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It seems that my friends in the Pentecostal academic world have come up with another interesting link, this time to Jaques Berlinerbau’s An Afternoon With the Society for Pentecostal Studies.  It’s an opportunity for me to opine on a subject that has lurked in the background ever since my brother’s unfavourite Episcopal minister taught me Theology I  in prep school: the whole business of modern and (now) post-modern Biblical studies.

Berlinerbau put his photo on a large number of dartboards five years ago with his article “What’s Wrong with the Society of Biblical Literature?”  But he’s back to review the Pentecostal contingent of this organisation.  There’s one comment that really struck me as rather strange:

Still, none of that astonished me as much as the way that the presenters reasoned through their subject matter. Their stated remarks were devoid of nearly any reference to biblical scholarship. The speakers each built their arguments almost exclusively by citing scriptural passages in an effort to figure out what the Bible was trying to say.

This is highly unusual—the typical exegete’s research leans heavily on the findings of modern biblical scholarship and those findings are prominently integrated into the substance of the analysis.

Making this more unusual was the fact that all of the presenters had considerable training as biblical scholars. All had professional familiarity with ancient Greek and probably biblical Hebrew. A glance at their footnotes (two of the presenters handed out copies) indicates that they were, in fact, acquainted with secondary scholarly literature, especially biblical commentaries.

But that secondary literature was relegated to the backmatter. It could not, for some reason, intrude upon the presenter’s interpretation of scriptural verses. These verses were assumed to link together into a larger pattern of meaning; a meaning which constituted the truth of the Scripture and the labor of the scholar.

While grateful that a non-Pentecostal would break down and admit that we can, indeed, read, write, and complete a sentence (which is more than some other Christians can bring themselves to do) I think it strange that he would unfavourably comment on those who, rather than contenting themselves on what others said about the Bible, would actually want to find out what it said for themselves.   For all his criticisms of the SBL, in a way he’s stumbled onto the reason why the SBL–to say nothing about much contemporary Biblical scholarship–is so irrelevant both to society in general and Christians in particular.

The basic problem we have is that the Bible that is the subject of most academic Biblical criticism and the Bible as understood by Christianity’s supporters on the one hand and its detractors on the other are two entirely different books.  Academic Biblical scholarship has undermined its own reason for existence through a number of processes that have gone on for a long time, the most significant of which is source criticism.  By undermining the veracity and integrity of the Bible’s sources, they have reduced the relevance of its content.  In some ways an atheist who takes the written word at face value and attacks it has a higher value of the truth content of the Scriptures than many academic Biblical scholars do.  In the past liberal churchmen and women have relied on this approach to the content of the Bible as a foil to literal fundamentalism, but we’ve seen in recent years a switch in strategy to a more post-modern approach of “let’s admit it says X for sure but then interpret it to mean Y.”

Beyond that academic Biblical scholarship is excessively riveted to the idea that the Bible spoke first and last to its own time–that is, when they could agree what that time was (and the dating issue is always a fun one in Biblical scholarship.)  They overlook the fact that, if the Bible is only a historical book, it’s probably not worth the study put into it.  Most academic Biblical scholarship doesn’t really tell people what they need to know about the Scriptures to apply it to their current existence.  That problem is made worse by frequently weak approaches to the surrounding disciplines such as history, sociology and economics.  (An exception to that is here.)

Pentecostals understand better than just about anybody in Christianity that the Church isn’t worth much without the living presence of the Spirit, and a part of that is a Biblical exegesis that is alive.  Implicit in that idea are two things.  First, much of the academic work done on the Bible is simply in the way of its understanding, irrespective of what level of life you’re working from.  Second, although Pentecostals are usually characterised as literalists, in many ways the exegesis I hear from many Pentecostal pulpits has what used to be referred to in polite company as the sensus plenior: the Patristic idea that the inspiration of the Scriptures and the nature of the text requires an interpretation that goes beyond the immediate.  For all of their differences, academic scholars and fundamentalists agree on one principle: the only sense of the Scriptures is the one that can be narrowly drawn from the written text, even though their concept of the reliability of that text is different.  To a large extent academic Biblical scholarship has laboured to expunge the sensus plenior, and to bring it back requires the ejection of a lot of baggage.

Under these circumstances, the whole business of Biblical studies as an academic discipline is redefined, and it’s no wonder Pentecostals take a different approach to their work.

