Christianity or Christianities?

Though our readers might not know who Walter Bauer is, I’m sure many of you have heard of Bart Ehrman.  Ehrman has written scores of books, including Misquoting Jesus, Lost Christianities, Lost Scriptures, and The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture (among others).  One major part of Ehrman’s writing is his revival of Bauer’s 100-year-old thesis.  What is Bauer’s thesis?  Briefly stated, Bauer taught that heresy preceded orthodoxy.  In other words, Bauer argued that early Christianity contained significant doctrinal diversity so much so that there was originally no such thing as orthodoxy.  Kostenberger and Kruger summarize Bauer’s thesis in The Heresy of Orthodoxy.

“In the first century, claim Bauer, Ehrman, and other adherents to the ‘diversity’ doctrine, there was no such thing as ‘Christianity’ (in the singular), but only ‘Christianities’ (in the plural), different versions of belief, all of which claimed to be ‘Christian’ with equal legitimacy.  The traditional version of Christianity that later came to be known as orthodoxy is but the form of Christianity espoused by the church in Rome, which emerged as the ecclesiastical victor in the power struggles waged during the second through fourth centuries.”

“What this means for us today, then, is that we must try to get back to the more pristine notion of diversity that prevailed in the first century before ecclesiastical and political power squelched and brutally extinguished the fragile notion that diversity – previously known as ‘heresy’ – is the only orthodoxy there is” (p. 16).

As Christians, what do we do with Bauer’s thesis and Ehrman’s revival of it?  We certainly can’t ignore it because it is found in bookstores, the media, and even in some pulpits.  And we don’t want to write it off because it is a weighty topic: if Bauer and Ehrman are right, historical Christianity is wrong, and we cannot trust the New Testament.  What do we do?

One of the first things I’d recommend is getting this book by Kostenberger and Kruger: The Heresy of Orthodoxy.  The authors know Bauer and Ehrman’s points quite well and engage them in a careful, courteous, biblical, and logical manner.  In this book you’ll learn more about Bauer and Ehrman’s arguments, you’ll be introduced to many first and second century writings, you’ll be given a biblical (OT/NT) view of the NT, you’ll learn about early Christian scribes and books, and you’ll ultimately see some major flaws in Bauer and Ehrman’s logic.  I’ll come back to this book at a later time and share some of my favorite parts.  For now, again, if you want to interact with Bauer and Ehrman in a scholarly way, get this book: The Heresy of Orthodoxy.

shane lems

Rome: Sola Ecclesia, not Sola Scriptura

A short while ago I posted some helpful and critical comments about Rome’s view of Scripture by Michael Kruger (in Canon Revisited).  Here is part two of that post.  The quote is a bit longer than my usual ones, but it is well worth the time.

“…The most fundamental concern [is] whether the Roman Catholic model, in some sense, makes the Scripture subordinate to the church.  The answer to that question is revealed when we ask another question: How does the Roman Catholic Church establish its own infallible authority?  If the Roman Catholic church believes that infallible authorities (like the Scriptures) require external authentication, then to what authority does the church turn to establish the grounds for its own infallible authority?  Here is where the Roman Catholic model runs into some difficulties.  There are three options for how to answer this question.”

“(1) The church could claim that its infallible authority is authenticated by (and derived from) the Scriptures.  But this proves to be rather vicious circular reasoning.  If the Scriptures cannot be known and authenticated without the authority of the church, then you cannot establish the authority of the church on the basis of the Scriptures.  You cannot have it both ways.  Moreover, on an exegetical level, one would be hard-pressed to find much scriptural support for an infallible church….”

“(2) The church could claim that its infallible authority is authenticated by external evidence from the history of the church: the origins of the church, the character of the church, the progress of the church, and so forth.  However, these are not infallible grounds by which the church’s infallibility could be established.  In addition, the history of the Roman Church is not a pure one – the abuses, corruption, documented papal errors, and the like do not naturally lead one to conclude that the church is infallible regarding ‘faith and morals.’”

