Category: UMC

Reading the Bible with Christ as Our Lens

I’m regretting a near-omission in my last post. (It was quite long already.) I want to address that and then follow with a more detailed post about biblical interpretation.

In my previous post on Adam Hamilton’s method of reading the Bible, I focused on the interpretive rubric he proposes: love, mercy, and compassion. I relegated to a couple of brief footnotes any discussion of his appeal to Christ as interpretive lens. Because of the significant place that takes in Hamilton’s proposal, I should say more about this––both in praise and critique.

I write this in response to some specific statements by Hamilton, but my interest isn’t so much to criticize him.1 I think he represents a common approach to Scripture, one that’s convincing on the surface and well-intentioned but on closer inspection inadequate. What I’m looking to do here is to propose a better way of reading Scripture for all of us.

Christological Reading

After his appeal to love, mercy, and compassion, Hamilton says, “Most importantly as Christians, we are to read all of Scripture through the lens of Jesus Christ, his life, teachings, ministry, death, and resurrection. He is the only unmitigated Word of God.”

Reading all of Scripture through the lens of Jesus Christ—YES!

We believe that all of Scripture is directed to Christ, the Word of God. He is, as Robert Jenson says it, “God’s agenda in Scripture.”2 I love the way The Jesus Storybook Bible represents this: “Every story whispers his name.”

I didn’t give this much time in the previous article and instead jumped to a discussion of canonical reading. I did that because I believe Hamilton’s version of christological reading is insufficient and one-sided. It appears to give permission to dismiss certain biblical texts if they don’t align with one’s perception of Christ.

Look at this penetrating description from Jenson for a better way:

“[We must teach] with the ancient church, that when God revealed himself to old Israel’s lawgivers, prophets, and sages, it was ‘in the person’ of that same Christ that he was present to them. The indeed singular revelation in Christ includes his presence in the Old Testament: the Word that ‘was in the beginning’ and is incarnate as Jesus (John 1:1-14) is the very Word that ‘came to’ the prophets (e.g., Ezek. 1:3), is offered back to God in the Psalms, and moves Israel’s history (Isa. 55:11). If Christ interpreted the old Scripture ‘with authority,’ as if he were the author, it was because, in the final ontological analysis, that is what he is.

Robert W. Jenson, Canon and Creed, p. 22, emphasis mine.

The kind of christological reading Jenson describes is not one that uses Jesus to judge which portions of Scripture are divine revelation. Instead, it expects to find him in all of Scripture. He is the Word come to the prophets of the Old Testament and proclaimed by the apostles of the New Testament.

So the only proper christological reading of the Bible is a canonical reading. To understand who Christ is, we must consider all of Scripture. And to understand any Scripture, we must consider it in light of Christ, its author. Do you see how this is different from using Jesus to determine which portions of the Bible are divine revelation?

A simple example:

Jesus says, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”3 Later, Paul writes about a man in the church committing sexual immorality: “I have already passed judgment in the name of our Lord Jesus on the one who has been doing this.”4 If we don’t accept all of the Bible as divine revelation, we’re likely to dismiss Paul’s words as merely human. We might even scoff at Paul’s inadequate understanding of his Lord, who taught us not to judge.

If we read the Bible christologically and canonically, we’ll instead ask how the mind and will of God are expressed in both statements. That’s harder work than choosing one passage and dismissing another. And I don’t suggest that it will lead us all to the same conclusions. But it will lead us to better conclusions than assuming we can dismiss any portion of Scripture as less than divine revelation.

I write this to prevent any over-corrections or misunderstandings from my previous post, which nearly neglected christological reading. Christ and canon are both essential sources for biblical interpretation. But there are two more. I’ll discuss them in the next post: “Essential Sources for Biblical Interpretation: A new quadrilateral?”

  1. Adam is a quite prominent public theologian, at least in the UMC. Public debate and discourse are important and helpful and don’t have to reflect any animosity between the persons involved. I have no animosity toward Adam. I disagree with some of his ideas. I worry that our society has come to such a point of confusion about the difference between love and affirmation that we believe any criticism of someone’s position is an attack on that person. If you see anything here that reads as ad hominem and not critical engagement, I’d be happy to know and correct it. ↩︎
  2. In Canon and Creed, p. 82. ↩︎
  3. Matthew 7:1. ↩︎
  4. 1 Corinthians 5:3. ↩︎

The problem with Adam Hamilton’s “contextual reading” solution and an appeal to canonical reading

“The Bible does not work according to the, ‘The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it’ formula. Instead, we must read its words in the light of their historical context, try to understand why the authors wrote what they wrote, and read its less humane verses (calls for vengeance, for example) in the light of its loftier verses (calls for love, mercy, and compassion).” Most importantly as Christians, we are to read all of Scripture through the lens of Jesus Christ, his life, teachings, ministry, death, and resurrection. He is the only unmitigated Word of God.

