On Rob Bell and Reading the Bible
While I am increasingly growing bored, annoyed, alarmed, and bemused by the furor around Rob Bell’s new book and the universalism it may or may not betray, I did want to pass along an excellent post that a friend sent me this morning. I think that Jason Boyett is identifying a very important point about the nature of Scripture and how it relates to the theological positions we hold, whatever they might be:
The truth is this: In order to be an everyone-get-saved Universalist, as Taylor claims Bell to be, you have to elevate some biblical passages and ignore (or explain away) others. Because there are definitely some passages that seem to be about eternal punishment in hell.
But…
In order to be a predestination-style, God-saves-the-elect reformed Christian — like Taylor and Piper — you have to elevate some biblical passages and ignore (or explain away) others. Because there are definitely some passages that seem to contradict predestination.
But…
In order to be a free-will Arminian Christian, you have to elevate some biblical passages and ignore (or explain away) others. Because there are definitely some passages that seem to confirm predestination.
See where this is going?
In order to be an Evangelical Christian…
In order to be a Roman Catholic Christian…
In order to be a Pentecostal Christian, a cessationist, an End-Times date-setter, a female pastor, a pacifist Christian…
Reading and understanding the Bible involves lots and lots of interpretation. Not just in light of the world and culture around us, but in reference to other parts of the Bible. At best, there are things that are unclear and not easily harmonized from Genesis to Revelation. At worst, there are things that seem to be downright contradictory. That’s why I have doubts. That’s why theology can be so controversial.
And that’s also why theology is best done with humility and a recognition that certainty is very hard to come by. When we become so certain that our theology is ironclad and right, that’s when we become smug, arrogant, and dismissive of people who disagree with us.
This is all of us. We all operate with some kind of a canon within a canon, so we might as well be honest about how we are reading Scripture and why. The Bible is a complicated book, not a tidy dispenser of seamless and self-evidently coherent theological truths. All the more reason for humility and charity as we read.
Rumblings 
“The Bible is a complicated book, not a tidy dispenser of seamless and self-evidently coherent theological truths.”
Farewell Ryan 🙂
That’s the most hilarious response to a post I’ve read in some time. Your off my shi…list…..for now….stay funny!
farewell Ryan.
PS – when I saw Pipers comment on twitter that unfortunate day, (yes I follow Piper) I thought Rob passed away! ummm I guess it was just in Pipers mind.
Yes! People are “farewelling” me online—that must mean I’m almost as cool and/or important as Rob Bell!
It means both, cool and important. 🙂
Nay I say Velcommen
Ryan, your closing paragraph sums it up…Beautifully. Thanks.
Re: “We all operate with some kind of a canon within a canon”
Even though this is clearly true of many pastors, I don’t think this is true of all. That is not how we read it at the university, not the way David Noel Freedman read it, not the way James Kugel reads it, and so forth.
It is possible to read it without systematizing theology. Besides reading it humbly and with charity, as good or pious as that may be, it can also be read with curiosity and fascination without constraining it by a canon within a canon.
Kugel observed that the Bible in Christian and Jewish tradition has mostly been considered perfect, relevant, inspired and cryptic by Christians and Jews. The last term, cryptic, means that we have not always imagined that it means exactly what it appears at first to say. The parameters for reading are set in each tradition. There is nothing wrong with that. The traditions need not harmonize with each other.
Re: “The Bible is a complicated book, not a tidy dispenser of seamless and self-evidently coherent theological truths.”
I think it is better to say what Kugel says. The Bible is perfect and inspired. It is relevant to our lives. It is cryptic.
On the first class I took in seminary on the Bible, the professor said we must face the fact that the Bible is fiction, and can be interpreted many ways. Contrast that statement with what I heard at the University. On the first class I took on the Bible at the University of California, Professor Freedman told his secular class, “Let me show how we know that the people who compiled the Bible considered it perfect.”
If a University can teach this, then surely a church can, a seminary can. Surely a Christian in modernity can still believe the Bible is perfect and inspired, something more than canon, and surely a Christian can still believe that while the Bible is cryptic, its meaning can be found and it is relevant. We can say these things without qualification, with, instead, gratitude and admiration. Even one who sometimes refers to the Bible as myth (in an admiring and grateful way) can say these things.
By “canon within a canon,” I was simply getting at the idea that we all have some criteria by which we evaluate which parts of Scripture (if any) are normative (and in what way) and which are not. Anabaptists have always read Matthew 5-7 differently than, say, Leviticus 5-7 (and each of the examples cited in the quote above would prioritize other parts of Scripture). Of course, if one decides that the Bible is simply a historical artifact that records how a group of people once thought and expressed their beliefs and has no normative force for us today, this problem will not present itself.
