Scripture, BF&M, and the Emergents

The role of Scripture in modern theology and the Christian life has fallen on hard times. Of course, this is nothing new. The Word of God has always been under attack, on the left by neo-orthodoxy, liberalism, and higher criticism, and on the right by the King James Version only proponents. Both sides have distorted the biblical doctrine of inspiration in unconscionable ways.
Two points lay the foundation for my thinking this morning.

First, in the SBC, there has been some recent controversy over the rewriting of the Baptist Faith and Message. The 2000 revision of the 1963 BF&M removed a statement that had been added to the 1925 edition ironically enough. The statement read “The criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ.” While it might sound noble enough, it was an exercise in circular reasoning, as well as the establishment of a “canon within a canon.” It laid the groundwork for the “moderates” of the SBC to deny certain teachings of Scripture (such as teaching on homosexuality, women, etc) since those statements by Paul were incompatible with what Christ said. For them, the words of Christ become the ultimate canon by which everything else in Scripture was interpreted. The SBC moderates were not the first to try such a thing, nor will they be the last. They eventually separated from the SBC over some issues like these.

This statement about “Christ as the criterion” was circular in that it failed to give due credence to the fact that we know nothing about Jesus except for Scripture. They were asserting an impossible hermeneutic since the standard for interpretation first relied the document itself. In reality, there had to be another criterion for interpreting Scripture. Incidentally, it started with the same criterion everyone else uses, namely, “What do the words mean?” From this, they took the words of Jesus as “the really important stuff” and all other words as subject to the words of Jesus. It resulted what amounts to a dual level of inspiration: the words of Paul, James, and others are inspired to a lesser degree than those of Christ since Christ’s words are more important. (It has also resulted in book long treatises about why the words of Paul don’t really mean what they say, but that’s another issue).

Secondly, I came across an emergent blog this morning with a series of articles on Jesus as an emerging pastor. Without interacting in great depth with the whole series (though much could be said, both good and bad), this article’s argument was that “In the era of the Protestant Reformation three realities converged to elevate the Book (the Bible) above the Person (the Christ).” Though this argument stems from a misreading of the reformation, the idea itself stems from a problematic view of Scripture in that it also (like the SBC controversy) fails to recognize that we know nothing about God propositionally except from Scripture. The Bible is the sole source of propositional revelation about the Person.

This author cites John 5 where Christ says, “You diligently search the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” In so doing, he fails to give proper credence to the fact that the Scriptures testified about Jesus. In other words, Jesus was not lowering the value of Scripture relative to himself. He was exalting it, and pointing out that the Scriptures did indeed do the very thing they should—give a proper revelation of Christ. The problem was not that the Pharisees had too high a view of Scripture; it was that their view was too low. They would not accept it.

This author asks, “Would God---Father, Son, and Spirit---cease to exist if every Bible and every form of the Bible (tape, CD, chiselled stone, ancient manuscript, etc.) on the earth vanished? Think about it. Your thoughts and feelings will indicate whether or not you have a relationship with a Book or a Person. Could you maintain a vibrant and growing faith without written words?” The obvious answer is No, God doesn’t cease to exist without Scripture. But even more obvious (one would think) is that we would not know what to believe about God without Scripture. So the answer to “Could you maintain a vibrant and growing faith without written words” is Yes, but not a legitimate faith in God. Those who reject the validity and absolute truthfulness of the written words have substituted faith in God for faith in their own minds and experience. It may indeed be a vibrant and growing faith, but it won’t be a faith that brings salvation because it not a faith grounded in the “word of Christ” (Romans 10:17).

In theology, we need a return to a high view of Scripture, one that recognizes its inspiration and inerrancy, one that recognizes that its source is God. The emergents want to argue that Scripture is a story, not propositional truth about God. That is simply a false dichotomy that lowers Scripture from the exalted place that God has given it. The emergents too often outthink themselves, and the results are often not pretty. They have assembled a very “spiritual” group of people, but I fear that there is often no genuine pursuit of God in it. There are certainly some well-meaning people in the emergent movement, and no doubt some genuine followers of Christ. But there is a lot of nonsense in it as well. Oh, that they would recognize the difference.