Groovesome Letters Page

Dear Christis,

If I may, I’d like to respond to Matthew Vogan’s article in the last issue of Christis (Issue 41). On the whole, a fine piece of writing, and one which makes some interesting points, with which I entirely agree. Once again, however, I find myself confused by what appears to me to be the huge logical leap made by evangelicals when arguing for the sufficiency of the Bible.

One of Matthew’s major points in the article was the suggestion that mankind, not being God, is not able to see things infallibly. At the moment, Matthew claims, we tend to see all truth as being relative. Absolute truths are unfashionable and not widely accepted. I do what I think is best, you do what you think is best and neither of our viewpoints could be said to be more valid than the other one’s. This, argues Matthew, is obviously going to lead us into strife. If there are no absolute rules, we can all just do what the heck we like without having some form of external authority to look to and judge ourselves against.

Now this may very well be true (it may not be though; I certainly don’t think it’s as simple as that!), but the step I am still uncomfortable with (and believe me, it’s not the first time someone has tried to persuade me to take it), is the suggestion that the solution to this apparent ‘lostness’ of humanity, is for us to take up the Bible which is claimed to be the unchanging and infallible Word of God, and which allegedly contains a set of rules that comes from outside of our own human fallibilities, and is thus the proper and sensible yardstick against which to measure our actions.

But on what basis do we do this? Why should we treat the Bible in this way? Matthew argues that Scripture itself demands that we treat it this way, and lists some quotes scattered throughout the Old and New Testaments to back this up. Now, I must admit to feeling somewhat foolish here. Mr Vogan has a talent for fine words, whereas I do not. I will instead try to put my points succinctly, if at some loss of intellectual rigour.

The quotes Matthew uses seem to be separated widely in time and context. The most common quote used to support the premise that the Bible is sufficient is 2 Timothy 3:16, which claims “All scripture is God breathed …” But hang on! Obviously, when this letter was written there was no such thing as a New Testament or Bible as we have it now. A number of the books that are now in the New Testament hadn’t even been written when Paul wrote that remark to Timothy. Are we supposed to believe that this verse (and any of the others Matthew gives), was meant by Paul to refer to books that were not then in existence? Surely, to claim that the Bible is sufficient and infallible, and then base this claim on various quotes within the Bible itself which were clearly not directed at the Bible as a whole, is at best a circular argument and at worst patently absurd!

Presumably Matthew would insist that the only scripture that is truly “God breathed” are the books that made it to the final version of what we now have as the Bible (books of the Apocrypha, for instance, not qualifying). Anyone who knows their Bible history would be aware that when it came to deciding which books went into the canon, the arguments were certainly not free from acrimony and politics. Perhaps, then, what Matthew would define as truly “God breathed” scripture may itself suffer from a certain (fallible!) human influence.

Of course, if willing to labour the point, evangelicals could easily become hand-waving and woolly at this point — claiming that God is omnipotent, and could therefore ensure that all the myriad improbabilities required to create and compile a self-sufficient book that refers to itself, over a period of several thousand years and in different languages, would come about. But is that really what they believe? It seems more likely to me that the Bible is simply not to be read in this way. Maybe this means that it is not the irrefutable reference point Matthew wishes to make it out as, but does that really matter?

Even if Matthew is right, and humanity as it stands is fumbling around in the dark, having no fixed point of reference, what reason is there to believe that things must be any other way? Why is it logically necessary (as opposed to just comforting) to believe that we have some set of celestial landing lights to guide us into a particular way of thinking and being? Perhaps we would find that life holding no absolute beliefs about the universe isn’t really so horrifying, if we allow ourselves to see beyond the straw man presented by evangelicals, of the people who hold this view.

I merely try to provide food for thought. If I am in foolish error, please make the effort to point this out to me, as I am sincerely confused by the line of thinking I have argued against above.

Yours in Christ,

Paul Read

Dear Christis,

I feel I should reply to some of the points made in the letter of Matthew Moxon, William Olphert and Matthew Vogan in Issue 40 of Christis in response to my article ‘Christian Unity — the Gordian Knot’. I am thankful to them for the letter and appreciate the loving and considerate manner in which it was written.

Their opposition to the content of my article seemed to have its source in the belief that “I had driven a wedge between the Word and the Spirit” and thus destroyed any objective basis for the gospel and for unity in that gospel. Indeed, they were right to assert that any such dichotomy is false, and that it cannot form a basis for Christianity, let alone Christian unity. However, I feel my article has been misunderstood rather in this respect. It was certainly not my intention to propound such a dualistic notion of Word and Spirit, but recognise with hindsight that it could be quite possible to read this into what I wrote. As such I will attempt to clarify my position.

I agree with the trio that the Word and the Spirit, though distinct, should not be considered wholly apart from one another. Indeed, the business of separating ‘Knowledge’ (the Word) and ‘Experience’ (the Spirit) into entirely non-communicable categories inevitably seems to lead to the philosophy of absurdity and despair that is so apparent in much twentieth-century thought. I have no time for this kind of existentialism, for the purpose of Christianity is to give light to the world, not to confirm it in its darkness.

