "Scripture is in the hands but not in the power of the Church,"(16) notes Karl Barth. The reason for this is that the great purpose of God outlined in Scripture is not limited to Bible study or even missionary work. These vital activities are signs of the final goal-a kingdom of righteousness in which all things are brought under the rule of Christ (Eph. 1:1-10). This will not be realized completely until Christ comes again but we must be seeking to bring about intimations of that kingdom by the power of the first fruits of Christ's reign already present in the Holy Spirit.(17) What is relevant for the function of Scripture is that the great culmination which God holds out for us involves both his story and ours in glorious interrelationship. If this is so, we cannot fully appropriate the truth of Scripture unless this relationship is already experienced -- unless, that is, God's story has in fact become our own story.

This means that Scripture will function much more like a musical score than a blueprint for our lives. A score gives guidance but it must always be played afresh. Seeing Scripture as a blueprint not only overlooks the reality of historical change and the changes in consciousness that result from this but also misunderstands the way God works. It implies a static understanding of culture in which God cannot do something new which is consistent with Scripture and thereby provide a fresh musical interpretation which reflects modern sensitivities. Paul implies that it is just such experiences which have been made possible by the cataclysmic death and resurrection of Christ and which will be climaxed by that final renewal, the second coming.

The goal of the interaction between Scripture and the Christian community then is that the power of the gospel become operative in the life of that community. In one sense we can say that the authority of Scripture is actual not only where Scripture is acknowledged and read but also where its power is seen. This is to say also that God's redemptive program and story is continuing exactly where this power is manifest. This process of understanding can be seen to involve several levels. First, there is the careful exegesis of Scripture and the historical and cultural study necessary to this. But this process must continue through the actual "hearing," in the biblical sense, of God's word. The words we read must be seen as a summons to discipleship. Nor is this merely an application of the truth of the text. For much in Scripture cannot be understood apart from the active obedience to the voice that speaks there. This experience will then, in turn, provide a further context in which Scripture is read anew. The goal is that envisioned by the prophet Jeremiah (31:33-34): God's law is to be written on our hearts, so that it not only permeates our thinking but also becomes our very life and breath.

This process from start to finish is carried on in the fellowship of believers, so that the interaction and the growth that results has a horizontal and a vertical dimension. This point is so important that it bears emphasis. While we are sometimes under the impression that our problems and our faith are a private affair, this is an illusion. We are always dependent on our culture and support communities. To one who believes in Christ, the corporate dimension becomes even more important. For it is the wisdom and maturity of the body of Christ as a whole that the Holy Spirit is working toward. And for this project all the varied gifts are pressed into service. This not only protects us from individual aberrations but also ensures that every member is fully involved in the process of growth toward maturity in Christ. The use of Scripture must be understood as a controlling norm in this process.

This brings us back to our opening statement -- Scripture is given because God wants people who are growing up into maturity in Christ. In the nature of the case this cannot be a matter of rules or of a specified understanding of Scripture. To the mature person, analytic skills are important and understanding is essential, but these are only part of a holistic understanding of life that is generated from actual experience with God and the Word. The process of maturing involves a movement from viewing situations as a collection of equally relevant facts to seeing the world as an organic whole in which only certain parts are relevant at a given moment.(18) This includes a developing sense of which aspects of biblical truth relate to a particular circumstance.

This is not the place to draw out the implications this view has for our practice of hermeneutics and biblical interpretation. But we can at least predict with confidence that our life of obedience will surely have its impact on our methods of interpretation just as our earlier reading of Scripture had its impact on our lives. This may suggest a preference for inductive types of study which approach texts with openness. It will underline the historical dimension of theology that looks to previous stages in the interaction with Scripture, both as part of our story and a commentary on God's story. AU our study will be seen as a goal to our mission and our growth. Our Christian lives will involve a continuing dialogue with Scripture. With growing maturity will come an increased power of judgment (I Cor. 2:15-16). This is why Donald Bloesch can say "only reflection [on Scripture] done in faith can grasp what is of abiding significance and what is marginal and peripheral."(19)

In our interpretation of Scripture, understanding will result from and not just precede our actual obedience. The light will grow; understanding will deepen within the community as we seek to engage ourselves in God's program. This implies that we may at times take risks and follow out our commitment beyond what is immediately clear. After all, our world makes unique demands, and it challenges us in subtle and unpredictable ways. Our reading of Scripture must give God room for the unique and exciting. It must reflect that of the early Christians of whom it is said, "They turned the world upside down."

