Holding to my “low” views

This is re-worded from an article of mine that ran somewhere else last year. I’ve reworded a few ideas and added some qualifiers in hopes of communicating my point more clearly and being more charitable to people who see the matter differently. As is the case with all posts, I might come back to this post and do some editing if I think I can be more clear and helpful.

I was surprised to recently learn that I have such a “low view of the Bible.” As someone with a Bachelor’s in biblical studies, someone who grew up on flannel-graph Bible tales and high-octane “sword drills,” it would seem that I have an appreciation for the “Good Book” considering the amount of time the Book and I have spent together. 

But no, it turns it out that my view of the canonical text is deemed a “low” one. Over the past year-plus, I’ve entered many conversations (in person or through the blogosphere) centered on this sort of categorical assessment of a person’s handling of Scripture – “high” and “low” views of the Bible – and with curiosity (and some worry) have tried to understand what makes my relationship to Scripture inferior to someone else’s.

It seems to me like a very dramatic line to draw in the sand, to toss people into opposite camps over something as serious as their treatment of Scripture. Placing people under polarizing umbrella terms “high” and “low” is certainly divisive, and implies that the difference between parties is qualitative. The language suggests something that my conversations support: the people who like to speak in these “high” and “low” categories are those with self-described “high” views of the sacred text. The rest of us come into the conversation on their terms; we enter a game played by their rules.

As for my approach to the Bible, it’s not like my views are so liberal. I can think of secular scholars within biblical studies who treat the book with little regard for a message that transcends context. There are those who drain any sign of the miraculous out of Scripture, subscribing to the Thomas Jefferson daily devotional. Even among professing Christians, there are people guilty of reading the Bible for little more than literary appreciation. They could read The Brothers K and glean just as much spiritual instruction.

Because those approaches are a little more liberal than I’m willing to go, I might have assumed that I would make the cut and be drafted into the high view camp. I’m not calling the Bible “just another book”, nor am I dismissing its miraculous, metaphysical claims as myth and folklore. A high view over here, I might have thought.

Yet according to the group drawing up the terms and making a line in the sand, I thought wrong. 

It turns out that the people making the rules and all of the grand judicial statements are nearly always those who believe the only proper esteem of Scripture is sola scriptura, or “Scripture only”.

What does such a statement mean? It implies that the collection of 66 canonical books is the only document containing spiritual instruction for believers and is completely authoritative – the sola authority in the life of the believer. Birthed by Martin Luther during the Protestant Reformation, this theology pervades much of the Reformed tradition still today. To Sola Scripturians, this view of the Bible is the sola view, if you will (such is inevitable when you cultivate a culture of solas).

Because the high-low conversation exists on the terms and conditions of these Sola Scripturians, I am left out in the cold, meant to feel as if I’ve disregarded the Bible because I’ve regarded it differently than the umpires would wish.

To be clear, I believe high and low views of Scripture exist (though I would prefer to less polarizing terms to describe the various complex views that complex people hold toward a complex book). Where I’m uneasy is over drawing a line in the sand, and I’m especially concerned by where the line by the Sola Scripturians.

As a person who treasures the Bible, I do not view the Bible as the only document helpful for spiritual formation, the only guide. Instead I would say that Scripture is a main authority which is supported and bolstered by many other sources – literary and other. The doctrine that I hold is sometimes referred to as prima scriptura, but it is not enough to qualify me for the good graces of the Sola Scripturians. Instead they toss me in with all of the Thomas Jefferson Bible readers and some of the least literal approaches to Scripture; we’re all meant to hang our heads in heretical shame under the “low” view which defines us.

My perspective is that many others within the emergent movement feel similarly attacked on this issue. As certain Evangelicals and/or carry-over Fundamentalists learn to be combative, er… “conversant” with an emergent church that cherishes Scripture but withholds the acclaim of sola scriptura, it feels like more and more we emergents are grabbed by the wrist and pulled into a conversation that is actually an argument – an argument limited to the vocabulary of the Sola Scripturians.

