The Authority of the Scriptures...

I have been thinking a lot lately about the struggles that the church is having in most of the Western world. It seems to me that one of the crucial issues that we are struggling with is authority in regards to spiritual matters. Many people have become a spiritual authority unto themselves, using feelings as their guide to what is really true. Others have sought spiritual authority in a person. I think that orthodox Christianity (and I include myself in this category) has always seen Scripture to be the authority in regards to all matters of faith and practice. The question that society is asking today, however, is this - "How does that actually play out? HOW is the Scripture an authority?" One glaring example of this is the section from an episode of The West Wing...

The president of the United States was about to address a gathering of radio talk show hosts in the White House. As the president entered the hall, they all stood and applauded. All, that is, except one - a woman with strikingly blond hair, wearing a bright green suit. At first, her presence rattled the president. He lost his train of thought several times before he finally spoke directly to the sitting talk show host.

"Excuse me, doctor," the president said to her. "It's good to have you here. Are you an M.D.?"
"A Ph.D.," she retorted smartly.
"In psychology?" he pursued.
"No, sir," she said.
"Theology?"
"No."
"Social work?"
"I have a Ph.D. in English literature," she replied.
"I'm asking," continued the president, "because on your show people call in for advice and you go by the title 'doctor,' and I didn't know if maybe your listeners were confused by that and assumed you had advanced training in psychology, theology, or health care."
"I don't believe they are confused. No, sir," she responded.
"Good," said the president, raising his voice sarcastically.
I like your show. I like how you call homosexuality an abomination."
"I don't say homosexuality is an abomination, Mr. President," she replied haughtily. "The Bible does."
"Yes, it does!" he shouted.
"Leviticus 18:22."
"Chapter and verse. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I had you here. I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She's a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be?"
"While thinking about that, can I ask another? My chief of staff, Leo McGarry, insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it OK to call the police?"
"Here's one that's really important, 'cause we've got a lot of sports fans in this town. Touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean, Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point?"
"Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side?"
"Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads?"

How do we answer the world when they ask questions like this? Obviously the Scripture is not meant to be used as an authority like that, but how do we use it.

These questions have made me realize that we need a better developed theology of the Bible to address the questions that the world is asking. I'm praying that some of you intelligent people out there would take this on as a lifetime project. I guess one thing that would speak to our generation and those that are coming would be a great metaphor that helps us to understand the role of Scripture as our authority. The best one that I've seen so far is by NT Wright. In his lecture How Can The Bible Be Authoritative? he writes...

Let me offer you a possible model, which is not in fact simply an illustration but actually corresponds, as I shall argue, to some important features of the biblical story, which (as I have been suggesting) is that which God has given to his people as the means of his exercising his authority. Suppose there exists a Shakespeare play whose fifth act had been lost. The first four acts provide, let us suppose, such a wealth of characterization, such a crescendo of excitement within the plot, that it is generally agreed that the play ought to be staged. Nevertheless, it is felt inappropriate actually to write a fifth act once and for all: it would freeze the play into one form, and commit Shakespeare as it were to being prospectively responsible for work not in fact his own. Better, it might be felt, to give the key parts to highly trained, sensitive and experienced Shakespearian actors, who would immerse themselves in the first four acts, and in the language and culture of Shakespeare and his time, and who would then be told to work out a fifth act for themselves.
Consider the result. The first four acts, existing as they did, would be the undoubted ‘authority’ for the task in hand. That is, anyone could properly object to the new improvisation on the grounds that this or that character was now behaving inconsistently, or that this or that sub-plot or theme, adumbrated earlier, had not reached its proper resolution. This ‘authority’ of the first four acts would not consist in an implicit command that the actors should repeat the earlier pans of the play over and over again. It would consist in the fact of an as yet unfinished drama, which contained its own impetus, its own forward movement, which demanded to be concluded in the proper manner but which required of the actors a responsible entering in to the story as it stood, in order first to understand how the threads could appropriately be drawn together, and then to put that understanding into effect by speaking and acting with both innovation and consistency.
This model could and perhaps should be adapted further; it offers in fact quite a range of possibilities. Among the detailed moves available within this model, which I shall explore and pursue elsewhere, is the possibility of seeing the five acts as follows: (1) Creation; (2) Fall; (3) Israel; (4) Jesus. The New Testament would then form the first scene in the fifth act, giving hints as well (Rom 8; 1 Car 15; parts of the Apocalypse) of how the play is supposed to end. The church would then live under the ‘authority’ of the extant story, being required to offer something between an improvisation and an actual performance of the final act. Appeal could always be made to the inconsistency of what was being offered with a major theme or characterization in the earlier material. Such an appeal—and such an offering!—would of course require sensitivity of a high order to the whole nature of the story and to the ways in which it would be (of course) inappropriate simply to repeat verbatim passages from earlier sections. Such sensitivity (cashing out the model in terms of church life) is precisely what one would have expected to be required; did we ever imagine that the application of biblical authority ought to be something that could be done by a well-programmed computer?

This illustration has been incredibly helpful to me. But I'm wondering what the implications of it are? I'm wondering if some of you out there in the blogosphere can help me think through this a little better? Are you up to the challenge?