The Bible Made Impossible? (Part 2)

The most important and thought-provoking book I’ve read this year is The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture by Christian Smith. In it, the author critiques a particular way of interpreting the Bible, a method he calls “biblicism,” which he sees as widespread in the evangelical world. In fact, he argues that biblicism is so problematic that it impossible to hold to it. In my previous post, I summarized Smith’s 10-point definition of biblicism and proposed that it can be summarized as the combined beliefs that the Bible is

• Reliable and consistent: The Bible is inspired by God, without error, and therefore speaks with a single voice on any subject.
• Sufficient: The Bible contains all we need to know about all areas of Christian belief and practice for all time. 
• Understandable: Given some common sense about how to read, and maybe some background on the Bible, we can with careful and prayerful study come to a true understanding of a Bible passage including its meaning for faith and action. Then we can take the truths we learn about different topics, sort and sift them, and come to a comprehensive understanding of any and every topic. 

So what’s the problem? Consider that these claims, in combination, imply that sincere Christians who study the Bible carefully should come to basic agreement in most areas. If the Bible is reliable, consistent, clear, universal, and covers all we need to know, then we should all agree, right? The problem, says Smith, is that Bible-believing, born-again, Bible-studying Christians disagree on nearly everything imaginable, except that Jesus is Lord, risen from the dead, and our Savior. This situation is what Smith calls “pervasive interpretive pluralism.” He points out that it is useless to believe in the authority and inerrancy of the Bible on a given topic when Christians cannot even agree on what it teaches about that topic. What does the Bible teach about war and violence—pacifism, just war, or something else? What does it teach about economics, does it support distribution of wealth, free enterprise, or what? What about predestination and free-will? Baptism? Miracles and prophecy in the present age? The list is long. The main point of the book is that this pervasive interpretive pluralism (PIP) cannot be explained within the biblicist viewpoint, thus biblicism is fatally flawed.

There are several important points about what Smith is not saying here. Many arguments of Smith’s critics stem from the failure to understand these points.

1. Smith is not questioning the authority or reliability of the Bible based on the fact that there are disagreements over how to interpret it.
2. He is definitely not attacking biblicism simply because it leads to disagreements, as though other methods of interpretation avoid this problem.
3. He is not talking about “matters of conscience” in which Christians agree to disagree.

Rather, Smith is saying that (a) biblicism by its own principles implies that capable interpreters should converge on a single, authoritative, biblical teaching about any topic; (b) we do not see this agreement or convergence; therefore (c) something must be wrong with the principles of biblicism. He is not saying that every part of biblicism is wrong because of PIP, only that it cannot stand as an integrated whole. Don’t other schools of interpretation also lead to differences? Yes, but then, their logic does not necessarily predict agreement as biblicism does.

Though differences in interpretation are not unique to biblicism, they are particularly toxic within biblicist contexts. Because biblicists believe that the Bible is clear, consistent, and universal, disagreements tend to be seen as deviations from the one, inerrant truth. Because they believe that the Bible addresses every issue of faith and life with a single voice, every issue becomes a potential test of standing firm for the truth. Biblicists, those who hold to this constellation of beliefs, can’t just say “Well, the Bible isn’t clear on that,” “The Bible seems to say this in one case, but something different at another time,” or “The Bible seems to give some clues about that, but not enough for us to draw firm conclusions.” Thus, the differences of interpretation are magnified, leading to divisions, contention, and ultimately to the highly divided state of the evangelical church in America today.

What do you think? Is Smith onto something or making a mountain out of a molehill? Do evangelicals handle their differences well or do biblistic beliefs cause us to be overly dogmatic and divisive? Can we hold to a full, if nuanced, version of biblicism and still hold our beliefs lightly enough for unity? Leave your comments below!

In the next post, we’ll consider whether PIP is as big a problem as Smith thinks it is.