I thought I would take a short break from writing against the myth of redemptive romance to explain to any non-Evangelical or new Evangelical readers the general gist this whole Evangelical thing. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I realized that the movement is not actually defined by an emphasis on the evangel (or the gospel, Jesus’s message of the availability of the Kingdom of God now). The thing that sets most Evangelicals apart from our non-Evangelical Christian brothers and sisters is our view of Scripture. I think Evangelicals can pretty much be defined as the group of people who try to submit their lives completely to Scripture.[1] Of course, in order to do this, most Evangelicals have to take seriously the idea that God inspired both the authors of the Bible in some way and also inspired the process over the first couple centuries CE that led to the accepted cannon. We argue and disagree amongst each other whether the Bible is Inerrant, or Infallible, or if it is authoritative in some other way.[2] However, we all agree that the Bible represents some kind of revelation from God, and as a revelation from God, it should rule us. To put it another way, we submit our lives to our best understanding of what God is trying to say through its judgments, proclamations, revelations, and stories instead of insisting the Bible submit to our judgments of it.
Of course, this can be a little tricky. Anyone who has actually read the Bible can testify to the fact that it contains some self-contradictory and confusing material.[3] Sometimes this conflict is intentional, meant to point to a deeper truth beyond the contradiction. Other times instructions are given to people in a specific situation (like the women of the Corinthian and Ephesian churches) that are different from the instructions given to people not in that situation. But it is not always that easy to interpret. A lot of the confusion has to do more with the fact that the Bible was written from within multiple ancient cultural contexts that we no longer completely understand (though people who have studied them understand them much better than others). Consequently, we have to interpret the words of Scripture to get at the original meaning they conveyed to their first audience. From that meaning, we try to figure out what they should convey to us. These practices are called exegesis and hermeneutics by people who care to name them. For Evangelicals it is most significant that we submit to the broad themes of the Bible, but that doesn’t mean that we can choose to ignore even “the least stroke of the pen.” (Matthew 5:18) For every passage in Scripture, Evangelicals feel the need to do good exegesis and good hermeneutics and submit themselves to what they find.
To outsiders, this sometimes seems arbitrary. When did we decide to ignore the commands about women who are on their periods (Leviticus 15), but to keep the commands against having sex before marriage (Ephesians 5:3)? The truth is that Scripture, most famously in Acts 15 and the writings of Paul, actively encourages us not to submit ourselves to the culturally irrelevant guidelines in the Bible. According the most common interpretation, we are actually submitting to Acts 10 (Peter’s vision of animals on a sheet) by violating Leviticus 11:7 when we eat bacon. The story of Acts 10 nullifies, the previous command. We can still learn a lot about God and about being people who follow God by studying the commands in Leviticus, but we are no longer required to follow most of them.[4]
Here’s where things get tricky. Not all Evangelicals agree on a single interpretation of Scripture. In general, this is where we get the differences that separate one Evangelical denomination from another. For example, we Friends have traditionally believed that Jesus’s commands to “turn the other cheek” (Matt. 5:39), to “put away your sword…” (Matt. 26:52-3), and his general example of choosing to die on a cross rather than fight violently against his accusers, or to allow others to fight for him, make it impossible for someone to be following Jesus while serving as a soldier in the armed forces of any government. Most of our Evangelical brothers and sisters say that the wars of the Old Testament show these examples are not meant to be applied to violence on an international scale. They also point to verses that say we should submit to governing authorities (1 Peter 2:13, Titus 3:1, Romans 13:1) and we should seek the good of the people amongst whom we live (Jeremiah 29:7). We Friends tend to respond that the wars in the Old Testament were a strange case where God was doing something exceptional in history, and while we submit to governments in most things, we “must obey God rather than men” when there is a conflict (Acts 5:29). Regardless of who is right (it’s us, btw) the point is that the disagreement is over the interpretation of these verses: what do they mean, how do they fit together, and how do we submit to what we find in our modern culture. Both sides of the issue agree on the terms of the discussion. There is no time, ever, where Evangelicals simply choose to ignore something they believe the Bible to be commanding. If they do, they cease being Evangelicals.
