A Critique of “Holding Biblical Texts in Tension”

A few Sundays ago, I preached a sermon on Psalm 85, which includes a lot of language about the wrath of God. Recognizing that this language has been used abusively in modern times, I spent a little time explaining what it means. "God's wrath" represents the suffering we experience when we (as individuals and as a society) experience the consequences of our own sins. [1] This is not a punishment that God inflicts on us directly, as it is our own actions that create this type of suffering. However, it is a punishment that God inflicts on us indirectly, by stepping back from the situation and allowing sin to run its course. Because sin is intrinsically destructive, this indirect response truly constitutes punishment, for sin – left to itself – will leave its captives in torment. This is, by the way, the essence of hell, which theologians have long defined as the absence of God. [2]

A few days after I preached this message, a member of my congregation sent me a very respectful email that challenged me on this subject. He wrote, "Regarding your observation that God's response to sin in the examples cited was to step back and let the consequences fall as they may, were you suggesting that that is one of several ways God responds to sin in the Biblical record?" [3] As a matter of fact, that is not what I was suggesting. I was pushing it further, claiming that this is a privileged definition of God’s wrath by which we should interpret divine wrath whenever it comes up. Nevertheless, as a Biblical scholar, I can’t help but appreciate the insight of his question. Undoubtedly, there are several cases in the Bible in which “God’s wrath” indicates something vindictive or retributive, not in keeping with the “indirect” interpretation of God’s wrath that I promoted above. I can’t deny that God was directly punishing sin in the stories of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19 and the striking down Herod in Acts 12. Furthermore if I am being rigorously honest, I must also admit that these destructive stories conflict with other Biblical descriptions of God as loving and merciful. [4] So, the million-dollar question is, what should Christians make of conflicting passages of Scripture? If we are called to make claims about God on the basis of the Bible, how can we do this when the Bible itself offers differing views of God?

For our current purposes, I would like to suggest that there are three basic responses to this problem of internal Biblical conflict. First, one could simply affirm those passages that conform to one description of God and ignore or reject those that conflict with that description. This is often dismissively referred to as “picking and choosing,” but there are some intriguing arguments in favor of this approach. [5] Second, we could do what the majority of Christian theologians have done through the centuries, which is to try to find unity within those conflicting passages. This is commonly referred to as “harmonizing,” and it usually involves re-interpreting the texts we find problematic in new ways so that they cohere with the texts we find attractive. These interpretations are not always convincing, but they give us a way to affirm the whole Bible. Finally, a third approach would be to acknowledge that there are irreconcilable differences in the Bible and to make a commitment neither to ignore nor to harmonize these differences. This is generally referred to as “holding Biblical texts in tension,” and it strives for honesty and faithfulness, but at the cost of coming to any concrete conclusions about what the Bible says. 

In seminary, the preference of my professors and classmates was overwhelmingly for option #3: “holding texts in tension.” We were taught that the good scholar or the good pastor acknowledges the conflict or “tension” of Biblical arguments and doesn’t try to twist them to fit her theology. Undoubtedly, there are some merits to this approach. From a scholarly perspective, your best chance at learning something new from a text begins when you set aside your agenda and listen to what it has to say. From a spiritual perspective, acknowledging that the Bible is complex and that you can’t make every verse fit together is an exercise in humility. Upon affirming this approach, my professors guaranteed that the other two approaches would be viewed with some disdain. Anyone who tried to make a Biblical argument that selectively emphasized a certain set of verses would be accused of not “holding the texts in tension.” [6] As a result, we were encouraged to hold the pro-government and anti-government elements in Scripture in tension, the demand for order in the Church and the promise of freedom in the Spirit in tension, the different presentations of God’s wrath in tension, etc.