With Larry, I would say that there is nothing in my statement that contradicts this. One isolated sentence is bound to leave something out, but I can affirm what you say here without reservation and with gratitude, admiration, curiosity, and fascination.
Ryan, I do imagine that you consider the Bible perfect, inspired, relevant and cryptic.
I think your expression reveals something else. It does contradict Kugel’s assertion.
Re: “The Bible is a complicated book, not a tidy dispenser of seamless and self-evidently coherent theological truths.”
It says or implies, the Bible is complicated and untidy. The truths are not seamless and coherence is evasive. That is what I think that sentence says, whether or not that is what you meant.
Your expression may be a critique of others in your denomination or of certain evangelicals, as Larry has suggested. Or it may be a description of your struggle with the Bible. I can’t tell. I am unfamiliar with associating a word like “dispenser” with the Bible.
Your expression sounds like a different Bible from the one I read. Kugel’s expression sounds like what I see in the Bible. I don’t hear fundamentalism or evangelicalism in any of Kugel’s writings. He is a liberal, just one that admires the Bible and finds perfection, inspiration and relevance there. The cryptic aspect fascinates him. It is part of the pleasure of studying it, of meditating on its words and of praying with it.
Re the quote: “At best, there are things that are unclear and not easily harmonized from Genesis to Revelation. At worst, there are things that seem to be downright contradictory. That’s why I have doubts.”
This sounds like the 19th century liberal critique of the Bible. This is the critique that reinforced the idea among some that liberal theology is better than evangelical theology and that led fundamentalists and evangelicals to assert that the Bible is inerrant. Fundamentalism was born in reaction to this critique. It reinforced the movement among the most educated into atheism.
I’m glad to hear that you appreciate the approach to Scripture adopted by Kugel.
Ken, Ryan’s sentence and the word: cryptic pretty much seem to say the same thing.
The Bible is a complicated book, not a tidy dispenser of seamless and self-evidently coherent theological truths.
It is cryptic.
cryp•tic/ˈkriptik/Adjective
1. Having a meaning that is mysterious or obscure.
2. (of a crossword) Having difficult clues that indicate the solutions indirectly.
And then we have the concept of the clarity of Scriptures (perspicuity) which some would say pretty much clear up the Bible’s crypticness. As part of a denomination holding Study Conferences on the Atonement (Penal Substitutionary Atonement) where some want us to make declarative statements and we have more Study Conferences pending, one wonders where the battle-lines will be drawn. Or if we can openly discuss issues such as this thread on internet forums without risking professional repercussions (warning rough waters ahead).
Thank you, Larry for that insight into the context.
When I was in ministry there was similar danger, just the issues differed. It was quite uncomfortable. Survival with integrity is so hard to achieve.
It is easier at a university.
Ken,
and way easier working in corrections (with criminals) 🙂
I agree with your challenge of the truism that we all have a “canon within a canon,” Ken. Like any truism there is a truth in in- but it is similar to the statement “we are all racist”. The Scriptures themselves challenge this natural tendency to cherry pick our favourite pieces. The gift of the diversity of Biblically based theologies is that they confront our natural prejudices.
Dare I speak among you theologians, who make an occupation of studying the Bible, examining every detail, seeking to understand and make it relevant? If I have any thing of value to offer, it is by His grace and the teaching of His Holy Spirit. I have spent years reading and meditating on His Word.
My approach is that He has given the Scriptures to reveal His heart and His purpose to us. To me, the heart and desire of God the Father stands out so clear they move me toward Him, as I see He is continually seeking me. I can leave all the “difficult” issues with Him. I don’t have to convince anyone of this or that meaning. I can know Him because, in Christ, He has made provision for me to be reconciled to Himself. I have heard His question in Gen. 3, “Where are you, Adam?” I have meditated on the words of Christ in Rev. 3, “If any man will hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and sup with him and he with me.” I have heard the cry of God’s heart from Genesis to Revelation, desiring to live among His people and fellowship with them. I want to be as Mary, sitting at His feet, loving and being loved and knowing that He can reveal to me anything I need to know.
“Where is the house you will build for me? and where is the place of My rest……To this man I will look…to him that is of a contrite heart and trembles at my word.” May I…we all…be that man.
Your approach is a good one, Phil, and I thank you for sharing it. I guess my position has always been that reading the Scriptures “to reveal His heart and His purpose to us” is not incompatible with honestly wrestling with the difficult questions it provokes.
“At best, there are things that are unclear and not easily harmonized from Genesis to Revelation. At worst, there are things that seem to be downright contradictory. That’s why I have doubts. That’s why theology can be so controversial.”