That’s the heart of Adam Hamilton’s argument about how we should read the Bible. After his forceful and biting speech at General Conference and many things he has written about biblical interpretation, several friends and congregation members have asked me what I think about his approach to Scripture. A few have specifically pointed to his post, “The Bible says it … that settles it,” which is quoted above and contains much of the same content as his speech.

I’m writing this post for people who have been influenced by Hamilton’s approach to the Bible and other similar approaches. I’m also writing for those trying to think critically about his proposals. If you haven’t read his article and didn’t hear his floor speech, you might give those two minutes before reading here.

Adam Hamilton is a brilliant thinker and an outstanding communicator. He breaks down complex subjects for simple understanding. I think he’s sincere in his appeals here. I believe him when he says he loves the Bible and seeks to live it.

From fundamentalist reading to contextual reading

Here’s what I think Adam Hamilton is doing: He’s trying to move people from a fundamentalist reading of the Bible to a contextual reading. He’s exposing the hypocrisy of a fundamentalist reading. You can’t just say, “The Bible says it!” Look through the imperatives scattered throughout the Bible, and you’ll find many things that we don’t do today. Right on, Adam.

His move to a contextual reading of the Bible does a few things—some good, some problematic. The force of his full argument and the many good points he makes distract from some problems in his argumentation. He says we need to understand why something was said in its historical context. Absolutely! And this is part of why we don’t follow every word literally. Every word doesn’t apply to our present context as a literal word for us today. We need to ask why it was written in its particular time, place, and community.

But I have a problem with two other things Hamilton is doing.

From contextual reading to historical-critical reading

First, I think he’s appealing to the human nature of the Bible’s authors to suggest that not everything written is really inspired by God. He talks about biblical authors’ personalities coming out in their writing and then follows with a long list of “We no longer believe” statements. Though it’s not quite explicit, Hamilton sounds like he’s suggesting that these portions of the Bible never reflected the mind of God—only how the biblical writers imagined God to be from their limited context.

He’s right that we no longer practice polygamy nor have concubines. It’s important to note that not every description of life in the Bible is an endorsement of the lifestyle it’s describing. And he’s right that we don’t believe work on the Sabbath is a capital crime. But the way he writes seems to suggest that this part of the Bible was a human invention, not a divinely inspired word of God. This comes closer to an historical-critical reading of the Bible. It begins with an assumption that the Bible reveals more to us about its historical setting than it reveals about the character and will of God. It can dismiss certain parts of the Bible as merely human, not expressing God’s character or will.

That’s a problematic approach to Scripture. Hamilton has done this in other places, and Bill Arnold has already written a strong response to it. I’ll link to that rather than attempting what Dr. Arnold has already done well. His article is helpful all the way through on these questions.

One key quote from Dr. Arnold’s article that I’ll highlight:

“In our interpretive tradition as Wesleyans, we do not elevate one portion or sub-portion of the Bible as more authoritative than others. There is a definite progression or gradual revealing of God and God’s message in the Bible. But we do not believe that later stages of revelation necessarily replace, dismiss, or nullify earlier stages of revelation (known as supersessionism). When we dismiss any portion of Scripture as outside the character, will, or heart of God for any reason, we have essentially turned Scripture into a historical witness about God, not a revelation from God.”

“A Response to Adam Hamilton’s 3 Buckets Approach to Scripture”

Following Dr. Arnold’s suggestion here, I think it’s best to read those difficult passages in Scripture as inspired words, even if they don’t operate as God’s mandates for us today. Rather than asking if God would have ever intended such things be written, it’s better to ask how and why God may have intended those words then. The reason we don’t follow these mandates today is because of other Scripture. That’s the kind of progressive or gradual revelation Dr. Arnold mentions. We haven’t stopped viewing Sabbath-breaking as a capital crime simply because we’re a more “enlightened” society today, but because we see from ongoing revelation in Scripture that this isn’t God’s intention for us.

A contextual reading can see that God is revealed differently in different contexts. An historical-critical reading is quicker to assume that a particular text isn’t a revelation from God at all. Hamilton’s version sounds more like the latter.

