The recent controversy surrounding Rachel Held Evans’ book has fortuitously coincided with some close rereading of Richard Hays’ Moral Vision of the New Testament, a work that is simultaneously awe-inspiring for its scope and frustrating for its ambiguity.  The question it pursues is straightforward:  what are the conditions under which we can say a position is “biblical?”

I won’t take up Hays here, as fruitful as it might be.  Instead, I mention him to simply point out that the question itself is worth pursuing.  But notice how it is framed:  what are the conditions under which, rather than “is it possible at all?”

Over at CNN, in a distillation of her project, Rachel writes:

And yet evangelicals have grown so accustomed to talking about the Bible this way that we hardly realize we’re doing it anymore. We talk about “biblical families,” “biblical marriage,” “biblical economics,” “biblical politics,” “biblical values,” “biblical stewardship,” “biblical voting,” “biblical manhood,” “biblical womanhood,” even “biblical dating” to create the impression that the Bible has just one thing to say on each of these topics – that it offers a single prescriptive formula for how people of faith ought to respond to them.

But the Bible is not a position paper. The Bible is an ancient collection of letters, laws, poetry, proverbs, histories, prophecies, philosophy and stories spanning multiple genres and assembled over thousands of years in cultures very different from our own.

When we turn the Bible into an adjective and stick it in front of another loaded word, we tend to ignore or downplay the parts of the Bible that don’t quite fit our preferences and presuppositions. In an attempt to simplify, we force the Bible’s cacophony of voices into a single tone and turn a complicated, beautiful, and diverse holy text into a list of bullet points we can put in a manifesto or creed. More often than not, we end up more committed to what we want the Bible to say than what it actually says.

She closes by repeating a bit that I originally took issue with: “The fact of the matter is, we all pick and choose. We’re all selective in our interpretation and application of the biblical text. The better question to ask one another is why we pick and choose the way that we do, why we emphasis some passages and not others. This, I believe, will elevate the conversation so that we’re using the Bible, not as a blunt weapon, but as a starting point for dialogue.”

Rachel’s right to point out the way theology has become dominated by its adjectives, though the problem isn’t limited to “biblical.”  I bet if we used Trinitarian, missional, incarnational, biblical, Christological, and Gospel-centered (surely I’m missing some–help me out!) we’d have a massive list of books on a host of different subjects, all trying to bridge the gap between revelation and the world.

Now, those are all useful adjectives and I am in favor of keeping them around.  But it’s easy to allow their use to replace the work of an argument, as though adding a dash of Trinitarianism everywhere was somehow going to solve all the problems.  (The Trinity will–our Trinitarianism, though?)  In fact, I have sometimes wondered if rather than our endless attempts to connect theology with the world we might not be better off reviving our interest in first-order theological questions, like those now-arcane minutiae differentiating the proper relationship between Christ’s two natures that the early church thought important enough to spill massive amounts of ink over.

Still, given this concern, I’d like to try to shore up a corresponding one that I raised in my review of Rachel’s book.  Because Scripture is a good deal more than the “starting place for dialogue.”  It happens to be the criterion by which that dialogue proceeds as well, through differentiating between those conclusions which are “biblical” and those which are not.  If it’s only dialogue that we want, or even dialogue that we want to emphasize, we shall have to own up to the fact that Plato simply does it better.  Socrates simply outquestions Jesus.  If Scripture is in the last analysis the starting point for dialogue, rather than the norm for faith and practice, then it doesn’t seem like it’s doing much for us other than providing a less-beautiful backdrop for our own cultural projections backwards into the text.  I suspect Rachel doesn’t want to go this route–and I haven’t read all her blog posts on the subject, so I’ll admit to postulating here only to make a broader point–but then the path toward interpretative nihilism is just as much of a temptation as that of treating Scripture as a bludgeon.  I am trying to answer her caution with a caution, in other words, just to clarify what’s at stake.

Let me put it this way.  Rachel has reminded the world of how troublesome “biblical” can be.  She did it in the context of womanhood, for reasons I understand even if I am not sold on.  But what of those non-womanhood areas where the Bible has something to say?  Shall we do away with biblical ethics, for instance, because its conclusions are just as contested?  Or what of biblical theology?  Or what of biblical economics, with its corresponding concern for the poor?  And how does this criterion get established in a non-arbitrary way?  We ought not prematurely land on a conclusion of what’s “biblical,” but we ought not to deny the possibility of getting there either.  The whole fun and drama of biblical interpretation is that being wrong is a possibility, but so is getting it right.  What’s more, our prophetic mode as Christians is contingent upon our accurately bearing witness to the divinely revealed Word.  It’s precisely those who wish to speak prophetically who should hold on to “biblical” the firmest.

