I have selected Dr. Roger Olson's reviews to help in the assimilation of Christian Smith's book since he interacts with a multitude of Christians either in favor of, or in opposition to, the subject matter. As prelude, I would encourage a reading of the introductory post earlier submitted for this project - http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2011/10/read-christian-smith-bible-made.html.
- RE Slater
- RE Slater
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Part 6 - Third installment of review
Christian Smith’s The Bible Made Impossible
by Roger Olson
Posted on September 30, 2011
Now I turn to Chapters 5 and 6–both great chapters with which I mostly agree. I think Chapter 5 especially is extremely helpful and all evangelicals should consider Smith’s (not entirely original) proposal. It won’t fix the problem of PIP, but it will go a long way toward resolving numerous difficulties we run into when we try to treat the Bible as a flat terrain without highs and lows (not of inspiration but of authority for belief and life).
Chapter 5 is entitled “The Christocentric Hermeneutical Key.”
With this chapter Smith turns to proposed partial solutions to the problem of pervasive interpretive pluralism (PIP). However, I think his proposal in this chapter is valuable independently of the PIP problem.
With this chapter Smith turns to proposed partial solutions to the problem of pervasive interpretive pluralism (PIP). However, I think his proposal in this chapter is valuable independently of the PIP problem.
Here’s how Smith sets up the chapter’s argument: “what is needed to improve on biblicism is some kind of stronger hermeneutical guide that can govern the proper interpretation of the multivocal, polysemous, multivalent texts of scripture toward the shared reading of a more coherent, authoritative biblical message. Such a stronger hermeneutical guide would also, of course, have to be consistent with, if not directly derived from, Christian scripture and tradition.” (95)His proposal is this: “The purpose, center and interpretive key to scripture is Jesus Christ. … Truly believing that Jesus Christ is the real purpose, center, and interpretive key to scripture causes one to read the Bible in a way that is very different than believing the Bible to be an instruction manual containing universally applicable divine oracles concerning every possible subject it seems to address.” (97-98)
To that I can only say Amen! I have been promoting a Christocentric hermeneutic to my students for many years. Smith is not being original here and doesn’t claim to be. Luther practiced such an approach with his litmus test for biblical interpretation. For him, that is especially God’s Word to us that promotes Christ (“was Christum treibt”).
Smith makes clear that he is not advocating a kind of allegorical or typological approach to Scripture that “sees” Christ in every verse of the Old Testament (for example–the tabernacle in the wilderness and every part of it a type of Christ). Rather, his approach is this: “If believers want to rightly understand scripture, every narrative, every prayer, every proverb, every law, every Epistle needs…to be read and understood always and only in the light of Jesus Christ and God reconciling the world to himself through him.” (99) Again, to that I say Amen!
Smith rightly appeals to great theologians such as Bonhoeffer, Barth, G. C. Berkouwer, Geoffrey Bromiley, Donald Bloesch, and to contemporary theologians (some evangelical) such as John Webster and Kevin Vanhoozer.
One problem I have with Smith’s examples of Christocentric hermeneutics is his appeal to the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message of the Southern Baptist Convention. He says it includes the phrase “all Scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself the focus of divine revelation.” (108) However, he fails to note that the 2000 BF&M dropped the following sentence from the 1963 BF&M (which is still the consensus statement of the Baptist General Convention of Texas): “The criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ.” Dropping that sentence seriously weakened the phrase the 2000 BF&M kept. It is one thing to say Christ is the “focus” of divine revelation and something else entirely to say he is the “criterion” for interpretation of Scripture. The 1963 criterion phrase was dropped purposely, in my opinion, in order to strengthen the kind of biblicism Smith decries as impossible. So, if Jesus Christ is not the criterion by which the Bible is interpreted, what will be that criterion? No doubt the framers of the revisionist 2000 BF&M would say it doesn’t need one because it is wholly perspicuous. But, of course, that’s simply naive. I suggest that for them, the unacknowledged criterion is themselves–i.e., their vision of Baptist tradition. I agree with Smith about this and it applies, in my opinion, to the moves made by the SBC in its revision of the BF&M and to its leaders approach to the Bible: “The reality is that it is not possible to take fully seriously a Christocentric hermeneutic of scripture and to hold to biblicism. One or the other must give. In most cases to date, the biblicist tendencies overwhelm Christocentric gestures and intuitions. Nobody ends up explicitly denying that Christ is the purpose, center, meaning, and key to understanding scripture. But in actual practice Christ gets sidelined by the interest in defending every proposition and account as inerrant, universally applicable, contemporarily applicable, and so on, in ways that try to make the faith ‘relevant’ for everyday concerns.” (109)
What Smith doesn’t say (or say enough about) is that in these cases what takes the place of Christ as the criterion of biblical interpretation is not nothing but some tradition–whether the “ancient Christian consensus” as in paleo-orthodoxy or the “received evangelical tradition” as in conservative evangelicalism/neo-fundamentalism or the magisterium of the Catholic church as in Roman Catholicism. My question to Smith would be: Can you really practice what you preach in this chapter as a Roman Catholic?
