It’ll do Kelli. Again can you show me? Can you point to any good works by Bill that show he’s being led by the Spirit in his hermeneutic? That he’s worth following in any regard. That by his works his words are valid? How’s his righteousness going? You know, his activism? His pursuit of social justice?
Hi Kelli,
I do apologize for my rudeness and ridicule.
As for the bullying aspect, this is challenging as I and many other have felt that the mechanisms and ways of presentations have been themselves antagonistic (in a site where people are trying to peacefully reconcile their faith and science and a posting of an extremely uncharitable comparison is presented or various litmus tests).
This was guised in comment on an interpretation of a verse that was declared as a perfect guaranteed doctrine detector which in light of the vast variance of the faith has very insulting insinuations.
Do you see the impact of this?
Hey Kendel. What prompted me to do this was this video by ANE and Bible scholar Ben Stanhope. His take on it may or may not be right (it’s not good to blindly trust even scholars like him) but seeing as this question is very important in these conversations to reconcile science and scripture (for obvious reasons) I would have thought that BioLogos would have a well-sourced article or something on it.
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Hey Clovis!
Thanks for sharing this video and your interest in Biologos at least having an article on the Holy Spirit’s role in interpretation.
Stanhope does a great job of covering one facet of the matter. In my (very likely unrepresentative) experience, the view Stanhope critiques in the video is fairly extreme, although it is well-represented in the churches I’ve been a part of in the U.S.
What I’m more familiar with in churches that hold to a grammatical-historical hermeneutic is, mingled with a genuine valuing of studying the Bible and popular, basic study aids (Bible dictionaries, basic historical background) is a genuine, but unstated fear, of serious intellectual and academic inquiry that encounters challenges to the things many of us take for granted in (American?, evangelical) Christianity. I have been warned from numerous pulpits about a “intellectual assent” in contrast to “saving faith”, and encouraged to focus more on serious Bible study, rather than much academic study (as if they are opposed to each other). I honestly think many of the pastors I have heard mean well; they want to communicate to their congregations that saving faith is for anyone, not an intellectual elite, and that being highly educated doesn’t earn brownie points with Jesus. However, the message seems also to be taken as a permission slip to be intellectually lazy, and sets sincere believers up to be easy pickin’s for any wave of false teaching that insists on its biblicity.
While I think Stanhope’s critique is valid (but limited), and such views of the role of the Holy Spirit in biblical interpretation are disasterous, I also think Biologos needs to be very careful about how it approaches the matter, particularly because of its Big Tent and parachurch status.
The What We Believe - BioLogos page speaks clearly enough, I think, to satisfy a broad understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit held by the organization, while allowing for many denominational/personal differences:
- We believe the Bible is the inspired and authoritative word of God. By the Holy Spirit it is the “living and active” means through which God speaks to the church today, bearing witness to God’s Son, Jesus, as the divine Logos, or Word of God.
- We believe that God also reveals himself in and through the natural world he created, which displays his glory, eternal power, and divine nature. Properly interpreted, Scripture and nature are complementary and faithful witnesses to their common Author.
These two broad statements, when applied to the views that Stanhope critiques, as well as the views I am familiar with, pretty quickly clarify the different understanding Biologos has of the role of the Holy Spirit in interpretation of scripture as well as the natural world.
[Added later] I also finally looked at the Common Questions page that Christy shared. It is even more thorough than the page I quoted.
I think, as we look at the types of engagement we see in the forum (and on other organizational websites) , that those who hold to the views Stanhope critiques, very clearly understand (and disagree with/war against) the difference in Biologos’ view on the Holy Spirit’s role in biblical interpretation.
In a nutshell (after you read ALL THIS) I think Biologos is clear enough and also broad enough to allow for its mission.
Kendel
Thanks for your patience in slogging through all this.
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