Engaging
the Bible in Mission Theology Scholarship:
Scriptural
Authority and the Formation of Christian Convictions
As the second Global Anglican Future
Conference (GAFCON II) gets underway in Nairobi this October, 2013, the issue
of Scriptural authority and the formation of Christian convictions lies at the
heart of what needs attention in the Anglican Church—as in various other
communions of faith in our day. This
post offers some thoughts on the issue that faces the Church in the West and
that requires decisive action in our day. The crises over Scriptural authority and the
formation of convictions that are truly Christian are central for the Church and
its mission as it considers its identity and witness in the world.
How
we form convictions, how we do theology, what we understand by 'revelation',
how we get at the meaning of a text--these rather weighty issues all come to
bear on the challenges the Church faces today, including its thinking about
sexuality. There is a way to sum up the
challenge to the Christian tradition on issues of sexuality with reference to
one of the oldest debates in philosophy: can one ever step into the same river
twice? If theology is a body of
doctrine, unambiguous and capable of being systematised, then it is a river
into which various people at various times in various circumstances might step
more than once. If revelation is from God to humanity, then it is something authoritative, and the first task
of interpretation is listening and the second task is obeying. If the meaning of a text can be ascertained,
if it is not illusive, if it comes from the intentions evident within the text
rather than from the reader, then the only courteous thing to do is to hear it
out rather than pretend like some naughty child that the obvious meaning is not
the only one, or that anything another says can be understood in some other way.
But
all this is what so many find so challenging today. Surely no river remains the same from moment
to moment as it is in constant flow. On such a
view, authoritative sources are only generative for a community’s discussion, theology
must be understood as dialectical and open-ended, revelation must involve the
input of readers, Scriptural authority is suggestive and tentative, and meaning is something to be created as texts float freely
from the authors' intentions, while readers bring new contexts and
interpretations to texts.
What
makes the discussion of sexuality so challenging within Western, mainline
denominations today is that it is not simply sexuality that is at issue but the
whole 'same river' - 'different river' debate of the ancient Greeks as it
pertains to our understanding of theology, our reception of revelation, and our
interpretation of Scripture. The very
basis for constructing theology and ethics is under attack. Of course, answers to this debate must take
account of the truth in both arguments: the Thames has never become the Severn,
but the water that flowed in it last year is no longer what flows in it today. Thus the contemporary challenge that some pose to Christian
tradition and Biblical authority is for us to get over our supposed ‘hang-ups’ with river banks—with static
authorities; everything is said to be in flux and is being reconstituted, like the ever-changing
river. The authority for Christian identity and the formation of convictions, on this view, falls to the contemporary communities of faith, who are empowered (by whom?) to deal with their 'foundational documents' and 'generative revelation' in the Bible however they now see fit.
In
step with this 'different river' argument, former Archbishop Rowan Williams
opposes a notion of divine revelation that is, as he puts it, a 'lifting of a veil'. He writes, 'The language
of veil-lifting assumes a kind of passivity on the part of the finite
consciousness which abstracts entirely from the issue of the newness of the
form of life which first prompts the question about revelation.'[1] He prefers to speak of revelation as generative in our experience, which he
describes as 'events or transactions in our language that break existing frames
of reference and initiate new possibilities of life ….'[2]
Robin
Gill's assessment of Church and society in the United Kingdom also defends diversity and process on moral issues
within the Church.[3] He approves Stephen Sykes' argument in The Identity of Christianity to say that
there will always be moral disagreement in the Church,[4]
as in Paul’s day, and this can play an important and positive function:
‘Christian identity is…not a state but a process; a process, moreover, which
entails the restlessness of a dialectic, impelled by criticism.'[5]
Paul
actually had a response to this. He
agreed that there will always be moral disagreement in the Church and that it
does play an important and positive function, but his reasoning was altogether
different. He wrote,
Indeed, there have to be factions among you, for only so will it become clear
who among you are genuine (1 Cor. 11.19).