This is all well and good until you are confronted with a situation in the real world that demands a Biblical response. If you find yourself in a situation where you must choose whether or not to obey the unjust demands of an oppressive government, or whether the need for church order is great enough that you should muffle your concerns about a congregation’s unfaithfulness, or if you are asked whether someone’s premature death is a manifestation of the wrath of God, it won’t suffice to offer a list of verses that could be used on either side of the argument. These situations need a “Yes” or “No.” Now, it should probably be a nuanced “Yes” or “No,” one that proceeds cautiously and sensitively, one that acknowledges the weaknesses embedded in it, one that recognizes its own fallibility, etc. Nevertheless, Christians are required and empowered to speak a clear word of truth in these kinds of complex situations. And the moment that we do that, as soon as we take a stance on the basis of some Biblical texts – with the awareness that other texts could be cited which would oppose this stance – it becomes clear that we do, in fact, have an interpretive preference, that we do privilege some verses over others, and that we are already involved in harmonizing the Bible. And what is wrong with that? Jesus privileged certain verses above others, the apostles reinterpreted OT texts so they would conform with the Lordship of Christ, and the Bible itself is intrinsically a harmonization! [7] Although it has its dangers, harmonizing Scripture is not a bad thing. On the contrary, it is an inevitable part of preaching the gospel.

One of the dangers of harmonization is that Christians can get so comfortable with their reading of the Bible and so convinced by their own hermeneutic that they are no longer able to be challenged and convicted by the text. I think this is one of the main reasons that my professors encouraged us to “hold texts in tension” rather than to quickly harmonize them: on the surface, this seems to prevent the kind of arrogance that claims to have the Bible completely figured out. However, there is a better way to try to integrate this kind of interpretive humility in our lives: to establish communion with Christians who read Scripture differently. Because other Christians privilege different texts and harmonize the conflicts differently, these brothers and sisters can offer us plenty of opportunity for wrestling with the readings of the Bible that we have come to accept. [8] However, genuine dialogue must begin by acknowledging where each side is coming from, and we can’t do this honestly unless we evaluate and own the ways in which we already harmonize Scripture.

So, given all of that, how should I have answered the church member who challenged me for pushing one reading of God’s wrath over and against other Biblical possibilities? Perhaps like this: “You know, I have to admit that there are Biblical passages that don’t seem to take this view of God’s wrath, and I’m not sure what to do with those. But when I read the Biblical story as a whole, this is my best understanding about what God’s wrath is. If you have a better understanding, which incorporates more of the Biblical record, I’d be open to hearing it. However, I am compelled not just to offer a fair interpretation of texts but to make a proclamation about God. And based on my reading of the Biblical story, I genuinely hold this to be the true nature of God’s wrath. How do you see it?” [9]

End Notes

[1] It took a lot of self-restraint for me not to write this sentence as, “I believe that ‘God’s wrath’ represents the suffering we experience…” Of course, I do believe that God’s wrath represents the suffering that our sin creates, but why does it feel so important to add the words ‘I believe that’ at the beginning of the sentence? If all the words indicate are, “I myself hold this to be true,” then there’s no need for me to write them. After all, if I am telling you that something is true, it’s clearly implied that I also believe it. However, that is not all that the words “I believe” indicate.

When I begin a sentence with “I believe that,” I am lessening the force of my claim by moving it from the realm of fact into the realm of opinion. There it is less threatening because it doesn’t impose a truth on someone else. Consider the difference between these two statements: “Sean Connery was the best James Bond” and “I believe that Sean Connery was the best James Bond.” Although they mean the same thing, the first sentence is asking for a fight, while the second statement is just expressing a sentiment.

Living in the United States, we have learned the pluralistic etiquette that teaches us to present all of our religious beliefs as opinions. We are permitted to have our beliefs, even express our beliefs, so long as we promise to contain them in the realm of opinion rather than fact, faith rather than reason, and the private sphere rather than the public sphere. Christians on both sides of the theological and political continuums have unwittingly embraced these assumptions, which necessarily distorts the radical and political nature of Jesus’ message. Perhaps the most challenging task for Christians today is to drop, “I believe,” from their vocabulary. It’s easy enough to tell your non-Christian friends and neighbors, “I believe that Jesus is Lord.” It’s much harder to say, “Jesus is Lord,” in their presence.

[2] For a more thorough defense of this idea, see my post, "Heaven and Hell Reconsidered"

[3] I received permission from this person to include his question in my blog. I am so grateful to be a part of a congregation of people like him who challenge me and dialogue with me on these things.

