A Case of Theological Amnesia
I have spent the past few years trekking to denominational, parachurch, and college archives across the country, trying to map the relationships between different wings of the American evangelical tradition. My research took me from the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College to the archives of the Assemblies of God in Missouri; from Mennonite Church records in Indiana to the Southern Baptists in Nashville; from Biola University outside Los Angeles to Switzerland, where I pawed through Francis Schaeffer’s old lecture files at L’Abri—and beyond. I learned a great deal along the way, but one discovery surprised me the most. A vast number of Christians in the enormous, and enormously varied, evangelical world have allowed a rather small number of leaders—who share a strikingly narrow background—to tell them how to read the Bible.
For centuries, evangelicals have drawn upon a wide range of methods and assumptions to interpret scripture. Wesleyans have their “quadrilateral” of theological contemplation: church tradition, human reason, and personal experience should supplement scripture in understanding God’s will and cultivating a relationship with Christ. The Mennonites have long stressed the role of the community, the gathered saints, in discerning together the meaning of scripture, and have worried more about discipleship than squabbling over “literal” interpretation. Pentecostals and charismatics read scripture with the voice of God speaking audibly in their ears, telling them how to apply holy writ to their own lives.
The theologians, pastors, and church officials whose letters I found read deeply and proudly in their own strand of evangelicalism’s expansive heritage. However, many fretted that their communities had been infected with what we might call the Reformed contagion: a virus that has compelled them to forget their own past. Over the last century, Reformed evangelicals have honed and popularized their version of the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, and it has penetrated almost all branches of American evangelicalism.
The essence of this doctrine—the claim that scripture has no error—is very old. Christians have always been eager to defend the Bible as a perfect source of truth. But inerrancy, as most American evangelicals now understand the term, has a more recent history.
The first generation of Reformers defended the authority of the Bible as a whole—against the authority of Rome—but were less inclined to haggle over scripture’s many apparent discrepancies. Their followers encountered a new set of challenges: the schoolmen of the Counter-Reformation pressed in from one side, and disciples of the Enlightenment hurled skepticism from the other. These Protestant scholastics earned their title for developing a theological method every bit as logical (or casuistic, depending on your point of view) as their Catholic counterparts—while also pushing back against science’s threat to biblical authority by trying to out-rationalize the scientists.
They took as their starting point a principle that may owe more to philosophy than to scripture: God is perfect and unchanging. It follows, therefore, that his revelation must be perfect and unchanging too. While Enlightenment thinkers insisted that the Bible is no authority on the natural world, these evangelicals (some Lutherans, mostly Reformed) were at great pains to hold faith and reason together, to prove that modern inquiry bows to premodern revelation.
This understanding of inerrancy matured in the nineteenth century at the great Reformed think tank, Princeton Theological Seminary. The Princetonians insisted that scripture is a “storehouse of facts,” as Charles Hodge put it.1 According to the precepts of Common Sense Realism, the philosophy that pervaded Protestant intellectual life at the time, those facts were accessible to every layman by dint of his God-given common sense. Hodge and his colleagues were sophisticated thinkers who stayed abreast of the latest scholarship. Some were open to reconciling Genesis with a theistic view of evolution. However, a generation later the heat of the fundamentalist-modernist battles melted away all nuance. Inerrancy became a shibboleth for the faithful, a promise to defend Adam and Eve against Darwin’s predations and to protect Paul from the acids of cultural relativism.
The fundamentalist-modernist fights began in Reformed churches in the North, but soon spread throughout the country. Each tradition’s fundamentalists had their own unique worries, but nearly all latched onto the slogan of biblical inerrancy. Denominational leaders like the Church of the Nazarene’s Henry Orton Wiley watched with sadness as fellow believers abandoned their traditional approach to scripture for Reformed fundamentalism. “Our danger is rationalism, which exalts the intellect to the detriment of the affections and the will,” he wrote.2
After World War II, the Reformed understanding of inerrancy received a boost from the neo-evangelicals who gathered to “reform fundamentalism,” as George Marsden put it.3 Men like Carl Henry and Harold Lindsell aimed to rehabilitate conservative Protestantism’s intellectual reputation, rescue Western civilization, and win the world for Christ. Almost to a man, this circle of writers, scholars, and evangelists subscribed to the same hyper-rationalistic school of Reformed theology. They read or studied under Reformed thinkers like Gordon Clark and Cornelius Van Til, who taught them to reason relentlessly from the assumption that science and history can never contradict the inerrant Bible; to defend their understanding of the “Christian worldview;” and to expose their enemies’ godless presuppositions.