While it is one thing for someone who holds to Reformed doctrine to admit that emergents view Scripture differently, it is nothing short of an affront to our faith when our approach to the Bible is tagged with a negative qualitative title.

If it’s not already clear, there’s a lot to this issue that infuriates me. And the first objection I want to raise is this question: Is the most elevated language always correlative of the most esteemed view?

Maybe what one person calls “high” I call “hyperbole.”

And then… um… he wrestled… a lion!

An example to stress this point: my dad, Larry, is an incredible person and role-model. He’s compassionate, cheerful, and loyal. Throughout my life he’s worked long hours to support his family. There are so many things I appreciate about my dad – his quiet contentment, the sports talks we share, and the way that he would get out of bed on bad weather days in Cleveland (there are many) to help me with my early morning paper route.

I believe what I’m describing is the picture of a great man. The characteristics I mentioned are accurate and honest, true to Dad’s humanity. 

But say I described my father differently. Say I went around telling people that he rescues Chinese orphans on a bi-weekly basis, fights forest fires on his downtime, and that his six Super Bowl rings look really good next to his four Olympic golds.

More elevated? Yes.

More accurate? No.

More beautiful? Not at all.

If the second description is not based on who my dad is, then my inflammation toward grandness is rendered obsolete. People who approach him under the pretense of my folklore will end up confused when they meet a man who is incredible but without Super Bowl rings and fire-fighting stories. 

They would have come to appreciate my dad a whole lot more had I described him accurately. Making him bigger is not making him better or more beautiful. It turns out that honesty is actually a very beautiful thing. If I have any love for Dad, I should do everything I can to learn well the person he actually is and describe him as such. The most respectful view of my father – the most esteem I can place on him – is the accurate one. If I cherish him, that’s the story I’m going to tell.

Let’s bring this attitude back to the Sola Scripturians. The same mindset applies to the Bible. If God’s purpose for Scripture is simply for it to be one way  of communicating truth to us – if it’s main purpose is to verse us in the historical God-humanity narrative, to fill us in on the story in which we live – why do we need to say any more about the Bible than its own self-claims? When the canon was closed in the late fourth century, did revelation cease? Did God stop involving himself in the affairs of humankind? 

It seems to be that the story goes on. And seems like we would do just fine without a Bible that fights forest fires and wins Super Bowl rings.

My own high view

Just to play along with the categories of “high” and “low” – joining the Sola Scripturians in their delineations – than I’d like to extend the terms beyond the conversation of Scripture and say that I have high pneumatology – a high regard for the Spirit of God.

Why do I hold such a view?

Maybe it’s because I root for underdogs. I see the Spirit as the member of the Trinity that gets the least amount of press. Nobody’s showing the Spirit some love. Or maybe it’s because I see the rest of the Trinity as having a high view of the Spirit. The Father and Jesus seem to be huge fans.

Because I cherish the Bible and take Jesus’ teachings as authoritative, I bother to listen to Jesus as he esteems the Spirit. As a matter of fact, I read about him telling his disciples that this world would be better off if he ascended, so that we could have the Spirit.

Not the Scriptures, the Spirit. The Church had been a Scripture-driven group for some time before Jesus came to offer life abundant. It wasn’t Jesus’ intention to drive the Church back into a Scripture-driven way of life; he calls for his followers to partner with their new Helper, the Spirit.

“Truly, truly I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father… I will ask the Father and He will give another Helper, that He may be with you forever… But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and bring to remembrance all that I said to you.” (John 14:12, 16, 26 NASB)

Jesus’ recorded words, as well as the whole of Scripture, point people toward the Spirit as the means of building a Church and a Kingdom, as the empowerment to live an endless pursuit of Jesus Christ and his Way.

If I love Scripture enough to listen and obey, I am directed to the Spirit.

