Tag Archives: authority of Scripture

Orthodoxy or Progressivism: The Choice all Christian People Must Now Make

3 Replies

The Change

The decisive choice facing Christian people today is not picking a church based on worship styles or children’s programs. Nor are the most pressing decisions occasioned by the traditional differences among Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox Churches. For sure, each of these great traditions still places before us distinct doctrinal positions. But in the past, one could assume that with all their differences each preserved the essential Christian gospel and a faithful vision of the life of discipleship, what C.S. Lewis called “Mere Christianity.” But lately that confidence has been shattered. Now every believer in whatever tradition must decide between orthodox voices and progressive ones within their tradition.

The Choice

The orthodox voices call us to listen to all of Scripture, deal honestly with the apostolic teaching, and pay attention to the faithful of all times. They urge us to follow the narrow way of obedience and sacrifice. Orthodoxy warns us not to listen to the voice of the world, which often resonates with our lower natures. In contrast, progressive Christianity values liberal social change more than personal repentance. Whatever deference it gives to Christian language, progressivism is not animated by the spirit of obedience. It views miracles as parables and Christian teaching as wisdom for a less enlightened age. Biblical morality is useful only insofar as it contributes to personal happiness. The true authority for progressivism is subjective feeling validated by the spirit of the times. Its religion like all idols has been crafted by human hands.

My Growing and Shrinking Family

I am a life-long member of a fellowship of believers that reaches back into the early 19th century. I treasure it and remain committed to its central aims…that is, of being simple New Testament Christians without too many “addons.” For most of my life I’ve respected believers from other traditions, but I never felt the desire to join one of their denominations. And I still do not.

But within the past few years I’ve realized that I have more in common with orthodox Roman Catholic, Global Methodist, Orthodox Presbyterian, Greek Orthodox, Baptist, Bible Church Evangelical, Pentecostal, or almost any other group of orthodox believers than with the progressives in my own tradition. I share with the progressive wing a common history, traditions, institutions, heroes and villains, but sadly, we are no longer led by the same spirit. Our diverging paths grow further apart with every step.

Evangelicals: The Group Progressives Love to Hate

Progressives love to hate evangelicalism. The reasons for this antipathy are clear. Progressives lean to the political left; American evangelicals lean right. Progressives adopt a permissive view of sex, gender, and marriage.  Evangelicals hold to traditional sexual morality and marriage. Progressives are doctrinally liberal while evangelicals are orthodox. Most progressives are former evangelicals embarrassed by their roots and eager to demonstrate their enlightened credentials.

Pan-Orthodoxy

Evangelicals are orthodox but not all orthodox Christians feel at home in American evangelicalism. It’s too emotional, entrepreneurial, doctrinally shallow, political, culturally narrow, etc. I suggest that orthodox believers need not feel locked into a choice between American evangelicalism and progressive Christianity. Orthodox Christianity was not born with the American evangelical movement. It can be traced back to the New Testament through all the great traditions, despite their cultural differences and distinct doctrinal emphases. It’s in that line of true faith, that spirit of obedience, where I feel most at home. I am brother to all my orthodox brothers and sisters wherever they worship the Lord Jesus. I stand with you. We can work out or bear patiently our differences as long as we share that loyalty. Let’s find each other and stand together “to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people” (Jude 3).

Conclusion: The Certainty of Faith (Seminarian Visits Theology Professor #6)

5 Replies

Introduction

In their last conversation, the professor and the seminarian concluded that modern academia’s 250-year effort to rationalize faith has failed miserably. Academia’s obsessive desire to avoid believing anything false led it to apply standards appropriate only to mathematics and (perhaps) logic to the Bible. Of course, no theological scholar attempted to translate the Bible into mathematical terms. But the historical and literary methods critical biblical scholars developed aimed to approximate the ideal of mathematical certainty as closely as possible. And they do not limit their efforts to understanding the message of the texts as written. Ordinarily, when we read a supposedly historical text, we imagine the real events as having unfolded as they do in the written texts. Critical scholars begin, instead, with the suspicion—real or methodological—that the texts are not what they seem. The modern scholar’s goal is to escape the spell cast by the text, outsmart the author, and use the text as a source for discovering what really happened.