Despite their achievements—the neo-evangelicals founded Christianity Today, Fuller Theological Seminary, and the Evangelical Theological Society—most of them did not have terrific political savvy or popular appeal. In the 1960s and 1970s other thinkers and activists, particularly Francis Schaeffer, realized that this idea of the Christian worldview, grounded in a Reformed understanding of inerrancy, was a powerful weapon in the culture wars. He taught evangelicals all over the country—ranging from Mennonites to Moody Bible Institute students—that if your founding assumption is that the Bible is free from error, that the same literal interpretation of every jot and tittle holds true no matter time or place or experience, you have certain obligations to act on God’s commands in the public sphere. You must picket abortion clinics. You must be on high alert for secular-humanist propaganda in your child’s classroom. You must not get carried away with Anabaptist ideas of counter-cultural discipleship or Wesleyan notions that God intended us to sanctify the world and overcome some of Paul’s prohibitions.
I tell this story at greater length in my forthcoming book, and I have grossly oversimplified it here. The upshot is this: evangelicals have never been inclined to think of themselves as historical creatures. They prefer to believe that their faith and worship is that of the Apostles. When they felt the shadow of secular modernity upon them, many found a lot to like in Reformed fundamentalists’ promises that one “common-sense” interpretation of the Bible was perfect and timeless, that faith and reason could remain one, that the inerrant Bible could refute the jeers of secular-humanists on their own terms. In recent years, some theologians and colleges have worked to recover their own heritage, but in today’s competitive evangelical marketplace they feel pressure to stick to the Reformed lingua franca in order to broaden their appeal beyond their own denominations. Charismatic churches, such as the Vineyard, often emphasize heart religion over cerebral discussions of inerrancy—but when push comes to shove, inerrancy is usually there in their statement of faith: neat, deceptively simple, and ready for deployment against any intellectual threat.
I write as a sympathetic observer, not as an evangelical insider (and for the record, I have an unfashionable admiration for John Calvin). But my research has impressed upon me the tragedy of evangelicals’ theological amnesia. The poverty of their conversations about how to read the Bible and understand its power belies the bounty of their own heritage.
1 Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 1 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1999 [1873]), 10.
2 H. Orton Wiley, “Christian Education,” address delivered at the Third Educational Conference, Church of the Nazarene, Pasadena College, Pasadena, CA, October 17–19, 1951 (qtd. in J. Matthew Price, We Teach Holiness: The Life and Work of H. Orton Wiley (Holiness Data Ministry, 2006, online edition), 173).
3 George Marsden, Reforming Fundamentalism: Fuller Seminary and the New Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987).
This doesn't sound oversimplified at all.
Behind Schaeffer is Van Til, Kuyper, Dooyeweerd and others who believed the elect have an innate cognitive and perhaps even an ontological superiority. Calvinism has always had this sort of epistemological and anthropological dualism, but modern anti-modernist Dutch Reformed thought provided this idea of "the Christian worldview" idea that became so popular.
If divine grace and scriptural revelation are thought to provide privileged insight into the true principles and structures that order reality, obvious conclusions follow. First, those who lack this insight are impaired, so the presumption is that the redeemed are right or inherently "more correct" and everyone else is wrong, more prone to error and probably immorality as well.
Such arrogance projected outward on the world in the typical manner of a resentful minority is widely rejected or ignored, but within the community of the elect conflict-aversion and a pretence of unity becomes habitual, stifling curiosity, creativity, and serious self-questioning. It ends up becoming a formula for degrading real intellectual and cultural capacities while inflaming the vulgar and arrogant passions of simple people who find it easy to believe quasi-apocalyptic narratives in which their neighbors and leaders figure as tools of Satan.
This doesn't sound oversimplified at all.
Behind Schaeffer is Van Til, Kuyper, Dooyeweerd and others who believed the elect have an innate cognitive and perhaps even an ontological superiority. Calvinism has always had this sort of epistemological and anthropological dualism, but modern anti-modernist Dutch Reformed thought provided this idea of "the Christian worldview" idea that became so popular.
If divine grace and scriptural revelation are thought to provide privileged insight into the true principles and structures that order reality, obvious conclusions follow. First, those who lack this insight are impaired, so the presumption is that the redeemed are right or inherently "more correct" and everyone else is wrong, more prone to error and probably immorality as well.
Such arrogance projected outward on the world in the typical manner of a resentful minority is widely rejected or ignored, but within the community of the elect conflict-aversion and a pretence of unity becomes habitual, stifling curiosity, creativity, and serious self-questioning. It ends up becoming a formula for degrading real intellectual and cultural capacities while inflaming the vulgar and arrogant passions of simple people who find it easy to believe quasi-apocalyptic narratives in which their neighbors and leaders figure as tools of Satan.
This doesn't sound oversimplified at all.