Almost thirty years ago, George Stroup assessed the new development of 'narrative theology'
in terms of a crisis over the identity of Christian community facing the Church
at the time. This crisis, he argued,
takes shape in four symptoms in particular:[6]
…the curious status of the Bible in the
church’s life, the church’s loss of its theological tradition, the absence of
theological reflection at all levels of the church’s life, and the inability of
many Christians to make sense out of their personal identity by means of
Christian faith.
He
went on to say that the doctrine of revelation in the church was 'under
siege'. Stroup defines 'revelation' as
‘the unveiling or disclosure of a reality that is not accessible to human
discovery and which is of decisive significance for human destiny and
well-being.'[7] On this view, Rowan Williams' discussion of
revelation as not unveiling, as something that includes human initiation and experience,
would be an example of the crisis in the Church's doctrine of revelation of
which Stroup spoke sixteen years before Williams made his point.[8] Yet Stroup's own very Barthian understanding
of revelation emphasises the dynamic and community role of revelation, perhaps
just as much as Williams' argument. He
writes that
… in narrative theology … the authority of
Scripture must be interpreted in terms of its function in the life of the
Christian community and not in terms of some property intrinsic to it as
Scripture.[9] [He continues:] In narrative theology Scripture is
authoritative in these two ways. On the
one hand, it witnesses to events which are the basis of the church’s
proclamation …. There is no such thing
in narrative theology …as a bare fact or an uninterpreted fact…. Consequently the historical-critical
investigation of Scripture can never suffice as the only method for determining
the sense in which biblical narrative is true .… [Secondly, Scripture’s authority] is its role
in the life of the Christian community [i.e., its authority is functional].[10]
Today,
as in pre-Enlightenment times, there is more of an appreciation for the need to
acknowledge that readers' perspectives influence interpretation not simply at
the level of application of the text
but at the more fundamental level of understanding
of the text in the first place. This
point can be stated inadequately, as L. Gregory Jones and Stephen Fowl have
done by giving up any attempt to discover the meaning of a text of
Scripture. They simply advocate
identifying the readers' interpretive
interests:
Rather than pursue this illusory quest for
the meaning of a text, we recommend that we think in terms of 'interpretive
interests' … Once we acknowledge the plurality of interpretive interests, we
need not treat alternative interpretations as failed attempts to discover the
meaning of a text.[11]
Yet
one need not give up on the meaning of the text to agree that interpretive
interests are significant throughout the entire interpretation process. Gordon
Fee, whom one might describe as a champion of the importance of exegesis for
all theology, writes:[12]
…the aim of exegesis [is] to produce in our
lives and the lives of others true Spirituality, in which God's people live in
fellowship with the eternal and living God, and thus in keeping with God's own
purposes in the world. But in order to
do that effectively, true 'Spirituality' must precede exegesis as well as flow
from it.
By
focusing on the aim of the practice of exegesis, one introduces a
moral dimension to the understanding of interpretation. Whereas Fee speaks of this as 'Spirituality',
Kevin Vanhoozer explores this in terms of an ethic of reading.[13] Thus Fee and Vanhoozer respond to those
advocating the readers' role in determining the meaning of a text by saying
that there is some truth in this, and therefore it is important that the reader
of Scripture not read against but with what it claims and argues. Vanhoozer discusses this point in terms of speech-act
theory (the theory that words, when put together in acts of speech, carry
intentions by means of the kind of discourse used and the outcomes expected)
and the Trinity:
… as the Spirit proceeds from the Father
and the Son, so the literary act proceeds from the author, and so too does the
perlocution (persuading, convincing) proceed from the illocution (claiming,
asserting). A text, then, has a mission of meaning, that we may
provisionally define in terms of illocutionary success: the goal of a literary
act is to accomplish the purpose for which it was sent (Isa. 55.11). The Word of God in Scripture, similarly, has
a mission, and this in turn determines the mission of the Spirit.[14]
Thus,
Fee and Vanhoozer suggest that there is a right way to read Scripture. Readers need to read Scripture with the Spirit and the intentions
inherent in its acts of communication. As George Lindbeck has suggested, we
need to read for intentions. But to
escape the intentional fallacy (thinking that we can get back into the mind of
the author and discover his or her intentions) one must appeal to ‘speech acts
being performed by the locutions (the utterances or texts) that are being
interpreted.’[15] The interpreter does not try to get at the
author’s acts of intentions but the intentional acts in the Scriptures (which are usually clear
enough, especially when heard contextually through careful exegesis).