The Bible is the only source we have for almost every line of the history it contains. We don’t have independent access to the real events, so scholars develop methods—using literary features, psychological plausibility, metaphysical theories, and other criteria—they think capable of distinguishing those events within the texts that really happened from later literary embellishments. Each of these methods and the results their application produces simply generates another set of debates in an endless cycle. But from the point of view of faith, the two most troubling problems are these: the set of historical and theological beliefs considered the closest approximation to mathematical certainty are so few and so trivial that they are of no use to the church. Not only so, even these most probable beliefs are highly debatable. The end results of critical academic study of the Bible turns out to be but a pale shadow of the bright light of faith that the church, drawing on the whole canon of Scripture, has proclaimed, taught and lived for two millennia.

Setting: The professor and the seminarian thought it fitting that the sixth conversation should take place in the local Antiochian Orthodox church. Surrounded by stained glass renderings of Bible history, vaulted ceilings, and illuminated icons, what better setting could one find for discussing the reliability of the church’s faith in Scripture and the believer’s trust in both!

Seminarian: Sitting in this place one has a feeling of participation in something ancient and transcendent.

Professor: And holy!

Seminarian: Something you cannot experience in academic lecture halls!

Professor: Divine and heavenly; not earthly and merely human. A silent presence rather than empty chatter.

Seminarian: Sitting here, now, after all our conversations, I feel changed; all doubt has left me. It’s as if I had been locked in a dark cellar, my captors telling me that my memories of sun and sky, wind and rain, green grass and singing birds were mere wishes based on pretty stories; but now I see the sun and feel his warmth, I hear the birds, the breeze caresses my cheeks. I smell the flowers, I taste the fruits of the earth—and my heart sings. How is this possible? The Reality and Truth that hostile critics tried to suppress and friendly critics attempted to prove—both producing only doubt and confusion—now fills my soul so that I could sooner doubt that I exist in this world in this body than doubt that I am loved by God, saved by Christ, and illuminated by the Spirit. Is this what the church means by the “certainty of faith”?

Professor: Yes. I believe the experience you describe could be what the church designates as “the certainty of faith.” Our parents and the church assured us that the Scriptures embody and preserve the original witness of the companions of Jesus. By the “church” I don’t mean simply the church you experienced as a child. I mean the worldwide church. Pick any century you wish, the 17th, 12th, 2nd or the 1st.  Pick any continent, any country. You will find that every sermon, creed, confession, catechism, prayer, and sacramental rite derives its legitimacy from the teaching preserved in Scripture. And this is true despite heretical movements, ambitious patriarchs and worldly bishops. Scripture always exerts a corrective force that exposes heresy and ungodly bishops. No movement that abandons or twists the scriptures can long endure.

Seminarian: But there are those who deny or doubt that the church is correct in its confidence in Scripture.

Professor: Yes. You can always find someone who doubts the church but gullibly believes the most outlandish conspiracy theory. Consider the source.

Seminarian: But even if we believe the ecumenical church of all time and space that the scriptures embody and preserve the original witness of the companions of Jesus, we can still ask or be asked, “Is their testimony true?”

Professor: Yes. That is a genuine question, and it should not be dismissed too readily as cynical. On one level, asking whether or not the apostolic testimony to Jesus Christ is true has in view two alternative possibilities. It would be false if they were innocently mistaken or they cynically conspired to create and perpetuate a fraud. In responding to these possibilities, I believe we should be careful not to slide back into the endless academic debates about historical probabilities. Usually, when people, even strangers, tells us about an event they witnessed, we believe them unless we have a good reason not to do so. If we happen to know that they could not have been present at the event as they claim or if they have a reputation for telling tall tales, we greet their story with a raised eyebrow . And if the event to which they bear witness were highly unusual but not impossible, we might maintain a bit of skepticism unless their story was corroborated by several other reliable people. Whether or not to believe a stranger cannot be decided with mathematical precision. Such decisions are much too complicated and mysterious to articulate explicitly. In a similar way, evaluating the apostolic testimony and making a decision to believe them or not cannot be made in a scientific way. You have to listen to them, get to know them, and, as they say, go with your gut.

Seminarian: But even if you come to believe that the apostolic witnesses are telling the truth in the New Testament writings, you may still harbor doubts, because you don’t know what you don’t know. It doesn’t seem that we have yet achieved the certainty of faith.

