What Exactly Does Biblical "Inspiration" and "Authority" Mean Anyway?

Recently someone commented on a friend’s blog about the need to hold on to a view that sees the Bible not just as central – but also both inerrant and infallible. This friend of mine responded by saying that, if we’re going to be consistent, then we need to refer to the Bible as the Bible refers to itself. In other words, does it make sense to claim for the Bible things it doesn’t claim for itself? And cleary, these terms (inerrancy and infalliblity) are nowhere to be found in the Bible itself.

This one person responded by suggesting that while this claim may not be made directly, it is certainly there implicitly. He wrote:

My response to this post was as follows:

When you raise the issue of “God-breathed” scripture, you’re leaning very heavily on one particular interpretation of that term/phrase. I think if you were to study what “inspiration” (being God-breathed) and “authority” meant to the early Christians, you’d realize it is a far-cry from how some fundamentalists/foundationalists read it now. In the life of the early Church, even letters that were not later included in the Canon were referred to with this same quality of "God-breathed" inspiration. Why? Because they were understood to be God-breathed in the sense that someone with the Holy Spirit (in other words, a Christian) had penned the letter. And the question of authority was all about whether or not a certain Church Council recognized the pragmatic usefullness of a particular work for the entire Church.

So which interpretation should we favor? It seems to me we should rely more heavily on the earlier interpretation. Otherwise we’re calling the Bible central but making it out to say whatever we wish it to. And that’s neither historically accurate nor intellectually honest.

Please remember that the early Christians never assumed that the human factor was squeezed out when God-breathed scripture was written. Both man and God are always present in the text.

Certainly scripture is “inspired” and “authoritative”, but not in the way that is assumed by foundationalists. When the issue of the “inspiration” and “authority” of the Bible is raised, often what should be an issue of nuance, is framed as a black and white question. But the situation is not simply a “you’re either for this, or against this” kind of thing. And to tackle the question honestly, we must begin - as with so many things - with context.

If we ignore context we risk turning the supposedly inspired and authoritative texts of scripture into the chameleon that ends up mirroring the cultural particularities of our own specific time and space. Ironically, its often Emergents who are accused of this tendency. I'd say that's a valid- but misplaced concern. It is the foundationalist who looks to turn the Bible into a text that agrees with his presupposition who is at fault.




Dobson Takes Aim on Obama - And Misses the Mark

Recent criticism of Barack Obama from conservative Christian commentator James Dobson sounds much like the rumblings of fading tyrant. That might sound harsh, but I do think Dobson has increased his rhetoric over time- not simply because he has seen the political landscape in America change – and not to his liking – but also because his influence over that landscape has diminished greatly.

My guess is that Dobson still believes he speaks for the vast majority of Evangelicals in America. This is despite recent research that suggests otherwise. When a recent poll suggests that 57% of Evangelicals do not see Jesus as the only way to God, it’s clear that these people are not likely listeners to Dobson’s Focus on the Family program. So take the remaining 43% of Evangelicals, what percentage of these Christians do you think really see Dobson as a voice who speaks for them? Maybe half that number? I’d say, probably even less.

Regarding Dobson’s recent critique of Obama’s biblical interpretation, I find it disingenuous. Obama stated, in a 2006 speech, that one cannot simply lock the Bible in as the rule book for a nation. Why not? Well, because within the broad population of people who see the Bible as either useful or fully authoritative, or somewhere in between, there is a great diversity of opinion regarding both interpretation- and subsequently, application.

Dobson claimed that Obama distorted traditional Christianity by muddying the waters with Old Testament passages; rules that Dobson says Christians are no longer under with the New Covenant. Okay, that’s a fair comment. But that’s not really the issue. Even if we clear out the Old Testament (no small task!), there still exists great diversity of opinion on New Testament matters, not to mention the fact that a majority of the New Testament actually either directly quotes, or refers to, Old Testament passages.

Generally, the only people who claim that the Bible is clear on these matters are the ones who have hashed out their own interpretive grid, and demand that everyone else adopt that same grid and the results it produces. And of course, when one surrounds oneself with people who all hold to that same interpretive framework, it can quickly become the “one way” to see things. But this is a distorted perspective; skewed by the sheer absence of contrarian voices. Unfortunately, this is what often passes for Christian community in many circles.




Runnin' On Revival Fumes: The Church Basement Road Show Rolls into Bend, Oregon

I was one of what looked to be a couple hundred people that packed themselves into an overheated old sanctuary building at 1st Presbyterian Church in Bend, Oregon last night, to partake of some church-basement-road-showin’. A good time was had by all at this rollin’ gospel revival.

By a miracle of nature the show featured six personalities, three of which: Brother Duke, Professor Hawthorne, and Preacher Withee, are (were?) revivalists from the turn of the century- the last century that is. The other three were their great-great-grandchildren, a.k.a. Doug Pagitt, Tony Jones, and Mark Scandrette, fellows associated with a missional movement that is gaining momentum some 100 years after their forefathers charted a somewhat different path. Each of the latter-day prophets were sharing thoughts from their books: A Christianity Worth Believing (Doug), the New Christians (Tony), and Soul Graffiti (Mark).

