‘…in the mainstream traditions, doctrinal Christocentrism has tended to eclipse ethical Christocentrism. In other words, what one believes about Christ has been more important than whether one actually obeys him in action…Tellingly, the church’s historic creeds are all but silent on ethics in general and the strenuous demands of Jesus in particular. This has allowed the church historically to bear the name of Christ but to do the work of the devil at the same time. In the interests of doctrinal orthodoxy the church has raised armies and waged war, tortured heretics and burned witches, persecuted dissenters and compelled conversions’.
My book this past week has been Stuart Murray’s excellent Biblical Interpretation in the Anabaptist Tradition. I suspect it is the most important book I have read so far on my sabbatical leave; I think that everything else in the Anabaptist tradition flows logically out of their approach to biblical interpretation. Stuart does not claim that the sixteenth-century Anabaptists had a completely developed and logically consistent approach to biblical interpretation; this would have been an unrealistic expectation of a largely uneducated and vigorously persecuted movement. However, he identifies a surprisingly coherent approach across the various sixteenth century Anabaptist streams, while acknowledging differences of emphasis and admitting shortcomings.
He points out six general principles:
Statements from Anabaptists show their confidence about the clarity of Scripture and its sufficiency without external additions. They strongly affirmed the right of private interpretation of Scripture, insisted that Scripture was clear enough to be understood and obeyed, and rejected the imposition of an interpretive grid on Scripture to force passages into consistency with preconceived theological systems. Statements from Anabaptists on trial show that their leaders’ attitudes had enfranchised the membership and produced tremendous faith and confidence in the ability of the ordinary Christian to understand and apply the Scriptures to their lives.
This principle has to be understood in the light of the historical situation of the Anabaptists. They were concerned that the 16th century Reformers such as Calvin and Luther were paying lip service to the plain sense of Scripture and the right of private interpretation but actually hedging these around with many qualifications. They suspected that priests and scholars were using their learning to find sophisticated reasons why simple obedience to Scripture was impossible and unnecessary.
Criticisms of this principle include the fact that Anabaptists failed to appreciate textual difficulties that cannot be resolved without good scholarship. What many readersassume is the plain meaning of the text may actually bear little resemblance to the original intent of the author when understood in a different cultural setting. Also, the disagreements and divisions about biblical interpretation within the Anabaptist movement would seem to indicate that the plain meaning of the text is not as plain as they assumed!However, for thousands of Christians, during the formative years of the Anabaptist movement, this approach was genuinely liberating. Whatever its shortcomings, it enfranchised people in ways the Reformation promised but often failed to deliver.
Confidence that Scripture was clear and that all Christians could understand it applied pre-eminently to the passages containing the words and actions of Jesus. The belief that Jesus clarified what was previously obscure appears frequently in Anabaptist writings; it meant that Jesus’ words took precedence over all other words of Scripture.
Christocentrism meant that the Bible was not ‘flat’: some passages had greater authority for doctrine and practice than others. The New Testament took precedence over the Old, and Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life and teaching were the pinnacle of God’s revelation and primary in all questions of interpretation. Christocentrism meant that the whole Bible pointed to Jesus. It meant that his teaching was authoritative for ethics as well as doctrine; it meant that he was the authorised interpreter of the Old Testament, and that a living experience of him was a prerequisite for biblical interpretation. The Anabaptists focussed on Jesus himself rather than doctrines about him, and saw him not only as Saviour but also as Example to imitate and Teacher to obey.
Within Christendom many issues were decided on the basis of Old Testament texts. In contrast, Anabaptists emphasized the discontinuity between the Testaments and saw the New Testament as primary; the Old had validity only where Christ had not suspended it and only where it agreed with the New. This view led the Anabaptists to oppose practices they felt were grounded only in Old Testament texts (e.g. war as a legitimate option for Christians, the swearing of oaths, persecution, infant baptism).
Stuart points out that neither Reformers nor Anabaptists handled the Old Testament well. The Reformers insisted on the unity of Scripture, but in practice tended to justify practices from Old Testament texts in ways that marginalized the teaching of Jesus. Anabaptists challenged this, but in overreaction some tended to jettison the Old Testament altogether.
Stuart sees the early sixteenth-century Anabaptists as a proto-charismatic movement and cites passages where a living experience of the Holy Spirit appears prominently in their writings. He points out that their expectation was mainly that the Spirit would transform them so that they could live obedient lives, although ecstatic experiences of the Spirit were not absent either.