Professor: It’s true. Simply believing the apostolic message—as important as that is—is not yet the fullness and certainty of faith. Why? Because you have not yet experienced for yourself the Reality of what they experienced; it was not meant for them alone, you know! For sure, we depend on the apostolic word recorded in the New Testament for knowledge of Jesus Christ. We can never outgrow it. But with the help of that word, we are led to the living Father, the reigning Christ, and the ever-present Spirit of God. In worship, in prayer, in liturgical reading, in loving service, in suffering, and in meditating on the cross, we open ourselves to the Father, Son, and Spirit who come to live in us and in whom we live. We experience an all-embracing love and a peace that passes understanding. And this is the certainty of faith.

Seminarian: Beautiful! Finally, what about the Bible? We began these conversations with the question of whether or not my parents and the church taught us rightly when it urged us to accept the whole of the canonical Scriptures as the word of God and the authority for believing and living as a Christian. Were they right?

Professor: Absolutely! They were right! Your parents and your church said only what the church has said from the beginning. The church pointed us to the original apostolic witness so that we could hear and believe and experience its truth for ourselves. It urged us to listen to the Scriptures as the word of God. Once we come to believe for ourselves and experience the Reality they experienced, that is, the Father, Son, and Spirit, we return to the church to thank her for her guidance, for preserving and rightly interpreting the Scriptures. Having tasted the truth of that to which prophets and apostles witnessed, we long by means of their writings to sit at their feet as they tell us more about the God whose word they heard and whose power they witnessed. Those chosen ones who walked with our Lord in the flesh, who saw the empty tomb, and to whom the risen Christ appeared are to be listened to, obeyed, and honored until the end of the world. We who believe want to take our place in the congregation of the people of God. We seek not to live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. So, yes your parents were right when they urged you to listen with the ecumenical church of all times and places to every writing, every paragraph, every sentence, and every word of the Bible, and to receive it as from the mouth of God.

Seminarian: These conversations have been life-giving. Thank you so much! I feel a joy and confidence I have not felt for years! But my renewed joy and confidence are grounded not only on my trust in my parents and my childhood church but on my newfound trust in the ecumenical church of all times and places, in the persuasive power of the original apostolic witness, and finally, in the confirmation of the living presence of the Father, Son, and Spirit who pours out his divine love and peace into my soul. Thank you!

Professor: May God bless you always with his living presence and through you bless the lives of many yet to be born.

Seminarian: I hope you don’t mind if now and then I drop by for a visit.

Professor: Of course. You are welcome to stop by. Goodbye.

Seminarian: Goodbye

Confused Seminarian Meets Progressive Bishop: A Hot Mic Moment*

5 Replies

Setting: A young, bright seminarian meets with the regional bishop of a progressive denomination to discuss his future.

Seminarian: Thank you so much for meeting with me on such short notice.

Bishop: You’re welcome. Have a seat. Would you like a drink?

Seminarian: Thanks. Water will be fine.

Bishop: What’s on your mind?

Seminarian: It’s a bit sensitive.

Bishop: Don’t worry. I make no judgments, and nothing you say will leave this office.

Seminarian: Okay. Here goes. From birth to adulthood, I attended an evangelical church. (Some would call it “fundamentalist”). In my late teen years, I felt a call to the ministry. I attended a small Christian college, and three months ago I graduated from an evangelical seminary. But things have not turned out the way I imagined, and I now find myself at a turning point in my life.

Bishop: Hummm. How so?

Seminarian: I’ve lost faith in the traditional theology taught in evangelical churches. Its moral teachings are out of date, it’s oblivious to social justice, and its politics leans to the far right. I don’t fit anymore. I feel like I’ve invested years of my life and accrued significant debt for nothing. I would still like to become a clergyman. I enjoy helping people, I am a good public speaker, and I have a passion for social justice. But given my doubts and unorthodox views, I am concerned that I might not fit into any church.

Bishop: Don’t despair just yet. How exactly have your views changed?

Seminarian: Well, I suppose it all started with the Bible. Before I entered seminary I believed that everything the Bible says is true because it is the inspired word of God. That is what my church taught me. But when I began to study the Bible closely in seminary, my faith in the perfection of the Bible began to waver. As the list of contradictions, historical errors, mythic elements, immoral commands and strange customs grew longer and longer, my faith in the perfection of the Bible grew weaker and finally collapsed. I still believe, however, that the Bible contains inspiring ideals and much good advice, despite its imperfections. Jesus’s teaching about God’s concern for the poor and oppressed, the kingdom of God, and our duty to love others still moves me greatly. But is there a place for me in the ministry?