[4] Consider Ezekiel 33:11, “‘As I live!’ declares the Lord God, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but would rather that the wicked turn from his way and live.” Also consider 2 Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” These are not the only two verses that oppose a vindictive or retributive view of God’s wrath, nor are the examples cited the only passages that conform to it. This is a deep-running conflict in Scripture. I just offer these as particularly clear articulations of the opposing sides, intentionally showing that they both have a presence in each Testament.

[5] The best arguments I have heard in favor of this selective approach have come from the liberation traditions. These groups point out that specific verses have been particularly responsible for encouraging racism, violence, and genocide, and that these verses should be clearly identified and rejected by churches so that this cycle of violence continues. I am not convinced that this is the only response to oppressive and historically-loaded passages in Scripture, but the point is worth mentioning. The Africana Bible is a great resource for this kind of thinking.

[6] In my opinion, this is why there is tension between the Biblical and theological departments in many seminaries. Since theologians are no longer allowed to harmonize Scripture, they have no Biblical resources by which to create coherent theologies. Any time they cite Scripture, they risk receiving criticism from their Biblical counterparts for not really understanding the Bible. As a result, they have often times abandoned the Bible as their primary resource and turned to more “centralized” sources such as Augustine, Aquinas, Wesley, etc.

[7] Jesus commonly gave certain texts priority over others. For example, in Matthew 22:34-40, he identified Deut. 6:5 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength,” as the greatest commandment and Leviticus 19:18, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” as the second greatest commandment. This clearly shows that some passages have more authority than others. In an interaction with the Pharisees in Mark 10, Jesus argued that Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 should overrule the “concession” that God offered in Deuteronomy 24:1-3.

As far as the apostles go, the New Testament and especially the gospels are FILLED with passages that are often taken out of their original context and given new meaning, as any critical scholar would readily admit. For example, Matthew cites Jeremiah 31:5 in Matt. 2:18 as a prophecy that Herod would slaughter infants to try to kill Jesus. But if you read the actual chapter in Jeremiah, especially the verse that follows it, it is obvious that “Rachel” is bemoaning the diaspora or forcible removal of the Jews from their land, not this specific event. However, I don’t think that Matthew is simply misusing the OT. He is trying to frame Jesus’ story as Israel’s story, so that every stage of his life corresponds to one of the key events in Israel’s history. Thus, this quotation gives new meaning Jeremiah 31:5 without necessarily violating the original meaning.

I argue that the Bible is intrinsically a harmonization because the sixty-six books within it were written without an awareness of all of the others or the expectation that they would be compiled into one great “book,” as one grand religious text. By putting the books together in one volume and calling them “the Bible” (i.e. “the Book”), we predispose believers to embrace the (appropriate) assumption that these texts go together, that they somehow constitute one continuous story. If we were really opposed to harmonizing, then we should call this collection of books, “A Christian Anthology” rather than “The Book.” But once we do that, we will start raising questions about what books should and shouldn’t belong to this anthology, which completely undermines the purpose of “holding texts in tension.”

[8] I suppose I need to qualify this claim. It is possible to be “in conversation” with other Christians without being challenged by them, if we accept the pluralistic framework. That framework says that religious views are interesting particularities that reflect on the people who have them but that don’t have anything to say to people of other religious commitments. Unfortunately, this pluralism threatens to undermine the Biblical call to “encouragement, correction, and rebuke” – or what Methodists call “accountability.” John Howard Yoder taught me that true ecumenism involves critiquing other versions of Christianity while at the same time seeking to listen to my own blind spots that other Christians may see. For more on this, read the anthology of Yoder’s works, The Royal Priesthood.

[9] I didn’t answer him with this much wisdom, but perhaps he will read this blog and it will give him a chance to respond.

Jesus Christ Is Risen

If you are a Christian, you probably agree with the title of this post. After all, there is an Easter tradition that when one Christian says, “Jesus Christ is risen,” everyone else is supposed to respond, “He is risen, indeed!” Traditions like this do more than just express a truth that we Christians happen to believe. By setting aside every Sunday as the day that we celebrate the resurrection, by centering the liturgical calendar around this day, and by proclaiming the resurrection of Christ as a community, we are doing more than reporting a fact. We are suggesting that the resurrection was the event on which all of human history hinges. It is the foundation and distinction of the Christian faith. It is the source of salvation.

