Generalizing about Christian fundamentalism can
be dangerous; fundamentalism is a multifaceted movement with many
contributors, so exceptions can often be found to any
generalizations. Yet at least one thing seems safe to say:
Christian fundamentalism is characterized by its approach to the
Bible….
At the root of Christian fundamentalism is this basic stance
toward the Bible: the Bible is true. To higher critics who argued
that biblical texts were filled with mistakes, the fundamentalist
response was, "No, the Bible is true." To liberal theologians who
claimed that biblical teaching concerning the atoning death and
bodily resurrection of Christ was only figurative, the
fundamentalists responded, "No, the Bible is true." To those
followers of Darwin who suggested that human beings came about
through random processes and natural selection, the
fundamentalists replied, "No, the Bible is true." Fundamentalism
became known for its commitment to inerrancy, the belief that the
Bible is without errors. The fundamentalist commitment to the
truth of the Bible is, from my perspective, the very best thing
about fundamentalism. Inerrancy is at the heart of what is right
with how fundamentalism reads the Bible; ironically, however, it
is also indirectly responsible for some of what is
wrong….
The double-edged sword of inerrancy
Unfortunately, knowing that the Scriptures tell the truth is only
one of the things we have to get right in order to understand the
Bible. A sailboat certainly needs a sail; if, however, a sailor
puts up the sail but has no seacraft, the wind will likely catch
the sail and knock the boat over. In the same way, the student of
the Bible, after having rightly concluded that the Bible is a
true revelation from God, needs to know how to read it. The
mistake that much of fundamentalism has passed down to us is the
idea that a divinely inspired book reads differently than other
books. Any book, no matter how true it is, will lead you astray
if you approach it with faulty assumptions, or if you read it
carelessly, or if you draw illegitimate conclusions from the
truths you find there. That is as true for the Bible as for any
other book.
In their zeal to defend the inspiration of the Bible, however,
fundamentalists have taught us to read the Bible as if it is
divinely inspired truthfulness turned it into something different
than a book. I am not saying that all fundamentalists would
necessarily describe the Bible in that way, although some would.
But practically speaking, in the way many fundamentalists
approach the Bible, its unique truthfulness has given them
license to run wild. In their secret hearts they seem to be
saying, "The Bible is so true that I don't have to interpret it."
"The Bible is so true that each word is not just meaningful; it
is super-meaningful." "The Bible is so true that my theology is
unquestionably right."
What is needed to complete the picture, to balance the equation,
is the idea that, although the Bible is completely true, its
truths are communicated in normal human language. That being the
case, therefore, I need to read the Bible with the same care and
set of skills I would need to read any other difficult text. I
need to understand verses in context. I need to evaluate the
presuppositions I bring to the text when I read it. I need to
think about the language and background of the author and his
readers. I need to take the truths I find there and build them
into a coherent worldview that gives my life
direction….
The fundamentalists rightly critiqued the presuppositions that
led modernism to reject the truth of the Bible, while neglecting
to critique their own presuppositions about how the Bible
communicates, what its message is, and how we apply those
truths…. [Ron makes seven distinctions "essential to
understanding the Bible, distinctions which all too often seem to
have been lost on the fundamentalist movement and its heirs." The
final two distinctions are included in this excerpt.]
Distinction: applying a verse versus applying a
worldview
In response to liberal theology, which often saw nothing more
specific in the Bible than a vague admonition to do good,
fundamentalism rightly responded by emphasizing the need to take
seriously the teachings of the Bible and to apply them to our
lives. Unfortunately, the zeal for applying the Bible's teaching
has not been matched by a zeal for learning how to apply it. For
whatever reasons, fundamentalism has fostered an "I've got a
verse" mentality that has deeply oversimplified and distorted the
process of moving from what the Bible says to how we should then
live.
The example of how Jesus dealt with the Pharisees ought to show
how problematic simplistic proof-texting can be. The Pharisees
were the biblical literalists of their day; they, too, had verses
to defend their teaching. In each case, Jesus' response to them
was, "Haven't you read...?" The Pharisees could prove that they
were supposed to keep the Sabbath. OK, Jesus responded, but
haven't you read about how David ate the showbread? Haven't you
read about how the priests actually work on the Sabbath? Haven't
you read about how God wants mercy and not sacrifice? The
Pharisees had a verse that proved divorce was an acceptable part
of the law. OK, Jesus responded, but haven't you read Genesis?
How can you understand what Moses taught about divorce if you
haven't understood what God created marriage to be?
In each case Jesus was teaching the Pharisees that one cannot
just apply a verse; one has to apply the biblical worldview that
emerges when he considers all the parts of the Bible together. (I
owe the language "applying a verse" vs. "applying a worldview" to
David Crabtree, who has incredibly insightful things to say about
the process of application.) Jesus was telling them that divorce
had its role to play in Israel, but they cannot understand that
role without understanding other parts of the Bible. The Sabbath
had a place in God's plans, but they cannot understand that place
without understanding more of God's character and purposes.
