As I read the book The Post-Evangelical, by Tomlinson, I am being challenged to rethink many things that I have taken for “gospel” truth from my fundamentalist / Evangelical background. I think I am a “post-evangelical” in the sense that I am questioning things that are at the core of Evangelical thought and teaching. The very process of questioning things in Evangelical circles often forces one out of the camp, and into “post-evangelical” exile. That is where I am wandering at the moment. The book’s definition of “post-evangelical” fits me well.
However, I need to think through the myriads of issues this entails. Today I read about the Word, and the dogma of inerrancy. This is a major point of Evangelical doctrine that I must carefully consider.
I again and again see and hear Karl Barth quoted. I need to read some of his writings. Unfortunately on the Internet I find much more written about him, than by him. The descriptions of him are helpful, but I need to get to the source itself. I will need to check some books out of the library.
He evidently has a paradigm, if I can reduce it to that, of The Word, as summarized by Tomlinson. He sees a three-fold manifestation of The Word. Jesus is the living Word, the Bible is the written Word, and we, the church, are the proclaimed Word. That got me thinking. My “modern” mindset liked this “system” of thought.
Jesus, as the Living Word, and perfect representation of God, did not fully reveal all there is about God to us. To see Jesus, for example, one could not “see” the eternal nature of God. Jesus said that before Abraham was, he existed, but that could not be “seen” in his body or actions.
Neither did it mean that because Jesus ate fish, or sweated or defecated, that God does these things in his spiritual being. To be literal, and say that everything Jesus did, God does, is ridiculous, and not in need of clarification, usually.
Well then, if we look at the written Word of God, the Bible, which is a collection of words, which are symbols of things, some concrete, some not, we need to keep the same thing in mind. Jesus was the exact representation of God in things like his love, not in wearing sandals and a robe. How is the Bible the Word of God? Is it in the literal detail of every word? Certainly the words are important, especially in their context; but what is the meaning behind them?
Just as Jesus didn’t exactly reveal everything about God in a literal sense, being restrained in his deity by his human nature, can the Bible fully reveal God in its human language with all its limitations? Can we, should we, be so dogmatic in our defense of every word of the Bible? It was written by flawed humans, indeed inspired by God, but limited in their ability to fully reveal all that there is about God. Even if they could come up with the right words, our minds fail to grasp all that they symbolize (Look at the book of Revelation!). To dogmatically stand on those written words in their literal meaning seems shaky ground.
Then, the third manifestation of the Word, the church, is most limited and flawed of all! How can we as human beings reveal God to the world around us in any meaningful way? Yet, that is what God has called us to do! We are the body of Christ! (Again, a symbol. We don’t literally have his blood flowing through us, or his nerves connected to us.) We are to do the work of Christ, moved by Christ, our head, doing the things Jesus himself would do if he were here in our place. If people imagined God was represented by our flaws and sinfulness, in a very literal way, then God would indeed not be much of a god at all.
But there is something in true followers of Jesus that shines through their human frailty, and people who see and benefit from their sacrificial love have no problem “seeing” Jesus in them. They usually have no problem confusing their humanness with the divine nature that flows through them.
So, as I contemplate the inerrancy of scripture, it seems to me more an argument of what God’s intent is. Certainly He meant to say what was written, but have we (Evangelicals) missed the point by being too literal, too dogmatic about words, and missed the forest for the tree?
I don’t know! But I plan to think about this for a while longer; and I want to read some of what Karl Barth has written.
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