Bishop: There is no need to feel alone on this journey. Many seminarians have traveled the same road, including me, and eventually find a home in a progressive church. Admittedly, even in progressive churches many people do not wish to hear the Bible criticized. But you don’t need to do that. As you say, the Bible contains many good lessons and principles. Just focus on these and ignore the rest. People won’t even guess that you have doubts about the Bible.

Seminarian: What a relief! It’s encouraging to know that there are denominations in which ministers don’t have to defend everything the Bible says. But there is more.

Bishop: Go on.

Seminarian: When I finally realized that the Bible isn’t infallible or even reliable in everything it teaches, I began approaching everything it says with a critical eye. I couldn’t help myself. It no longer made sense to accept what the Bible says simply because it says so, and that opened a Pandora’s Box of questions. My whole world was turned upside down. I still don’t know what to believe. I don’t want to toss out everything the Bible says. I suppose I am looking for a way to distinguish between beliefs that are worth keeping and those that must be left behind. Do you see what I mean?

Bishop: I think I do.

Seminarian: I’m listening.

Bishop: Have you ever heard of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral?

Seminarian: I remember the term. It originated in the Anglican/Methodist tradition and has something to do with the sources of theology, right?

Bishop: Correct. But apparently, its significance escaped you. The Wesleyan Quadrilateral observes that throughout church history four factors always worked together to produce the church’s doctrine: scripture, tradition, reason, and experience (Hence quadrilateral!). All Christian doctrines need to be grounded in the Bible, consistent with tradition, supported by reason, and confirmed in experience. Fundamentalists and evangelicals focus exclusively on the scripture. If a doctrine appears to be taught in the Bible, they say we must accept it even if it is not supported by tradition, reason, or experience.

Seminarian: Yes. That is what I was taught.

Bishop: Indeed! Evangelicals, then, departed from the mainstream flow of the church’s way of thinking through theological challenges. But progressive denominations take all four sources of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral seriously in their doctrinal deliberations.

Seminarian: How does that work?

Bishop: Of course, progressives take the Bible seriously. It is the original source for the Christian story: Jesus’s life, teachings and fate, as well as the earliest church’s attempt to understand his significance. Without the Bible, we would have nothing distinctly Christian to say. However, as you have come to realize, the Bible is a human book and suffers from the limitations that afflict all human creations. It is influenced by the beliefs, moral norms, and superstitions of the culture within which it was written.

Seminarian: Let me guess…progressives use tradition, reason, and experience to compensate for the deficiencies and limitations of scripture.

Bishop: Exactly…but don’t get too far ahead of yourself. It’s not a simple process.

Seminarian: Sorry about that. Lead on. But if you don’t mind, give me the short version. I’m having dinner with a friend in an hour.

Bishop: Progressives value tradition, but only as an on-going process of discussion. We listen to past voices, but we do not treat traditional doctrine as definitive for all time. We consult tradition to benefit from the wisdom of the past, but as the living church of today we must read it critically and remain open to new insights inspired by the Spirit. And that is why reason and experience are so important. When we perceive that the Bible asserts something erroneous or unreasonable—usually in the areas of history or empirical science—we feel free to ignore its teaching or correct its mistakes. It would be wrong to ask people to believe the impossible, accept the erroneous, or embrace the improbable as conditions for becoming Christians.

Seminarian: Okay. But that doesn’t sound particularly progressive. Even the most orthodox theologians—Protestant and Roman Catholic—employed the criterion of “right reason” as a measure of true theology!

Bishop: That is correct. But our modern understanding of what reason demands differs greatly from that of medieval Catholics and Reformation era Protestants. Given the discoveries of modern science, today’s fundamentalists and evangelicals are much less enthusiastic about reason than their predecessors were. But that is a story for another time. Let’s move on to experience.

Seminarian: I will hold you to that.

Bishop: No doubt, progressive churches’ use of experience as a doctrinal criterion (or source) marks their most significant departure from traditional orthodoxy. Experience becomes very important in grappling with contemporary moral issues, specifically those dealing with class, sex, race, and gender. Progressive Christians have learned to read the Bible and tradition critically in view of the experiences of marginalized and oppressed people. The Bible and tradition picture gay, lesbian, and transgender people as degenerate and rebellious. They picture women as weak-willed temptresses. However, when one listens to the voices of LGBTQ+ and other marginalized people and enters their lived experience, our views change. We return, then, to the offensive biblical texts with a new, critical perspective. We become open to alternative interpretations or, if reinterpretation won’t solve the problem, we reject those texts as out of character with the main story of scripture, which is God’s gracious acceptance of everyone.