I have to admit that I did not always see it this way. When I was a teenager – a Christian teenager, mind you – I believed that someone must have made a mistake. After all, I had always been taught that it was through his death that Jesus Christ brought salvation to the human race, not through his resurrection. Thus, it seemed like it would have been more appropriate to have church on Fridays, to celebrate Good Friday as the pinnacle Christian holiday, and to say, “Jesus died for our sins,” with the reply, “Jesus died for our sins, indeed!” Don’t get me wrong, I always believed in the resurrection, but I saw it merely as the epilogue to the story that climaxed with the crucifixion.

However, after a long and difficult theological journey, I have come to see that I was gravely mistaken. I would now say that any account of Christianity that can present the gospel without reference to the resurrection – ranging from the social gospel of liberal Christianity to the Four Spiritual Laws of conservative Christianity – is deficient. The resurrection is not merely evidence in the case for Christ or a 30-second ending to a story about how much Jesus suffered. It is the basis of the Christian faith. According to Paul, “if Christ has not been raised, our peaching is useless and so is your faith.” [E1] But we have gotten so used to a death-centered Christianity, that it sounds heretical even to suggest that it may not be the most central component of our faith.  We have to do the hard work of re-reading Scripture if we are to take the resurrection seriously.

The best place to begin is with the gospels. According to Matthew, Mark, and Luke [E2], Jesus’ message at the beginning of his ministry could be summarized in the phrase, “The kingdom of God is at hand! Repent and believe the good news!” [E3] This summary is disturbingly unrelated to what I thought “the gospel” meant in my teenage years. First of all, it doesn’t say anything about having a personal relationship with God, which is what Evangelical Christianity taught me that salvation meant. Second, although “believing the good news” uses the same terms as Evangelicalism, it’s talking about a different good news. The good news that Jesus introduces is, “The kingdom of God is at hand,” not, “I am about to die on the cross for your sins.” Of course, you can argue that these mean the same by suggesting that “the kingdom of God” should be understood as a spiritual experience that results from inviting Jesus into your heart. But then you might as well say that "the kingdom of God" is just another phrase for the principle of karma or the invention of the steam engine. Instead of imposing what we want into the text, we should turn to the Biblical context to get a sense of what this phrase means there.

The Old Testament teaches us that the Jews had been living in political subjugation for centuries prior to Jesus’ arrival. Many of them were fundamentally dissatisfied with this situation because it contradicted the call that God had given their ancestor Abraham that they would be God's nation. David represented this nation at its best, when it had political independence and the worship of God was built into its laws. The prophets looked forward to the restoration of this kind of Davidic reign. Although the specific visions varied a bit, most Jews were waiting for God to intervene not just in their spiritual lives but in the social order.

When Jesus came, he claimed to be the Jewish Messiah [E4], which implied that he would meet these social expectations. Everything he said and did had a strong political flavor to it. Both “the kingdom of God” and “the good news” were loaded political terms, he appointed twelve disciples, implying one would lead each of the twelve tribes of Israel, and he baptized people and told them that they needed to prepare for the revolution that was about to occur. All of this was politically subversive, which is why the Roman government executed him. Think about it, the Romans didn’t kill people for teaching spiritual principles!

This may seem to favor a kind of social gospel, but before my liberal Christian friends get too excited with me, I have to point out one other aspect of Jesus’ teaching on the kingdom of God. Jesus made it clear that this kingdom would not come about by political lobbying or even by caring for the poor but through a dramatic apocalyptic event: the Son of Man’s descent from heaven. You see, Jesus believed that he knew how the world would end. All of his teaching about how people should behave was based on this knowledge. He told people to repent lest they end up on the wrong side at the end of history. He tried to teach them what the new social order would look like so that they could begin to prepare for it ahead of time. And what did he think it would happen? Every human who has ever lived would be raised from the dead and the lives they lived would be determined by whom they chose to follow before death.