From contextual reading to a canon within the canon

Second, Hamilton is appealing for us to read the “loftier verses” over against the “less humane verses.” He’s setting these within an appeal to read the Bible in context, but that’s not really what he’s doing here. I think he’s choosing which passages we should use to interpret the others.

Interpreting Scripture by Scripture is a valuable tool, but the rubric Hamilton suggests is incomplete. He focuses on love, mercy, and compassion, but given his approach, I wonder where, for instance, God’s wrath and judgment would be considered. We have plenty of passages about these in the Old Testament and the New Testament, including ones that come off the lips of Jesus.1 Does God have wrath toward anything that would lead us astray from his intentions? Does God cast judgment against those things? And do we have any responsibility in the church to warn each other of those things?

I appreciate how Fleming Rutledge, borrowing from Paul Ricoeur, describes God’s wrath as an essential aspect of God’s love: “The wrath of God is always exercised in the service of God’s good purposes. It is the unconditional love of God manifested against anything that would frustrate or destroy the designs of his love” (in The Crucifixion, 323).

In the end, I think Hamilton has given himself a rubric that allows him to make the final judgments about what’s right and what’s wrong. That rubric is “love, mercy, and compassion,” but it’s a rubric that allows the reader to pass judgment on any of the particulars found in Scripture, even those that involve the speech or actions of God in the Old Testament and Jesus in the New Testament. “Is this really loving?” If it doesn’t pass our test for loving, it doesn’t pass as a real word of God for us. That ignores anger and judgment against sin as anything that could have to do with God’s character.2

From contextual reading to canonical reading

If we stop at a contextual reading of the Bible, Hamilton is right—there are only a few passages that deal with same-sex sex. And there are only a few passages that deal with women in ministry. But when we read the Bible as canon, there’s a lot more there to inform our understanding. When we read the Bible as canon, we find many women in ministry. They’re there in both Old Testament and New, proclaiming the gospel. That’s affirmed even by Paul. The reason we affirm women in ministry isn’t because we read those few prohibitions in Paul’s letters and reject them as inhumane because of “loftier” verses. It’s because we read the whole Bible and find many affirmations of women in ministry. That situates Paul’s few prohibitions as proper but limited in scope.

Hamilton’s arguments about slavery and women in ministry demonstrate that we don’t hold strictly to every letter of the law in Scripture. But does this mean that our only other option is to take cultural norms as accepted ethics, at least so far as they seem loving, merciful, and compassionate?

If you’re interested in going deeper into this, I recommend William Webb’s Slaves, Women and Homosexuals. Webb considers context, as Hamilton keeps advocating, but shows that these three groups of people and the surrounding issues aren’t all treated the same in Scripture. He shows that while we may take many biblical texts as harsh toward women and slaves, in their context they were redemptive. We see a general movement toward liberation and redemption for slaves and women both. Meanwhile, we see no such movement regarding homosexual sex. It’s too simplistic to say, “See, we’ve changed our positions on slavery and women in ministry. We should do the same for homosexual sex.”

When we read the Bible as canon, I think we see that the five verses Hamilton mentions aren’t sitting there all alone. They’re there as part of an ongoing thread about human sexuality throughout Scripture. That’s a thread that affirms the gift of human sexuality as something that is designed for union and procreation. And it’s a thread that recognizes the power of our sexuality and often urges restraint (against the notions we’ve gotten from the sexual revolution that exalt freedom and pleasure).

To be sure, this leaves us with lots of things still to wrestle with––contraception and divorce/remarriage to name two big ones. This is why the Roman Catholic Church has held the positions it has held. They seem out of step with our times, but they have a theological coherence that I think we all need to grapple with. (And what a shame to see their current crisis and how far their institution has fallen from their teaching!)

For more: A group of brilliant theologians published this article in 1994 in First Things, and most of it is still relevant.

I should be clear to say that I still have many things to wrestle with concerning human sexuality. I don’t want to pretend that I have this all worked out. Here, I want to say that I believe Hamilton’s approach is inadequate and won’t have us doing the hard work we need to do.

See my follow-up to this post now: “Reading the Bible with Christ as Our Lens.”

I’m grateful to Dr. Ruth Anne Reese for her questions and comments on earlier drafts of this. She helped me add significant nuance and clarity and treat Hamilton’s position with more accuracy. Any problems remaining here are my own but are many fewer than they would have been.