Finally I find any idea that secondary material–even if it consists of primary academic work product–should take some kind of priority in discourse is counter-intuitive.  It recalls the warning that Moses Maimonides gave to Muslim and Christian scholars many years ago:

…when they laid down their propositions, (they) did not investigate the real properties of things; first of all they considered what must be the properties of the things which should yield proof for or against a certain creed; and when this was found they asserted that the thing must be endowed with those properties; then they employed the same assertion as a proof for the identical arguments which had led to the assertion, and by which they either supported or refuted a certain opinion…Therefore when philosophers of a subsequent date studied the same writings they did not perceive the true character of the arguments; on the contrary, they found in the ancient works strong proofs and valuable support for the acceptance or rejection of certain opinions, and thus thought that, so far as religious principles were concerned, there was no necessity whatever to prove or refute any of their propositions…

On my website vulcanhammer.net, I have at the masthead the rather pretentious “…a bulwark against the creep of ignorance in geotechnical and marine engineering.”  That was based on a statement by a civil engineering professor at West Point, who lamented that “In this modern information age, it is hard to believe that important knowledge could simply vanish through disuse, but the sad fact is that it happens.”  Even in really scientific disciplines, it’s easy for important things to get lost in the layering of academic work.  Perhaps this is yet another way in which the “breath of the Spirit” can move in the church–that is, if we can avoid getting bogged down in others’ bad habits along the way.

George Conger documents the growing split in the Southern Baptist Convention over the adoption of Calvinism:

The question of Calvinism is one of the major challenges facing American Christianity today, a leader of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) said last month.

In an 18 October 2011 interview posted on the website of SBC Today, the Rev Frank Page, the chief executive of the SBC executive committee said “one of the issues which is a tremendous challenge for us is the theological divide of Calvinism and non-Calvinism.

“Everyone is aware of this, but few want to talk about this in public,” said Dr Page, who served from 2006-2008 as president of the SBC – America’s largest Protestant denomination and second largest religious group after the Roman Catholic Church.

Looking at this theologically, the issue isn’t whether Southern Baptists want to be Calvinists at all but whether they want to be Calvinists in full.

From a practical side, there are two parts of Calvinism: election and perseverance.  True Calvinists have always taught that both are irrevocable and immutable acts of God in the life of every believer.  Southern Baptists, however, have traditionally rejected Calvinistic election but have embraced Calvinistic perseverance, as any Methodist or Pentecostal will attest.  Where the debate is centred these days is on whether to adopt Calvinistic election, which would radically alter the dynamic of Baptist evangelism and outreach.  Thus, the “one way Calvinists” are now being challenged within their own ranks to go all the way with the system.

As Conger’s article points out, new seminarians are more likely to embrace complete Calvinism (“TULIP”).  This is because Calvinism is generally the most intellectually respectable position in Protestant seminaries, and is getting into churches far more Arminian than Baptist ones.  This respectability is only a sign of the weakness of the current state of Protestant theology.

Baptists are right to want to eliminate their current theological incongruity of election and perseverance, but Calvinism is the wrong way to do it.

I have to confess that Brian McLaren’s piece Seminary Is Not the Problem — the Church Is is one of the most curious pieces I have ever read.  It’s not often that an academic (?) so baldly proclaims that the “real world” is so deficient that it should be remoulded to follow the academic one but that’s exactly what he’s doing.

My own career spans both the commercial and ecclesiastical worlds, and some (current) academic experience to boot.  It’s hard to know where to start to respond to such a thesis, but let me start here: if I were to get up and proclaim to my peers that the civil engineering practice and its practitioners were so hopelessly philistine that the entire profession should be overturned to be more like engineering schools, I would be laughed out of the room.

In my profession, the whole point of education is to prepare men and women for an effective career designing and bringing to reality things that ultimately are safe and useful to the public.  Academia is an important anchor in the scheme of things but ultimately it’s the work product of those who come out of our institutions of learning that defines our profession to the public and ourselves.  And that largely takes place outside of the halls of ivy (or kudzu in this part of the country.)  Academia’s role is best when it serves the world around it, which is the best form of leadership.  (I wonder where the idea of leading by serving comes from…)

There are always those who do best in an academic environment.  But to say that the church world is so dull that it needs to be more like seminary (and anyone who’s been around academia of any kind knows that we carry our sinful nature there, too) has put the cart before the horse.