Some have called this event,“The Rapture,” but most Christians have understood this term to have exactly the opposite meaning that it really does. According to Jesus, God will not pull humans away from the earth and funnel them off into the spiritual spheres of “heaven” or “hell” at the final judgment. On the contrary, the judgment is precisely the moment when God brings everyone who has ever died back to the world. The resurrection that the Bible speaks of is a PHYSICAL resurrection, one that occurs on EARTH. When Jesus predicts the coming of the Son of Man, this figure comes DOWN to earth, he doesn’t bring us up to him. In Revelation, that beautiful city with streets of gold and pearly gates comes DOWN from heaven; we don’t go up to it. This is why Paul says that “the whole of creation has been groaning… as we wait eagerly for our adoption as children, the redemption of our bodies.” [E5] After all, if God made creation and said it was “very good,” why would he ultimately abandon it? [E6]

Truthfully, this kind of end-times talk makes liberals and conservatives equally uncomfortable. One cannot deny that there is a certain similarity between Jesus and end-times preachers like Harold Camping, who tell people to make radical changes to their lives on the basis of some foreseen apocalyptic event. [E7] But there is one crucial difference between Jesus and everyone else who has predicted the end of the world: Jesus rose from the dead.

The resurrection is, of course, the ultimate validation of Jesus’ teaching. But more than that, the resurrection inaugurated a new stage in history. Christians believe that the resurrection broke the bonds of death and set the kingdom of God in motion. Because Jesus rose, we have reason to believe that there will be a time when every other human will come back to life. Because Jesus rose, we know what the kingdom of God will look like and how to live into it already. Because Jesus rose, we are no longer enslaved to the powers that threaten us with death. Because Jesus rose, the Holy Spirit has come, the Church has taken root, and salvation made available for all.

I hope to unpack these comments more more in later posts, but for now let me dwell on that first point: If it were not for the resurrection, I would not believe in the afterlife. The vision of heaven that is populated by books like 90 Minutes in Heaven and Heaven is For Real is not only philosophically inconceivable to me,  it’s utterly unappealing. Honestly, how many of us can say we’d rather be floating around in a disembodied heaven than living out life on earth? Our distaste for heaven doesn't mean we're too "worldly." It means that we were designed for embodied life on earth. And according to the Bible and the Apostle's Creed, that's exactly what the afterlife will be. We believe in the resurrection of the body. But if that’s true, if we aren't going to end up in otherworldly spheres, what are we to make of heaven and hell? That’s the point I will consider in my next post.       

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Endnotes (You don’t have to read these unless you want further information)

[E1] 1 Corinthians 15:14

[E2] I am temporarily setting aside the gospel of John as I make a case for a resurrection-centered Christian faith. This is not because I disagree with John, but because it gets disproportionate emphasis in Western Christianity in general and Evangelicalism in particular. Origen of Alexandria, a third century theologian, argued that John could not be understood properly until you first understood the rest of the Bible. I have come to agree with him, and I would challenge those who disagree with me to try not appeal to gospel of John to make their case. I will come back to this important gospel in later posts.

[E3] Mark 1:14-15, Matthew 4:17, Luke 4:43. Luke even spells out the social implications in greater detail in Luke 4:17-21.

[E4] Even the term “Jesus Christ” means “Jesus the Messiah.” He saw himself first and foremost as the Messiah for the Jews. Cf. Romans 1:16, Matthew 15:24.

[E5] Matthew 24:30-31; Revelation 21:1-2; Romans 8:22-23.

[E6] For a good book that argues for a bodily resurrection, see N.T. Wright, Simply Christian.

[E7] I don’t want to overstress this analogy. First of all, Jesus specifically taught his followers not to look for a certain time or date of his return (Mark 13:32 and parallels), and so Camping made his predictions in defiance of Jesus’ teaching. Second, the basis of his predictions was not very sophisticated. He simply assigned certain numerical values to different concepts (for example, atonement = 5 and heaven = 17), and used those to create an equation for the end of the world. By contrast, Jesus’ view of the end is based on his assessment of the evil in the world and the inevitable clash which he believed must result from those powers which rebelled against God. Nevertheless, there is a similarity insofar as both people called their followers to make radical changes on their lives in anticipation of the final outcome. But for Jesus’ instructions (in contrast to Camping), they have generally found the lifestyle to which he calls them in preparation for the end is intrinsically rewarding, as it happens to be the way that God designed for humans to live all along.