I
believe that there is a Christian
hermeneutic which goes beyond the discussion of interpreting any piece of
literature. There is a spiritual
dimension to interpretation, which is what Paul had in mind in Col. 3.16 (my
translation):
Let the Word of
Christ dwell in you richly when teaching and admonishing one another with all
wisdom, when making music with thankful hearts to God through psalms, hymns,
and spiritual songs.
The
source of wise teaching and admonition in the Church, and of Christian worship,
is the Word of Christ--Jesus' revelation in His person and work (as discussed
in Colossians). The fact that readers
make what they will of what they read is not an endorsement of multiple
readings but a call to 'read rightly.'
In a relativistic age, this may sound somewhere between impossible and
shockingly outdated, but for Paul, Christ brought wisdom to Christian teaching
and admonition and the appropriate disposition to worship (thankfulness). The dynamic element Rowan Williams seeks in a
doctrine of revelation is not located in a liberation of readers from the Biblical revelation but in the work of Christ and
the Spirit in the readers, interpreters, teachers, and worshipers.
In
Col. 3, sexual immorality is still sexual immorality; it is not redefined. Paul simply says,
Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity,
passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry) (Col. 3.5).
What
is new is the dynamic power of Christ working in believers such that they are
able to 'put to death'--through Christ's death--such sin. This dynamic power entails letting the ‘word
of Christ dwell in you richly;’ it is not a license for believers to form their
own convictions. A Christian hermeneutic is dynamic: it entails the life transforming
power of Christ indwelling the community of faith that is faithful to God’s
revealed and unchanging truth.
[1] Rowan Williams, 'Trinity and Revelation' in his On Christian Theology (Oxford:
Blackwell, 2000), p. 135.
[2] Rowan Williams, 'Trinity and Revelation', p. 134.
[3] Robin Gill, Churchgoing and Christian Ethics, New Studies in
Christian Ethics 15 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
[5]Stephen Sykes, p. 285, Gill’s citation on p. 235.
[6] George W. Stroup, The Promise of Narrative Theology (London:
SCM Press, 1984; 1st publ. John Knox Press, 1981), p. 24.
[8] George Stroup, The Promise of
Narrative Theology, pp. 42f.
[10] George Stroup, The Promise of
Narrative Theology, pp. 251f. The
idea that Scripture's authority is to be functionally
understood within the life of a community was the subject of David Kelsey's
The Uses of Scripture in Recent Theology
(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975).
[11] Stephen E. Fowl and L. Gregory Jones, Reading in Communion: Scripture and Ethics in Christian Life (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), pp. 15f.
[12] Gordon Fee, 'Exegesis and Spirituality: Completing the Circle,' in
his Listening to the Spirit in the Text
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), p. 6.
[13] Kevin Vanhoozer, Is There a
Meaning in This Text? The Bible, the
Reader and the Morality of Literary Knowledge (Leicester: Apollos, 1998), see especially
ch. 7, 'Reforming the Reader: Interpretive Virtue, Spirituality, and
Communicative Efficacy.'
[14] Kevin Vanhoozer, Is There a
Meaning in this Text?, p. 410.
[15] George A. Lindbeck, ‘Postcritical Canonical Interpretation: Three
Modes of Retrieval,’ in Theological
Exegesis: Essays in Honor of Brevard S. Childs, eds. Christopher Seitz and
Kathryn Green-McCreight (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999): 26-51; here p. 48.
No comments:
Post a Comment