Lately I’ve been hearing a lot of non-Evangelicals who are frustrated with us when it comes to our perspectives on issues ranging from gender and sexuality to drinking alcohol.[5] They say, “everyone picks and chooses from the Bible, why can’t you guys just pick the happy stuff that says God loves you and ignore the stuff that oppresses people.” This betrays two significant points of ignorance. First, there are no legitimate interpretations of Scripture that clearly oppress people. The problem is not with complementarians for example, though some people consider their prescribed gender roles oppressive, because their interpretation of scripture also includes the idea that men should sacrifice everything in their lives to support, care for and love their wives. [6] In their interpretation, gender roles should actually play out like a competition between husbands and wives where each tries to better love and serve the other. The fact that some people manipulate and oppress others in the name of complementarianism is not actually evidence of the oppression of their interpretation as much as it is evidence that they have not submitted themselves fully to their own interpretation of scripture. The second point of ignorance is betrayed by the dismissive words “just pick.” Because the moment we decide to submit our lives only to the parts of Scripture we like, or the parts of Scripture that society finds easy to accommodate, we have lost our identity as Evangelicals. In that moment we have lost our unique role in the Church Universal and in the world, and we have lost any benefit we gained in our own spiritual development through submitting ourselves to Scripture in the first place.
A lot of silly litmus tests have been popular in Evangelicalism over the last few years. Thirty years ago, people thought that everyone needed to agree on the pre-tribulation rapture, and then people needed to agree on young earth creationism, and then people needed to agree on a definition of marriage. I’m going to propose a new litmus test that I think gets right to the heart of the issue. Anyone who implies that we should pick and choose the parts of scripture to which we must submit should not be an Evangelical.
[1] Actually submission is a core element of every legitimate branch of Christianity (and every other significant religion that comes to mind). The Orthodox and Catholics submit themselves to the authority of the Church leadership and to the traditions of the church. Mainline churches submit themselves to the direction of the Holy Spirit as interpreted by the community. Though I am proud to call them my brothers and sisters, I also believe that it is important for our own Spiritual development to submit ourselves completely to Scripture. This is what makes me an Evangelical.
[2] Inerrancy is the belief that there are no errors in the Bible. Most people intend this declaration to include scientific and historical errors. Infallibility is the belief that the Bible cannot fail. While not concerned with scientific and historical errors, people who hold this view believe that the purpose of Scripture cannot fail to produce positive transformation. While on the surface, this seems to be a big disagreement, I don’t think it is very significant. Take Acts 19:12-13 for example, we can argue all day whether or not Paul’s used hankies actually healed people and get nowhere. It can never be proven or disproven, and would mean very little if it was. On the other hand, if we submit ourselves to the little story we can gain a great deal. We have to accept it as, if not historically accurate, at least reliable and inspired. Once we do, we can be awed by the power that God can exhibit through an individual. We can be humbled by the fact that no one has ever been healed through our hankies. We can be inspired to strive for a greater communion with God, which the story tells us is possible. Evangelicals take for granted that the story is reliable in order to allow the other elements of the story to work in them.
[3] Check out Proverbs 26:4-5, “Do not answer a fool according to his folly…Answer a fool according to his folly.” (NIV)
[4] In fact, as a general rule (though there are some significant exceptions), most Christians today tend to assume that any Old Testament command, which is not reiterated in the New Testament, can be ignored.
[5] Interestingly, there is a very broad spectrum of interpretation on the Biblical passages that deal with gender, sexuality and drinking that are all within legitimate Evangelicalism. People who are frustrated with us might influence us pretty easily by simply exposing us to historical and cultural information, or a different way of reading the verses that would help us interpret them differently.
[6] Just for the record, I am convinced that an egalitarian view more accurately represents the Biblical standard for gender roles.
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