Taking McLaren’s sweeping generalisations for what they’re worth, there’s one statement that has a ring of truth:

It may sound harsh for me to say, but I think it is unethical to send gifted, idealistic, and high-potential young leaders into intractable, dysfunctional congregations that will grind them up, disillusion them, and damage them for life.

Most churches are unsuited for the ministers that our seminaries produce.  But he needs to be careful in making that proclamation: if Evangelical Christianity had a stronger system of lay discipleship, many of our ministers would be redundant.  If that ever happened, our seminaries would be in serious trouble, because it would fundamentally challenge the whole ministry paradigm that is their raison d’être.

McLaren’s solution would get rid of church as we largely know it.  He needs to be careful: he many end up getting rid of seminary as we know it too, if some of us get to take things to their logical conclusion.

HT to Regent University’s Kim Alexander for putting me on to this.

As the leaves start to fall on campuses here in Tennessee, we are treated to the ongoing spectacle of Vanderbilt University using its nondiscrimination policy to progressively ban Christian student organisations from campus.  There are so many logical nonsequiturs to this move that it’s hard to know where to start: will they extend this to Muslim groups?  Is anyone forced to join these organisations?  How can they say with a straight face they’re welcoming to all of their students while they are banning groups?

I have no desire to divine the mind of Vanderbilt’s administration.  What I would like to do is pose a more immediate question to my Christian readers: what are we going to do about it?  The usual first reaction is to sue.  The results of previous lawsuits have not been encouraging.  Given the style of mind prevalent in our upper reaches, this is unsurprising.  To take this in another direction, I’d like to start by turning to the religion that always seems to get a pass these days: Islam.

Let me begin by going back to a 2005 post (which also deserves to be reread in view of the current situation in Iraq and the Gulf):

One of the most interesting people I have ever known was a fellow graduate student (mid 1990’s) from the Sudan. A warm and open person, we were able to spend a lot of time discussing Christianity, Islam and many other subjects.

One of the first thing I found out about him was that he was a Sunni imam. He had been elected same by some of his fellow students while studying engineering at the University of Khartoum, leading their studies of the Qur’an.

I still find this fact amazing.  A group of students elected one of their own to be their religious leader, and we as Christians spend so much time trying to figure out how to compensate our ministers and set up all of these fancy ministries to reach out to people.  As I pointed out, that informality of organisation–a hallmark of Sunni and Sufi Islam–was and is one of the roots of groups such as al-Qaeda.  Nobody (other than them) likes the result, but we need to appreciate the fact that there is a result.

Evangelicals pride themselves in having jettisoned so much “churchianity” such as the priesthood and the liturgy, and yet are still mired in a compensated ministry paradigm that both robs the laity of its God-given role and forces too much of the system to revolve around the compensation rather than the ministry.  American Evangelicals also are very dependent upon “official” recognition of one kind or another to operate in the manner they are accustomed to.

But the truth is that, when you have enemies in high places who think you’re an existential threat, your ability to operate in the open will be restricted whether you like it or not.  To some extent that drives the situation in Islamic countries.  People say that Islam is a political religion, and no one knows that better than Muslim leaders.  Saudi Arabia has as little (or less) use for al-Qaeda than we do, and they have the tough security apparatus to back it up.  To allow these groups to operate in the full open is potentially suicidal, as Hosni Mubarak found out the hard way.  When you can’t operate in the “official” open, you do it some other way.

In spite of legal successes, Christians in the U.S. need to understand that, as tolerance spreads to others, it will be cut off for us.  Part of our response needs to be to prepare ourselves organisationally to operate in a more informal–and under the radar–way, especially in institutions such as universities.  That involves training our people more thoroughly in the basics of the faith so that they can lead others in situations where our anointed/compensated (there’s a difference, but that’s for another post) leaders cannot get in and official recognition would only lead to trouble.  Universities always provide places for students to “hang out,” where official recognition isn’t necessary.

In other words, we need “Christian imams” such as I described earlier, and I don’t mean Chrislam either.

It’s true that operating in this way won’t show up on your resumé on earth.  But it will in heaven.  May show up on someone else’s, too, and that’s the whole point.