Jan 12
26
Christian Smith – Biblicism
“[I]n what sense does or can the Bible actually function as an instructive, issue-clarifying authority for the open-minded Bible believer who simply wants to know what the scriptures teach about gender roles, marriage relations, and the place of women in church ministry? In actual practice, it does not and apparently cannot serve as such an authority.” –Christian Smith.
I just started reading The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture by Christian Smith. It frightens me. It is disturbing, frustrating, and uncomfortable and I love it. It gives me courage to confess that I am a recovering Biblicist.
I grew up, religiously, with several axioms that gave me confidence in my church and my understanding of God and the Bible. I knew who was in and who was out. We were in and everyone else was out. “In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; in all things, charity” had the appearance of wisdom and generosity” until I dared to ask, “But who gets to decide what is essential?”
But I so wanted to be a true believer. Later I challenged a brother who had left our church, the one true church why he had given up. He admitted, “Because it did not work.”
Christian Smith lists, analyses, explains and gives example after example how it has not worked, is not working and will not work.
Smith explains, “By ‘biblicism’ I mean a theory about the Bible that emphasizes together its exclusive authority, infallibility, perspicuity, self-sufficiency, internal consistency, self-evident meaning, and universal applicability” (p. 5).
The Bible Made Impossible is not for the faint of heart.
Questions:
- Why are there so many differing interpretations of the Bible?
- Does your study of the Bible expand your circle of Christian friends or drive them away?