Contrary to their perceptions of my opinions, I regard the establishment of an objective knowledge of God and His revelation in Jesus Christ to be the paramount concern of Christianity. I am not interested in basing unity on superficial and empty platitudes. My purpose in attacking Biblical Fundamentalism was rather to highlight that a mere belief in the words of the Bible does not inevitably lead to this objectivity as seems to be supposed by the trio. It is all very well claiming to believe everything that is written, but if that belief is molded around presuppositions which are incorrect, then that belief will simply not beget truth. Unfortunately, the trio do not appear to entertain the possibility that their beliefs may be incorrect in this respect, but rather assume a self-proclaimed authority in pontificating what is and what is not acceptable in light of Biblical revelation. This authority appears to be built upon the idea that what they personally regard to be the plain understanding of a Bible passage is necessarily its only correct understanding. However, this ties the Bible to their own individual pre-conceptions, and in many ways prevents its use as an effective corrective influence. However well-meaning their intention, I am afraid to say that their whole approach is saturated in the arrogance that hinders so many moves towards real Christian unity.

It is a rejection of the kind of rather subjective and individualistic ‘Believism’ advocated by the trio that lay at the heart of the message I wanted to convey. When it is realised that believing in the words of the Bible can lead one down all manner of paths depending on how one believes them, one is forced to turn and examine one’s innermost thoughts and conscience in order to test one’s approach. The purpose of this is not to divide Word and Spirit (Knowledge and Experience), but rather to ensure they work in communion with each other in securing a path towards the Truth. As nobody is perfect this is necessarily a fallible process, but one in which we must partake if we are to come to terms with God. The trio’s attack of this approach supposed that the Bible can and does teach us the Truth apart from our conscience (by definition the place in ourselves where we discern and recognise Truth). Quite how the Bible is supposed to do this is beyond me. Indeed, this idea seems nothing short of nonsensical and self-contradictory. Indeed, as surely as a wedge cannot be driven between Word and Spirit in the expression of Truth, then neither can a wedge be driven between the Bible and our consciences. The conclusion which surely has to be drawn is that our understanding of the Bible is only as infallible as our relationship with God; a full and complete knowledge of objective Truth will only be found in heaven when our relationship with God will be perfect.

It is these convictions that led me to write the article which I did, and begin to explain why I am committed to the ecumenical process. In conclusion then, I urge everyone, particularly the trio whose letter this is a response to, to examine their consciences and search for the self-centred pride upon which all manner of conceited notions are built; notions which we so often vainly suppose to be God’s Truth.

If what I have said has caused any offense, I am sorry. But my strong convictions have demanded strong words.

Yours in Christ,

Andrew Filby

Dear Christis,

We write concerning the letter featured in your last issue written by Matthew Moxon, William Olphert and Matthew Vogan. Perhaps we should start however by stating that it is not our wish that this should become an on-running saga of dispute. It would sadden us considerably to imagine that a debate on Church unity should become a focus for any such disunity of thought as exists amongst campus Christians. Nevertheless, we feel that there are enough new points that we should like to raise to make writing this letter a worthwhile exercise. And we hope that the disagreements of these pages may be seen as fundamentally constructive and may not be seen as taking away from what we believe is quite a strong unity amongst Christians of all traditions on Campus.

Messrs. Moxon, Vogan and Olphert may well have found Andy Filby’s original article “really rather confusing” but I’m afraid we found parts of their letter similarly so. This is really not surprising — were we all able to understand debates of this sort with no problems, then I’m sure we would be pursuing glittering theological careers rather than being merely humble undergraduates in York. Unlike them, however, we do not seek to regard their remarks even with “gentle reproof” — for it seems to us that not only is there less dispute and more misunderstanding between the two parties than their letter insinuates, but that the key to this whole dispute may well be to start looking at what other people have got right, not what they’ve got wrong.

We mentioned ‘misunderstanding’ in the last paragraph because there does seem to be some of this in their letter — the authors say that “it seems that Andrew is trying to say that truth is subjective and that because our individual ‘truths’ and truth ‘traditions’ are therefore relative to each other we can have unity” and rightly criticise this. However, it seems to us that Andy never suggested that truth was subjective in his article, merely that there are many different ways of experiencing the same truth (for example, do the Chinese or the Africans hold services that are identical to our English ones? And if they don’t, does this mean that they are further away from God than we are?). This is surely what Andy means when he says “The Christian community needs to realise that there are different ways of approaching Christ, and that these often contain much that we can learn from.”

The Western Christian tradition has a long and embarrassing history of being completely unable to accept these differences, and the difference between one truth experienced in different ways and ‘different truths’ is of vital importance to the whole issue of unity. Were we discussing other subjects for example, the signatories of this letter would immediately and willingly admit to being human yet also admit that their identity is influenced by their background and nationality (like being Welsh makes Matt an infinitely more cultured person for example yeah right — Colin + John). Can we not equally be Christians and admit to differences?

