Ecclesial Plurality

[Randy Bosch]

In an article written a few years ago, Alan Jacobs addresses his thinking about Ecclesial Plurality.  I dug it out of the archive (well, he did) because the amazingly frustrating discussions on this Forum about Biblical interpretation are given some light (or shade, depending upon the self-determined absolutism of many).  This may fall into the "If the shoe fits, wear it" tag:
http://ayjay.org/JacobsEcclesialPlurality.pdf

[Dave Benke]

Jacobs states, "I write as an evangelical Anglican, and that of course shapes my understanding of and response to these issues."   That's a little footnote, but I believe it's of critical importance to an evangelical and catholic approach to plurality, which should be of great interest to the American Lutheran Publicity Bureau and its mission.

In the time of COVID, I spent a little time exploring my personal forebears and their connective tissue in the Lutheran movement in this country.  I was taken to one of the founding congregations of the Missouri Synod, St. John's in Marysville, Ohio.  That's where my great-grandfather and his family, including my grandfather Rev. J. F. Boerger, were members.  Indeed, there is a Boerger Lane in rural Marysville (an area known as Neuendettelsau) to this very day.  One of Loehe's first Sendlinge was their Pastor Ernst.  So at the 50th and 75th anniversary of the congregation my grandfather was an honored preacher, being a son of the congregation. 

Here's the description of what that "brand" of Lutheranism was and remains all about: Two threads are woven into the story of the Missouri Synod: confessional integrity and aggressive mission. From its beginning, these two have been inseparable and interconnected. Our history reminds us that you cannot have one without the other.

This informs my reading of Jacobs' well-written article.

Dave Benke

[Brian Stoffregen]

Of course it may be from our ELCA perspective, but God gave us 66 or 73 or 80 books of the Bible - and they do not all proclaim the same theology. As I've noted before, when asking an ecumenical group of Christians, "What is a Christian?" the answers pretty much differ along denominational lines, because of the priority of biblical book(s) and their teachings.


Some can emphasize THE MANY DIFFERENT PARTS of the one body where diversity is key. Others emphasize the ONE BODY where uniformity is key. This difference also occurs in biblical studies.

Mark Allan Powell (a NT prof at Trinity Lutheran Seminary) writes the following in his introduction to Chasing the Eastern Star: Adventures in Biblical Reader-Response Criticism:

The field of biblical studies presently seems to be divided into two general camps: author-oriented scholars who use historical criticism and reader-oriented scholars who use literary criticism. There is something of a cold war between these—not much outright hostility but not much interchange either. I remember a session of the Matthew Group at the Society of Biblical Literature where two of our country's top scholars were scheduled to engage in dialogue on a common theme. Dan Via presented a literary-critical study of an important text; Robert Gundry responded with his own redaction-critical analysis of the same passage. It was interesting to hear both papers but at their conclusion neither scholar had much to say to the other. To quote Gundry: "I don't really understand what he was doing." And to quote Via: "I just can't look at a text like that."

Are they from two different worlds? And if they are, is there any problem with that?

One significant difference between these two approaches is the way they address diversity in interpretation. Both acknowledge this existential fact: people can and do interpret texts in different ways. But how should we account for this? Is it because some people understand the text rightly while others misunderstand it? Or is it simply that different people understand in different ways? The former answer tends to be favored by historical critics; the latter by literary critics. In an extreme rendering—which is usually a caricature—historical critics may be depicted as claiming that a text has only one correct interpretation: the meaning that was intended by the author. Or, again, in an extreme rendering—also a caricature—literary critics may be depicted as recognizing an infinite diversity of interpretations, none of which can be ruled out by any objective standard. Removing, exaggeration, it is safe to say that scholars who favor authors maintain that some interpretations are tight and others are clearly wrong, while scholars who favor readers think it is abusive to impose understandings that limit people's creativity or imagination. [pp. 1-2]

[Dan Fienen]

Threat drift. Pastor Fienen got his  last word; now the thread should get back on topic. Meanwhile, the discussion of the Jacobs essay simply languishes. And I think he has a pretty good "take" on things which often appear in this modest forum.

Oh for heaven sake's! Did you even look over there?
I suspect you did not. It's much easier, of course, course to make a snarky comment here.
And do you not understand how the word "meanwhile," works?

