Nancy Murphy in her Beyond Liberalism and Fundamentalism, showed how classic protestant liberalism (PL) and evangelical fundamentalism (EF) are really two sides of the same coin. Hans Frei before her, unveiled much the same thesis in his posthumously edited Types of Christian Theology. He put Carl F. Henry (of evangelical fundamentalism) and David Tracey ( the Catholic who nonetheless followed PL’s correlationalist strategies) in the same type and showed how these two traditionally distinct opposites in the field of theology were really doing the same thing. The implication here for both Murphy and Frei was that neither EF&PL addresses adequately the post-Enlightenment and/or post liberal worlds. Scot McKnight more recently has advocated a purple theology, a “third way” between the red and the blue states, and Brian McLaren has made the proposal for a A Generous Orthodoxy which somehow navigates a third way for Christians that avoids pitfalls of either the EF or PL position. All contest I suppose, that we must go beyond EF and PL if we would further the Kingdom of God in our times.

What I often suspect in the emerging conversations however, is that what we are really getting is an ad hoc conglomeration of the PL theology onto some assent of the basic evangelical affirmations. We are not getting a third way that engages the postmodern worlds, or a third way that avoids the pitfall’s of the old dichotomies between EF&PL. As a result, this Emerging conglomeration often yields few solutions to the shortfalls of prior manifestations of these theologies. It often falls short of articulating a faith that engages the dilemmas of our postmodern times.

I know that’s a mouth full. And I don’t have blog space to substantiate it. But maybe if we see how similar these two positions are, EF & PL, and how they both are inadequate to the task of theology at the end of modernity, we might be less tempted by the conglomeration approach and boldly pursue a way that does engage the postmodern issues and does further our faith beyond the pitfalls of PL & EF of the 30’s,40’s,50’s, 60’s, 70’s. So here’s a few examples of how PL & EF are the same and how a conglomeration gets us no where.

1.) Both EF and PL ground knowledge in the autonomous individual using foundational universalizable criteria found in the individual human person. For EF this is the universalizable reason located in individual minds which EF’s are able to use to uncover truth in Scripture and science and even defend Scripture’s authority itself. For PL’s this is the universalizable core religious experience accessible to each human as npart of being human. The problem, in the world after modernity, is that reason is given and limited to contexts. Likewise experience is formed out of cultural and linguistic shaping. To say my reason is right and every one else’s is wrong, or to say my own human experience is universal and the same as anyone else’s on the Eastern side of the world is inadequate for dialogue and truth at best, imperialistic at worst. To escape modernity we must ground our faith humbly and without violence in traditions, embodied arguments, community and the church from which we participate in God’s mission and witness to the world. Only in this way can we display truth in noncoercive embodied ways that present the gospel as good news.

2.) Both EF and PL want to keep Jesus personal and social justice detached from Jesus and the church. For both EF&PL, justice is an abstract universalizable (modern) concept. This means government can do justice as well as if not better than a Christian political body in the world without such power. For both EF &PL then, the government therefore should be an arm for God’s work thru Christ in the world. For EF&PL however, the moral issues are different. EF is for using government to advance personal morality (prohibition against abortion, homosexuality, and easy divorce) while PL seeks to use the government to advance social morality (prohibitive work against war, discrimination, unequal health care etc.). But because of this approach, we negelect to work out any of these issues politically and for real among and in a church body. Some emerging spokesmen are frightened to center the outworking of justice in the local church body. They might fear a withdrawal or sectarianism. This however reveals a lack of understanding that without a Bodily presense in the world, there is little true engagement with the world except via individualist arguments (which is fine, keep pursuing debate on the issues, I am not saying stop). But until we have a church that lives justice, it’s just Jim Wallis arguing against Jerry Falwell.

There are many other examples of how EF & PL are two sides of the same coin. For example, I contend that in response to cultural pluralism, EF’s exclusivisim, and PL’s universalism both lead to forms of imperialism. I believe both EF & PL tend to over-personalize (toward narcissism) the individual nature of salvation in Christ stripping Christ’s work on the cross of its cosmic scope and power. In both cases, these are two sides of the same modernist coin. But this post is already too long so they’ll have to wait for another post. For now I affirm that the demise of modernity has cleared a third way that makes it possible for us to hold firmly to our most precious orthodox beliefs in Christ yet not fall prey to the EF mistakes exposed by PL, and the PL mistakes exposed by EF, of the last century. I believe the emerging churches provide a space for this third way, the way I think we all must go. This is the task of the 5 Theological Issues I have been posting on and will continue to post on.

