At Out of Ur yesterday, they have a post on a hermeneutics quiz crafted by Scot McKnight. Scot devised a “hermeneutics quiz” for Leadership that aimed at teasing out the hermeneutical stance of the person taking the quiz. With typical Scot McKnight genius (and I mean that), he takes some very sophisticated isues and makes them palatable for us practicioners. Several were asked to take the quiz and respond to their scores. I scored a 67 which placed me into the progressive (liberal?) category (just barely). My response reads as follows (you can read more here).
QUIZ SCORE: 67
I find myself unhappy with my score on the quiz because it labels me a “progressive” (but just barely). I am unhappy because a progressive is described as a person who doesn’t believe in the plain and literal meaning of the text. Yet I certainly do. I just don’t believe the plain meaning is always immediately evident to each individual reading the text all by him/herself (and this includes even the most brilliant historical critical exegetes among us). Indeed that plain meaning is best preserved through the ongoing community of the church carrying out its apostolic task to faithfully transmit the gospel both in the community’s preaching and its living. If that makes me a progressive, so be it.
I also must protest that seeing the Bible as “historically shaped and culturally conditioned” somehow makes me a progressive. For there is no more conservative view than believing in the incarnational nature of the gospel that has come in the particular person of Jesus Christ. This means that Truth necessarily comes via history and culture. The fact that I believe this should make me a raving lunatic conservative in these times where everyone wants to find God in the universal. All in all, I enjoyed taking this quiz and I say thanks to Scot. But I still wonder, how can this quiz help evangelicals escape the hermeneutical categories (of modernity) that individualize and dehistoricize the ways we seek to interpret Scripture?
After thinking further about this, I think this quiz might reveal how much we need different categories for understanding hermeneutics for the days that lie ahead. Scot describes how “conservative” means holding to a literal, plain reading of the text. “If the Bible says it, that settles it.” He then describes how “progressive” refers to those who see the Bible “as historically shaped and culturally conditioned” …”one must interpret what the Bible said in its day and discern its pattern for revelation in order to apply it to our world.” Scot is not trying to be exhaustive nor could he be exhaustive. Yet one should still notice that there is no real positioning for someone who believes in both of the above as they are worked out in a community (an ongoing tradition). And both positions seemingly ignore the ways the text, the living Word, shapes the reader/hearer and how indeed our meanings are changed in the reading/hearing? Hans Frei famously advocated a plain literal reading of the text within the ongong community (Theology and Narrative ch.4.). Ricoeur advocated the unfolding of the reality in front of the text (Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences ch.4). I might be wrong here, but both Frei and Ricoeur in many ways cannot be put into either of the two McKnight categories.
This may be short changing McKnight and really what he has accomplished in this provocative quiz of his. I am sure no one could devise a quiz where Frei and Ricoeur could find their place. The quiz is meant to be heuristic. It certainly is causing me to reflect again on this subject. As I reflect, it seems to me that the orthodox gospel truth we bear is best preserved by the church’s living tradition (Narrative) as inextricably linked to the canon in carrying on the truth of God revealed in Christ for all the ages. It is not best preserved and carried on by individuals relying on individual skills of interpretation, for here it is more often distorted. It is not best preserved and carried on by individuals wielding historical critical exegesis although this has its place. For this often promotes interminable conflict in the churches because we have not learned to read Scripture together in courage and humility. We need further categories that evangelicals haven’t acquired yet. And this is why we need to thank Scot McKnight for writing this quiz and raising these questions. Thanks Scot!
What do you think about the categories of progressive (liberal) versus conservative in the evangelical church when it comes to interpreting the Bible? Where do they fall short? Did you take the quiz? Do your score fit?
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
David,
Thanks for this. Your response is what I was hoping would happen … conversation about this is important.
I did have a question or two that brought up the significance of church tradition, but it was hard to nuance all this.
dave, helpful thoughts. In the end, those little nuances are so important. Its the difference between “four spiritual laws” and the gospel that Jesus taught. But its more than merely reductionist : its the rationalized, Cartesian, and “objective” dissection of things that really cannot be dissected or reduced to propositions. New categories are important because the imaginative architecture of modernity simply no longer describes the territory.
“The dominant consciousness must be radically criticized and the dominant community must be finally dismantled. The purpose of an alternative community with an alternative consciousness is for the sake of that criticism and dismantling.” WB
I am encouraged that you communicate “historical/critical” has its place, in letting it have its 5-10% (or whatever) as a tail not the dog. We don’t need to throw away the tools of the past just because they were from the past, anymore than i throw away my hammer for my nail gun.
What needs to be considered is the comment “must be finally dismantled” – A theme which is widely held. But is it what the Biblical narrative is saying? For myself, yes, for my teens absolutely, but for those of a certain age and a mindset let them be fed and then salt and light through these exegetes.
Let us take the narrative of unity and respect it and those who are not of our persuasion.