I spoke briefly with Professor Hawthorne, with his mandolin in hand, just before the show began. I asked him if the rumors were true, that he and the other two revivalists had come across a time machine. I suspected that the super-charged DeLorean (the car used by Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future) was the device in question. But the professor, sweating heavily (as if under pressure), denied it, claiming he had simply aged well under a great cloud of glory.

After some sweet hymn-singin’ from the older clan, their 21st century offspring each took a turn on stage, either to read from their books, or to shed light on the context that gave inspiration for their writing. Doug Pagitt shared his (quickly becoming classic) experience of the (speaking of time-travel!) 1980’s truth train, with its engine of fact, carriage of faith, and its functionally-pointless caboose of feelings/circumstances (I wrote about the truth-train illustration here). Tony talked about his experience with a conservative evangelical campus ministry from his time at Dartmouth, when he was cast off under accusations of having an unteachable spirit. And Mark shared thoughts on the compassion of Jesus and how it had led him and others to seek out community faith experiments in the here and now.

Good times… plenty of laughs… along with some heartfelt sharing on the point of the matter- that being the following of Jesus in the present tense, as opposed to the mere pontification of implications that fit snuggly together in a tightly woven, yet uninvolved systematic theology. Plato might not have been amused. But everyone else seemingly was.

*For those interested, I recently spoke to Tony about his book, here.


The Morning After Apocalyptic Events: Rethinking the Second Coming of Jesus

For quite some time now I’ve been thinking, praying, talking and writing about the implications that arise from a realization that much of what Jesus was getting at, predicting, and preparing his disciples for, were events that were about to take place in and around him in that particular setting. In other words, in that particular time and place.

There are numerous implications that arise from this understanding. And these implications not only expose the all-too-familiar Left Behind theology as missing the mark (and no, I’m not referring to three sixes on the forehead here!), but also raise questions about the way in which we tend to lift Jesus-sayings and doings off the biblical page, and apply them to our present context without even considering if they’re really relevant – in light of the difference in setting. And here I’m not just talking about cultural differences between 1st century Palestine and 21st century Western society, but also the fact that Jesus was there, at that time, for a very specific act in history- one that required words and actions that don’t necessarily make sense (at least not in the same way) outside of that context.

This historically-located understanding rescues the floating-three-inches-off-the-ground, universal-truth-teller Jesus and places him back in his cultural setting. In other words, it brings Jesus back to earth- in a way that is not only much more likely to be historical, but in a way that would have made sense to the early disciples and others in that setting.

N.T. Wright, of course, has written pretty extensively on this subject. And following in those footsteps, and breaking off in new directions at the same time, is Andrew Perriman. In his book the Coming of the Son of Man: New Testament Eschatology for an Emerging Church Andrew takes time to really draw our attention to the fullness of the implications that arise from the argument first postulated by Wright and others.

I’d highly recommend this book. I plan on writing a full review of it in the coming weeks. It’s not only well written, but its clear and concise, making its point in about 250 pages. And even more significantly, this book is important. The subject matter here is not merely acadmic, it is thoroughly relevant for helping us to rethink how we should serve as disciples of Jesus in the 21st century- here in the New Age, in a time when Jesus really has come as King.

Wait a second, come as King? Doesn’t that come later? Well, that’s partly what Perriman is getting at in this book- hence the title, the Coming of the Son of Man. Our traditional understandings of subjects such as the parousia (the second coming of Jesus) are really challenged by this historical reconstruction work that Wright and Perriman and others have done. Andrew writes:

A couple of final notes:

1.) What Perriman wants to argue here (and I think he’s right), is that any understanding of Jesus’ teaching and action must take into account how the earliest hearers of that message would have understood it. Perhaps there are times where the message might add up to, as Andrew puts it, “more than the sum of its parts”, but it is certainly not less than this. And certainly it’s not in contradiction of this. And when we contextualize some of the concepts Jesus drew people’s attention to, placing them squarely back in their first century context, we begin to see a very different picture emerging.

2.) What has often led people to assume that much of what Jesus was getting at was end-of-the-world stuff, was the very fact that the end of the world had not yet come. It seems like a logical enough conclusion. Except for the fact that it has come to light - in studies over the last several decades - that the apocalyptic genre was not about describing the end of the space-time universe as we know it, but rather about investing deep theological meaning in events that take place within our space-time universe. In other words, within our history.

And, interesting enough, we do the same. When we say things like “the earth-shattering events of 9/11” we’re not, of course, referring to the day that the planet literally broke into composite parts. We’re talking about events that were immensely impacting in an entirely different manner. Now take that understanding and apply it to much of what Jesus had to say the next time you read your Bible.

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