Changing our Language: 'The Bible Says...'

One of the issues that I have been exploring in thinking about my work on interpretive pluralism revolves around the language used in churches to describe the encounter with Scripture.  I am pretty sure that, if we are to take interpretation seriously then we need to factor it in to our talk about the Bible, and find new ways of describing what we are actually saying when we talk about its meaning for us today.  So it was great and helpful to come across Doug Chaplin's reflections today on the phrase 'The Bible says...' which is usually used as a shorthand for 'I interpret or understand the Bible to say...'.  This is Doug's conclusion:

I am arguing that there is never a “Bible says” argument that actually is just the quotation of a verse. The very act of selecting the verse depends on an interpretative framework or tradition. “I take the Bible to say …” “My tradition teaches that the Bible says …” “Our church interprets the Bible to mean…” All these are fundamentally honest statements.

By contrast, use of the phrase “the Bible says …” tends to dishonesty and self-deception. It obscures the work of interpretation that lies behind the statement, whether individual or ecclesial, and it replaces an honest argument for that interpretation with a statement that labels disagreement as rebellion, and questioning as sin.

Repeat after me: “The Bible doesn’t say”.

My question here relates, I guess, to the ways in which we might creatively relate the provisional senses of language that Doug calls for here, with the proclamatory dimensions of preaching in particular.  In the end I think the preacher has a responsibility to say 'this is what the Bible is saying...'.  If this is modified to read 'this is what I think the Bible is saying' - does the preaching lose its rhetorical power?

Comments

[Doug Chaplin]

Sean, I've tried to offer a longer response over on metacatholic

[tim bulkeley]

"I just read Doug's post too" oh, no I can't write that, "I believe that I just read Doug's post too", that's better ;-)

Actually I think it was a great post, I just do not quite agree with his fine print. Often statements implicitly include qualifiers like "I think..." or "I conclude..." etc. in everyday speech we cannot be as careful as Doug wants. So for me the issue is more: where and when should we take such care?

[Pete Lev]

Thanks for this post. Very helpful...

[Sean]

Doug, thanks for the quick response. I am happy to use that statement in preaching as well, although I have nagging fears that the power relationships inherent in preaching render it almost redundant. So, one way forward is to attend to (rather than avoid) the fact that those who are given authority for public interpretation have power in its use. The other way forward is, as you suggest, to think less about using Scripture as a vehicle for 'teaching' anything. In many Baptist churches, to my constant despair, preaching is reduced to point-scoring, moralizing or pep-talks and genuine engagement with what you call the scriptural, narrative and creedal contexts is lacking.

[Doug Chaplin]

Sean, thanks: these are good questions, and I hope to work up a response when I've had a bit more time to ponder. In the interim, I would note that my actual practice is normally to locate a teaching in a larger scriptural, narrative and creedal context. I'm quite happy to prefix a statement "It seems to me what scripture says is …"