As we wait … this Holy Saturday, I pause. In the silence of the quietest of all days, the “day of the entombed Christ,” I try to take in all that “has just happened” in the passing of Jesus. Not just the events of Good Friday, but all that led up to it. He walked among us, was present to all humanity, and then took on all sin and violence of the world in humility and servanthood. And then, as the creed says, “He descended unto the dead.” And now as we hang between two worlds on this most Holy Saturday awaiting the “vigil,” I see not only what He did but also how did it – bringing an end to the one world of darkness, sin and death, and leading us to the new era of His salvation. The magnitude of God’s great work in His death and resurrection is over-whelming truly. And yet how he entered it and led this great victory is equally impacting. For me this morning, a pastor having to lead amidst the minefields of American churchness, it is the way Christ led that is especially impacting me this morning. For let us see Jesus Christ, Son of God, truly God truly human, coming and spending countless hours of sitting and being “among” us. And then let us see Him taking on all our grief, violence, sin, and inadequacies so that in God’s mighty power He, Christ the Son, could lead all us lost souls of this world to the reality of restored creation in Him. He leads regular men and women from death to life through humility, love and submission to taking on the sin of the world, believing God would bring Glory out of it all.

His “leadership style” (forgive me for using that term) is exemplified once and for all at the Lord’s Supper, the week of His passion where He washes the feet of his disciples. And then, on that same occasion, He says to his disciples, the future “leaders” of the church, “the kings and the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who have authority over them are called Benefactors, But not so with you, but let him who is the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as a servant. For who is greater, the one who reclines at the Table or the one who serves? … But I am among you as one who serves.” (Luke 22:25-27 NASV)

Can I be this kind of leader? Can I be quiet and sit and be among people, suffer the inevitable insults, pains and violence that all us ministers get regularly tossed at us by lost people, or people on their way to sanctification. Can I offer love and truth and direction to someone in the midst of the growth adjustments? On this most Holiest of Saturdays, Jesus calls me back to be this kind of leader with regular submission to Christ in prayer.

These words by Henri Nouwen are mind blowing to me (I don’t know where he wrote them – sorry)

“More and more, the desire grows in me simply to walk around, greet people, enter their homes, sit on their doorsteps, play ball, throw water, and be known as someone who wants to live with them. It is a privilege to have the time to practice this simple ministry of presence. Still, it is not as simple as it seems. My own desire to be useful, to do something significant, or to be part of some impressive project is so strong that soon my time is taken up by meetings, conferences, study groups, and workshops that prevent me from walking the streets.

It is difficult not to have plans, not to organize people around an urgent cause, and not to feel that you are working directly for social progress. But I wonder more and more if the first thing shouldn’t be to know people by name, to eat and drink with them, to listen to their stories and tell your own, and to let them know with words, handshakes, and hugs that you do not simply like them, but truly love them.”

This is why it’s important for pastors to participate in Lent, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday. This is “leadership formation.”

Blessings … as we wait …

I consider the “inerrancy” of Scripture discussion tacky. It brings up “old debates” like dirty laundry that have little applicability to the issues we confront in today’s culture. It is tired, overworked and well-worn conversation. Yet it continues to raise ire … among us evangelicals … even the emerging churches. Regarding the first of the Big Five theological issues facing emerging churches, THE AUTHORITY OF & INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE AND COMMUNITY, I believe we all are in need of better ways to speak about the authority of Scripture, its nature as a deposit of truth and the way Scripture functions within the hermeneutic of the Community of Christ. I don’t believe “inerrancy” is the key issue here but it nevertheless seems to remain the defining backdrop for how we evangelicals must go forward. So I propose the following comments in relation to “inerrancy” in order to further clarify where the issues lie for we who are looking for ways to go forward at the end of modernity. For those who want to skip the comments on “inerrancy” and get to the point, go immediately to the last paragraph.

1.) The inerrancy defense is now too “liberal” to adequately define the authority of Scripture for both us evangelicals who claim a high view of Scripture and emerging churches who need a sufficient view of authority to engage the cultural forces of postmodernity. I am using the word “liberal” here to refer to any cultural strategy which accommodates one’s beliefs and doctrine to the norms of the surrounding culture because it sees this culture as a source of authority unto itself. It is not that I am against engaging culture or finding redemptive truth/God’s work in culture. But in this case, inerrancy is an accommodation to another source of authority that inherently subordinates Scripture to its authority. This other source of authority is the modernist cultural norms of modern science and derivatives thereof. In so doing, the inerrancy strategy places the authority of Scripture beneath (under) the authority of modern science. In this way, inerrancy diminishes the authority of Scripture.

How is this so? Well, saying Scripture is “without error” inevitably begs the question “error according to whom?” Fundamentalists of the 20’s and 30’s, our evangelical ancestors, defined “error” in terms of the historical critics who were boldly asserting that the Bible had historical errors in it and therefore could not be depended upon. B.B. Warfield crafted the inerrancy defense as a response to the wave of German historical criticism at the turn of the century. He specifically targeted this inerrancy defense at those who claimed the Scripture WAS with error, based upon modern science and historiography. The answer to the question, “error according to who” for Warfield and friends was therefore modern science and historiography. Back in those days, science and historiography was king, seen as universal truth. We should all thank Warfield for his work because it got us through what we needed to get through. But I argue that today, the world of knowledge is fragmented. Science and historiography are relativized as forms of knowledge alongside all other traditions, histories and forms of knowledge. Inerrancy, therefore, by definition places one form of knowledge over Scripture – i.e. it allows science and historiography to become the judge of Scripture. This is how inerrancy diminishes the authority of Scripture.