The reading of Scripture in this way will require a response of the whole person as well as of the whole community. The Holy Spirit does use rational factors to speak to us through the Word. Commitment is a rational event, but it is something more as well. As Pascal says, "Faith indeed tells what senses do not tell, but not the contrary of what they see. It is above them and not contrary to them" (Pensees, 265). We will want to reflect on Scripture in a systematic way, but this will not be done in isolation from personal and social factors. Equipping the saints is a matter of training not only minds but also hands, eyes, and even reflexes. This is a process that is always begun afresh with each generation, and it results from an interaction between Scripture and the believing community that is never finished. For, as Karl Barth argues, only in this way are we true not only to the nature of Scripture itself but also to our link with the Church in every age:

The Church is most faithful to its tradition, and realises its unity with the Church of every age, when, linked but not tied by its past, it today searches the Scriptures and orientates its life by them as though this had to happen to-day for the first time. And, on the other hand, it sickens and dies when it is enslaved by its past instead of being disciplined by the new beginning which it must always make in the Scriptures.... The principle of necessary repetition and renewal, and not a law of stability, is the law of the spiritual growth and continuity of our life.(20)

NOTES

1. I am grateful to Professor Patricia Benner of the University of California Medical School (San Francisco) for calling my attention to the model proposed by Stuart E. Dreyfus in "Formal Models versus Human Situational Understanding: Inherent Limitations on the Modeling of Business Expertise," Air Force Office of Scientific Research (Contract: F 49620-79-C0063), National Technical Information Service, February 1981, AD-AO97468/3. Report no. ORC-81-3. Cf. H. L. Dreyfus, "What Computers Can't Do: The Limits of Artificial Intelligence (New York: Harper and Row, 1979).

2. Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology (New York: Herder and Herder, 1973), P. xi.

3. Rudolf Bultmann, Jesus Christ and Mythology (New York: Scribner's, 1958), PP. 37-38.

4. As he admits: "It is, of course, true that demythologizing takes the modern world-view as a criterion." Ibid., P. 35.

S. Peter Berger, A Rumor of Angels: Modern Society and the Rediscovery of the Supernatural (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, ig6g), P. 94.

6. Peter Berger, The Social Reality of Religion (Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1967), P. 170.

7. Cf. L. Malevez, S. J., Histoire du Salue et Philosophie: Barth, Bultmann, Cullmann (Paris: Cerf, 197I), PP. 40ff. "Pour ne pas etre assez attentif a l'homme, il peut arriver qu'on ne comprenne pas la Parole de Dieu" (P. 42).

8. Robert L. Saucy, "Doing Theology for the Church," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 16, No. 1 (Winter 1973), 1-9.

Conrad Boerma, The Rich, the Poor, and the Bible (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1979), P. 29.

10. Bernard Ramm, Special Revelation and the Word of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961), pp. 154 - 155.

M. Eugene Osterhaven, The Faith of the Church: A Reformed Perspective on Its Historical Development (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), P. 64.

Martin Luther, Works, volume 26 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1983), P. 3 87, quoted in Donald Bloesch, Essentials of Evangelical Theology, volume I, (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1978), P. 61.

H. Jackson Forstman, Word and Spirit: Calvin's Doctrine of Biblical Authority (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1962), pp. 19, 36. Cf G. C. Berkouwer, Holy Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), P.306, who notes that the "sola" can only be perceived along the way. Cf. Abraham Kuyper, Principles of Sacred Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), P. 575: "At the end of the way, all these factors are made to disappear, so that finally our well-balanced conviction rests upon nothing but the Holy Scripture."

Quoted in Osterhaven, The Faith of the Church, P. 65.

We are not in any way agreeing with David Kelsey who, in a recent book, seems to argue that inspiration is defined by its function. Rather, it is the reverse: its function is seen in the end to rest on the fact of its inspiration. Cf. David Kelsey, The Uses of Scripture in Recent Theology (Philadelphia:Fortress Press, 1975).

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics,. I, 2 (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1956), P. 682.

I have outlined how Scripture may be read in this way in Let the Earth Rejoice! A Biblical Theology of Holistic Mission (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1983).

See Patricia Benner, "From Novice to Expert," American Journal of Nursing (March 1982), 402-407. She argues that becoming an expert (mature in our terminology) involves processes that can only be partially explained: "It is frustrating to try to capture verbal descriptions of expert performance because the expert operates from a deep understanding of the situation"; "Maxims are used to guide the proficient performer, but a deep understanding of the situation is required before a maxim can be used" (P. 405).

