THREE WAYS TO READ THE BIBLE
The three books reviewed here are excellent examples of how one
branch of the Christian church reads its sacred book – the Bible – and may be
ignorant of other ways of approaching the Scriptures.
The Evangelical/Holiness method is practised during one’s daily
‘Quiet Time’ (in what Catholics have traditionally termed the ‘oratory’) where
one asks ‘What is the word of the Lord here for me today?’ The great
Evangelical missionary Hudson Taylor
The ‘Signs and Wonders’ approach asks ‘How can a Word from the
Lord bring deliverance/ healing/insight to this ministry situation here/now?’
In the Academy/Seminary one of the key questions about the
biblical material has to do with ‘provenance’ (a term the other two groups
never use). They ask: how did the Bible get to be like it is?
So:
1. Oratory (locus: my life as an obedient servant of Christ: a
good NT example might be the author of the Epistle of James);
2. Ministry (within the Body of Christ and elsewhere – eg. Agabus
and the itinerant prophets, Acts 11:27ff.);
3. Academy/Seminary (focusses on the mind – eg. Apollos?).
Each has its own culture/language/cliches/ideas.
There is hardly any overlap between these approaches in many/most
churches. For example, if Agabus rocked up to an Evangelical or
Progressive/Mainline church and announced he had a ‘word from the Lord’ for
that congregation today, they generally wouldn’t know what to do with him. If a
theological teacher asked the Evangelicals or Pentecostals about understanding
the Torah in terms of the Documentary Hypothesis, they’d respond ‘Please
explain!’.
(My own view, for what it’s worth, is that each of these broad
approaches has value, and in fact describes the church’s historical transition
from a first/second generation charismatic era, through a ‘routinization of
charisma’ phase – where creeds and laws replace fervour and ‘life’ – to the
mostly intellectual stance of the Academy, and the predictability of mainline
churches’ worship rituals).
(Of course there are other ways to read the Bible, one of the best
being the Lectio Divina approach).
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1. Australian Baptist pastor Rex Hayward’s Daily
Readings (2010) are pure ‘Evangelical’. There’s a Bible
reading for each day of the year, a page of questions, brief paragraphs with
challenging ideas for prayerful thought, and everywhere a call to holiness and
serious commitment. There are no quotes (that I could find) from
biblical scholars, but quite a few from hymns and sacred choruses. The readings
are mostly from the Gospels and epistles (we journey right through Mark
and James), with a few Old Testament prophets tossed in, and, I think only a
couple of Psalms, and nothing that I recall from the Torah. The flavour is
hortatory: and the target for Rex’s homilies is an ‘open heart and a teachable
spirit’. Good for anyone, of any theological persuasion, who is willing to
humbly submit to the Word of God in Scripture and be challenged to live a life
of obedience to the will of Christ. You can order it from Wycliffe Bible
Translators (Kangaroo Ground, Victoria
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2. Rachel Hickson’s Eat the Word Speak the Word:
Exercising a Bible-based prophetic ministry (Monarch Books, Oxford UK,
2010) ‘takes us on a journey that will train you to respect and handle the word
of God correctly, and then equip the prophetic gift within you’ (says the
author on the back cover). Rachel Hickson and her husband Gordon run a ministry
called Heartcry, training local churches ‘in the area of prayer and the
prophetic’. They serve also as associate ministers at the respected St.
Aldate’s Church Oxford
When one hears that phrase ‘the prophetic’ you can be
sure the flavour is Pentecostal – not ever, or hardly ever ‘liberationist’:
though, remarkably, there is actually one paragraph in this book about the
great biblical/ prophetic emphasis on social justice.
These chapters comprise the essence of Rachel’s teaching – which
she gives to churches and conferences around the world. She expects miracles,
and we have a couple of examples here which ‘blow your mind’: (1) In New York Malawi
Have any of my rationalist readers got a decent explanation for
these?
Two of her mentor/heroes are the great Pentecostal giants-of-faith
Smith Wigglesworth and Reinhard Bonnke: two people I’d encourage anyone to get
to know. (I remember being a fellow-speaker at an Australian charismatic
conference in Adelaide with Bonnke: and I’ve never witnessed, before or since.
an auditorium filling up from the front backwards as early and as quickly as in
Bonnke’s healing meetings!).