In a way, I think that the tendency toward proof-texting and
shallow application of the Bible is one of the worst legacies of
fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is not the only culprit in this
regard, but it is regrettable that a movement noted for defending
the truth of the Bible did so little to promote sound application
of that truth.
Conclusion: the crucial distinction
In conclusion I want to make one more distinction, a distinction
that is perhaps at the heart of everything I have been trying to
say. Fundamentalism has failed to distinguish between the truth
of the Bible and the truth of my Bible. By the Bible I mean the
words the biblical authors actually wrote and the ideas they were
trying to communicate; by my Bible I mean the Bible I have on my
shelf and the ideas that come into my head when I read it. The
distinction between those two Bibles is crucial, and the
difference between them can be profound.
The distinction I am making arises from two different perceptions
of the purpose of the Bible. Fundamentalists and I agree on the
inerrancy of the Bible. But why do I need a Bible without errors?
In practice at least, fundamentalists seem to have answered the
question in this way: I need an infallible owner's manual for
life. How do I find blessing? How do I avoid sin? How do I
prosper? How can my ministry succeed? When is Jesus coming back?
In the Bible I have the pure, straight access to the truth about
everything I want to know. Now as everyone knows, in order for an
owner's manual to be of any use, it has to be fairly
straightforward and transparent. Anyone who has ever tried to put
together an appliance using an owner's manual written by a
non-native speaker knows what I mean. If the knowledge I gain
from the Bible is the key to finding blessing and power, then
getting access to that knowledge had better be pretty easy.
In contrast to that picture, I think the Bible serves a very
different sort of role in the life of believers. God's prophets
and apostles recorded for us a divinely inspired revelation of
God's eternal purposes. They told us the meaning of history and
the choice that all human beings must make about whether they
will return to their God and find eternal life or keep away from
Him and find judgment and condemnation. Everything the Bible says
is true, but by no means is all of it easy to understand. It
paints a very big picture that is meant to sustain God's people
over thousands of years. You have heard of an all-day sucker; the
Bible is like a two-thousand-year-old sucker that the church has
been working on slowly and steadily. What the biblical authors
said is absolutely true, but there are many barriers to
understanding—many hurdles we have to overcome:
• Textual questions provide a hurdle: although we have very
good manuscript evidence for the Bible, a number of decisions
still must be made among variant readings in the existing
texts.
• Translations are a hurdle; every translation of the Bible
cannot help making many interpretive decisions, and sometimes
those decisions are wrong.
• A very big hurdle is the fact that the text must be
interpreted; the very fact that there is so much disagreement
about what the Bible says shows how necessary it is that we make
interpretive decisions about what it says.
• Even if we infallibly interpret every verse, we are still
left with the big hurdle of applying what we find there. How do
we take the various statements in the Bible and build a biblical
worldview? How do we know what we are supposed to do?
My perception is that fundamentalism and its heirs have largely
tried to minimize the magnitude of the job of biblical
interpretation. If the Bible is my own personal owner's manual,
God must have put the blessings right there on the surface, where
I can just grab them as needed. It is no accident that many
fundamentalists are doctrinaire about the King James Bible, since
their commitment to the King James sweeps away textual and
translation problems. Textual problems? There are no textual
problems; the King James alone uses the right Greek manuscripts.
Translation problems? There are no translation problems. Unlike
every other English translation, they argue, the King James is a
straight Greek-to-English translation untainted by the
translators' interpretive impositions. Other problems are dealt
with just as easily. Interpreting the Bible? That is not a
problem. Many fundamentalists in my experience deny that the
Bible should be interpreted at all. "Don't interpret it, just
read it," they say. Others, while not going that far, still want
to say that the meaning of texts is a straightforward,
commonsensical affair, almost scientific. Just apply a few
commonsense rules to the words on the page and the meaning will
fall into your lap. Application? That's the simplest thing of
all. Just read what it says and do it.
Thus the very great truth that the Scriptures are without error
seems to have taken on a new slant in fundamentalism. The legacy
of fundamentalism, at least practically speaking, has been that
we think that every word in our particular translation of the
Bible is absolutely true; that every idea that comes into our
head when we read our Bible is absolutely true; that our own
theology, which amazingly enough we find every time we open our
Bibles, is absolutely true. The doctrine of inerrancy, which
ought to leave us trembling with the thought that our world is
going to be shaken by the truths the Bible contains, instead
comforts us with the notion that everything we already think is
true.
Fundamentalism, in the end, is a movement that defended the Bible
honorably and then taught us to read it poorly. When our
fundamentalist forefathers tell us that the Bible is true, we
need to listen; when they tell us what the Bible says, we would
do well to look again for ourselves.