Donald Bloesch, Essentials of Evangelical Theology, volume I, P. 69.

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, II, 2 (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1957), P. 647.

Who is He Kidding? (Mark 11: 1-11)

Mark’s gospel is some kind of joke. It announces itself as the story of the Son of God, but it doesn’t begin with glory. Instead it starts in obscurity in the wilderness. It portrays the disciples -- surely the leaders of the church in Mark’s day -- as bungling fools. They watch Jesus perform one miracle, then doubt his ability to do the next. They help him feed the 5,000, but have no idea how he will feed 4,000. They see and believe, but when it matters, they run away.

Jesus teaches with authority. He is clearly placed to fulfill the longings of Israel, yet he starts talking about his death. When his death does come, and the pathos is the greatest imaginable, he cries out to his Father, saying, "Why have you forsaken me?" The bystanders misunderstand and think he is calling on Elijah, thereby reducing the scene almost to farce. Finally, three women are given a startling message at the tomb -- that he is not here but lives elsewhere. Yet they say nothing to anyone, thus begging the question of how the Gospel ever came to be written at all. Is Mark’s Gospel really some kind of joke?

Chapter 11 is no exception. Jesus approaches Jerusalem, the heart of Jewish worship and the seat of Roman authority. He comes down the Mount of Olives, the place from which, according to Zechariah 14, God will fight the nations and restore Jerusalem. Simon Maccabaeus entered Jerusalem this way in the second century BC. So, as Mark knew, did the Sicarius leader Menahem. Jesus has what neither Menahem nor Simon had: divine character, unanimity with God. But he seems not quite to know how to do it. At this key moment in the whole Gospel, when all eyes are on him and no one, it seems, can lay a hand on him, he loses the plot.

Where is the horse, the steed that bears the triumphant general, the untamable champion loyal only to the skilled commander, so beloved of great leaders from Alexander to Napoleon? It’s not here. In its place is a young colt -- hardly the symbol of leadership. Jesus seems to have no understanding of rank. After all the fuss about procuring, even sequestrating, the right animal, just the kind of action worthy of a king, he gets the wrong animal. He chooses an agricultural tool, not a weapon of war; a tractor, not a tank.

The crowd has more sense of propriety and parades him as befits a king. "Save us now," they cry. "Hosanna," they say, calling Jesus "the coming one," the one who restores the kingdom of David. All is well, for despite being on the wrong animal, he is surrounded by followers full of messianic hopes. He is approaching Jerusalem with authority and truth. He enters: this is the key moment. He approaches the temple: this is it. He looks around, sizes up the situation, and . . . goes back to the hotel. Back out to Bethany. What an anticlimax. How can we account for it?

The secret lies in the description of the search for the colt. Mark includes the words "you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden." Luke’s Gospel has three new beginnings of this sort. Luke has Mary’s womb, which has never before carried a child. More explicitly, he has this same phrase about the colt "that has never been ridden"; and on the night of the crucifixion he refers to "a tomb where no one had ever been laid." Three moments of novelty, or revelation. Matthew shares with Luke the reference to the womb; Mark shares with Luke the reference to the colt; John shares with Luke the reference to the tomb.

Thus for Matthew, the new beginning lies with the miraculous conception of Jesus. From the very start, God was doing a new and unique thing. Jesus is breaking barriers and subverting order from the very moment of his conception. For John, by contrast, there is nothing new in the same way about the conception of Jesus, since the word was in the beginning with God. What was new was that the word became flesh, flesh which died and was laid in a tomb in which no one had ever been laid. There had been many places of death, but this was to be the first from which death would give way to new life.

For Mark, the decisive moment has to do with the new colt which had never been ridden. Others had paraded and would continue to parade on a fine stallion. They would take on the authorities of their day by force of arms and die, gloriously or ingloriously, to be remembered as heroes and patriots. Others again, many more of them, would fall in with the authorities of their day, lacking the courage or the tenacity to hold out for the restoration of David’s kingdom. But only Jesus confronted the powers with disarming love, only he rode to certain death with no attempt to intimidate, destroy or surprise his enemies. In this moment Jesus does many things. He fulfills one prophecy while subverting others. He changes the notion of kingship by riding on a colt rather than a horse. And he makes a short journey from the land where his authority is recognized and his priestly power to heal and forgive is formidable, to the city where the people will reject him and his disciples will betray him.