I agree with Smith (at least the Smith of this chapter!) that a “canon within the canon” is inevitable and it ought to be Jesus Christ (was Christum treibt). If it isn’t him, it will be something or someone else. And I probably agree with Smith now (after the book was written when he joined the RCC) that there is always and must be a “canon outside the canon”–some tradition that guides us in interpretation. Where I disagree (probably) is that this canon outside the canon must be binding on our interpretation of Scripture. I say it (for me The Great Tradition of Christian teaching heralded by the church fathers and restored by the Reformers) always gets a vote (in matters of doctrinal controversy) but never a veto. Jesus, however, gets a veto! That is to say that if a doctrine conflicts with the character of God revealed in Jesus Christ, however many verses can be piled up to support it, it cannot be true.
Perhaps Smith’s most radical claim in this chapter (and perhaps in the book) is this: “The Bible is of course crucial for the Christian church and life. But it does not trump Jesus Christ as the true and final Word of God. The Bible is a secondary, subsidiary, functional, written word of God, the primary purpose of which is to mediate, to point us to, to give true testimony about the living Jesus Christ. … Biblicism borders on idolatry when it fails to maintain this perspective.” (117-118)
Again, I respond with a hearty Amen!
Smith goes on to deal with objections to Christocentric hermeneutics and he handles them very well.
Let me use Smith’s chapter and the approach it takes to explain WHY I AM NOT A CALVINIST AND CANNOT BE ONE. I am constantly besieged by critics who claim my theology–Arminianism–is exegetically weak. What I think they are saying is that they can pile up more verses for their theology than I can for mine. EVEN IF THAT WERE TRUE (which I’m not about to concede), it wouldn’t settle the issue between us. The Bible is not a textbook of truth in the way they handle it. It is inspired testimony to Jesus Christ who reveals God’s character perfectly. I see them trying to look behind Jesus Christ to some God whose character is different from Jesus’. And then they impose that mostly Old Testament view of God onto Jesus Christ and the New Testament. My first and utter loyalty is to Jesus Christ. I agree with Zinzendorf who said “If it weren’t for Jesus I wouldn’t believe in God” only I would alter it to “If it weren’t for Jesus I wouldn’t love or worship God.” Thank God for Jesus! When I look at most Calvinist attempts to prove their theology (and here I mean high, TULIP, double predestination Calvinism) what I see is an interpretation of Scripture that leaves Jesus behind; God’s character is derived from a chain of biblical passages interpreted in such a way that they are not only NOT consistent with the character of God revealed in Jesus, they positively CONFLICT with the character of God revealed in Jesus. I know this sounds shocking to biblicist ears (as Smith defines biblicism), but I agree with Wesley who said of the Calvinist interpretation of Romans 9 “Whatever it means, it cannot mean that!” Why not? Because of Jesus Christ.
Now don’t jump on me for sentimentalizing God and Jesus. Sure, God revealed in Jesus is intolerant of evil and judges it. But he is a God who loves his human creatures, created in his own image and likeness, and wants them all to be saved and has done everything in his power to save them. If they are not saved it is because they prefer to remain in the “far country” than to return home to the waiting father with his open arms.