I suspect that if a number of evangelicals read this, they’d be disappointed. And instead of voicing their disappointment at God (or is it to God?) like David and maybe Job (although, those passages may be up for interpretation as well), they direct it at fellow believers who use the bible differently.
Is there room to beneficially criticize God here? Is there room to challenge his relational/communicative skills?
Why is “special” revelation so old and limited in scope? Why hasn’t God picked up the supernatural phone (bear with me) since then?
*Just some thoughts from a former evangelical who is still struggling through what he is currently unable to believe 🙂
Hi Jerry
Try this quote as a response- “Like all true believers [Pascal] was deeply skeptical . . . It is believers who can be deeply skeptical”- Malcolm Muggeridge in his tribute to Blaise Pascal. [The End of Christendom]
That fact that millions of evangelicals [or Catholics or liberals or atheists or . . .] believe or say this or that doesn’t make any difference. What matters is what is.
In my opinion [and Malcolm Muggeridge’s and Pascal’s] skepticism is a gift from God. If that’s the case- run with it. If the Scriptures are what they claim to be they need no defence- just honest, and of course, skeptical examination. That, of course, is not as simple as it could sound.
Sure, I don’t see why not. I’m not sure how much it accomplishes, though. I’ve often wished that the Bible were a different sort of book than it is, or that God had made certain things clearer, but it doesn’t change a whole lot.
Well, I suppose the best person to answer that question would be God. However interesting the question might be, whatever answer I come up with would be pure speculation, nothing more. Perhaps God figures he has given us enough to work with, and trusts us to live out the implications of what he has done according to the general trajectory of Scripture. Perhaps God thinks more highly of us than we think of ourselves :).
I think many Christians hold that God still speaks. In the Roman Catholic tradition, God speaks through the teaching authority of the Pope. Protestants often say that God speaks today through the scriptures, not just that the words on the page are God’s words, but that through reading them God speaks now. An example, that is the way some people explain lectio divina. Even in a liberal church, where there is often scant belief in miracles, before or after reading the Bible in worship one hears pastors say, “May God speak to our hearts through these words.” The PCUSA says that God speaks through the actions of its governing bodies, that their actions express his will.
My understanding from Wikipedia is that “special revelation” is a term used in evangelical theology.
From what I hear about what is happening in evangelicalism today it sounds like many who are part of it are going through a serious theological crisis. It seems similar to what happened in the Victorian era. It reminds me of people trying to keep a sinking ship afloat: lets throw this or that old theological belief overboard and maybe the ship will still make it to port or maybe we can find a way to fix it before it sinks to the bottom. (The ship is their faith.) Rob Bell appears to be an example.
Whether the old theological beliefs are buoyant, or serve as steadying ballast, discarding them does not save the ship.
If I remember my theology lessons correctly “Special Revelation” is directed at a specific audience. “General Revelation”, like nature itself is generic, far more interpretive or ambiguous as to what exactly is being communicated.
I get the impression, for evangelicals, the bible is to be understood as the highest form of an articulation of God’s will. Even among other forms like reason, experience, and tradition, the bible is first and last.
The bible is canon. People may change their minds about what they thought was God’s voice, heard from within their reasoning, experience/actions, or traditions, but they don’t change their minds about the bible. Pieces of the bible don’t get chucked out of the canon because, upon further reflection, it doesn’t seem like it was God’s voice speaking after all.
Ken, when you say that “many Christians hold that God still speaks”, is this better understood as a hope or a fact? As far as the 2,000 yr.old canon is concerned, I think evangelicals would say it is a fact that God spoke through it. But present-day speaking from God seems to be more of a hope, a hope that what they thought was God’s voice will always be thought of as God’s voice.
Jerry,
Re: ” is this better understood as a hope or a fact?”
When a mystic says that God spoke I think the mystic is saying that a communication from God has occurred in a factual sense, as in a dream or vision. When the PCUSA says that God speaks through the actions of its governing bodies, I think it is a claim that the collective conscience of the the people matters to the people and is a way of affirming a reformed theological emphasis on the sovereignty of God. They are in these senses making factual claims, but the claim is quite different from that of a mystic. An emphasis on social justice is common in the PCUSA, especially among its clergy. When such clergy say God has spoken I think it mostly means that we should do something because it is moral within their particular social justice paradigm. This too is a factual claim.
So, I guess I would answer your question saying that when people today say that God speaks they seem to be making a factual claim, even if they use the words “God” and “speak” symbolically.
