Unity and Bible Study

That’s a very broad title, but I do want to look at the connection. One of the places where we, as Christians, find the most disagreement is in our study of the Bible. In my view, there’s a good reason for this. The Bible is a complex book. Yes, one can find common themes, but there are also many topics on which we can disagree legitimately. While I object to any claim that the Bible doesn’t have inherent meaning—I always say that at least we know it’s not talking about the pink elephant—I still recognize that serious students can come to different conclusions. I find the demeaning way that we refer to scholars who are far from us on the theological spectrum quite unhelpful. Is it not enough to say “I disagree,” or “I disagree strongly”?

This relates closely to views of attaining Christian unity. Let me highlight two opposed approaches. First, we have the idea that somehow we must eliminate the differences in Bible study. For Catholics, this generally leads to a reference to the magisterium of the church. Protestants often look with some longing at such an authority, an authority that might bring some sense out of the chaos of protestant views of scripture. So you know my prejudices, let me state bluntly that, irrespective of what set of doctrines and interpretations such a magisterium imposed, I would not be a member of the resulting church.

The second approach is to say that we can have unity of purpose and action in a chaos of individual ideas and spiritualities. The application of this can be quite variable. Do we look to a small list of teachings which are sacrosanct while allowing freedom on all others? Do we allow for just any position at all? Or do we perhaps unite on practice?

I believe that the difficulty we have with Christian unity is our own hostility to what is different. I recall meeting with members of a church about a particular service of which they disapproved. It turned out that not only did they not attend that service, but that no matter what was changed, they would not begin to attend it. I had to tell them that I could hardly present to the pastor the idea that a service should be altered in form so that nobody would attend! They were hostile to spirituality and forms of worship that someone else was doing when they weren’t even present.

I’m actually quite a doctrine driven person. I don’t know which actually came first, the doctrine or the practice (though I suspect in my life it was practice), but when I think about things now I start from doctrine and move to practice. That’s just the way my mind works. So the doctrinal standards of a church congregation are important to me. I don’t join a church that strongly proclaims doctrine that I cannot support. I was considering joining a church once before I discovered their approach to politics. In fact, the problem was that I discovered that, contrary to any statement they might make, they had a congregational approach to politics. So I went elsewhere.

In protestant churches, and particularly among charismatics in my experience, there is a desire to fight the doctrinal chaos with a sort of mini-magisterium. This results in a “don’t go against the pastor” or “don’t touch the Lord’s anointed” attitude. The pastor is the one who makes the determination. I object to this as strongly as I do to larger versions of the magisterium. Protestantism by its very nature (and I’m an unrepentant protestant) is a break from submitting one’s conscience to that sort of authority.

I would suggest that what we need in Christianity is not a unity of conformity, but rather a unity of attitude and spirit. We claim to follow one master. Let’s allow others to follow him, rather than trying to make them follow us. Let’s approach this with the greatest measure of grace for others. If we need to meet in separate buildings, no problem. Let’s do what is best for loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves. But let’s do it without hostility. Perhaps we could manage to resolve our differences in worship practice by meeting in separate times of worship in the same building. There are many ways to work together.

What set this off this morning? Well, Dave Black posted about not needing teachers and the Holy Spirit as teacher. I reposted it to The Jesus Paradigm so we’d have a permanent link. I agree with what Dave says. He honors scholars, pastors, and teachers, while at the same time acknowledging that the Spirit of Truth is available to us all.

I don’t want to make this a commercial. Hmmm. Yes I do! Here are some books I publish that relate to this topic: I’m Right and You’re Wrong: Why we disagree about the Bible and what to do about it, When People Speak for God, The Jesus Paradigm, Seven Marks of a New Testament Church, From Inspiration to Understanding: Reading the Bible Seriously and Faithfully.