The biblical role of the Bible

Again, I absolutely love the Bible. So let’s be careful to talk about what sets Scripture apart – what puts the “Holy” in Holy Bible.

As I see it, it’s the Holy Spirit that brings holiness, uniqueness, and otherness to the Scriptures. This is a process that begins at the point of inspiration. Of course the theology of inspiration is complicated, and great, faithful Christians can be located all over the map when it comes to how to theologize and articulate the process. While some see inspiration as a forced process, where God sort of shouted down a dictated document to biblical writers, I see a human component to biblical composition that seems undeniable. 

While someone critical of my view would say that my view of inspiration is less divine, I hold firm that, by giving birth to Scripture through the mire of human hands, the inspiration process required more effort and beauty of God than a dictated understanding leaves room for. This dirty, down-in-the-trenches, humanity-incorporating understanding of inspiration is consistent with the way that God has done other things – original creation, the offering of salvation, using the Church to bring shalom, etc.

And even if the Bible were robotically dictated – with God speaking James Earl Jones-style to the strong right wrists of biblical writers – what good does that do? If God doesn’t apply the same holy martial law to the process of reading Scripture, then even the most conservative view of inspiration leaves us with a text that would of course be lost in translation.

Think about it: if it takes God’s robotic control to write Scripture, then we’re obviously dealing with humanity incapable of properly hearing it. And really, when is the last time you heard a low rumble from the clouds telling you how to digest that trouble passage in First Corinthians?

My guess is that most Christians, while never receiving robotic instruction, do sense the Spirit’s work in them as they approach, and aim to apply, the Bible’s message. And I’m willing to wager that the biblical writers experienced the guiding of the Spirit, but not in such a way that they knew exactly how to take the message from a Spirit-led “nudge” to a published biblical book. For this reason, we read “inspired” biblical books that were developed and edited in communities – some over a long number of years (to my knowledge, the Fourth Gospel is the strongest example of this). 

I look at that and conclude that the biblical writers had a lot of confidence in things like the accountability of their church and the experience of believers. Foundational to that entire process? The direction of the Spirit.

Scripture is holy, other, and unique when the Spirit intercedes with holiness, otherness, and uniqueness. The wonderful thing is that the Spirit did intervene for the biblical writers and now intervenes for us as readers. Just as we refer to the Bible as a living document, we might also refer to inspiration as a living process.

That said, let’s get on with some bold proclomations. Scripture is dependent on the Spirit, yet the Spirit doesn’t necessarily need Scripture. The evidence for this is every person who has come to faith in extra-canonical ways – the guy who chooses Christ while driving in his car, or the person whose pursuit of Christ starts while watching late-night television. The Spirit is at work, and is using a lot of things besides Scripture.

Even after coming to faith, Christians know that the Spirit can use a myriad of things to grab ahold of us and speak truth to us – the image of a boy with Down’s Syndrome playing in his front lawn, an elderly couple holding hands on their sidewalk parade, a brilliant film, or the point in the chorus of that one song when the third guitar comes in and things reach pure, infectious ecstasy. Truth exists in all of those things as the Spirit decides to use them.

I believe that we emergents find ourselves in a difficult epistemological conversation with Sola Scripturian Christians, among others. 

To be quite honest, I believe they’re in for a rude awakening – one as cold as the terms with which they’ve created this entire conversation – as the Church realizes there is no scriptural backing for the Sola Scripturians’ Scripture. It’s all a bit sola scridiculous.

My Bible doesn’t fight forest fires

The Bible is beautiful and wonderful. It presents the earliest and climactic parts of the narrative God is (still) writing in this world. Because of the Bible, I can read the records of Jesus’ teaching. I grow connected to the major figures in the history of my Judeo-Christian faith. I am taught what it means to live as God intended.