  1. With this claim and a similar one below, I’m not advocating my own “canon within the canon” to make Jesus’ words paramount. I’m saying that though Hamilton appealed to Jesus as his final lens for interpretation, I think he fails to be consistent in this. ↩︎
  2. Another note to say that while I’m emphasizing Jesus’ words here because of Hamilton’s focus, a canonical approach will take Paul’s words seriously, too. Why does Christ’s greatest proclaimer tell the church to expel someone living in sexual immorality? If Paul’s words don’t sound sufficiently loving, merciful, and compassionate, should we dismiss them as uninspired? A canonical reading won’t allow this. ↩︎

The Church, simul justus et peccator

The United Methodist Church is in the middle of a theological crisis. Some will call this a crisis regarding human sexuality, others will say the crisis centers on justice or biblical authority or Christian orthodoxy.

Many have gone to John Wesley for help in resolving these crises, as we would expect. But I wonder if we could use some outside help in this instance. I’ll suggest here that Martin Luther may offer a different view of our impasse.

Simul justus et peccator

One of Luther’s most famous phrases is simul justus et peccator. With it, Luther claimed that a Christian is at once both righteous and a sinner. We are sinners, and we are saints. For the one who imagines himself only a saint, Luther’s claim instills humility. For the one who imagines himself only a sinner, Luther’s claim offers hope.

We hear a similar notion in Solzhenitsyn’s most famous quote:

“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.” [note]From The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956[/note]

Luther and Solzhenitsyn remind us that evil is not simply something out there. Look inside each of us and we will find it.

Luther emphasized this well in another of his famous phrases: “Sin boldly!”

What can he mean by “sin boldly”? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means![note]This is from Romans 6:1-2[/note] To understand, we should look at the context for that exhortation –– a letter to his friend Philip Melanchthon:

“If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach an imaginary but the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear the true, not an imaginary sin. God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong [i.e. sin boldly], but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world […] Do you think such an exalted Lamb paid merely a small price with a meager sacrifice for our sins? Pray hard for you are quite a sinner.”[note]emphasis mine[/note]

Luther’s “sin boldly” makes more sense to me when I see it in this context. This isn’t to encourage a friend into sin––”Go do what you please! God will forgive you.” This is to make Luther’s friend acknowledge his true state as a sinner. Don’t treat your sinfulness as imaginary, as something insignificant, as a few minor mistakes. You’ve heard those kinds of “confessions”––”I’m sure I’ve done some things wrong”; “Mistakes were made”; “I’m only human.” Instead, “sin boldly” tells us to recognize our true nature: “You are quite a sinner!”

The one who lets his sins be strong (i.e. sins boldly) is the one who can cry out with the Apostle Paul, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?” [note]Romans 7:24[/note] He is also the one who can then join Paul in the exclamation, “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” [note]Romans 7:25[/note]

Luther calls every Christian to humility––to recognize our own sinfulness.
And Luther calls every Christian to wonder and gratitude––to recognize God’s undeserved gift of life and salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Humility in conflict

How rarely we “sin boldly” in the church today! It seems we recognize others’ sinfulness quite easily but consider our sins much less significant––much closer to the imaginary variety. Michael Gerson named a similar phenomenon in American politics.

This is unsurprising in American politics. It should not be the norm for the Church.

Would a view of ourselves as simul justus et peccator give us the humility to engage each other with less hostility and more grace? Would Solzhenitsyn’s distinction about the line dividing good and evil slow us from tossing pejorative grenades across our supposed lines of division?

“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds,” Solzhenitsyn writes. But we have found those evil people! We accuse the other side of racism, bigotry, white nationalism, homophobia, fundamentalism, heartlessness, and injustice. Or we claim based on one issue that an entire group must have no interest in holiness, biblical authority, or following Jesus. These false lines we draw see only justus in ourselves, only peccator in the other.

I wonder if Luther’s simul justus et peccator might give us the humility to handle these conflicts differently. Might it prompt more repentance and less accusation? Might it prompt us to deal gently with those going astray, since we know ourselves to be sinners, too?

The church as simul justus et peccator

When Luther spoke of us as simul justus et peccator, he spoke of us as individual Christians. In each of our bodies, we are at once sinner and saint. I want to suggest that simul justus et peccator may have a broader application––not only to our bodies, but to our Body.

Is it fitting to say that the Church, the very Body of Christ, is at once a sinful and a holy Body? Is it right that we should call this Body “quite a sinner”?

