What IS Scripture, Pt. 1

Biblical Authority, Interpretation, and Holy Love

It’s no secret that the United Methodist Church has undergone a disheartening and divisive split over the last several years. Indeed, the tensions that eventually produced the present schism existed long before my birth and were sewn, sometimes incoherently, into the original 1968 union.

In truth, my heart grieves this division because I think the so-called traditionalists (now largely represented by the Global Methodist Church) and the so-called progressives actually need each other. I think the progressives need the traditionalist emphasis on scripture and historic orthodoxy, and I think those traditionalist-evangelicals need the justice-oriented emphasis of their progressive siblings, not to mention the reminder that the tradition is not a monolith. So I, for one, did not rejoice when our denomination split. Not least because I have friends, companions, and colleagues on both sides of the fracture.

One of those long-time companions is Dr. Matt O’Reilly. I met Matt in an “Exegesis of Genesis” course at Asbury Theological Seminary. While I knew then that our interpretations of various texts, and what I’m now calling our ontology of scripture, did not align, I never did, and do not now, suspect him of having anything less than a genuine desire to understand the God revealed in Jesus Christ and testified to in the biblical canon.

As I’ve sat with my disagreements with the GMC and with friends in that camp, I have increasingly realized that we do not merely disagree about interpretations of individual biblical passages. More fundamentally, we disagree about what scripture is. That is, we disagree about the ontology of scripture.

By “ontology of scripture,” I mean the basic question of what scripture is, how it mediates divine revelation, and what sort of authority it possesses within the life of the church.

Though I will spend the following essays unpacking that claim in greater detail, I should state at the outset where my own reflections ultimately lead.

Scripture is authoritative precisely because, and to the extent that, it bears witness to the God revealed in Jesus Christ and forms the church in holy love.

In some sense, the above statement will guide all that follows in the forthcoming essays. The question before us is not whether scripture is authoritative. Rather, it is what kind of authority scripture possesses, how that authority functions within the life of the church, and how Christians discern faithful interpretations of the biblical text.

Because the UMC often functions as an implicit foil within these intra-GMC debates and because the GMC is currently constructing its own doctrinal standards regarding scripture, I recently found myself reading an exchange between Dr. O’Reilly and Dr. Scott Kisker concerning the proposed GMC statements on biblical authority.¹

I thought it might be helpful to offer a clarifying aside from the perspective of at least one United Methodist regarding the ontology of scripture. More honestly, I also write to hear myself think. So I wanted to take this opportunity, in the midst of genuine disagreement, to offer a good-hearted rebuttal that simultaneously helps me clarify my own theological convictions. Thus, I asked Dr. O’Reilly almost a week ago if I could write a response to his position. He encouraged me to do so, and was affirming when I sent him earlier drafts of these essays.

So let me start with clarity about something I think my GMC siblings sometimes forget, or at least fail to acknowledge strongly enough: we agree on far more than our ecclesial separation sometimes suggests.

I, too, love scripture.

I, too, embrace the authority of scripture.

I, too, worry about theological drift, whether into evangelical nationalism or vague Schleiermachian abstraction.

I, too, long for doctrinal seriousness.

I, too, remain grateful for vigorous theological debate.

And whatever else may be said of the UMC, I know of no broad movement within it that openly rejects those commitments.

Still, one of the reasons I chose to respond to Dr. O’Reilly’s essay is because it raises legitimate concerns about the possibility of theological relativism and the temptation to dismiss scripture’s central role in Christian life and doctrine. Those are fair critiques at moments.

At the same time, I think Dr. O’Reilly’s theological camp faces temptations of its own: namely, a drift into a vague and culturally reactive evangelicalism that loudly proclaims the centrality of scripture while functionally subordinating scripture to ideological anxieties, political identity, or culture-war boundary making. I do not accuse Dr. O’Reilly, specifically, of such a drift. I merely insist that the temptation exists within his circles just as theological relativism exists as a temptation within mine.

In these brief essays that follow, then, I hope to discuss the ontology of scripture as the deeper habitat of our disagreement. Yet because I also believe the nature of our disagreement is frequently misunderstood, often reduced to simplistic binaries such as conservative versus progressive, I want simultaneously to insist that we share substantial theological common ground despite the rhetoric that denominational schisms produce. My contention is not that the disagreements are insignificant, but, rather, that we often misidentify what we are actually disagreeing about.

My thesis is as follows:

In the essays that follow, I will argue that Wesley’s strong affirmations of scripture do not require contemporary Methodists to adopt modern theories of inerrancy or inerrancy-adjacent language. Rather, scripture’s authority is best understood Christologically, ecclesially, and teleologically. Scripture is authoritative precisely because, and to the extent that, it bears witness to the God revealed in Jesus Christ and forms the church in holy love.

The disagreement before us, therefore, is not principally whether Christians should hold a “high view of scripture.” It concerns how scripture is authoritative, how that authority functions within the life of the church, and whether modern formulations centered on certainty, precision, and error most faithfully express the Wesleyan theological imagination.

Thus, our disagreements are not merely exegetical. They are ontological. And until we recognize that fact, we will continue speaking past one another while imagining we are debating the same thing.

1. Dr. Joel Green also joined the conversation more broadly as early as this week. Thus, I am in way over my head. But I do think I have a slightly different angle than each of them.