[This post is part 2 in my response to Robert Wright’s article “One World, Under God” from the April, 2009 Atlantic. My intention is summarized in part 1.]
+++++++
When I was a college freshman, a pastor of the church I was then attending offered me some counsel that I will never forget. I was struggling over the ethical implications of certain passages in one of the epistles of Paul. This pastor sounded wise when he challenged me to learn to distinguish in Paul’s letters between when God is speaking and when Paul is speaking.
My first thought was, “Wow. That’s profound.” My second thought was, “What?” Who has the wisdom to make such distinctions? And do such distinctions exist?
Robert Wright seems to solve the dilemma by simply making the assumption that all Scripture instead of being God-breathed (to use the language of 2 Timothy), is simply man-penned. God never really speaks. He is only represented as speaking.
Scripture, and scriptural truth, is a malleable body of teachings open to modification when the need requires, and such a need arose in the early centuries of the church. The growing cosmopolitan character of the Roman empire, the soil in which Christianity took root and blossomed, demanded such revision and modification, so that the newly founded Christian franchise could prosper.
Such is the assumption which underlies this article. The premise, that the Christian message was shaped to fit the needs of an increasingly globalized world, is made possible by this assumption.
This assumption makes this article tedious going for Christians (1) who see the books of the Bible as a canonical whole, conveying one story from beginning to end. It is a story of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. Every part of it adds to and develops these overarching and unified themes.
To assert and believe such is to believe that the Bible has a transcendent source. Many, Mr. Wright included, prefer to emphasize the human origin of Scripture, and argue therefore as if the Bible is a disparate, though at times artful, collection of human documents, at times purporting to be reflecting God’s word to men, but in no way able to substantiate that claim. In fact, in this light, the scriptures become something quite useful to those developing and furthering particular causes. And in the hands of the Apostle Paul, the malleability of Scripture became a pragmatic tool upon which to found a Christian franchise. So Mr. Wright concludes:
“But even for nonbelievers, the scriptures carry a modestly reassuring message, at least when read in light of the social and political circumstances that shaped them: people are capable of expanding tolerance and understanding in response to facts on the ground; and even mandates from heaven can change in response.”
If this is true, then my college counselor was asking way too much of me. There is no real need to distinguish between God and Paul speaking. God is silenced as an independent, self-existent, self-revealing entity. Only Paul is left to speak, as the needs dictate.
It is important for us to see that it is a fundamentally radical view of scripture which informs this article, a view which many thinking Christians (not an oxymoron), and yes, scholars (2), eschew.
+++++
[Blogs do not allow for footnotes, so this will have to do:
1 When I say ‘Christians’, I mean no disrespect to those who claim the title but differ with my assertions. I simply mean Christian in terms of those who believe in the historic Christian faith, certainly founded on the Bible, and articulated in the great ecumenical creeds and confessions. Christianity has an historical substance and content and it is from this basis I will argue for what is Christian.
2 Men and women who believe in the fundamental integrity and ultimately divine origin of Scripture are often denied the title ‘scholars’. But there are many who bear scholarly credentials who would assent to the historic Christian view of the scriptures.]