Years ago I read a story in the Readers' Digest. A woman was in a mixed marriage, she was protestant and her husband Catholic. They frequently disagreed, sometimes vehemently, about religion, yet their marriage worked. Reflecting on how they could live together with the differences she wistfully reflected "Well who knows, in the end he could be as right as I am, or I could be as wrong as he is." 

Reading Alan Jacobs' essay, "Ecclesial Plurality," reminded me of that story. They were living with the plurality, the fact that their religious commitments did not agree, could not agree, without resorting to pluralism, the belief that that there is no real truth or that everything is true. I resonated with much in Jacob's essay, probably more so than I resonate with Pr. Austin's comments on it.

In the opening paragraphs of his essay, Jacobs pointed out a fundamental problem in constructing a consistent, convincing, Biblical theology. It is an incontestable fact that over the last couple of millennia Christians have looked at the same texts and constructed diametrically different doctrinal systems. Doctrinal systems that simply cannot be reconciled with each other in the sense that at least at some points, they cannot both be true.

Although Jacobs didn't put it in these terms, I trace the difficulty back to original sin. We are broken, damaged sinners living in a damaged, broken world. The pristine, primordial unity in which we were created was broken in the fall and will not be restored until the eschaton. Great mischief results when we attempt either to anticipate the eschaton and bring the kingdom of God to its full flowering before He does or take us all back to the primordial garden. The way back to recreate the Golden Age of the Garden remains guarded by cherubim and later golden ages nostalgically longed for were at best of tarnished gold and now gone with the wind.

[Dan Fienen]

Pluralities of Belief
Jacobs pointed out two of the results of our current imperfections and limitations. One is that to establish an obvious to all systemization of all that the Bible teaches is beyond our capabilities. It has not happened and will not happen until the eschaton. Jacobs rejected one explanation for this failure, what he termed the ideology of pluralism and considered it the way of despair. That is that in Scripture we are given several inconsistent and opposing theologies and we must look beyond Scripture to create a consistent theology by which we can live.

I observe that there are several ways that this way of despair can and has played out. One avenue is to adopt a philosophical school of thought, using that as the model for constructing a systematic theology and adapting scripture Procrustean like to fit the model. In the early Christian centuries, Platonic, Neo-Platonic, and Aristotelian philosophies were often used. In more modern times we've used Existentialism and Marxism (often in combination) and of course more recently the canons of Post-Modernism.

Another way is to declare that all disputed matters are not really all that important and differences of opinion in those areas insignificance. Theology becomes in theory only that on which we can all agree. Several problems here. There is very little if any Christian teaching that all can agree on, so there is very little if anything that we can affirm, believe, teach, and confess. There is also insufficient theology left by which we can organize our life together.

[Dan Fienen]

Putting It All Together
The way of Ecclesial Plurality that Jacobs advocated does not deny that there is, in the end, one truth that the Bible teaches, not a mish mash of incompatible theologies. Just that constructing that one truth is beyond our capabilities in this age. I will confess that it was somewhat unclear to me how he would suggest we proceed then in the church, no doubt a fault of my reading.

My understanding also considers another basic point that Jacobs puts forth in his Ecclesial Plurality. As we cannot come up with one all inclusive theology, we cannot come up with one all inclusive good that we are to pursue. As a society we have accepted certain things as goods that we as a society want to pursue. However, some of those goods end up being incompatible with each other so we must at time choose which one we will pursue, or at least compromise.

Jacobs pointed to what political philosopher Isaiah Berlin found in his reading of Machiavelli that some of the Christian virtues or excellences are simply not compatible with those of the classical Greco Roman authors. One must choose, society must choose what is to be valued and what excellencies or "Great Goods" as Jacobs termed them are to be pursued.

Evidence of these conflicts are all around us. Jacobs began his essay with the example of the conflict between those Christians who hold to the traditional position that sexuality is to be expressed only within marriage between one man and one woman, and those who hold that God also affirms same-sex unions. More about this in the next post. The abortion debate is especially intractable because concern for the unborn often conflicts with concern for the potential mother. Often the needs of the one must be placed above or even in place of the needs of the other. No matter how hard we try to care for the needs of both, often a choice of whose needs take precedence must be made.