Next time…Chapter 6 “Accepting Complexity and Ambiguity”
Part 7 - Another installment of my review of Smith’s The Bible Made Impossible
by Roger Olson
Posted on October 3, 2011
Chapter 6: “Accepting Complexity and Ambiguity”
There is no chapter in Smith’s book with which I agree more than this one. While I don’t think his prescriptions here will go very far toward reducing pervasive interpretive pluralism (PIP), they are of paramount importance for evangelical honesty (toward the Bible) and generosity (toward each other and other Christians).I cannot recommend this chapter highly enough; I wish every evangelical (and that’s a pretty broad concept for me!) could read this chapter if nothing else. Of course, as with other chapters, there’s nothing that new here. The novelty of Smith’s book and this chapter lies not in any innovation of concepts but in the way old concepts are packaged and presented.
A lot of the material in this chapter I learned in seminary. I was fortunate enough to attend a very sane, moderate, even sometimes progressive evangelical Baptist seminary (North American Baptist Seminary in Sioux Falls, South Dakota—now called Sioux Falls Seminary). My professors were full of good, strong, common sense about the Bible and theology as well as steeped in the best historical and contemporary scholarship. Sometimes I’m tempted to say that everything I ever really needed to know I learned in seminary. It liberated me from fundamentalism, obscurantism and anti-intellectualism and introduced me to this (Smith’s) kind of broad, generous, common-sensical evangelical Christianity.
I’ll have to admit up front that I MIGHT be biased in favor of this chapter because I’m favorably named in it; Smith makes use of my distinction between “dogmas,” “doctrines,” and “opinions”—something I first published in the little book Who Needs Theology (IVP). However, I don’t really think that’s the case. Even were I not mentioned in the chapter I would find almost total agreement with it.
The first part of the Chapter 6 is “Embracing the Bible for what it obviously is.”
Smith says “One of the strangest things about the biblicist mentality is its evident refusal to take the Bible at face value.” (127) He accuses evangelical biblicists of creating a “theory about the Bible [that] drives them to make it something that it evidently is not.” (127) Smith urges evangelicals to be satisfied and come to terms with the actual phenomena of Scripture rather than imposing on it a theory of inspiration, authority and inerrancy foreign to it as an ancient text containing many different literary genres. In the second section of the chapter, entitled “Living with scriptural ambiguities,” Smith unfolds what he means. There he says “There is no reason whatsoever not to openly acknowledge the sometimes confusing, ambiguous, and seemingly incomplete nature of scripture.” (131) Then he explains “All of scripture is not clear, nor does it need to be. But the real matter of scripture is clear, ‘the deepest secret of all,’ that God in Christ has come to earth, lived, taught, healed, died, and risen to new life, so that we too can rise to life in him.” (132)
Smith says “One of the strangest things about the biblicist mentality is its evident refusal to take the Bible at face value.” (127) He accuses evangelical biblicists of creating a “theory about the Bible [that] drives them to make it something that it evidently is not.” (127) Smith urges evangelicals to be satisfied and come to terms with the actual phenomena of Scripture rather than imposing on it a theory of inspiration, authority and inerrancy foreign to it as an ancient text containing many different literary genres. In the second section of the chapter, entitled “Living with scriptural ambiguities,” Smith unfolds what he means. There he says “There is no reason whatsoever not to openly acknowledge the sometimes confusing, ambiguous, and seemingly incomplete nature of scripture.” (131) Then he explains “All of scripture is not clear, nor does it need to be. But the real matter of scripture is clear, ‘the deepest secret of all,’ that God in Christ has come to earth, lived, taught, healed, died, and risen to new life, so that we too can rise to life in him.” (132)
In contrast, Smith argues, too many evangelicals (not all) have imposed on Scripture an expectation and then a demand that it be perfect in every way by modern standards suitable to (for example) university textbooks. The Bible simply isn’t that. It is not a set of inerrant propositions waiting to be harmonized and systematized into something like a philosophy. Rather, it contains ambiguities, uncertainties, apparent contradictions, mysteries, etc. At the end of this section of the chapter Smith quotes the great Dutch Reformed theologian G. C. Berkouwer (who I use in Against Calvinism against the radical Reformed theology of the “new Calvinism” in America) approvingly: “the confession of perspicuity is not a statement in general concerning the human language of Scripture, but a confession concerning the perspicuity of the gospel in Scripture.” (133) To that I say amen!