In addition to being beautiful and wonderful, the Bible is real. Written by people who disagreed with one another about theological issues (Peter and Paul on the nature of the inclusion of Gentiles) or in trivial historical details (discrepancies in the Synoptics) and those with very human agendas (the Johannine community wishing to assimilate with Apostolic Christians at the time of the Fourth Gospel), our sacred book is insanely human. And still sacred. 

With the Spirit’s help, the Bible points me toward Christ.

Without the Spirit, the Bible has pointed some toward atrocities. Included in a deplorable list is the promotion of slavery, exclusion of women from ministry (or full humanity, for that matter), an eternal Elect, and the persecution (and eventually the Holocaust) of our Jewish siblings.

We’re dealing with a book that is only as good as the Spirit makes it. My prayer is that we would be protected from a Spirit-less reading of the Bible, from the conclusions some have drawn from the canonical text.

And I pray that we’d be protected from the idea that we’re holding the Bible that fights forest fires.

The Bible is useful for teaching and correcting and training, among other things – and I don’t want to pit the Spirit against Scripture when the Spirit has a history of using Scripture for glorious things. But it’s a lie to say that every use of Scripture has been under the Spirit’s guide (see atrocities mentioned above), or to assume that it is ultimately Scripture that the Spirit must use to talk with us.

We need to remember that God continues to speak – using all sorts of writings and sounds and images to scream truth at a people He’s returning to Himself. And so long as God is still speaking, there will never be a “one and only” in His dialogue with humanity.

There’s a conversation happening. Between God and His Church. Between God and you.

And until we manage to not only close the canon but also clamp shut the mouth of God, there will never be room for the language of sola.

Holy Gutenburg

We need to be careful about becoming a printing press religion – bound to a document that discusses God rather than to God Himself.

The invention of the printing press, which came hand in hand with the time of the Reformation, set believers free from a misuse of power that was limiting their ability to love and follow God. But the funny thing is that, here we, are five centuries later, needing to be set free from a misuse of power that is limiting our ability to love and follow God. I suppose it all comes around; the printing press has become our curse. We read the Bible any which way, and justify our opinions by saying “the Bible says,” and we’re off the hook because, after all, the Bible is a tangible, real thing – something you can get your hands on. You can’t argue with that.

Yes you can. And you should.

We need the Spirit of God – who we certainly can’t get our hands on, but who promises to be our companion – to guide us in truth. We need to revere the Spirit, and trust Jesus when He called the Spirit our Helper.

I have a feeling we should be making better resource of our Helper. It takes a little more faith and spirituality to trust a Helper we cannot see, but I see no way around it – not if it’s truth we’re after. It’s the life of reliance into which Jesus called us.

In addition to valuing our Helper, I believe the Church, through the emergent movement and other global revivals, is coming to place Scripture in community with other “truth-detectors” like Church tradition, common sense, and each believer’s experience of the Living God. It is in community that each of these pieces is most functional, helping Christians to best hear the voice of the Helper for wisdom and direction.

By no means is this a new idea. Referred to as the Wesleyan Quadrilateral, this approach to seeking truth has been used by Methodists, Quakers, charismatics, and others. It is no coincidence that these are many of the denominations and groups that are most willing to partner with the emergent movement, while Sola Scripturians (and the conservative Reformed tradition as a whole, though there are some exceptions) remain most hostile. 

I don’t know that there is much hope for myself, other emergents, and those within the holiness tradition of ever convincing the Sola Scripturians that we sincerely love Scripture. I’m unsure that they can be convinced to reconfigure they’re line in the sand, or – better yet – to stop drawing those types of lines (considering it was the line-drawing types who were targeted by Jesus’ own writing in the sands). I don’t know that our love for the Bible will ever impress them because we’re not looking for the Bible to accomplish as much for us. 

Yet I can’t help but notice that my Helper keeps telling us it’s not important to enter their conversation or win their argument. With our “low” view of Scripture, we’ll continue to seek the Spirit for guidance and will continue to find God’s truth in the strangest places.