I have noticed that when I hear a person say “I believe in God” that this expression, and the word “God,” can mean many things. It is wrapped up in beliefs in facts, hope, morality and fears. Similarly, when someone says, “God spoke,” the meaning varies.
But if you are asking whether I believe God really speaks in a factual sense, I guess my best answer is yes.
The PCUSA seminary professors argued that the Bible was written and compiled for political reasons and that it is essentially a work of fiction – not fact. David Noel Freedman, a Hebrew Bible professor at University of California, argued that there is evidence that the writers and compilers really believed God spoke through the prophets. He said that is what it still comes down to today, “Do we believe God spoke through the prophets.” I would say, “I do.” And I say that mostly as a mystic says, “God spoke.”
And what is the possibility of mystics and others recanting what they thought was the voice of God (apart from God speaking through the biblical writers)?
Recant? I don’t know.
Are we talking about recanting under torture, like in the old days?
I have read that the good and moral pagans of the first century thought Christians held their nocturnal meetings to engage in incest and cannibalism. It was particularly appalling to the pagan leaders when Christians would not recant. It was just not considered decent to refuse to recant.
The imagined indecencies of Christians today are different among today’s critics of Christians than among first century pagans. But they share an essentially moral repulsion at Christian beliefs and ways.
Recanting upon further reflection.
I don’t know. Torture is probably more effective.
lol
It probably isn’t true, though. Famously Tertullian said, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” He lived in the days the great persecutions.
Every day 1000s of alcoholics recant and fall off the wagon. That’s a recanting we all understand only too well.
Tertullian was such a card.
Hi Jerry,
Long time no battle.” To arms! To arms!!” … Let’s not and say we did. 🙂 Let us, in our dotage, (me before you…insert sigh here) regale our children with vivid stories of how we, as mortal enemies locked in a titantic struggle with cosmically eternal implications, each scored a decisive victory over the other, making the future safe for whatever it was we were arguing about in the first place.
Now in my 50’s I am able to grasp the wry logic of such a proposition. I’m sure by the time I’m 80 it will be an irrefutable truth. 🙂
With regard to God picking up the supernatural phone…Sometimes I think we have a misplaced understanding of how God interacts with us. The bible, as history, did not present itself to humanity as we experience it today. It was not a complete written account with crossed referenced notes and detailed exegetical analysis. For the most part it seems to be made up of humble oral accounts passed on through generations by people who said…well might have said had the technology been present to them :)… they answered the incessant “ring” of God’s “supernatural telephone”.
Truly, Jerry, as much as I think I know something about the truth, I heard that “ring” and picked up that “phone”. For me then the struggle is currently about something I can no longer not believe.
Grace and peace to you always.
In light of the level and length of response to your last two posts, its time for another blog on the hockey jerseys of defunct hockey teams.
Duly noted, Shawn :).
…”This is the critique that reinforced the idea among some that liberal theology is better than evangelical theology and that led fundamentalists and evangelicals to assert that the Bible is inerrant. Fundamentalism was born in reaction to this critique. It reinforced the movement among the most educated into atheism.”…This passage resonates with me as well, Ken. From the outside looking in I am at times bewildered by a seemingly internecine conflict amongst, what might broadly be described as, liberal and evangelical Protestant communities.
Perhaps establishing doctrine together, something creedal, affirming common understanding and belief as a departure point from which disagreements are then expressed, could lead to something constructive, something that “builds up the body” rather than tearing down.
Whatever our denominational affiliation, outcomes as you describe, if true, are a sad reality for the “one body of Christ”.
Paul,
Re: “Perhaps establishing doctrine together, something creedal, affirming common understanding and belief as a departure point from which disagreements are then expressed, could lead to something constructive, something that “builds up the body” rather than tearing down.”
The PCUSA tried to do this, and its latest confession represents the results. Although the two sides agreed on words, virtually none of the words has the same meaning to each, and so the so battle continues. The two sides hate each other and despise each other’s beliefs. Of course, I should also mention, that most of the liberals in the PCUSA now are former evangelicals. The mutual hatred of their kin is greater than the difference between liberal and evangelical theologies could ever warrant. I am not even convinced these former evangelicals are solid liberals theologically. It is more like they are just evangelicals fighting over certain points with their kin, even while their pieties are largely the same. I have never been evangelical, so while liberal in theology, I don’t have bitter feelings for evangelicals. Most life-long liberals like myself are not much involved in the church anymore.
Sorry to hear that assessment, Ken. Perhaps another generation not so emotionally attached to the disputes will have to find voice.
With regard to your statement about most life long liberals like yourself leaving church culture, do you think this is mostly because of being “shouted down” by evangelical interests, or because of modern liberalism’s tendencies towards skepticism, relativism and pluralism?
