Rethinking Authority…
…in the 21st Century — NT Wright at St. Oswald’s Church
I couldn’t refuse a chance to hear the world famous (within the English speaking, ecclesiastically informed world) theologian NT Wright, Bishop of Durham and prolific author of books including the multiple prize winning Resurrection of the Son of God, talk on the subject of Scriptural Authority.
His talk started with a quick introduction to the topic, followed by the assertion that Anglicanism has always viewed scripture as the final authority. He then quickly ran through of some of the recent, and contentious, events relating to scriptural authority and to the Anglican Communion, before making the point that there are many different interpretations and traditions that each approach the issue differently.
His first major point was that much of the debate around this issue is very shallow and that we need to “grow up!” To start with, we need to know what the phrase ‘Authority of Scripture’ really means. He explained it as a short hand way of asserting God’s authority through scripture. This naturally led on to the question of how God’s authority is mediated through Scripture.
Before directly answering this he made the point that we cannot view the Bible as a series of doctrines — a list of things to be believed and behaviours to be carried out — although some parts clearly include these things. The Bible comes across as a story. And, as he later commented, not necessarily the same story for all of us. So how can a story be authoritative?
Again he didn’t directly answer this, but pointed out that a narrative leaves us to find who and where we are in the story. He went on to state that Scripture was part of the coming of God’s kingdom and that we should understand authority by what God wants to do, can do and does do through this book. He told us that we must have an integrated view which includes the role of the spirit as a transformational and informative agent, and that Scripture should energise the Church’s mission as it brings about God’s kingdom.
He then (relatively) quickly covered past and tradition: the past gives us a matrix within which we attain wisdom and when reading or preaching scripture me must think clearly.
He tied the talk up with the analogy of a play where most of the fifth and final acts, but not the last few pages, were missing. The correct response, he suggested, would be for the actors to so learn the first four parts and very end, so that they could improvise the missing parts. He suggested that we are in a similar situation: we have the first four acts (Creation, Fall, Israel and Jesus) and the final few pages (Revelation) but we must improvise what lies in between.
The two practical steps he suggested the church should take are Liturgy, or regular, substantive reading of the Scriptures, and a greater role of teaching of the Scriptures by Church leaders from the highest levels down to the laity. He pointed out the irony that many Evangelical churches while claiming a greater emphasis on Scripture, thanks to their lack of Liturgy, actually read far less of the Bible.
He followed up with a quick question and answer session, which was for me, probably the most interesting part of a fascinating talk. To the question of whether it was in some sense idolatrous or blasphemous to refer to the scriptures as the word of God, he conceded that many of the instances of the words ‘word of God’ in the Bible had Jesus as their chief referent. But, there were clearly cases where the words were used differently — to mean the actual words that people were speaking. His answer seemed a little one sided — it might have been appropriate to highlight the danger of implicitly advocating an equivalence between God and Scripture.
Another question asked about the tendency to view the Bible as human or divine. His answer was to affirm the importance of the ‘both/and’ (both human and divine) view both in relation to both Jesus and to the Scriptures.
The penultimate question asked about ‘the hermeneutical problem’ (the problem of interpreting the Bible for the contemporary world) and the relation between the Academy and church. The answer was essentially pastors should be careful about the latest academic work; that sometimes it’s fantastic but, like worship music, much of it will be cast by the way side in years to come.
The final question, actually a comment, was from an American who thought it an honour to hear NT Wright. He went on to thank him, mentioning the situation in the USA — the Evangelical/Liberal split — and citing Kierkegaard’s attack on the objectification of scripture (basically in order to avoid scripture having any effect on one’s life one makes objective doctrines out of it). To this comment NT Wright rejected the spectrum of Conservatism/Liberalism and Right/Left as a useful technique for classification of groups and individuals. He also commented on the unhelpful polarisation in American politics and theology.
It was refreshing to hear someone advocate scripture as a final authority, whose conception of this is actually compelling, and who doesn’t view the Bible as a mere rule book or implicitly equate it with God. He was fascinating to listen to, and extremely hard to neatly characterise. His theology (as presented in the talk) is very clearly both Anglican (emphasis on Liturgy, dialogue) and Evangelical (emphasis on scripture). But one can also see a strong element of what might be described as Constructivist Postmodern thought (his criticisms of modernity/Enlightenment thought, his suggestion of subjectivity in Biblical interpretation, and view of scripture as story). He also suggested the use of a historical-critical approach to better understand how the scriptures apply to us. I look forward to actually reading a few of his books and would certainly recommend attending future talks if you get the chance.