This is perhaps the defining moment of Jesus’ ministry. It seems, like so much of Mark’s Gospel, to be some kind of joke. The defining moment of our ministry may leave us feeling foolish too. It comes when we, like Jesus, realize we are near the end of our journey; and we finally face up to evil, bringing nothing in our hands but what he had: peace and truth and love.

Regeneration (Psalm 51)

The one who voices Psalm 51 is on the floor before God, utterly ashamed and as dust before glory: "My sin is ever before me." The symptoms of sin are gradually displaced by the greater reality of God: "Against you, you alone, have I sinned." The speaker does not look outside for an oppressor to blame, but inside, to the "inward being," for a heart to be renewed. The speaker gradually receives the commission of the penitent: "I will teach transgressors your ways." There is a deep awareness of the consequences of wrongdoing ("deliver me from bloodshed") and of the rewards of reconciliation ("the joy of your salvation"). And finally there is hope, in a shared plan of regeneration: "Rebuild the walls of Jerusalem." The psalm ends with the community gathered in worship. The welfare of the people is assured by their peace with God.

The British government has been doing a new thing in some of its deprived inner cities and outer urban estates. It has chosen 17 neighborhoods, of around 4,000 dwellings, to be part of a social experiment. They have each been offered as much as £50 million if they can form a vision, involve all sections of their community, develop a planning and decision-making structure, and write a plan for implementation. The residents identify what is wrong in their neighborhood with regard to health, education, employment and community safety, and they themselves set about puffing it right. Regeneration is growing out of the experience of the poor rather than the wisdom of the rich.

I live in one of these 17 neighborhoods. It has been my privilege to be part of this remarkable process. I have sought to offer patience, energy, humor, reason and encouragement. I have tried to communicate that God cares about what the community cares about. Neighborhood regeneration is a great setting for the church. People are coming out of a kind of slavery. They are talking about putting a new heart and spirit into their community. They are sharing their dreams. Few, even in a deprived community, think money is the answer. But the promise of money has started a remarkable debate about what is good in the locality and what is bad; what should grow and what should wither.

Setting Psalm 51 alongside this kind of community program begs an important question. In what respects does the way God regenerates us resemble and differ from the way we regenerate ourselves?

Let’s start with the resemblances. There are plenty. Both neighborhood regeneration and Psalm 51 begin with people in desperate straits ("crushed bones"). Both acknowledge the depth of human misery ("broken heart"). Both make progress by identifying the relationship that holds the key to regeneration. Both require the reestablishment of trust and truth, and a real belief that change, though slow, is possible. Both speak of the need for a new, willing spirit, restored joy, a clear break with the past, the teaching of a different approach to life, and the singing of praise for what has been achieved.

Perhaps the key similarity lies in the central words of the psalm: "Create in me a clean heart, and put a new and right spirit within me." The most significant product of the program so far has been the formation of a highly motivated, increasingly confident group of perhaps 25 local people. These people are now able to articulate the needs, fears, aspirations and expectations of their community. They have set about establishing the processes, building the trust, encouraging their friends and setting out the plans to make regeneration possible. These people have become the "new heart" of the community. They -- or perhaps I should say we, since I am one of them -- are in some ways like a church: there is a commitment to meeting regularly, repeated resolution of differences, a strong desire to spread the good news and a determination to point the community in the direction of genuine hope. The way to regenerate a community seems to be to put this kind of new heart within it.

Two simple questions expose the differences between neighborhood regeneration and God’s renewal: What is the problem and what is the solution? Psalm 51 does not offer popular answers: The problem is sin, the solution is repentance. In the absence of a debate about sin and God, a regeneration program tends to offer answers about blame and power. During the program’s early stages, it seemed that power was in the wrong hands, and blame was frequently attributed to the local authority. As control was transferred, however, it became clear that power could be misused no matter whose hands it was in.

This has opened up a space in which the language of renewal can be heard. People have begun to talk of a "right spirit" in which power should be used. It is a spirit that seeks out the poorest and most needy people in the community, and assesses projects by the degree to which each will benefit them. This "right spirit" has come to be seen as more significant than the hands that hold it. It is not far from the gospel.

But it is not yet the gospel. It has not yet encompassed the depth of sin, nor the joy of repentance. It is hard to call people to repentance when they are at least as much sinned against as sinning. When one has no control over one’s own destiny it is easy to see all one’s problems as of others’ making. Only when one has the freedom to make one’s own mistakes does one realize that there are fewer and fewer people to blame.