The relationship between Spirit and Word was a major issue at the Reformation, and on this subject the Anabaptist movement did not speak with one voice. Some (the Swiss Brethren and the Hutterites) tended to emphasise the literal word of Scripture and of Christ, while others (the South German Anabaptists) emphasized following the inner guidance of the Spirit. Excesses in the latter movement led to an eventual reaction in a more literalistic direction. However, the Anabaptists’ Christocentric approach meant that they were never fundamentalists in the modern sense.
Reliance on the Spirit was expected to check naïve and legalistic interpretation of Scripture. Openness to the Spirit was preferred to reliance on education and scholarship. Approaches that polarized Spirit and reason were normally unwelcome. The Spirit’s work included conviction and persuasion so that the interpreters acted on what they had learned, and also included openness to correction and fresh insights. It should also be noted that the Anabaptist emphasis on the gathered congregation as the primary interpretive authority often helped to check individualistic interpretations of Scripture.
The Anabaptists took a communal approach to biblical interpretation and resisted tendencies to restrict the teaching office to recognized leaders. They rejected both the Catholic emphasis on the authority of ecclesiastical traditions and the Reformers’ practice of replacing priestly tyranny with the tyranny of the preacher. Their view of the congregation as the interpretive community presupposed a congregation of believers, which was not the experience of the Christendom churches with their view of the Church as a mixed community of believers and unbelievers.
The Swiss Brethren explored congregational hermeneutics extensively, allowing multiple participation in services, discussion of Scripture texts, and communal judgement. Some Dutch and German groups also developed this approach. Congregational hermeneutics does not require that every contribution carry equal weight, but it does require that every contribution be weighed.
In practice, this approach tended to die out in later years and was replaced by reliance on church leaders and received understandings of Scripture. Criticisms of this approach point out that if every congregation is an autonomous interpreter of Scripture there is no objective authority which can prevent division. Mistakes, disagreements, and poor interpretations would also suggest that Anabaptists underestimated the difficulties involved. Another limitation was the virtual exclusion of Christian wisdom from prior centuries; the focus was on present consensus, and little attention was paid to the consensus of the past.
There were obvious weaknesses in the Anabaptist congregational approach, but it also had significant strengths, especially in its conviction that every member could contribute to the interpretive task, its openness to correction, and its willingness to consider fresh interpretations rather than squeezing texts into conformity with set doctrinal positions.
Anabaptists often complained that biblical interpretation was divorced from application. They saw the Scripture as plain enough to call for radical obedience, and the congregation as the interpretive community best placed to apply it to daily life.
Anabaptists saw obedience as a crucial prerequisite to biblical interpretation; ethical qualifications took precedence over intellectual abilities or official appointments. Only those actively committed to discipleship could be trusted to interpret the Scriptures. Obedience to one’s present understanding of Scripture, and openness to new understandings were essential for true interpretation. Interpreters must also be free from the influence of secular power and vested interests, as these would limit their ability to interpret in ways that challenged the status quo.
Reformers and Anabaptists disagreed about what norms to apply in their ethical application of Scripture. For the Reformers, social stability was crucial. For Anabaptists, obedience to Christ’s specific teachings and imitation of his lifestyle outweighed this, as they committed themselves to establishing in their churches a new social order rather than preserving the existing one.
Conversations
In the last chapter of the book Stuart proposes that Anabaptism be seen as a conversation partner with contemporary Christian traditions and the way they interpret the Bible. He gives two examples of how this might work, discussing the similarities and differences between the Anabaptist approach and that of Liberation Theology on the one hand, and the charismatic movement on the other. In each case he points out things that the traditions have in common and things they could learn from each other.
I would be delighted to have Stuart outline a similar dialogue with the Anglican tradition. I think some of the characteristics of Anabaptist biblical interpretation which he outlines are very congenial to our approach. Liturgically we have always emphasized the Incarnation and the gospels, although some of our traditions have perhaps been more Pauline in the way Stuart identifies with the Reformed approach. We also believe strongly that the Bible is the Church’s book and needs to be read and interpreted in the community of the Church.
Other characteristics of the Anabaptist approach would be more of a challenge to us. We have often been wary of the right of ‘private interpretation’, observing how this often leads to multiple divisions over little points of disagreement. We have a strong sense of the authority of tradition (meaning the living faith of the dead, not the dead faith of the living!) and tend to defer to past voices in our biblical interpretations, believing that the Spirit has guided the Church as Jesus promised. And ‘Congregational Hermeneutics’ has been almost unknown to us.
