Brian McLaren rightfully and appropriately nailed Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum yesterday for allowing his political ideology to unduly influence his approach to interpreting the Bible. In a masterfully written piece at the web site Pantheos, McLaren well-stated that there is indeed such a thing as “phony theology,” and through some of the most accurate and astute exegesis I’ve seen from him in more than 10 years, called Christians back to a sound theology of creation care.If only Brian would use the Scriptures in this way more often.
The situation that gave rise to this article was a comment made by Santorum attacking President Obama for what he calls a “phony theology” that “takes seriously, serving the earth.” Apparently, Santorum had taken a moment on the campaign trail to take issue with some of the President’s policies on the environment. Before that conversation was over, Santorum described statements made by the President at a recent prayer breakfast as influenced by a “phony theology,” and concluded his remarks by stating that the earth was made “for man’s use.”
To be sure, there is more than one legitimate application of Scriptural teaching concerning our responsibility to care for the environment and the balance between “dominion” and “stewardship of the earth.” One can certainly care for the environment while simultaneously questioning the wisdom of certain public policy positions on the issue. But Rick Santorum went further than this, taking a single Genesis passage out of its context in order to forward what McLaren correctly identified as a “hallowed interpretive tradition of the industrial era.”
Says McLaren: “Now, many of us notice that this "dominion" is an expression of humanity being created in "the image of God." That framing seems to imply that human beings should show the same care for creation that the Creator does—respecting and conserving God-given balances and systems. As image-bearers of God, we should, for example, show foresight to conserve God-given resources to benefit future generations rather than grasping for the most profit in the least amount of time to benefit today's one-percenters. (One might even argue that this approach is more truly and deeply conservative.)”
McLaren then moves on to ground this view of creation care in a thoroughly Biblical worldview of creation itself. In particular, his approach to Genesis 2 and the language of “cultivate and keep” is a textbook example of careful exegesis that is usually governed by a conviction that Scripture should interpret Scripture. Theologians call this a “historical-grammatical” approach to Biblical interpretation. This approach assumes a couple of things. First, it assumes that words have actual meaning, and that when Biblical writers used particular words under the Holy Spirit’s inspiration, it was no less than God’s own intention to communicate meaning through those words.
Second, this approach assumes that the historical context of Scripture passages—which include any issues that were being addressed at the time of writing, as well as the personality and writing style of a given Biblical author—is of imminent importance in understanding what God intends to communicate through His Word. The dictum “Scripture interprets Scripture” is honored best when this approach to interpretation is employed, and in this article, McLaren does it well, concluding his argument with an application of retiring “Santorum's Industrial Era theology of dominion and exchange it for a more ancient understanding . . . and one with more foresight for the future as well.”
In an attempt to counter Presidential environmental policies with which he disagrees, Rick Santorum did violence to the very Scriptural text he claims he respects and follows. In his inaccurate invocation of God’s name, he essentially ignored half of the creation mandate. Regardless of what one thinks about Obama’s environmental policies, Santorum’s brief wade into the theological aspects of this issue demonstrate how so often, people are much better Republicans (or Democrats) than they are Christians. In this, McLaren deserves credit for calling the body of Christ back toward a more holistic and Scripture-centered view of Scripture.
Problem is, in order to write this article, McLaren had to violate some of his own more normative interpretive approaches. For example, moving along this exegetical continuum would naturally lead one to believe in a literal Garden of Eden, a literal Adam and Eve, and a literal creation narrative! Yet some of McLaren’s earlier works give indication that these are antiquated ideas that must be discarded. Additionally, McLaren’s positions on everything from substitutionary atonement to homosexuality give evidence that even he only employs the historical-grammatical approach to Scripture when it suits his own agenda, as this approach to understanding Scripture on a consistent basis would quickly overturn most of McLaren’s own positions.
Bottom line: a phony theologian just called out a politician for being a phony theologian. He happened to be right, but the whole situation screams “irony.”
McLaren has an unfortunate history of such inconsistent approaches to Scripture. When the historical-grammatical approach fits his own agenda, he is happy to employ it, such as he does here with environmental issues, or previously with issues like immigration. And when he takes these positions on solid Biblical grounds, I’m happy to stand shoulder to shoulder with him.
Yet when the same interpretive approach calls for a belief in the exclusivity of Jesus Christ as the only way of salvation, McLaren has quickly abandoned this approach—along with centuries of orthodox Christian tradition—and instead insisted “that I do not believe this is the right question for a missional Christian to ask.” Likewise, when a historical-grammatical analysis of texts like Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6 clearly reveal the homosexual lifestyle to be a sinful distortion of God’s intention, McLaren reverts again to an epistemological swampland by stating “Frankly, many of us don’t know what we should think about homosexuality.”
So in the end we have two partisans; one Republican and one Democrat, both stating that Jesus is unequivocally on their side. The only difference between Rick Santorum's partisanship and Brian McLaren's is that Rick Santorum's should be expected. He is, after all, a politician!
I once had a wise seminary professor who, while tearing apart a long-held understanding I had of a certain Biblical text, warned me about allowing personal feelings, political positions, cultural assumptions, or anything else get in the way of understanding the otherwise clear meaning of Scripture. “You should hate it,” he said, “when anyone twists the Bible to fit their agenda, even if that person is a “conservative.’” He was right. May the church return to her prophetic role in culture. And may the first result of that return be people in those churches who are less worried about holding together an ideology, and more concerned about just being good followers of Jesus.
Beware of those who drape their theology in a partisan cloak.
No comments:
Post a Comment