Discovering one’s ability to sin is a necessary prelude to liberation. One needs a little power before one can recognize one’s true identity: a sinner who can be forgiven, rather than a victim who can protest. If the regeneration program has led people to this, it has, like Psalm 51, directed them toward true freedom.

Holiness: Sacrifice (Mark 8:31-38)

Imagine the social degradation. Carrying one’s own instrument of death, struggling to maintain any dignity at all. Then propped up in gruesome form, practically naked, at a crossroads or other public place. Regarded as a criminal, exposed to insult and abuse from any who might fancy the cheap victory of a verbal volley or target practice on a human dart board.

Imagine, finally, the sacrilege. "Cursed be the one hung on a tree" (Deut. 21:23). A child whose birth brought celebration and hope, now dying ignominiously, defiling the ground below you. Bereft of physical strength, humiliated before friend and foe, and denied any sustenance from the faith of your people. This is what it means to take up your cross.

Let’s not kid ourselves that such deaths don’t happen today. The terrible events in Rwanda, East Timor, Bosnia and Kosovo blow away such cotton wool. It is not much more than 50 years since a similar horror ceased in Central Europe. There are plenty of people in almost every country who would quickly see to your disposal should you suggest that the timing for the vindication of their victims be brought forward from judgment day.

We could perhaps take Jesus words in reverse order. The question he starts with is not "Will you die on the cross for me?" but more straight-forwardly, "Do you want to be my follower?" It is not a question to be answered lightly. What rewards could possibly be worth such a cost? What could possibly inspire a person to suffer to such a degree? Jesus doesn’t exactly give discipleship a hard sell. His followers can hardly say, "No one ever warned me -- no one told me there would be excruciating physical pain, complete and public degradation, and a legacy of ritual shame in my family for generations to come.

So why did they follow? Why do we? Because he told Nathanael, the Samaritan woman and others the truth about themselves. Because he fulfilled the longing of Israel. Because he brought healing and forgiveness that embodied the new regime of which he spoke. Because he practiced and pictured the character and possibility of all people, and breathed purpose and destiny into all creation. Because he opened out an everlasting communion with the Father that made the Romans, the conventional powers and authorities, all the destructive and craven impulses of the world, even death itself, seem paltry and pitiful. He formed around himself a community, and gave them the practices and gifts to be his body through pain and joy. His were the words and deeds of eternal life, and there have been none to match them before or since.

These are the most precious things in all creation: the priceless pearl. We can’t buy it: we don’t have the hard currency. But we can have it, and we can discover that there are limitless supplies of it. We can have it -- if we really want it. We can be followers -- if it’s the only thing we do: if it’s the last thing we do. Take up your cross.

It’s a fairly simple equation. God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son. Do we love Cod so much that we will follow him? Jesus’ path to us went via the cross: our path back to God goes via the cross too. Seems fair. Seems reasonable, too, since it’s a pretty sure way of working out whether we really want God and his heaven that badly.

But doesn’t that sound suspiciously like us earning our salvation? Hold on. Jesus has more to say. "Deny yourself." There seems to be a contradiction here. How can you take up "your" cross if you have denied the "you" that takes it? In one sense there is no contradiction, since the two are all of a piece: taking up the cross inevitably means denying oneself. It means leaving aside security, even survival, and probably a deep sense of justice. And facing a ghastly death, if necessary.

In another sense, however, there is a deep contradiction. For if you have denied your "self," the cross you take up isn’t exactly yours. If you want to be Jesus’ follower, you are realizing that the true human life, the true goal and destiny of all human striving, is not your life but his. It is the end of all searching for one’s "true" self, so much in fashion these last 300 years. It is the realization that the self is not to be found like a crock of gold at the end of a rainbow of feeling and experience. Instead it is to be received from the one who made it.

The self is, in short, not a discovery but a gift. And if this gift is the gift of Christ himself, if the Self we are given is Christ’s self, then the cross we take up isn’t really "our" cross, but his. If we take his yoke upon us, he will carry the weight of our cross. But we still have to take it up.

And so the truths of the last two weeks combine in the truth of this week. Lent began with pleasing the Father who sees in secret; it continued with preparation for the public ceremony of baptism. If we want to be Jesus’ followers, we need to face both: the public pain of humiliation and physical agony, and the private grief of losing our precious selves in order to be conformed to Christ.