Posted on 11/16/2007 10:52:24 AM PST by NYer
From Christianity Today, this fascinating bit of news:
While the ballroom sessions of the first day of the Evangelical Theological Society meeting had more attendees, no session was as packed as J.P. Moreland’s “How Evangelicals Became Over-Committed to the Bible and What Can Be Done About It.” While the average breakout session seems to be attended by fewer than 50 people, easily more than 200 packed the room to hear Moreland’s talk, with dozens standing and more listening outside the door. ...
“In the actual practices of the Evangelical community in North America, there is an over-commitment to Scripture in a way that is false, irrational, and harmful to the cause of Christ,” he said. “And it has produced a mean-spiritedness among the over-committed that is a grotesque and often ignorant distortion of discipleship unto the Lord Jesus.”
The problem, he said, is “the idea that the Bible is the sole source of knowledge of God, morality, and a host of related important items. Accordingly, the Bible is taken to be the sole authority for faith and practice.” ...
“The sparse landscape of evangelical political thought stands in stark contrast to the overflowing garden both of evangelical biblical scholarship and Catholic reflection on reason, general revelation, and cultural and political engagement,” he said. “We evangelicals could learn a lesson or two from our Catholic friends.”
That wasn’t as provocative a statement coming a few months after the ETS president became one of those “Catholic friends.” Catholicism is on the agenda here, and Catholics are both implicitly and explicitly discussed in the meeting’s many discussions of justification. But Catholicism doesn’t seem to be the “new open theism” at ETS.
No, more provocative was Moreland’s argument about why evangelicals became over-committed to the Bible. Rather than developing a robust epistemology in response to secularism, he said, evangelicals reacted and retreated. Now evangelical theologians aren’t allowed to come to any new conclusions about the truths in Scripture, and they’re not allowed to find truths outside of Scripture. As a result, he said, they’re engaged in “private language games and increasingly detailed minutia” and “we’re not seeing work on broad cultural themes.”
Blogger Barry Carey of WithAllYourMind.net is at the conference and writes this:
First, J. P. Moreland delivered a paper entitled, “How Evangelicals Became Over-Committed to the Bible and What can be Done about It.” One might misunderstand Moreland’s topic without having attended the session. In one sense, Evangelicals are under-committed to the Bible, yet, Moreland argues, they have over-committed to the Bible in making it the sole authority, or source of knowledge. This stands in contrast to the historical view which holds that the Bible is the ultimate authority or source of knowledge. This over-committment stems from a withdrawal from the broader world of ideas, surrendering the source of “real knowledge” to the hard sciences. Moreland’s call was for evangelicals to recover the use of right reason, natural law, experience, Creeds , and tradition as subordinate sources of knowledge.
The reaction to Moreland's talk should be interesting to follow. The former ETS president who became Catholic is, of course, Dr. Francis Beckwith, professor at Baylor University (read my June 2007 interview with him here). More to come, I'm sure.
Ping!
ping
I told you guys we shouldn’t be so dependant on the Bible.
With providing examples or some context for these assertions the whole article is meaningless sophistry.
The Bible IS the sole source of authority of faith and practice. That dose not mean that we shouldn’t examine and learn from the writings of other great Christians. What it means though, is that if and when writings and practices and teachings that come from fallible human beings contradict God’s Word, His Word is always right over anything any man or woman writes. It’s just that simple.
“We evangelicals could learn a lesson or two from our Catholic friends.”
Like what, how to cover up pastoral sexual abuse cases? How to settle out of court for undisclosed sums and put silence orders on the payouts? How to host non-Christian religious leaders and allow them to pray to their gods in our churches?
LOL.
“Love the muslim, hate the sin”? ;-)
"Let him who is without sin cast the first stone."
I googled the writer of that and he seems like an unusual fellow in that he is within the charismatic movement while teaching at an “evangelical” seminary. Reformed and charismatic sort of tease each other a little . . . he may be both.
Convert them first, then love them.
Ann Coulter, is that you? LOL.
Well if I need to commit I want to commit where it does me the most good. Guilty as charged.
I don’t like the title of the article. For Catholics, the revealed Word of God is past down through both written Scripture and Sacred Tradition, but we shouldn’t use words like “over-committed” to Scripture in criticizing Evangelicals because that falsely implies that we are not committed to Scripture.
That's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me, and I'm a guy!
LOL. :-)
But never forget that Catholic priests sexually abused childed four times times as often as did "Protestant" pastors...
I was raised Catholic, attend a Presbyterian church now. I think there are many saved Christians in both bodies and I don’t think it is right to gloat over the troubles of any member of the body of Christ that is the Church with a capital “C.” I know that Catholics honestly feel that Protestants do not act with the benefit of the whole of the gospel. I know that Protestants believe that Catholics act within the gospel but with artificial and false doctrine added. But the individual Christian’s relationship with Christ is the crux of the matter; whether they have this relationship or not. I believe that in no church are the church leaders right on all doctrine. This view in and of itself makes me not a Roman Catholic, I think. However, a priest abusing a child does not make the Catholic church evil or illegitimate. A Protestant preacher getting caught with a prostitute or other sin does not make the believers in his church any less Christian. Satan will glory in any troubles among either body of faith in my opinion. “And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” Nothing to gloat about . . . hard as it is not to take sides and gloat. Am I wrong?
As a protestant, saying I’m “over-committed” to the Bible is like saying a fish is over-committed to water.
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