“(3) It seems that the only option left to the Catholic model is to declare that the church’s authority is self-authenticating and needs no external authority to validate it.  Or, more bluntly put, we ought to believe in the infallibility of the Roman Catholic Church because it says so.”

“The Roman Catholic Church, then, finds itself in the awkward place of having chided the Reformers for having a self-authenticating authority (sola scriptura), while all the while it has engaged in that very same activity by setting itself up as a self-authenticating authority (sola ecclesia).  On the Catholic model, the Scripture’s own claims should be received on their own authority.  The Roman Catholic Church, functionally speaking, is committed to sola ecclesia.”

Here’s Kruger’s helpful critique of Rome’s view of the church over the Word.

“…This presents challenges for the Catholic model.  Most pertinent is the question of how there can be a canon at all – at least one that can genuinely challenge, correct, and transform the church – if the validation structure for the canon, in effect, already presupposes that the church bears an authority that is even higher?  On the Catholic system, then, the canon’s authority is substantially diminished.  What authority it does have must be construed as purely derivative – less a rule over the church and more of an arm of the church, not something that determines the church’s identity but something that merely expresses it.”

This sheds some new light on the Reformation phrase, “always reforming according to the Word.”  Rome can’t logically say this phrase because it does not believe that the Scriptures alone are the highest authority for faith and life; Rome believes in sola ecclesia, not sola scriptura.  One cannot have it both ways.

The above quotes are found in Michael J. Kruger, Canon Revisited (Wheaton: Crossway, 2012), 47-48.

rev. shane lems

Scripture, Scope, and Confessions

Here’s a great section from Michael Horton’s The Christian Faith.  It is found under the topic of Scripture – specifically the sufficiency, clarity, and scope of Scripture (p. 197).

“Like its sufficiency, the clarity of Scripture is inseparable from its scope.  If we come to the Bible looking for answers to our own questions that it does not address explicitly, treating it as an encyclopedia of general knowledge, we will draw from it conclusions that it does not intend.  For instance, if we seek from Scripture infallible information concerning the age of the earth, we will miss the point of the passages we are citing.  Passages of this kind require more interpretive skill than do the abundant and obvious declarations of the gospel.”

“The tragic fact that Rome has condemned as heretical the clear teaching of the gospel is the most decisive challenge to its claim to be the church’s infallible teacher of God’s Word.  The same must be said, also with great sorrow, for any Protestant body that strays from the clearest declarations of God’s grace in Jesus Christ.  If the gospel is not known and proclaimed in its purity and simplicity, it is the teacher rather than the text that is unclear.”

“The churches of the Reformation embrace ecumenical creeds and agree on specific confessions and catechisms.  However, they do this not because they think that Scripture is insufficient, difficult, or inconsistent and required an infallible interpreter.  Rather, they require communal subscription to these confessions precisely because they believe the Scriptures are so clear and consistent that their principle teachings can and should be summarized for the good of the whole community, children as well as adults.”

Michael Horton, The Christian Faith, p.197.

shane lems

The Perspicuity (Clarity) of Scripture

This is one of my favorite resources for studying the Westminster Confession of Faith: An Exposition of the Westminster Confession of Faith by Robert Shaw (originally published in the 1850’s).  It is clear, brief, biblical, and edifying.  This morning I ran across Shaw’s discussion of Scripture – specifically the perspicuity (clarity) of Scripture (WCF 1.6-7).  Here it is.

“The Scriptures are clear and perspicuous in all things necessary to salvation.  We allow that there are doctrines revealed in the Scriptures which surpass the comprehension of created beings, such as the doctrine of the Trinity, the eternal generation and the incarnation of the Son of God.  These are mysteries which we cannot comprehend, but the doctrines themselves are plainly taught in the Scriptures, and we must receive them on the divine testimony.”

