Inerrant Idolatry
In an online forum recently, I saw a question asking for feedback on an article (link below). The article is part of a series in which several writers associated with the Global Methodist Church (GMC) are opining on their thoughts of what the future of the Church catholic may look like. I commend anyone looking to the future and trying to determine what the Church may look like, but what I noticed in the article is the idea of re-formation as in reforming (physically and theologically) what the Church looks like. Sadly, I see both a lack of imagination and a vision of a church as institution with rapidly narrowing guardrails.
Your vision of church may be of guardrails, but to project that onto the entirety of the Christian experience is a category error at best. I also believe that trying to fit institution into an organism leads to where we are today in the wider Church. Here are my unvarnished comments on the article.
The Church needs new birth. not revival, re-formation, or any institutional idea. This article and the series have a good premise, but I believe they lack the imagination that ignited the early church. Here is why I think that.
The thinking and questions are assuming institution rather than organism. The mention that God is doing something new does not track with the institutional nudges.
I believe this is a vision the authors have for the Global Methodist Church (GMC) and that is fine, but to project it upon the Church catholic is a category error. The GMC is definitely working toward a re-formation, but it appears to be a re-formation of modernism within an institutional church. The move toward inerrancy is just one example of this move toward modernism as the framework.
I can’t help shaking the feeling that the GMC is going down a similar road to the ANCA. Guardrails constantly narrow as you attempt to form an institution. Much better to have a centering that creates a source upon which we move out only so far as our center holds. That center is Jesus, not our institutions.
Why my rather cynical assessment? Because the GMC is already moving toward institutional rules making as a function of the Church. If you have played Table Top Role-Playing Games like Dungeons and Dragons you will be familiar with the concept of rules heavy and rules light games. The most popular game system is Dungeons and Dragons which is a rules heavy game. It has very dense and sometimes over complex rules which can constrict gameplay and the fun. A rules light game in contrast allows for more fluid storytelling and a faster pace. For a new player, rules light is much easier to understand and a much more inviting invitation into the hobby.
The GMC is institutionalizing an idea which helps to form institutional control over the hermeneutical (interpretative framework) of scripture. A solid hermeneutic is a good thing, but a rules light hermeneutic is more open to the Holy Spirit and the moves of God in the world than a rules heavy approach. What is my evidence of the GMC leaning toward a rules heavy approach? The fact that they are proposing changing their Methodist doctrine of scripture into a fundamentalist vision of an inerrant text. As a member of clergy in the Church of the Nazarene (COTN), I am watching this closely because we have clergy who not only desire for our doctrine of scripture to change to this same idea, but also teach inerrancy as doctrine.
What’s wrong with inerrancy? Good question, but also a question born in modernism’s insistence upon certitude and proof. Inerrancy is a recent idea within Christianity. In fact, it is a true child of twentieth century modernism. Ironically, the fundamentalists became modernists by fighting historic liberal theology with its own ideas. But back to inerrancy itself. The allure of inerrancy is that it places a burden upon scripture to be perfect in content rather than in purpose.
There is a very large gulf between content and purpose and we do well to remember that. The purpose of scripture is to reveal God, and for Christians, the perfect revelation of God is found in Jesus. These are the claims of the Gospels and other scripture. The Gospel of John and the book of Hebrews address this directly. The clarity of purpose being more important than content is shown very clearly in Hebrews chapter one.
Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. (Heb 1:1-3 NRSVue)
The writer of Hebrews is explicitly rejecting the idea that the scriptures they know are flawed in that they are not the perfect reflection of God’s character. Inerrancy is a poor understanding of scripture and the inspiration of scripture. Many Christian traditions have never held to any form of textual inerrancy. There are those, like the COTN, who teach the idea of soteriological inerrancy. This is simply that scripture is able to inerrantly reveal how we can have relationship with God. In other words, this is an inerrant purpose. You will find this claim throughout my writing.
But what I have come to believe recently is that textual inerrancy is not only a poor understanding of the purpose of scripture, but that it may be like heresy. It is definitely idolatry. Sure, those who believe in inerrancy will say “we don’t worship the bible.” But that’s not the fullness of idolatry. To define idolatry is the placement of authority within the object or thing itself instead of solely in the source of inspiration. In other words we shift from a God-breathed text, to a text that derives authority from itself.
That’s the ultimate problem with inerrancy, it constrains the text to the point of strangling its life. The text is nothing without the breath of God. For Wesleyans, this God-breathed nature extends to human beings, and to the Holy Spirit revealing the truth within the text which points to God. The authority of scripture exists within the invitation to engage with the living God, not the words on a page.
Textual inerrancy is an unnecessary and empty view of scripture. There is no claim to inerrancy within scripture. Many try to show inerrancy within scripture, but those are typically proof texts that ignore the context and even the very words. I imagine that in the new birth the Church is groaning toward, inerrancy will be a quaint artifact of modernism that gets shed in repentance of the idolatry that it is. At least that’s my prayer.