In the next section of the chapter (“Dropping the compulsion to harmonize”) Smith gives a case study in how biblicism’s theory of Scripture simply does not fit the phenomena of Scripture. His case study is drawn from Harold Lindsell’s infamous (that’s my value judgment but not mine alone!) 1976 book The Battle for the Bible. There Lindsell, a militant inerrantist who wanted moderate to progressive evangelicals fired from their teaching positions at evangelical colleges, universities and seminaries, argued that if we believe the Bible to be inspired, authoritative and inerrant (three adjectives he linked inseparably together) we must believe that Peter denied Christ six times before the cock crowed on two separate occasions. This was Lindsell’s attempt to harmonize the four gospels’ accounts of Peter’s denial. This is just a case study in making the Bible impossible.
Smith concludes that “the Bible, understood as what it actually is, still speaks to us with a divine authority, which we need not question but which rather powerfully calls us and our lives into question.” (134) Well said! It’s important to note that Smith does NOT say that all harmonizing attempts are bad. “In some cases, to be sure, harmonizations of biblical accounts may actually be right.” (134) It’s just that harmonizing is usually not necessary. (134)
I agree with Smith’s overall point in this section, but I would push a little further than he does with respect to the value of cautious harmonization of biblical teachings and stories. They can’t all be harmonized and we shouldn’t even try—especially when we’re talking about non-essentials of the faith. But I have a friend who teaches New Testament at a Christian college who occasionally picks on me for going overboard with harmonization. He even goes so far as to argue that the Bible teaches BOTH absolute, unconditional predestination AND free will (as power of contrary choice) and the necessity of free cooperation with grace. That is, he believes the Bible teaches BOTH monergism and synergism. And he disdains every effort by theologians to systematize these into a coherent soteriology. For him, just to give one example, Philippians 2:12-13 is a contradiction and we simply have to embrace it and not try to harmonize these two verses. I disagree because I see no problem; it takes no “forced harmonization” to harmonize them into a coherent soteriology of prevenient grace and free human cooperation with grace. I just don’t see the problem there whereas he thinks I am forcing harmony where none exists.
Also, New Testament scholar friend thinks I’m simply crazy to think there is real consistency and harmony between the various accounts of the giving of the Holy Spirit in the gospels and Acts. One gospel has Jesus breathing on his disciples BEFORE his ascension and giving them the Holy Spirit. Acts has the Holy Spirit descending on them on the Day of Pentecost. My friend insists these are disparate accounts of the same event. I disagree. To me that’s not much different from Pannenberg’s (with whom I studied and I heard him say this) claim that the story of Jesus’ transfiguration is a “misplaced resurrection story.” I haven’t discussed this one with my friend, so I don’t know what he would say. We kind of agreed to disagree and leave the matter alone (at least for a while).
I think it’s fairly obvious (though I wouldn’t call someone a heretic who disagrees) that Jesus gave his disciples the Holy Spirit to indwell them and be with them before Pentecost but on the Day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit filled them (“enduement with power” as Pentecostals call it). This fits with some of the stories of Spirit infilling (e.g., of people already believers) in later parts of Acts. I don’t see any forced harmonization there. But I do think Lindsell’s explanation of Peter’s denial of Jesus represents forced and completely unnecessary harmonization. I’m not sure what Smith would think of my rather modest and moderate approach to harmonizing Scripture. He very well might not like it. But I think we should harmonize when we can (e.g., the Arminian take on Philippians 2:12-13) and leave diversity within Scripture alone when we can’t harmonize without distortion.