Just because we “tend to” ignore countervailing evidence within the text when we use “biblical” doesn’t mean that we have to.  And the only way to get rid of one bad use of “biblical” is to rehabilitate it and replace it with a better.  I suspect that the danger of a biblical nihilism that repudiates and rejects the possibility of finding genuine coherence and meaning is more subtle and corrosive than it appears, because it will always sound so inclusive and nice.  The deconstructive work of skepticism turns out to be not terribly hard at all.  It’s pointing toward the text and saying “This, this is the way we must go” that proves to be a challenge.  Yet if we as Christians are to offer the world more than what it already has on offer, we must not so problematize “biblical” that we leave it behind altogether.  For where else shall we go?  There, in the authorized witness to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus–there are the words of life.

(And see also my good friend Matt Milliner’s typically provocative pointing toward visual exegesis.)

I’ve been almost completely offline the past couple weeks, so I’m behind on everything.  But I just noticed that Leadership Journal published my review of Scot Mcknight’s new book The King Jesus Gospel.

McKnight’s central critique is that contemporary evangelicals have reduced the gospel to the plan of salvation, or to the question of how an individual gets saved. McKnight is careful not to dismiss the importance of personal salvation or of justification by faith, but he contends that the plan of salvation is not the whole gospel, and that in equating the two, evangelicals have made a dangerous mistake.

McKnight writes that the gospel is “the salvation-unleashing Story of Jesus, Messiah-Lord-Son that brings to completion the Story of Israel as found in the Scriptures of the Old Testament.” McKnight unpacks 1 Corinthians 15, observing how the Good News includes not only Christ’s saving work on the cross but also the rest of the story: the Resurrection, birth of the church, and the fact that we are moving forward to the “full consummation of the kingdom when God becomes all in all.”

This expanded understanding of the gospel shifts the terms of the discussion. In a brief interaction with John Piper, McKnight points out that asking whether Jesus preached Paul’s gospel is a legitimate question, but that the question is backwards. Since the gospel comes from the Gospels, he contends, we shouldn’t be asking if Jesus agrees with Paul, but whether Paul agrees with Jesus. For McKnight the primary presentation of the Good News comes from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. To define the gospel as the plan of salvation (and specifically, justification by faith) is to ignore this crucial fact.

 

What are theologians for? What are they supposed to do? If the theologians of the world went on a retreat together and made a list of objectives for 2011, what would be on it?

I’m not sure how to answer these questions. But in Thomas Torrance’s book Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ, he spends time on something I probably wouldn’t have put on the must-dos of a theologian. This task maybe wasn’t something Torrance explicitly considered part of his work, but the result is all the same for the careful reader.

Torrance starts by doing what everyone knows theologians do: talk about words in the original language:

We note first the Old Testament custom of speaking of the raising up of a prophet, or king or judge or priest, where the ideas of provision and appointment are blended together. The New Testament uses both egero and anistemi in this connection. Thus when the New Testament speaks of Jesus being raised up, it evidently refers not only to the resurrection of his body from the grave but to his being raised up as the appointed messiah, the anointed prophet, priest, and king. The resurrection implies the installation or enthronement of Jesus in his offices as Christos, the anointed one.

Torrance does not stop here or immediately move to other word studies. He explains the significance of these words as they connect to the narratives of the Old Testament:

Jesus is raised up as a root out of dry ground, the shoot of the vine, after it had been cut down to the ground. It is a miraculous act, in line with the raising up of seed out of the barren womb, as in the cases of Sarah, Hannah, Elizabeth, etc. This idea also plays its part in the accounts of the virgin birth of Jesus, but here we see already how the birth and resurrection of Jesus are linked, for together they constitute, in the understanding of the New Testament, the raising up of the new seed in whom all nations will be blessed, the first-born of the new creation.

What I like so much about this is Torrance’s connection of the Virgin Mary with Sarah, Hannah, and Elizabeth. By making this connection, Torrance directs the reader’s attention toward the ascending drama of redemptive history. He helps us see the richness of God’s story, the beauty of Christ as the crescendo of every Old Testament story of a miraculous birth to a barren woman. (I can only briefly note the brilliance of God’s crescendo: Christ’s birth echoes those of Isaac, Samuel, and John, but punctuates the image by expanding it with Mary’s virginity.)

Without a theologian, we would undoubtedly miss the relationship between the word denoting resurrection from the tomb and the word denoting anointing. Torrance also shows, however, the artistic unity of the Bible; he serves as a tour guide of the beauty of scripture. I believe this work of the theologian serves two functions.

First, Torrance deepens any reader’s apprehension of the glory of God by showing the extended drama of God’s activity through history. This service blesses every Christian soul. Second, Torrance highlights for the Christian artist an image worth exploring. His explanation of the significance of the words in the original language opens artistic avenues that would go undiscovered by non-theologians. This service blesses Christian artists, who then bless every Christian soul.