This does not seem fitting of the true Church––the one that is truly Christ’s Body. Because in Christ is no sin. And no one who lives in him keeps on sinning.[note]1 John 3:5-6[/note] I believe this. It’s the great doctrine of Wesleyan holiness, which has transformed my life. In the true Church, the true Body of Christ, there is no sin.

Wesley describes it this way:

“If the Church, as to the very essence of it, is a body of believers, no man that is not a Christian believer can be a member of it. If this whole body be animated by one spirit, and endued with one faith, and one hope of their calling; then he who has not that spirit, and faith, and hope, is no member of this body. It follows, that not only no common swearer, no Sabbath-breaker, no drunkard, no whoremonger, no thief, no liar, none that lives in any outward sin, but none that is under the power of anger or pride, no lover of the world, in a word, none that is dead to God, can be a member of his Church.” [note]In Sermon 74, “Of the Church” [/note]

With Wesley I affirm that Christ’s invisible Church is holy, pure, and set apart from sinners.[note]Hebrews 7:26[/note] We are these because Christ is these and we are his Body.

But are any of our visible churches without thieves or liars? Are any without people under the power of anger or pride? No! The church remains full of sinners. As a Body, we are full of sin. So we confess each week, “We have failed to be an obedient church.”

The church, in all of its visible forms, is simul justus et peccator.

And the line dividing good and evil does not cut between one faction and another, between one congregation and another. It cuts through the heart of every body that calls itself church.

Orthodoxy

We need to make an important distinction about orthodoxy before we carry the analogy from Luther too far. When Luther spoke of people as simul justus et peccator, he was not referring to all people. This was a designation for confessing Christians.[note]I’m indebted to Dr. Steve O’Malley for this point.[/note] They had been baptized into the Church under the Apostles’ Creed as the common confession of faith. They confessed God as Father, Christ as Lord, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. The sinners Luther referred to were made righteous by living by this faith. Righteousness is not our own, it comes only by faith.

I want to suggest that the visible church is a Body both sinful and righteous. But it is only righteous by faith in Christ. A church that does not confess and mean the historic creeds of the Church as the historic Church confessed and meant them is no church at all. At least, it is not a Christian church. All faith outside of these affirmations is, by definition, heterodox––or heresy. If this sounds like an exclusionary statement, that’s because it is. All real things have bounds,[note]I originally had “All things but God have bounds,” but even an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God has definition. God is everywhere, but God is not everything, and everything is not God. (i.e. We are not pantheists.)[/note] and the bounds of Christian orthodoxy were constituted long ago in these universal confessions.

There are some who call themselves United Methodists who reject the Christian faith articulated by the Church’s early ecumenical councils. We have some among us[note]Please do not confuse my “some” to suggest that all, or even most, of any particular faction fit these descriptions[/note] who scoff at the notion of Christ’s real, historical, bodily resurrection, some who believe the Bible is a mere human work with no ultimate authority, and some who honestly have no interest in following the way of Jesus if it should lead them somewhere different than where they would like to go. What I’ve written above is not about those people. They are not those whom Luther referred to as simul justus et peccator. A Body that does not confess the Christ of faith is not the Body of Christ.

Debates about orthodoxy have become common in our current crisis. Should we extend it beyond our definition above? Some have called the “traditional” position on human sexuality the orthodox position. I reject that here. I think orthodoxy is best left to refer to conciliar orthodoxy. James K. A. Smith articulates this well: “The word [orthodox] is reserved to define and delineate those affirmations that are at the very heart of Christian faith—and God knows they are scandalous enough in a secular age. Perhaps we need to introduce another adjective––’traditional’––to describe these historic views and positions on matters of morality. ” [note]From this blog post, which is worth reading in full.[/note]

What do we do with a sinful Church?

And so we have a body––the very Body of Christ––at once righteous and sinful. We’re uncomfortable with the church as simul justus et peccator. And we should be. God has set in our hearts a different image of the Church––as a bride making herself ready for the wedding of the Lamb,[note]Revelation 19:7[/note] preparing as one to be beautifully dressed for her husband.[note]Revelation 21:2[/note]

Our disagreements about what we call sin are presenting themselves as a theological crisis in our church. Underneath them is another tension: What do we do with a sinful Church?

Who will rescue us from this body that is subject to death?

 

This post attempts to establish some foundations. In a post to follow, I’ll focus on another aspect of Luther’s theology––the theology of the cross––along with implications for the United Methodist Church and for those who might consider leaving.

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