Science relativized as a form of knowledge? What do I mean? Well, if James K A Smith is right in his characterization of Lyotard’s critique of metanarratives, the field of knowledge is not one as B B Warfield, the fundamentalist and every one else in the 1920’s assumed. Science, Lyotard says, claims to be a metanarrative in that it is absolutely foundational, self evident, requiring no other religious belief or defense. But Lyotard, in his The Postmodern Condition shows how science requires as much foundationless belief as any other form of knowledge including religious knowledge. Modern science in essence is a tradition of knowledge masquerading as a foundational enterprise. It is a limited form of knowledge several hundred years old with limitations as great as any other tradition of knowledge. Why then should we subject the Scriptures to its scrutiny in the way we do? I am sure we can learn from science, even expand our understanding of God and Scripture. But there is no need to subject Scripture to its authority as the modern critics of Germany once did. And there is no need for us to scurry about playing the science game to try to “unprove” the historical critics as the fundamentalists of the 30’s and 30’s once did. Our history in Christ and the God of Israel is 1000’s of years going. Science is new and untested relative to Scripture in the new world of knowledge after modernity.

Indeed, science and historiography have proved anything but reliable. The Third Quest for the Historical Jesus by their known admission reveals all of the agenda’s and prejudices of the previous quests. Why then would anyone continue to define the defense of Scripture’s authority in relation to places that are fragmenting and in constant flux? A liberal strategy like “inerrancy” therefore weakens Scripture because it inherently seeks to define Scripture’s authority to a moving changing target, the cultural forces of modern science. Surely we can say the Scriptures are “inerrant.” They are without error. Aquinas, Augustine and Calvin evidently all did. But they could not have possibly meant what the fundamentalists and evangelicals meant in the 20′s and 30′s when they said “inerrant according to the original autographs.” For this reason, I believe “inerrancy” fails as a current defense and descriptor of Scripture’s authority in the post modern world.

2.) The inerrancy defense turns the Bible into a dead textbook of facts. The inerrancy approach teaches us to see the Bible as a set of propositions to be analyzed for their correspondence one to one to an external reality. This is what the old Bible sciences did. I have no doubt some of the Bible can be propositions in this sense. But the fact is, the Bible is an alive and real Story, a Story that is true, that is not a dead scientific textbook of facts. We must either redefine “inerrancy” or do something to remove Scripture from the deadness of modernist rationalities that “inerrancy” is a part of. These rationalities suck the life out of Scripture harming our life with God and our ability to receive and participate in the life that flows out of history in Christ as given in Scripture. Hans Frei, Vanhoozer, Von Balthasar and Wittgenstein among others can lead us out of this trap.

3.) Where to we go from here? That is the question for we who seek to remain evangelical in these times, or for we who maybe don’t care about being evangelical but wish to maintain a high view of Scripture. Since I am out of space on this blog, I pose only a provocative thought which might give us a direction as to how we must go on beyond “inerrancy.” Stanley Hauerwas, when asked in an interview (I think at “the Door”), “what do you mean when you say ‘the Bible is true.’”? Stanley replied, “I mean I would die for it.” He then reminded us that the word “witness” to the truth comes from the Greek root, martyrion, or martyr. Perhaps this is the next fruitful direction towards a strategy for defining the authority of Scripture in the world. When we say the Bible is true, we believe it sufficiently, live it so absolutely, that we’d be willing to die for it. This of course implies that the Scriptures be embodied in a community, where its ways of life and language can only be understood together. O I know this creates all sorts of problems, which must be discussed. There are those who say, “I don’t want the truth of Scripture depending on people actually living it.” That in itself is telling. But I believe this way promises to provide the means to describe both a way to talk about truthfulness as well as a way to define Scripture as apostolic, given by God through the prophets and Jesus Christ and His apostles, to be carried in a people, protected and enlivened by the Holy Spirit until Christ returns (NT Wright can help us here). This way is unassailable in these postmodern times and becomes the means for God through his people to call the world to Christ, the way, the truth and the life.

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Due to numerous problems with Blogger on this post, please post any comments to this post below. And P.S. I hope to start blogging back on my normal schedule (once a week) here after Easter. I hope next to comment on the remaining 4 theological issues of the Mar 22nd post.

Sorry, I’m having problems with Blogger – it refuses all comments for post above. If you still have a comment, let’s try posting them here. Thanks for your patience. DF