Biblians & Christians [T, 11-28-23]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—Biblians & Christians [T, 11-28-23]

 

I heard an Assemblies of God pastor from Louisville interviewed on TV. The occasion was an upcoming Sunday at his church called, if I remember correctly, “Open Carry Sunday,” for which people were invited to bring their loaded guns [yes, loaded was specified] to church. The invitation poster shown on TV had several phrases like “They won’t take our guns away.”

The interviewer asked if this were not contrary to Christian theology. The pastor replied in a rational-sounding way along these lines:

“Pacifism is not the only Christian tradition. For instance, “turn the other cheek” might be more a matter of dealing with dishonor than with personal protection. We believe in the whole Bible, the Old Testament as well as the New. We believe that God covenanted in this way.”

Then he said specifically, “We do not live by the red words alone.”

The red words, of course, are the words of Jesus in the red-letter editions of the New Testament.

For quite a while there has been a growing chasm between Christians called “conservative” and those called “liberal” or “progressive.” We notice the end result of that chasm first—a 90-to-180-degree difference--on social concerns such as abortion, homosexuality, guns, taxes-economy, poverty, AIDS, war, torture. It is reasonable to ask: How can people who read the same Bible and claim the same Christ come to such different conclusions?

The answer is that we do not claim the same Christ. Conservative Christians [and I use that term only descriptively, not pejoratively] are really not Christians; they are Biblians. I am trying to use that as a descriptive rather than pejorative term, too. Christ-ians believe in Christ as the full revelation of God. Biblians believe in the Bible as the full revelation of God.

Biblians believe that the “black” words of the Bible have equal revelatory quality with the “red” words. 

This is not new, of course. Many churches have advertised themselves for a long time as “Full Bible” churches, meaning the black words have equal weight with the red words, although they have rarely said it that way.

There is a great deal of difference in claiming that Christ is the Word of God or that the Bible is the Word of God.

The problem is what Bible scholar Hans Frei referred to as “the eclipse of Biblical narrative.”

Biblians are basically anti-narrative. There is no movement in the Bible. Every word of the Bible has equal weight with every other, no matter where it comes in the story. There is no progress from Moses to Jesus. The Ten Commandments are equal to—and often held higher—than John 3:16.

I am tempted to say that Bible believers should call themselves Biblians instead of Christians, but that would be both arrogant and useless. I do think these are two different faiths, however.

I am sure, however, that Biblians will never call themselves that, and will continue to call themselves Christians, but I would like to be able to distinguish myself from that sort of Christianity.

Yes, I “believe” in the Bible. I study it. I learn from it. But Jesus is not just one of several “Christian traditions,” as the Louisville pastor put it. Jesus is the Christ. The Bible is not the Christ. The red words always supersede the black words. The black words are equal to the red words only if you are a Biblian, not if you are a Christ-ian.

John Robert McFarland

 

I have written about this before, but it’s like going to church: we don’t hear anything we don’t already know, but it’s good to be reminded.