However, a conversation with Anabaptism might help us to identify some of our weaknesses here. We believe that the Bible is the Church’s book and that the Church has authority to interpret it – but, in practice, does this actually mean ‘the priests and scholars of the Church’ rather than ‘the whole Church’? Anabaptism would remind us – helpfully and awkwardly – that in the New Testament ‘the Church’ means the whole people of God, and that in 1 Corinthians 14 Paul expected every member to bring a prophecy or an interpretation or a psalm etc. Does the way in which the Bible is taught in the Anglican tradition actually encourage our members to read it for themselves? Or do we communicate the message that it’s really only a book for scholars?
Stuart himself suggests that the ‘congregational hermeneutic’ approach could easily be extended in two ways to compensate for its innate weaknesses. The first way would be to include scholars in the conversation – not as authoritative voices above the rest, but as partners in the conversation, offering their insights alongside those of the other members. The second way would be to include past generations as conversation partners as well. In this way the voice of tradition could be included in the work of biblical interpretation.
This has been a fascinating book for me, and one that I would recommend without hesitation to others interested in exploring Anabaptist approaches to biblical interpretation.
My two longest standing friendships are with Jan Barnes and Steve Palmer. Jan and I were in the same class all through high school, and Steve and I were in the same tutor group. For a brief time in my last year in England we were also a musical act together.
We have kept in touch over the years, but our families have never all met at once. This past weekend we came very close to that – all the Palmers, all the Barnes’, and all the Chestertons except for my son Matthew who wasn’t able to be with us.
Here we all are outside Hedingham Castle, just down the road from the Barnes residence.
Steve and Jan: you’re the best friends anyone could ask for. And your families are warm, welcoming, and loads of fun.
They should sign their names and meet in a house somewhere to pray, to read, to baptize, to receive the sacrament, and do other Christian works. According to this order, those who do not lead Christian lives could be known, reproved, corrected, cast out, or excommunicated, according to the rule of Christ, Matthew 18. Here one could also solicit benevolent gifts to be willingly given and distributed to the poor, according to St. Paul’s example, 2 Corinthians 9. Here would be no need of much and elaborate singing. Here one could set out a brief and neat order for baptism and the sacrament and centre everything on the Word, prayer, and love.
‘The Believers’ Church, therefore, is the covenanted and disciplined community of those walking in the way of Jesus Christ. Where two or three such are gathered, willing also to be scattered in the work of their Lord, there is the believing people’.
This ‘Anabaptist Anglican’ blog has been heavily tilted toward the ‘Anabaptist’ side lately, so I want to pause for a moment to tip the hat to a very fine resource I’ve discovered on the Anglican side of my spiritual pedigree – from the Church of England, no less!
Most people I know who pray the Daily Office – daily Morning and Evening Prayer, that is, using one of our service books such as the Book of Common Prayer or the Book of Alternative Services – will admit to having a love/hate relationship with it. Sometimes we find that the structure strengthens our ability to pray through dry periods; at other times we find it inhibiting of true encounter with the living God who can’t be captured between the pages of any book. Sometimes we find having a book with lots of alternatives helps us avoid monotony; at other times it just makes prayer times confusing (it’s so much effort just to look up those darn canticles and responsories!).
The Church of England has recently produced a daily office book called ‘Common Worship: Daily Prayer’ which has literally hundreds of pages of texts for daily prayer. This, however, is not the resource I’m recommending. I have just discovered a little extract from that book, called ‘Time to Pray’. It includes two specific resources:
Morning and Evening Prayer can be ‘ho hum’ sometimes, but so far for me ‘Prayer During the Day’ and ‘Night Prayer’ have been spot on. I hope that the Anglican Book Centre in Toronto gets some copies of this little book very soon, and makes them widely available in Canada. I think this book could do a lot to help people who are struggling with the discipline of daily prayer.
Stuart Murray: Post-Christendom – my own reflections
Having given two posts over to a summary of Stuart’s book, I now want to offer some of my own reflections on the subject, interacting with some of his arguments and applying them to my own situation.
Are the ecumenical creeds adequate statements of faith?
