The Wisdom of Mr McLaren - Part Eight: Biblical Interpretation

I wanted to hold off on writing this entry until I was certain that I had McLaren’s point of view absolutely clear in my mind. For my mind there are three things that McLaren is saying in his “Why I am biblical” chapter.

1. The bible is not an answer book

McLaren argues that too often we treat the Bible as some ancient moral encylclopedia, as though we can research and find our answer to any problem. He describes this approach as having come from our modern, westernised, rational viewpoint - and it is out of step with the cultural context of the biblical times and the people who wrote the bible. He explains that (from his perspective) “God-breathed” means that it has been created by God, but written by humans.

He uses the analogy of his own life. While he would never question that he exists because God created him- ie. God said “let there be Brian, and there was Brian”, that doesn’t change the fact that he has two parents who got together to make him. There’s a little bit of difficulty in my mind gettting his analogy to work (thus the delay in getting this post out), but I’m fairly happy to accept that the Bible, in the translations we have today and in a completely different cultural context, cannot be treated as an answer book. (if anyone does find an answer book though, let me know :))

2. The bible finds its purpose in mission

McLaren’s finest hour in this chapter comes when he speaks about what should be obvious to everyone - the bible exists to equip the saints for ministry. He comes to this having just declared his frustration at the restrictions churches place on membership without using words such as “inerrant” and “literal” to describe the Scripture. Coming out of that, he muses that “Oddly, I’ve never heard of a church or denomination that asked people to affirm a doctrinal statement like this: The purpose of Scripture is to equip God’s people for good works.” (italics his).

Then he gets excited: “But again, think about what tyruly biblical Christians (Protestant, Catholic, …. whatever) have done when they have understood the profitable purpose of Scripture. Instructed by Scripture, they have left the comforts of home and country and gone to every corner of the world, spreading the Good News of Jesus in word and deed.” McLaren recognises that the bible exists not as a reference manual, not as an academic text, but as a tool to be used in the greater purpose that Jesus came to birth in the church. The bible exists to help us change the world. (my words, not his)

3. The bible as a narrative

Despite the rather sound base assumption (the bible as a narrative), the places McLaren takes the argument from there are a little bit unsatisfying. This point is mostly McLaren’s attempt at covering for the fact that there are some really icky bits (my words again:)) in the Old Testament that really take some explaining. McLaren’s point of view is that to start with we should be reading the bible (and the early history portions in particular) as a story, which doesn’t mean that God agrees with everything that happens therein. Which is pretty fair.
It’s the next bit that is a bit hard to swallow. And before I tell you why I don’t like it - let me say that I’m not sure I have anything better. It’s a decent crack at it. I don’t want to be throwing stones. Just trying to think this stuff through for myself.

McLaren believes that sometimes God told the Israelites to do stuff that doesn’t really seem to be very loving and fatherly, because they were in a culture that was significantly worse than anything God told them to do, so God was calling them to be slightly better than the rest of the world. Which is just a little bit much for me. I still believe in a God who is holy - set apart. Who wants to have nothing to do with sin. And this line of thinking is hard to align with a holy God who cannot bear to be a part of sin.

The other part I don’t understand about McLaren’s thinking is that whereas in most of the book (and indeeed this chapter) he is telling people to throw away their rationalised worldview, here he is trying to justify his point of view following a very clear “if A = B and C=D then E must equal F” line of thinking. But as I say, I don’t have anything better - it’s just intriguing. I’d love to hear other people’s opinions. Play nicely