Behind Schaeffer is Van Til, Kuyper, Dooyeweerd and others who believed the elect have an innate cognitive and perhaps even an ontological superiority. Calvinism has always had this sort of epistemological and anthropological dualism, but modern anti-modernist Dutch Reformed thought provided this idea of "the Christian worldview" idea that became so popular.
If divine grace and scriptural revelation are thought to provide privileged insight into the true principles and structures that order reality, obvious conclusions follow. First, those who lack this insight are impaired, so the presumption is that the redeemed are right or inherently "more correct" and everyone else is wrong, more prone to error and probably immorality as well.
Such arrogance projected outward on the world in the typical manner of a resentful minority is widely rejected or ignored, but within the community of the elect conflict-aversion and a pretence of unity becomes habitual, stifling curiosity, creativity, and serious self-questioning. It ends up becoming a formula for degrading real intellectual and cultural capacities while inflaming the vulgar and arrogant passions of simple people who find it easy to believe quasi-apocalyptic narratives in which their neighbors and leaders figure as tools of Satan.
It is so ironic that evangelicals have been taught "to expose their enemies’ godless presuppositions" but we have not been taught to "expose" our own "godless presuppositions". It was not just the "modernists" who worshiped at the altar of the Enlightenment but the "fundamentalists" as well.
It is so ironic that evangelicals have been taught "to expose their enemies’ godless presuppositions" but we have not been taught to "expose" our own "godless presuppositions". It was not just the "modernists" who worshiped at the altar of the Enlightenment but the "fundamentalists" as well.
It is so ironic that evangelicals have been taught "to expose their enemies’ godless presuppositions" but we have not been taught to "expose" our own "godless presuppositions". It was not just the "modernists" who worshiped at the altar of the Enlightenment but the "fundamentalists" as well.
Good to see the H. Orton Wiley shout-out. He was a major force within the Church of the Nazarene whose legacy is keeping the CON out of the modernist-fundamentalist controversies (at least officially). That legacy carried forth in a very nuanced statement on scripture at the recent General Assembly (a response to more literalist quarters who had attempted to redefine the denominational history).
Good to see the H. Orton Wiley shout-out. He was a major force within the Church of the Nazarene whose legacy is keeping the CON out of the modernist-fundamentalist controversies (at least officially). That legacy carried forth in a very nuanced statement on scripture at the recent General Assembly (a response to more literalist quarters who had attempted to redefine the denominational history).
Good to see the H. Orton Wiley shout-out. He was a major force within the Church of the Nazarene whose legacy is keeping the CON out of the modernist-fundamentalist controversies (at least officially). That legacy carried forth in a very nuanced statement on scripture at the recent General Assembly (a response to more literalist quarters who had attempted to redefine the denominational history).
Great analysis of the hyper-rationalist turn that occurred in evangelicalism. I really enjoyed reading this, looking forward to the book!
What's really interesting to me, and what I would be interested in hearing your feedback on, is the movement in contemporary evangelical hermeneutics and apologetics to consistently emphasize "historical context" as the key lens for biblical interpretation. Given that such a emphasis on history should highlight the differences between the historical context and the present day, do you think such methodology is, or will, impacting the Neo-Reformed establishment and its understanding of inerrancy and the "biblical" worldview?
Great analysis of the hyper-rationalist turn that occurred in evangelicalism. I really enjoyed reading this, looking forward to the book!
What's really interesting to me, and what I would be interested in hearing your feedback on, is the movement in contemporary evangelical hermeneutics and apologetics to consistently emphasize "historical context" as the key lens for biblical interpretation. Given that such a emphasis on history should highlight the differences between the historical context and the present day, do you think such methodology is, or will, impacting the Neo-Reformed establishment and its understanding of inerrancy and the "biblical" worldview?
Great analysis of the hyper-rationalist turn that occurred in evangelicalism. I really enjoyed reading this, looking forward to the book!
What's really interesting to me, and what I would be interested in hearing your feedback on, is the movement in contemporary evangelical hermeneutics and apologetics to consistently emphasize "historical context" as the key lens for biblical interpretation. Given that such a emphasis on history should highlight the differences between the historical context and the present day, do you think such methodology is, or will, impacting the Neo-Reformed establishment and its understanding of inerrancy and the "biblical" worldview?
Thanks for the feedback! I think there is an important distinction between the conversation about biblical hermeneutics among elite evangelical scholars–much of which is very sophisticated and sensitive to historical context–and the approach to biblical interpretation that continues to dominate at the popular level, in many churches and in many institutions of higher ed. Based on my anecdotal observation, this culture of interpretation remains quite ahistorical and uses the "Christian worldview" trope as armor against perceived intellectual threats.