Appealing to the authority of Scripture to settle a debate about how to interpret Scripture is a form of propaganda—it invokes a virtuous ideal in service to a goal that actually does violence to that very ideal.
This tactic functions much like the rhetoric of States’ Rights, according to which federal enforcement of civil rights is a violation of freedom—namely, the freedom of some to violate the civil rights of others (via slavery, segregation, Jim Crow or what have you).
Notice that States’ Rights rhetoric appeals to a virtuous ideal: namely, liberty. But it does so in order to preserve, e.g., the institution of slavery, which violates liberty—in fact, that *just is* the primary argument against slavery: it deprives people of liberty.
That’s the pattern: appeal to a noble ideal in order to achieve a result that actually does violence to that very ideal.

We find the same pattern in the way that the authority of Scripture is invoked amidst interpretive disagreements about Scripture itself.

Here’s an example:
A complementarian says that the Bible, when interpreted correctly, commends patriarchy; and an egalitarian says that the Bible, when interpreted correctly, doesn’t commend patriarchy.

The complementarian then claims that the egalitarian rejects the authority of Scripture.
As I’ve noted before, this complementarian move is hopelessly question-begging: the claim that egalitarianism rejects the authority of Scripture *depends on* the claim that egalitarians’ interpretation of Scripture is incorrect, which is precisely the point at issue.
But worse than that, this kind of appeal to the authority of Scripture actually serves to undermine the authority of Scripture itself.

Here’s what I mean.
For millennia, orthodox theology has held that God is a transcendent being who escapes the full comprehension of human beings. On that view, it should be totally unsurprising that God’s Word is, in many respects, less than totally straightforward.
This is a byproduct of human cognitive limitation—not a defect of Scripture. If God were to give us an exhaustive written account of his full nature, what would such a text look like? In what language would it be written? What person would be able to read or understand it?
Thus God’s Word is full of metaphor, anthropomorphism and paradox. Perhaps God would be more inscrutable if God’s Word were less metaphorical, anthropomorphic or paradoxical. Perhaps God even reveals himself to us in what he chooses not to reveal.
Such a text is bound to raise questions of interpretation—even among those who share the same basic understanding of most of the text and agree fully on all of its core teachings.
So it’s troubling when some conservative evangelicals use the following kind of argument against other conservative evangelicals. “You embrace egalitarianism, when the Bible obviously commends patriarchy. So you reject the authority of Scripture.”
The whole point, of course, is that what the Bible says *isn’t* entirely clear—that’s why the interpretive disagreement exists.

But this isn’t just a bad argument. It’s a piece of propaganda that undermines the very ideal it invokes.
The virtue of recognizing Scripture’s authority is that it gives the Word of God authority over men.

Yet if men get to decide what God’s word means—especially by pretending that God’s Word is clear when it isn’t—then men have usurped God’s authority.
If questioning God’s Word is forbidden, and I alone get to decide what God’s Word means, then questioning *me* is forbidden.

Thus, by invoking the ideal of biblical authority in a debate over biblical interpretation, I undermine the very ideal that I have invoked.
Rather than elevating the authority of God's Word *in all its ambiguity* above the authority of humans, I’ve supplanted the Word of God with the words of men—giving to humans the very kind of authority that the ideal of biblical authority is meant to foreclose.

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More from @scott_m_coley

9 Aug
From what I’ve seen, much evangelical anti-CRT rhetoric suffers from three basic confusions.

Clarity on these points is prerequisite to fruitful dialogue.
The first confusion stems from different senses of the term ‘racism’—specifically, a conflation of ‘racism’ qua racist attitudes and ‘racism’ qua racist systems or institutions.
The objection goes like this: “What do you mean America is systemically racist? I’m an American and *I’m* not racist—I hardly even know anyone who’s racist! So that can’t be right.”
Read 14 tweets
1 Aug
Within the evangelical community, discussions of “social justice” often emphasize charity and devote little attention to the moral significance of institutions.
This paradigm allows evangelicals to advocate for political institutions that deprive the poor of their due, and then dispense charity as though it were a substitute for justice.
We need a new paradigm. Christ followers are required to advocate for public institutions that reflect the truth about what people deserve—
Read 39 tweets
31 Jul
It’s not wrong to consume alcohol.¹

It’s not wrong to drive a car.

It’s wrong to consume alcohol and drive a car because doing so poses an unjustifiable threat to innocent human life (among other things).²

1/4
It’s not wrong to refuse the vaccine.

It’s not wrong to go without a mask.

It’s wrong to refuse the vaccine and go without a mask because doing so poses an unjustifiable threat to innocent human life.

2/4
I welcome objections that don’t completely undermine the pro-life position.³

3/4
Read 5 tweets
30 Jul
The men who promote the evangelical masculinity cult won’t *actually* fight for anything.

If they have power over you, they silence you with threats.

If they don’t have power over you, they ignore you—or, if they can’t ignore you, they talk about you as if you’re not there.
But they never engage directly with any actual argument made by any actual person who disagrees with them. They avoid the direct exchange of ideas at any cost.
Their rhetoric bears this out: they paint emotional pictures of home-invasions wherein men protect women with violence force—never confronting the plain fact that women are far more likely to suffer violence at the hands of a man they know than a man they don’t.
Read 7 tweets
22 Jul
Here’s a question I get sometimes:

When people who disagree with you say that you’re deceived, and quote a Bible verse that seems to back up their position, how do you know that you’re right and they’re wrong?
Two-part answer.

First, I don’t need to know I’m right to know that they’re wrong.

There are very few things I’m certain about. I’m sure I’m wrong about a lot. It doesn’t follow that the proof-texters and fundamentalists are right (it’s possible, e.g., that we’re both wrong).
Second, one of the few things I’m certain of is that truth is coherent—it has integrity; it can’t contradict itself.

And I know that God created human beings with brains that he intends for us to use: the light of reason.
Read 7 tweets
12 Jun
It’s been suggested that those who promote “wokeness” or “woke theology” should be regarded as false teachers. This claim reflects a kind of theological illiteracy that needs to be exposed. I’ll start with a brief note about terminology, since it’s a source of much mischief.
Critics of “wokeness” often identify concerns about systemic injustice with Critical Race Theory (CRT). But you needn’t endorse CRT—or care anything about CRT, really—in order to be concerned about systemic justice. #WG2021TX
CRT is just one among many academic disciplines that deal with questions about systemic justice; and it is hardly the first or the most important. Roughly 2500 years before the inception of CRT, Plato discusses systemic justice in his ‘Republic’ and ‘Laws’.
Read 20 tweets

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