By Mark Taylor | Echo
Two particularly interesting and revolutionary ideas arose during the Reformation. The first was that Christian beliefs should be grounded in the Bible; the second insisted that Scripture's meaning is basically clear. In one move the Reformers gave Protestants a foundation for their beliefs and values. In another they made sure the foundation was accessible to everyone. Using Scripture as the basis for our beliefs makes sense, but what did the Reformers mean by saying that Scripture was "basically clear"? They meant that Christians don't need special training or authority in order to understand Scripture (see 1 John 2:27). What made the doctrine of biblical clarity so revolutionary at the time was that it did away with the "priest class"-all are supposed to have access to God's truth on their own without needing to receive it from church or the Pope.
Evangelicals have widely embraced this doctrine. They have asserted God's Word is clear and individual Christians are qualified to interpret its meaning. This individualist approach encourages one's personal relationship with God and is a highly attractive proposition. It, on the one hand, gives liberation to the individual believer from the tyranny of the "priests," and, on the other, presents Scripture as a strong, objective grounding for belief.
Unfortunately, the Protestant approach to interpreting the Bible has fallen short of this promising aspiration; it may even have failed outright. Here I will discuss the subversion of the doctrine of scriptural clarity. In part two, I will discuss Protestantism's further failure to use Scripture as the foundation they claim it as.The subversion I'm concerned with stems not from God's Word, but from how some engage it. Modern exegetes ask, "What was the original intent of the author?" or, "What did this writing mean to the audience who received it?" They might go on to examine questions of literary genre or the grammatical construction of a passage in Greek or Hebrew.
But consider the implications of this approach. Such methods have made "context debates" of the controversial issues of the Church. Take the subject of women in ministry, for example. The argument is centered not on what Scripture seems to say, but what Paul really intended. We are told that we need to know the culture of that time and what Paul's word meant in its original context if we want to get at the truth. Scholars dispute questions of genre, purpose, the circumstances of a text's writing, etc. We shovel contextual, historical and grammatical evidence onto our side until we outweigh the evidence of our opponents.
This approach prohibits ordinary Christians from forming beliefs for themselves; they must once again receive them from an elite class of scholars. If we say understanding Scripture depends on certain evidences related to the original context in which passages are written, Scripture is rendered impotent for Christianity at large. For example, if we say a given passage means the opposite of what it seems to mean (e.g. Genesis 1-3, or Paul's comments on gender roles and sexuality), and that we know this because we have knowledge of the original context, then anyone who does not have such knowledge cannot know what Paul meant.
But for most of the Church's history, believers have not had access to the academic resources which inform such knowledge. For that matter, the majority of the Church today has no such access. This implies the non-elite members of the global Church don't know what these passages mean because they lack specific academic training. God's Word is made effective only for those with the learning required to get at its true meaning. Protestants have snuck the "priest class" in through the back door, becoming dependent on scholars to tell them what passages really mean based on notions of "original context" and "authorial intent."
Scripture is being made inaccessible once again. In part two I'll sketch out a tentative solution, but for now let it suffice to say that we cannot accept that God's Word is hidden from us. Unless we want to give up the Bible as accessible to anyone but the educated elite, we must reject the methods which have led us here.