I wonder: do enough theologians produce material that artists would find helpful? Do enough artists consider theologians indispensible sleuths for finding hidden metaphors? I’m not sure, but to me this is an exciting possibility for the often under-developed concept of Christ’s body working in harmony. Suppose bearing one another’s burdens was not limited to emotional or physical challenges, but professional and intellectual ones as well.

Mention the prohibition on tattoos in Leviticus 19:6 and it’s 98.7% likely that the immediate response will be, “Yeah, and don’t wear a cotton/polyester blend, either!”

Now, I take it that the existence of polyester suits is a prima facie case on behalf of mixing fibers.  Clearly, a good God would want to save us from such atrocities.

The rejoinder is, of course, a reference to the prohibition on mixed fibers in Leviticus 19:19.  If you want to appeal to the prohibition on tattoos to make a case against them, you have to engage–the argument goes–in a pretty selective reading.

What no one has, to my knowledge, pointed out in context of the debate over tattoos is the oddity of the prohibition on mixing fibers.  If you look at Exodus 28, the priests are commanded to make garments that seem to require…mixing fibers.

There’s lots we could make of this regarding the nature and purpose of the holiness laws in Leviticus 19.  But given that this realization is new to me, I plan on ruminating on it some more before drawing any fast conclusions.

Talking about the Gospel is all the rage these days.

Everyone wants to know precisely how big it should be–does it include working for justice (which is invariably social justice), or not?

With that in mind, I decided to put down my own definition, just for kicks. 

The gospel is the good news that God’s plan to establish a people for himself has not been thwarted by sin, but that we have been adopted as sons and daughters of God through the merciful atonement that his son Jesus Christ offered on the cross on our behalf, and that our restoration is applied to us through the power of His Holy Spirit.

Of course, that’s a way of putting it that might have so many ambiguities that it dissatisfies everyone.  I’m okay with that.

Many of the debates about the content of the Gospel rest are trying to navigate the relationship between the individual and the social, and ultimately end up relying a false bifurcation between them–which I see lots of good reasons to reject.

I haven’t yet read McLaren’s latest, mostly because of financial restrictions.  But I’ve been keeping one eye on the critiques, if only to see where the perceived weaknesses are if I ever make it around to it.

And  Fuller New Testament Professor Marianne Meye Thompson’s take is the one that has sparked the most interest for me, if only because it addresses what seems to be a central feature of McLaren’s vision of Christianity:  critiquing the “Hellenizing influences” on the Christian faith.

This critique is made frequently enough.  You can find it in N.T. Wright, in feminist literature, and in various strands of postmodern theology more hostile to traditional evangelicalism.  But Thompson contends that with respect to McLaren’s version of “Greco-Roman thought,” the distinction between Greco-Roman thought and Jewish thought is not as simple as is often thought:

Let me give one example of how historical evidence challenges McLaren’s take on the Greco-Roman narrative and then an example of how McLaren’s own reading is as much shaped by prior ideological commitments. McLaren is right that the word “the Fall” doesn’t appear in the Bible. And it doesn’t appear in Jewish literature either. But something very much like the idea of the moral corruption of the world due to human disobedience – hardly the product of the Greek philosophical tradition– is there. One finds it coursing throughout Jewish literature dating to the period prior to and contemporaneous with the NT. It can perhaps be pithily summarized in the heartfelt cry found in certain Jewish texts lamenting the state of humankind: “Oh Adam, what have you done?” (4 Ezra 7.118) and “O Adam, what did you do to all who were born after you?” (2 Bar 48:12; cf 54:19).

This is not exactly a doctrine of “original sin,” but it is a view that Adam’s transgression infected the world with sin and death. This same literature views the world as given over to moral corruption, that is manifested in murder, violence, cannibalism, and sexual immorality, among other sins. And there is fairly widely shared belief in the dual destiny of humankind in salvation to eternal life and punishment for sin (sometimes as construed as divine destruction and death, sometimes as eternal torment).*

What McLaren terms the “Greco-Roman narrative” sounds very much like the narratives found in Jewish literature of this period. Not surprisingly, the convictions found in that literature occur also in the pages of the NT: the corruption of the world (Romans 1-2) and the sin and death brought about by Adam (Romans 5:12-21; 1 Cor 15:21-24); and the depiction of two fates of humankind (Mark 9:43-38; Luke 16:19-31; Matthew 25:31-46; John 3:17-18, 5:24-29; Romans 2:7-10, 8:1-13; Revelation 21:6-8).

Again, I haven’t read McLaren, so I can’t comment on the accuracy of the critique.  But as a general principle, Thompson highlights why I am wary of dismissive readings of early Christianity for being too “Hellenized.”