Is modern liberalism inherently irreligious?
Re: do you think this is mostly because of being “shouted down” by evangelical interests
No. Within liberal Protestantism, the liberals won.
Re: or because of modern liberalism’s tendencies towards skepticism, relativism and pluralism
To some extent. Maybe it is just that we have lost contact with the sacred realm, or that we have found other ways to connect with it.
I will admit, I get a little bit frustrated with the “christian universalism” hoopla around this book as well. I can see where the highlighted post is coming from, interpreting scripture takes effort. There are a lot of different views out there. But to my surprise, I find myself agreeing with Ken. I don’t think you need to necessarily level “seemingly” contradictory verses into a harmonized systematic theology like Calvinism or Arminianism.
And so, my frustration equally comes from the view that seems to be apathetic. “The Bible seems to teach this, and it also seems to teach that. And everyone has to deal with it differently” Well, yes and no. Every time it seemingly teaches something, it actually does teach something. True, people will come at it from different angles, it’s inescapable. But in all the uncertainty, I think people forget that we are dealing with the teachings of Jesus, and might be in danger of regarding the Bible merely as a vague book containing some teachings about Jesus. I do understand issues need to be hashed out. Even with the perspicuity of scripture, it still requires time to let things sink in and form us. Jesus’ disciples, after all, were directly immersed in his teaching for three years. Yet, I don’t find the scriptures commending diversity in doctrines; they are labeled as squabbles and obstacles to unity and sound instruction. If it was important to Jesus, it should be important to us.
Just to be clear, however, I am for open discussion and conversation, which help in mutual understanding, and the shaping of unity. If I have said anything to shut that out, I apologize. But in general, I am not really that surprised with how things are going around this topic in the blogosphere. Because, it is an issue that is important. (If the cat isn’t out of the bag yet for some of you, Bell doesn’t deny hell, but the eternal nature of it.. according to the *unedited* copies of the book) So, I think it is a big issue worth standing for, but also equally worth talking about.
I agree with you too, EDH, and on more, no doubt, than this.
Just to be clear, I do not think—and hope I have never communicated that I think—that the Bible is “merely a vague book containing some teachings about Jesus.” I wholeheartedly affirm that the Bible is God’s word to and for us. This is not to say that I think that Scripture answers every question that might occur to us in the way that we might prefer it to be answered. I think that Scripture is clear where it intends to be clear.
Re: Rob Bell, the more I observe the fireworks around the internet about a promotional video and what a book may or may not say, the more I think that some marketer(s) somewhere may just have earned themselves a big fat raise :).
Re: Rob Bell, the more I observe the fireworks around the internet about a promotional video and what a book may or may not say, the more I think that some marketer(s) somewhere may just have earned themselves a big fat raise .
LOL..Ain’t that the truth!!
Seriously, Harper Collins may be seeking a younger man to replace Shelby Spong and Marcus Borg, two of their authors who have so successfully appealed to similar sentiments in older generations. Rob Bell just might be their man.
You always spark me with thoughts, Ken. 🙂 I too would have once described myself as Liberal, albeit in a RC context. So much so that I eventually left the church. To this day, though I have returned to my faith for more than a decade now, when I consider this past context, I’m still not sure if my embrace of liberal precepts encouraged my leaving the church or the desire to leave the church encouraged my embrace of liberal precepts. A bit of both is the best answer I can give.
Liberal protestantism, at least as I identify it here in Canada, seems to be most consistently expressed by the United Church and also within the Anglican Church though there is a significant traditional expression within that community as well. The Anglicans, seem, like we Roman Catholics looking to reconcile conflicting cultures from within. Unlike The RC though I get the sense that they don’t have the same authoritarian mechanisms in place to deal with the potential schisms.
My experience with the United Church, based only on a limited participation within one congregation, ended rather abruptly. I found the people I was congregating with, (forgive me but the experience wasn’t like anything I could describe as something other than a very tepid and insecure form of worship) were mostly social activists, more influenced by 60’s notions of individual and/or minority rights, than something holy or sacred.
I have since abandoned liberalism as such, though some of it’s remnants still resonate with me. Particularly with regard to notions of social justice. In the end though I came to believe that I could aspire to be and perhaps even become a perfect liberal and never give Jesus Christ a second thought.
I had to go.
“Liberal” has many meanings. When I use it to describe myself I am referring to liberal theology, like that of Tillich, or Chardin, or Schleiermacher, or to the broad historical meaning of the word related to the enlightenment.
I agree with your critique of the generally crude expression of liberalism, theologically and politically, in the liberal protestant churches.
Great readd thanks