I’m personally intrigued by Stuart’s insight that Christendom emerged at a very formative time theologically for the early church – the time of the ecumenical councils. The Council of Nicea (which produced the first draft of the Nicene Creed) was presided over by Constantine, an unbaptised emperor who wanted a unified religion for his empire. But as Stuart reflects, the historical Jesus would have been a very uncomfortable figure for a powerful empire to swallow! His teaching about loving your enemies, about not storing up treasure for yourself on earth, about caring for the poor and needy, about the greatest among you being your servant – all of this and more besides would have been a real challenge to the empire. And so, as Stuart records, as Christendom began to take hold there was an increased emphasis on the worship of the majestic Christ and a decreased emphasis on actually following his counter-cultural life and teachings. This is exemplified in the Creeds – Nicene and Apostles’ – which have absolutely no mention of his life and teaching at all – they go straight from his birth to his death.
Don’t worry, I’m not about to abandon the Nicene Creed, but on the other hand I do have new questions about the adequacy of these creeds: are there vital things that they miss out? ‘Jesus is Lord’, the earliest creed, was simpler and more direct – it claimed things for Jesus, not just our worship and belief, but also our absolute obedience above all other authorities. The practice of discipleship is every bit as fundamental to the church as belief in the divinity of Christ.
Isn’t it funny how we’ve made some things non-negotiable as Christians? To most Christians, Sunday churchgoing has become a non-negotiable – all Christians should come to church on Sundays, that’s how you tell they are Christians (even though in our modern society our attendance is often more sporadic than it used to be). But caring for the poor and needy, or living a simple life without storing up for yourself treasures on earth, have not become non-negotiable – even though they are commands of Jesus. Churchgoing you must do if you want the church to consider you a good Christian, but following Jesus has become optional. In things like confirmation instruction we put far more time and energy into teaching doctrines about Jesus and his church than we do into actually talking about the way of life he taught us.
Church hierarchy
I don’t know enough detail about the history to be able to test the historical accuracy of Stuart’s statements about the development of hierarchy. His point of view seems to be that the church hierarchy developed along the same lines as the civic administration of the empire. The sharp division of clergy and laity, the emphasizing of clerical role through titles, ornate robes, liturgical roles etc. would all go along with this.
The New Testament of course does have roles (pastor, apostle, prophet, evangelist), but the fundamental concept is the priesthood of all believers and the equipping of all God’s people for the work of ministry. There is no hard and fast distinction between clergy and laity – all Christians are the laos (people) of God, and all are called (kleros) to serve him in ministry.
By coincidence (if there is such a thing!), this past two Sundays I have worshipped at two Anglican churches in which no robes or clerical collars are worn, and in which no clergy titles are used. Also ‘lay people’ (so-called) share in the leadership of worship with no distinction of title or dress being made between them and ‘clergy’, only the bare minimum of role distinction being made in order to make it a legal Anglican service.
I like this. I want to go further with it, not because it tickles my fancy, but because I think it’s biblical Christianity.
Sunday
I’ve grown up with the experience of Sunday as a state-sanctioned day of rest, but this has been eroding throughout my lifetime and will probably continue to erode for the rest of my life. Sunday will be a working day like any other day by the time I retire – I’m fairly sure of this.
There’s a part of this that I think it is legitimate to mourn. God has created us as beings who need rest, and the concept of one day off in seven to rest and recreate is a good one. And we Christians need to speak prophetically about this, given the mad rush of our society into longer and longer working hours. Balance is important.
But state support of the Christian holy day is a Christendom thing that the early Christians did not enjoy. They got up early on the Lord’s Day and worshipped together before the working day began. This took determination and commitment on their part. I have to live and teach the same determination and commitment.
Buildings, congregations, wealth.
Massive and ornate church buildings date from the time of Constantine; they are not an obvious part of the New Testament which does not require Christians to have a church building to meet in at all. In fact, as the early Christians met in houses, everything essential to New Testament Christian worship must be doable in a living room! Furthermore, the diversion of massive amounts of cash for the building and maintenance of these structures is surely a departure from the teachings of the revolutionary Christ who told us to sell our possessions and give to the poor and needy. To those who say ‘But this is a way of honouring the Lord’, the answer surely is ‘The Lord we read about in the New Testament doesn’t want to be honoured in this way; he wants to be honoured and loved by honouring and loving ‘the least of these my brethren’.
What Christendom vestiges still continue in my own context? I can think of the following:
Practical steps we might consider trying.