The next section of the chapter is entitled (subheaded) “Distinguishing dogma, doctrine, and opinion.” Of course, I agree whole heartedly with Smith in this section! J Especially when he criticizes those biblicists who set up scripture readers “to assume that once they have decided what the Bible appears to teach, they will then have come into possession of absolutely definite, divinely authorized, universally valid, indubitable truth. And that truth will be equally valid and certain for every subject about which scripture appears to speak, whether it be the divinity of Jesus or how to engage in ‘biblical dating’.” (137) Smith rightly calls on evangelicals (and all Christians) to exercise a greater degree of humility about their secondary beliefs, their denominational distinctive (or distinctive of a certain tradition) and put beliefs in their right categories according to the clarity of Scripture about them and the certainty possible with regard to them. He cautions that “The point is not that every particular Christian group and tradition needs to strip itself of all its distinctive.” (138) The point is a changed attitude toward levels of importance of biblical teachings and those who disagree about secondary matters not necessary for salvation or even for authentic Christian living.
In my opinion, this recommendation could go a long way toward overcoming many of the controversies among evangelicals. We (the evangelical community in the U.S.) are being torn apart over secondary doctrines and teachings such as predestination, the inerrancy of the Bible, the possible salvation of the unevangelized, etc., etc. Of course, fundamentalists and neo-fundamentalists are not likely to give up insisting that their views are the only possible ones in light of a valid interpretation of Scripture, but my point (in addition to Smith’s) is that evangelical LEADERS need to speak out openly against this internecine war going on among evangelicals which is almost exclusively being fomented by conservatives.
I well remember when Jay Kessler, then head of Youth for Christ and president of Taylor University came to the college where I taught and decried this growing tendency among evangelicals to shoot at each other (figurately speaking, of course) over relatively minor points of doctrine and practice. Too bad he didn’t write an article and have it published in Christianity Today or something! He was a powerful voice for moderation among evangelicals for many years, but either people weren’t listening or he just didn’t raise his voice loudly enough. But I know he was passionately opposed to this tendency to major in the minors as he saw what I call neo-fundamentalists taking over the evangelical community by creating fear of heresy among the untutored laity and pastors.
The last two sections of this chapter are headed “Not everything must be replicated” and “Living on a need-to-know basis.” Smith’s theses are that not everything practiced or even promoted by biblical writers, even apostles, must be practiced today. In other words, there is cultural conditioning in the Bible. And that “In his wisdom, God has chosen to reveal some of his will, plan and work, but clearly not all of it. To the extent that the Bible tells us about matters of Christian faith and life, it clearly does not tell us everything. It certainly does not tell us everything we often want to know.” (141) “Christians would do well to simply accept and live contentedly with the fact that they are being informed about the big picture on a ‘need to know’ basis. … if God has not made something completely clear in scripture, then it is probably best not to try to speculate it into something too significant. Let the ambiguous remain ambiguous.” (142) Again, amen to that! There’s a place for reverent speculation in theology, but it MUST be labeled that—speculation—and not touted as dogma or even doctrine. And I can be firmly convinced that I am right about some matter I think Scripture “clearly teaches” that is not central to salvation and Christian faith WITHOUT implying that those who disagree are subchristian or even subevangelical.
So let’s be specific about this chapter. What’s a case study in what Smith is opposed to here that violates his recommendations for being realistic about biblical ambiguities and secondary matters of doctrine. Well, I already mentioned The Battle for the Bible. But I would add (this is my own opinion, of course) D. A. Carson’s book The Gagging of God (1996). I saw in it a full frontal assault on fellow evangelicals who, in my opinion, Carson did not really even understand. A case in point is his treatment of Stan Grenz. I won’t go into details here as I have already done that in Reformed and Always Reforming which I wrote largely in response to Carson’s book.
In my opinion, this chapter of Smith’s book is crucial to a better, healthier, more reasonable approach to Scripture and doctrine than the one all too common among especially conservative evangelicals. It won’t fix the problem of PIP, but it could help evangelicals (and others) achieve a more balanced and sane approach to Scripture and doctrine.
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