“We also admit that in the Scriptures there are some things obscure and ‘hard to be understood.’  But this obscurity is chiefly in history and prophecies, which do not so nearly concern our salvation.  As in nature everything necessary for the support of life occurs almost everywhere, and may be found on the most easy search, while other things less necessary, such as its gems and gold, lie concealed in certain places, and can only be discovered and obtained by great exertions and unwearied industry; so there are things in the Scriptures, ignorance of which will not endanger the salvation of the soul, that are abstruse and difficult to be understood, even by those who possess acute minds and great learning.”

“But we maintain, that all those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation are so clearly revealed in some place of Scripture or other, that every serious inquirer, in the due use of ordinary means, may understand them.  This may be inferred from the fact that their author is God.  If he intended them to be a rule of faith and life to men, surely he has adapted them to the understandings of men.  There are numerous injunctions to read and search the Scriptures, but these necessarily imply that they are perspicuous and intelligible.  Christians are also commended for searching the Scriptures, and trying by the written Word the doctrines delivered to them (Acts 17:11).”

“If the Scriptures were unintelligible to common Christians, and the interpretation of the Church were necessary to discover their meaning, then such Christians would have no foundation upon which a divine faith could rest.  Their faith must be ultimately resolved into the testimony of men; but human testimony, being fallible, cannot be the ground of an infallible persuasion.” (p.53).

Well said!  Here’s the book to get if you want a great study guide of Reformed theology: An Exposition of the Westminster Confession of Faith by Robert Shaw.

shane lems

Tyndale’s Cry: Scripture in Our Own Language!

  Before recently, I read about the English reformer William Tyndale but I never read anything he himself wrote.  So I started reading The Obedience of a Christian Man, a treatise he wrote in 1528.  This is an incredible book.  Scripture simply dripped from his pen; he wrote as if he had memorized the entire Bible.  He doesn’t just throw a bunch of proof texts together or write in a biblicistic way.  He simply knew the Bible so well he could not help but refer to it without ceasing.  To be honest, Tyndale’s writing makes a lot of the conservative evangelical books I read seem quite elementary.

For one example of Tyndale’s biblical brilliance, here are some reasons why he firmly believed the Bible should be translated into common language(s).  I’ve edited it slightly to make it easier to read.

“First, God gave the children of Israel a law by the hand of Moses in their mother tongue.  And all the prophets wrote in their mother tongue.  And all the Psalms were in the mother tongue.  …Moreover, Moses said that the people of Israel should know the law inside and out.  How did it happen that God’s word pertaineth less unto us than unto them?  Yea, how did it happen that our Moseses (the priests and prelates of Rome) forbid us and command us the contrary, and threaten us if we do, and do not want us to speak even one word of God?  How can we put God’s word into practice in our household and for our children when we are violently kept from it and know it not?  How can we give reason for the hope that is within us when we do not know what to hope for?”

“Christ commandeth to search the scriptures.  When Paul preached, the others (Bereans) searched the scriptures daily, whether they were as he alleged them.  Why shall not I do likewise, whether it be the scripture that thou papists allegedst?”

“The sermons which thou readest in the Acts of the Apostles and all that the apostles preached were no doubt preached in the mother tongue.  Why then may they not be written in the mother tongue?  The 119th Psalm saith that happy are they which search the testimonies of the Lord, that is to say, that which God testifieth and witnesseth unto us.  But how shall I do that when ye will not let me have his testimonies or witnesses in a tongue which I understand?  Will ye resist God?  Will ye forbid him to give his Spirit unto laypeople as well as unto you?  Hath he not made the English tongue?  Why forbid ye him to speak in the English tongue, then, as well as in the Latin?”

This is a goal all of us should aim for: to know, understand, and love the Bible so much that it becomes an ordinary part of our talk, thought, and writing.  Reading Tyndale is convicting and encouraging at the same time.  Convicting because I don’t know the Bible nearly like he did; encouraging because it makes me want to know it better.

shane lems