Fruits Worthy of Repentance

There is a classical approach to theology and ethics which involves faithfulness to the gospel of Jesus Christ authoritatively attested to in the scriptures. According to this approach the Word of God, incarnate and written, is exalted high over the rebellious thoughts and tendencies of humankind. It professes commitment to the undiluted biblical framework of revelation and redemption. This classical approach to theology accepts divine revelation as a given—canonically attested and not to be adjusted, accommodated, or revised in the light of what the hearers may require.

Over against the classical approach stands the liberal experiment in theology and ethics. Liberal theologians, like the classical ones, are also eager to maintain a clear connection with the ancient and biblical symbols, but they are deeply committed at the same time to what modern people in a modern world believe. In the liberal experiment, therefore, modernity is not sacrificed to Christianity, nor Christianity to modernity, but rather an attempt is made to synthesize the two standpoints. In practice this usually means that the full biblical framework must undergo fairly extensive dismantling and demythologizing to bring it into line with modern thought. Scripture may be criticized and its concepts revised in the light of what the world requires. In the name of relevance, the world is allowed to write the church's agenda.

Because they can see no justification for presuming that modern people's understanding of reality is on a level with or even above God's revealed Word, and therefore reject the supposed necessity of demythologizing, evangelicals stand firmly in the classical tradition. They see it as simply a matter of being faithful stewards of the gospel and guarding the precious deposit committed to us in scripture. Between the two types of theology there is clearly a significant issue of principle.

The conviction regarding the supremacy of God's Word over human cultural beliefs is plainly relevant to social ethics. For one thing it warns liberal Christians that there is a real danger of blunting the sharp edge of the biblical command and lifestyle on account of the determination to establish meaningful connections with what people already think and believe. This has the effect of permitting the twistedness of the old eon to supply a rival light to the revealed luminosity of Jesus and the scriptures.

The liberal experiment has always tended to allow the gospel and its demands to be secularized. The endorsement of violence in liberation theology circles is just a recent example of what happens when the supposed demands of reason and nature are allowed to overshadow the nonviolent servanthood of Jesus and the gospel. A strong evangelical doctrine of the Word of God is urgently needed to protect us from conformity to this age and to bring divine insight to bear on the social situation in which merely human wisdom is so sadly lacking.

Is all well then in the ranks of classical evangelical Christians who especially now seem so eager to exalt the Word of God above all that is human and relative? Surely the debate over inerrancy must signify a prodigious desire to preserve the biblical command in its utmost purity and put it into ever more consistent and detailed practice.

Alas it does not seem to be so! On the contrary, the more the debate goes on the more it seems to take on the character of an internal political struggle in which, by means of one technical term, "inerrancy," fundamentalist forces in the evangelical coalition hope to control and limit membership in the orthodox party.

Two facts are important: the fact that the theory of the perfect errorlessness of the scripture is a fairly recent and not ancient conviction, and the fact that the idea is woefully inappropriate for expressing the fullness of the evangelical conviction in regard to scripture. Although they seem to be obvious and on the surface, neither of these facts is allowed to interfere with the purge now in progress under the inerrancy banner.

But all of this might be forgiven and overlooked if only there were some evidence that the motivation for this militancy on the Bible's behalf was the deep determination to hear and to obey God speaking in the scriptures—as James says, to be doers of the Word and not hearers only. If only the battle for the Bible meant that evangelical Christians were uncompromisingly adamant in refusing to dismantle God's Word and fanatically insistent on allowing it to critique and shatter the offense of merely cultural evangelical conservatism. But there is so little solid evidence that a determination to follow Jesus behaviorally is any part of the motivation behind this furious battle.

So we must say that it is a travesty of the classical approach to exalt the Word of God in name only and to use it shamelessly to validate evangelical conformity to the world's patterns and values. If the Bible be inerrantly true, as I in a deep sense believe that it is, then let it thunder against indifferent, enculturated, conformed evangelicalism and let it shatter all of the heresies which piously shelter beneath that epithet today. Let us indeed hear the Word of God, in undiminished power, and let us tremble at the judgments it utters and the warnings its issues, bringing forth fruits worthy of repentance.

Clark H. Pinnock was a contributing editor of Sojourners and professor of systematic theology at McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario when this article appeared.