Evangelicals in the Factory of Scripture

A Diverse Evangelicalism Means a Diverse Bible

Evangelicals are an unstable and shifting conglomeration of camps: Protestant Orthodox, Pietists, Dispensationalists, Pentecostals, charismatics, other traditions' conservatives, and lots of mongrels.

Evangelicals commonly profess (among other things) respect for Scripture.

Yet our different camps tend to see and use the Bible in different, even conflicting and contradictory, ways.

We See Scripture as We Use Scripture (and vice versa)

John Calvin (speaking for many others): we read through the Bible.

Inductive study shows a correlation between evangelical views and uses of Scripture.

Our variety, our heritages, and our uses of the Bible make it a 'factory of images' (and us the factory workers).

We envision Scripture in distinctive ways – in metaphors that generate correlated images for everything (e.g., Islam).

We are also 'a factory of Bibles': Our images of everything also lead us to use Bibles in certain ways.

We disagree and talk past each other in part because we see and use Scripture differently.

Popular Evangelical Metaphors
Warning: these generalizations are crude, they overlap, and communities almost always draw on more than one!

Versatility, Practicality, Circularity, Complexity, Compatibility, Contradiction

"Meaning is use": interpretation means our Bible-uses dialogically discipline and are disciplined by our lives.

"Rationality is tradition": we do not so much make or choose metaphors as metaphors form and appropriate us.

Uses and images of Scripture emerge only as we use it, become familiar with it, and it shapes us.

Some metaphors are more inclusive than others, but no one metaphor seems to include or govern all the others.

Evangelicals share commitments and confidence in Scripture, but share no coherent 'evangelical hermeneutic'.

Scholarly communities cut across, and offer alternatives to, these communities (e.g., New Oxford Annotated Bible [Oxford] $35.99).
Our different Bibles reify and distinguish us (sometimes sinfully).

We adopt various hermeneutical strategies eclectically to serve our purposes.

Are We Competent Users of Scripture?

David Yeago: Understanding the Bible involves judgments that cannot be made technically or methodologically.

Using Scripture well entails and grows healthy community, obedience, exposure, training, skill, and virtue.

Sin impairs biblical interpretation.

Our sins include concupiscence, ecclesial division and strife, self-serving hermeneutics, dysfunctional institutions, biblical illiteracy, unskillful reading practices, shallow and poor training, and tendencies to look outside the tradition for quick fixes.

We cannot solve these problems with only greater technical expertise (Matt. 13:52).

R.R. Reno: The 'diminished' modern church (liberal and evangelical) is not ready to revise its judgments.

Ad Fontes/Ressourcement: the way forward 'dwells in the ruins' (Neh. 2:5) and goes back to the sources.
This is precisely why we need to respect our pasts which we might not fully understand, to strengthen our practices, and to nourish a safe environment in which to use and strengthen them.