Seminarian: Wow! This has been enlightening! I am beginning to see a glimmer of hope. May I come back next week to explore other areas of concern?

Bishop: Of course. I will put you on my calendar.

Seminarian: Thank you so much! See you next week!

Bishop: Great! Don’t forget your jacket.

* Within the past two years I’ve written several essays on so-called “progressive Christianity.” I reviewed books by Roger Olson (July 15 & 19, 2022), Robert Gushee (November 7, 12, 21 &28, 2022), David Kaden (October 22 & 23, 2022) and, in a series of essays on progressive thought, attempted to articulate the foundational value that animates the progressive movement in secular culture and in the church (August 12, 2022). I am writing this series of conversations between a confused seminarian and a progressive bishop because I am amazed that relatively orthodox (or evangelical) Christians attend progressive churches and have no clue what their pastors really believe or what they are up to. So, I am giving you the inside story—a hot mic perspective—on progressive Christianity.

Christian Faith: An Outsider versus An Insider View

7 Replies

As we concluded last week, we cannot move from mere theism into Christian faith by reasoning from the phenomena of nature to their metaphysical cause or from the inner world of our minds and their ideas to necessary truths about God. At best, these routes can take us to theism as a reasonable—and for some people even compelling—explanation for our experience. Though Christianity shares many background beliefs in common with theism, it appeals to specific events within human history as the basis for its identifying truth claims. In an interesting and controversial move that I will need to defend in future posts, Christianity sees revealed in these unique and non-repeating historical events truths of universal significance and application: truths about the identity and purposes of God, truths about the human condition in relation to God, and truths about ultimate human destiny. Today, however, we will address a question preliminary to this issue.

Where do we learn about these historical events and truth claims? I am not asking the question of how we know these events really happened and these claims are true. It’s too early to talk about this issue. I am asking a prior question: how do we get into the position of needing to evaluate and decide about the reports of the events and the truth claims derived from them? The simple answer is that we read about them in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. True. However, we are not looking for the simplest answer but for the most accurate and persuasive description of the move from not believing to believing Christianity. And this means that we must distinguish between insider and outsider views of these reports.

For Christian believers, the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are authoritative for their faith and practice of Christianity. The scriptures contain extensive teaching beyond the basic and decisive gospel message. When people come to believe the foundational message about Jesus Christ and decide to follow the Christian way, they commit themselves to listen to the scriptures’ detailed instructions about how to believe and live as a Christian. In other words, in their decision to become Christians they place themselves under the authority of the scriptures. The authority of the Holy Scripture is a doctrine of faith and makes sense only from an insider perspective.

But things look different from an outsider’s perspective. If you have not yet come to believe the basic gospel of Jesus Christ, you have not yet placed yourself under the authority of the scriptures. In other words, as an outsider you don’t feel an obligation to conform to Scripture simply because of its authority. It is important to keep the two perspectives distinct. In my view, we should not urge non-believers to accept the Christian faith simply because of the authority of Scripture. In so doing we are asking them to view the scriptures from an insider angle before they come to faith. Additionally, this strategy would require the apologist to offer evidence for the authority and inspiration of the scriptures and defend them from attacks—all apart from a decision about the basic gospel message of Jesus Christ. Such an approach would lead to interminable debates and would delay the decision about Jesus indefinitely. The proper order is to confront the basic message about Jesus Christ as witnessed to by the reports recorded in the New Testament writings, examine them as one would examine other historical claims, and make a decision to believe or not. If we come to faith in Jesus Christ through the testimony of the apostles, then we will acknowledge the unique placement of those who witnessed these events and gladly put ourselves under their authority as our teachers to whom we look for detailed instruction in Christian faith and life.

What is the gospel? What is the fundamental and decisive message about which one must decide in order to transition from not possessing Christian faith to possessing it? For the Apostles, the core of the Christian message is that Jesus is Lord and Christ, and they offer as evidence for that assertion their witness to resurrection of Jesus from the dead. In future posts I hope to clarify the meaning of this claim and present evidence that puts us in a position to make a rational and responsible decision to embrace this faith.