Confessing Evangelical

The Pontificator has posted a quote from David Mills (editor of Touchstone) who describes sitting for several days in "a discussion about divorce and remarriage with 12 Anglican-Evangelicals - all learned, all biblically conservative, all holding more or less the same hermeneutic - who came to nine different and to some extent deeply opposed positions", and goes on to point out that:

Once upon a time, all Evangelicals held that divorce and "remarriage" were virtually unthinkable. But this minimalism, I suddenly realized, was now one of the principles of the Church to which I belonged, as held by its finest servants. They would only hold as authoritative what they agreed Scripture said, and they were agreeing less and less.

This is a very telling point, in which Mills puts his finger squarely on the tendency to say that issues on which "evangelicals" disagree don't really matter. A striking example of this pluralistic approach can be found in John Stott's book, Evangelical Truth, in which he asks how we can distinguish "evangelical essentials which cannot be compromised and those adiaphora ... on which, being of secondary importance, it is not necessary for us to insist". Stott writes:

Perhaps our criterion for deciding which is which, a truly evangelical principle because it concerns the supremacy of Scripture, should be as follows. Whenever equally biblical Christians, who are equally anxious to understand the teaching of Scripture and to submit to its authority, reach different conclusions, we should deduce that evidently Scripture is not crystal clear in this matter, and therefore we can afford to give one another liberty. (emphasis added)

Stott goes on to list twelve areas which, in his view, meet these criteria: (1) Baptism; (2) the Lord's Supper; (3) church government; (4) worship (liturgy vs extempore); (5) charismata; (6) women in ministry; (7) ecumenism (involvement with non-evangelical churches); (8) the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy; (9) sanctification; (10) church & state issues; (11) the nature of mission; (12) eschatology. He adds:

This list could be considerably extended. It should include all doctrines and practices in which there is a sincere disagreement among evangelical believers about what the Bible teaches or implies.

Which is, of course, exactly what David Mills was saying when he observed that his evangelical friends "would only hold as authoritative what they agreed Scripture said, and they were agreeing less and less".

Now, I shudder at my own presumption in criticising so great and venerable a saint as John Stott. But there are some obvious difficulties with this approach. For starters, most evangelicals would probably disagree with the inclusion on that list of at least some of those items (I mean, since when were Baptism and the Lord's Supper "adiaphora"? Was I at that meeting?).

And it opens the floodgates to ideas which Stott most certainly would not welcome. Clark Pinnock would strongly contend that he is a "biblical Christian ... anxious to understand the teaching of Scripture and submit to its authority". So presumably, therefore, we have to conclude that Scripture is not "crystal clear" in the matter of Open Theism. No doubt justification by faith and substitutionary atonement will soon need to be added to the list of unclear, inessential teachings on which evangelicals may legitimately differ. What next? The Trinity? The Incarnation?

Sadly, if this principle is adopted, the likely outcome is the complete evacuation of any remaining doctrinal content or meaning in the word "evangelical".

This approach is also flawed in that it places all error, by definition, "over there", among the evil "non-evangelicals". The biblical warnings to be on our guard against false teachers arising among us thus have their impact greatly reduced. False teachers = liberals and revisionists; different views among evangelicals = legitimate, healthy diversity. False teaching is what Rowan Williams does, not what Clark Pinnock does.

But the real problem is that Stott (and others following the same approach) is trying to answer the question, "How much doctrinal error is acceptable? At what point do we say that doctrinal error has gone 'too far'?" The answer is that no doctrinal error is "acceptable"; though that's not the same thing as saying that all doctrinal error is inherently damnable. Once again, this is a centred set in which the only safe point to be is at the centre.

The tendency identified by Mills and exemplified by Stott illustrates the tensions firstly between "sola Scriptura" and the question of how we can be sure our interpretation of the Bible is correct and hence authorative, and secondly between the role of the church and the role of individual Christians in interpreting the Bible. However, unlike Mills, I'm not at all convinced that the answers to these problems are found in Roman Catholicism. It's all very well having one, clear, authoritative answer to any given doctrinal question, but what if that answer is wrong?

I'm always troubled when Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox Christians tell us that we are to let the church interpret Scripture in an authoritative, and indeed infallible, manner (nor do I think it is necessary for the church to be infallible in order for it to be "a pillar and buttress of truth"). It is not just rampant individualism, anti-traditionalism and private judgment gone mad that makes Protestant Christians say that these two communions have misinterpreted Scripture on issues such as justification by faith. Between individualism and ecclesial infallibility lies a third approach, that of confessionalism, which I will look at in more detail in my next post on this topic.