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Claiming
exclusive rights to the Bible has precedent How
does it feel when you have taken the Scripture seriously and therefore
voiced your understanding of a passage, then told by those who
interpret the Scripture differently that "you do not believe
the Bible?" This
is what has happened to Texas Baptists when they affirmed the
1963 Baptist Faith and Message. Southern Baptists leaders quickly
responded by saying to not believe according to their interpretation
means "you have a problem with the Apostle Paul." I
have some problems with this type of response. First, it rings
of arrogance. It sounds like some have decided for themselves
that they know the mind and heart of Paul to the degree that others
do not have the ability to hear God for themselves. It
reminds me of the CEO approach to interpreting scripture. The
idea being that if a person is a CEO, then surely they know more
then the rest of us. If it is a spiritual CEO, then God surely
speaks louder to him and not so clearly to us. Part of the problem
is my thinking we should practice humility because of our humanity.
We are not God, so we might not just get it completely right. Another
problem is the historical use of this tactic in a social-political
climate. Sorry to bring this up, but this is the same tactic used
by those who supported slavery and used the Bible to fight the
abolitionists. According to historians, southern clergymen attempted
to use slavery as a bible doctrine to convince northern Christians
to turn against the abolitionists. "Here
is our policy, then, to push the Bible argument continually, drive
abolitionism to the wall, to compel it to assume an anti-Christian
position. By so doing we compel the whole Christianity of the
North to array itself on our side." (In His Image... H. Shelton
Smith, quoting Robert L. Dabney) Scripture
was used to justify slavery by using proof contexts. For example,
Leviticus 25: 44 was used saying, "You may buy male and female
slaves from among the nations that are round about you... You
may bequeath them to your sons after you, to inherit as a possession
for ever." Add the King James Version which uses the word
"shall" in place of the word "may" and the
scripture had the tone of a command from God. None
of us believe in slavery, but claiming the Bible is on "our
side alone" is a tactic used historically by those to manipulate
the believers for a social/political purpose. It makes one ponder
if the anti-abolitionists who also used Paul for their purpose
would have said, "your problem is not with us, it is with
the Apostle Paul?" |