Similarly, while Andy points out that we should not ever make the mistake of regarding the Bible in isolation without God’s Spirit, he also says “let us build everything on our Lord Jesus Christ, letting the life-giving Spirit speak to us through his word” — a comment which comes scarily close to being something that both sides could agree with. We found Andy’s statement that “so long as we live with a constant perspective on Him, allowing Him to mould and break us, the danger of compromising our gospel disappears” challenging — Matthew, William and Matthew seem to leave no room for God “to work through all things for good.” If someone is involved in a Church or denomination which has an aspect of theology wrong yet honestly and sincerely worships God, do we have the faith to trust that God will deal with any belief that gets in the way of the relationship between Him and that person? Furthermore, do we demonstrate the right way that we feel our theology represents better, by accepting people of other theological beliefs and merely continuing to live our lives in such a way that they might come to feel challenged by this, or do we set a better example by battering them around the head with what we tell them is the ‘truth’, and feeling so threatened that we can’t come out of our own little bunker to talk to them in case someone thinks this means we agree with them?

Equally, if we are going to be of the view that everybody who does not agree with our own brand of theology is not a Christian, then do we assume that the people we stand in Church with on a Sunday all share an identical theological view with us? If this is so, then the science of biological cloning must be rather closer than we have hitherto thought.

So far in this letter, we have tried to put some of our own alternate views and identify some places where misunderstanding has perhaps arisen. Matthew, William and Matthew however quite properly back up their case with biblical quotations. Obvious as we might hope it would seem, we are very much of the view that the Bible is fully supportive of some of the ideas that we have been trying to put forward in this letter. For one example of this, we direct you to the exquisite, wonderful, beautiful, superbly talented, ever-smiling, marvellous, gorgeous, astounding, lovely ( well we had to make sure this got printed somehow ) Becki Sykes’ article on Galatians in the same issue of Christis as Andrew Filby’s original article.

So how do we explain the verses quoted in their letter? Well, the Romans (16:17) verse seems to promote unity amongst Christians, warning against those who cause divisions in the Church The Galatians verse in its entirety reads “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned” — the authors fail to show what exactly it was that the gospel preached to the Galatians. However, those of us who have read the aforementioned article by the wonderful etc. Becki Sykes will be aware that it has a fair bit to say about unity amongst the Christian community, so it is surely a fair conclusion that ‘a gospel other than the one we preached’ refers to a radically different ‘gospel’ (e.g. worship something else and not God), not a theologically-slightly-different-interpretation of one. 2 John 10–11 is clearly referring to what only three verses earlier are called “those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh” and as we all know, even Catholics believe in this one! 2 Corinth. 6:14–17 commands separation from ‘idol worshippers,’ those of the ‘dark’ and ‘unbelievers,’ not Christians who have slightly different doctrines to us. Departure from the faith is only prophesied in 1 Tim 4:1 if people “abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.” Meanwhile, the “enemies of the cross of Christ” of Philippians 3:18 appear to be those who “persecute the church” (v6) and in v19 after it goes on to say “their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach and their glory is their shame.”

We sincerely hope that some slight mis-contextualizing on the part of Matthew, William and Matthew has taken place because otherwise any denomination / church / organisation / Christian which they do not approve of (clearly including Andy Filby and now also our humble selves) are “eternally condemned” (Galatians 1:8). We, not altogether surprisingly, find this slightly alarming. Given that the original letter was written by some prominent members of the Christian Union, we felt that it was necessary to write a reply to emphasise that this is not the only view in the Christian Union.

While we are very glad of the chance to support Andy in his quest for unity on campus, we should point out that we do not agree with every suggestion that he made in the original article — the assertion that statements of doctrine should not be made until we reach a level of tolerance and understanding is perhaps a little unrealistic as we seem to have all (personally and corporately) formulated such statements already. What we perhaps need to do is start from our great area of similarity — the “love of Christ” (as Andy himself points out at the end of his article) and then work from here. Then surely we can start to build a more united and yes — let’s be quite clear here — a more effective Church.

Yours, in the unconditional love of Christ (with lots of sloppy kisses from Colin)

John Cook
Colin Ellis
Matt Knight

P.S. We regret to disappoint the entire male population of York University, but the previously mentioned paragon of all known virtues Becki Sykes is already, as they say, romantically entangled (damn sob etc.)

P.P.S. Last issue’s editorial thingy mentioned the war poet Siegfried Sassoon losing his faith. While this was true at the time, Sassoon apparently later converted to Catholicism. This is not included for the sake of pedantry but merely because personally I find it encouraging that people like Sassoon — who went through the horrors of the War and losing his friend Owen — could eventually find God.

P.P.P.S. Um, we can’t actually think of anything else, but if you’ve made it this far you must be a masochist or a history student or something