This is a balanced book, so Evangelicals and ‘Mainliners’
won’t be confronted with too much Pentecostal craziness (!). Sample:
‘Never accuse people of not having enough faith if they are not healed. We may
not understand why people are not always instantly healed, but it is OK to
admit we don’t know why’ (p. 183). I like that.
Highly recommended (with the couple of caveats mentioned earlier).
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Linda M. MacCammon, Liberating the Bible: A Guide for the
Curious and Perplexed (Orbis, 2008).
Professor MacCammon teaches theology and ethics to College
students, and these chapters read like her lecture notes (and at the outset I
want to record my envy of her students!).
Her first sentence in Chapter 1: ‘The Bible is a dangerous book.
It is without question one of the most misinterpreted, misunderstood and
misapplied books on the planet. Over the centuries, it has been used as a
rationale for economic and social exploitation, the oppression of women and
minorities, slavery, war and genocide. It has fostered anti-Semitism, misogyny,
racial animus, homophobia… and every sort of crackpot cult imaginable. Yet the
Bible has also been the driving force behind numerous social and political
reform movements…’
More… ‘There is often a mistaken assumption that Biblical
teachings can be extracted and applied directly to contemporary situations…
[People cite] biblical texts on questions of divorce, homosexuality, stem-cell
research, the status of women… the validity of other religions, and other
complex issues…’
The old adage that ‘a little knowledge is a dangerous thing’ comes
to mind. As does this quote from Terry Eagleton: ‘If it is true that we need a
degree of certainty to get by, it is also true that too much of the stuff can
be lethal!’
So with a professional theologian and ethicist we proceed with
humility and a teachable spirit! But don’t let me discourage you: she inhabits
‘simplicity the other side of complexity’. And her mentors are the best of the
best – people like Paul Ricoeur, John Bright, E P Sanders, Leander Keck – and the
evangelical F F Bruce.
And she applies the Bible to life. Like this: in the reflection
questions at the end of the chapter on Genesis (and a discussion of the story
of Cain and Abel) she asks us to ‘recall the last time you were really angry.
Write down how you felt. Why were you angry? What did you want?’ Etc.
Beautiful!
And this: How would each of the three Isaiahs assess some
contemporary issues, such as global warming, the war in Iraq, HIV and AIDS, the
growing gap between rich and poor…?’ (etc.)
(I hope I’m whetting the appetites of any reading this who’ve not
yet had the privilege of studying theology with a good teacher! You can’t do
better than to take a year or more off to do that – with no other
distractions).
Three Isaiahs? Yes, and the validity of the documentary hypothesis
for understanding the authorship and provenance of the Torah etc. Some stories
in Genesis belonging to ‘sociology’ rather than ‘history’? Yes, maybe. But our
good professor has a lively faith, and her purpose in raising these questions –
which are everyday puzzles for professional biblical scholars – is to help us
tread carefully through hermeneutical minefields, and come through on the other
side with an ‘examined’ faith. In her Questions for Discussion and Reflection
she guides us gently into some complex issues.
Like this one on p. 205: ‘Matthew’s anti-Judaism is not unique to
the New Testament. How do you think anti-Jewish passages should be treated by
contemporary interpreters? What does this phenomenon suggest about other
biblical biases, such as sexism, homophobia, and intolerance of other faiths?’
The last paragraph is a comment by the Hindu sage Ramakrishna on
the wisdom that our grasp of the Sacred is always partial and limited:
Mother, Mother, Mother! Everyone foolishly assumes that his clock
alone tells correct time. Christians claim to possess exclusive truth…
countless varieties of Hindus insist that their sect, no matter how small and
insignificant, expresses the ultimate position. Devout Muslims maintain that Koranic
revelation supersedes all others. The entire world is being driven insane by
the single phrase: “My religion alone is true.” O Mother, you have shown me
that no clock is entirely accurate. Only the transcendent sun of knowledge
remains on time. Who can make a system from Divine Mystery?
If it’s not too late, order this one as a Christmas gift and spend
a month dawdling through it on your annual holidays! It will open your eyes to
the wonders of a biblical faith.
Rowland Croucher
December 2010
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