In the current turmoil in our cities, and evident in the racial rhetoric of the last years, is the conflict for racial justice. One good is support for and sympathy with minorities and especially Blacks who have arrived at this time after a long history of mistreatment, oppression, and exploitation. Even now, over a half century after the landmark civil rights laws, they continue to face racial oppression and injustice, and have not achieved parity in American economic, social, political, and cultural life. There is also a good, a need, in our country for good policing and law enforcement. The way this discussion has been set up, sympathy and support for the Black community demands a lack of support and sympathy for anyone else. To affirm that All lives matter, or Police lives also matters is denounced as denying that Black lives matter. Unfortunately, attempts to reach a moderating position, that there is a special need to be especially supportive of Black lives while still recognizing that others also have needs seems to be resisted from all sides.

[Dan Fienen]

Great Goods
There are a number of examples of how Great Goods can come into conflict and choices must be made. Common sense would suggest that those choices will not always be in the same direction. For example, a Great Good accepted by our society is that children are to be nurtured, cared for, and protected. Another Great Good is that parents bear the primary responsibility for that care and nurture and have a primary right to raise their children as they see fit. Conflict between these goods arise when outsiders consider that the parents are not doing a fit job. This conflict arise most obviously in cases of child abuse, but also over vaccinations, educational choices, religious instruction and the like. Richard Dawkins has suggested that raising children in religion is a form of child abuse, for example. It seems obvious to me that the choice between what I consider to be good for the child and the good that the child's parents would choose for the child is not always obvious, or should generally default to what the parents would choose or the majority of society would choose. If we are to be a plural society we must find ways to live with that disconnect and respect the choices that others make even if we would not choose that way.

Another aspect of this plurality is apparent when we have a conflict of rights. Under our Constitution and laws in America, we recognize the people have certain rights. Some of these were specified in the Declaration of Independence, others in the Constitution and Amendments, especially the first ten. However, these rights frequently come into conflict and that conflict must be adjudicated. A choice must be made as to which rights of which persons will supersede which other rights. Most recently, the right to gather to protest injustice, exercising freedom of speech and the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances has also led to violence, looting, destruction of property, and assault. Some of that has been the release of pent up frustrations, and some has been the infiltration of peaceful protests by elements determined to provoke violence. The right to protest has ended up conflicting with the right for people and their property to be protected from violence. Very often, concern for protection from violence has been portrayed as a lack of any concern or sympathy for the just grievances that occasioned the protests to begin with.

Jacobs spoke of this:

Political idealists, whether on the Left or the Right neglect this vital truth, and we all pay the price for that neglect. They believe so absolutely in their own preferred kind of social or personal excellence that they must deny that any other excellence is truly excellent. Thus genuine human good even "Great Goods," get swept away because attention to them distracts from or positively impedes the realization of the goods to which the idealists have pledged their lives.

Here I would invoke the Half a Loaf Principle, "Half a loaf is better than none," and the Voltairean aphorism, "The best is enemy of the good." Often there is the opportunity to not simply choose between one good or the other but to find ways for both goods to be honored and some of each achieved. Perhaps in a better world, police could protect peaceful protests from those who would use them as cover or target of violence, also protecting those around the protest, while allowing the protest to petition for a redress of grievances.

We can see two tendencies at work. There is the drive to create the future heaven on earth now, if we just strive hard and enlist, voluntarily or by force, enough people in the cause and set up the right economic, social, and political system we can achieve or at least closely approximate the Bright Future we all should desire. There is the contravening impulse to dig in the heals and seek, by force if necessary to take everybody back the Golden Age when everything was so much better. Whether we call the first Utopian or progressive and the latter Acadian, conservative or traditionalist, each impulse can create or recreate much good. But when taken not as a trend or tendency but as an absolute it becomes for individuals and societies an iron straight jacket and cement overshoes.

[Dan Fienen]

Mission of the Church
What does all this have to do with the mission of the church? The church lives in a plural society and one where many have embraced pluralism, or at least claim to. Actually, living out the belief that there is no one right answer is much harder when it comes to the important stuff than it sounds. Multiple cuisines are fine, as are having multiple styles of music or art, but multiple opinions and standards for sexual expression or abortion becomes harder to live out in the public square. The tendency is for proponents of each option to make their alternative the standard and tolerate others so long as they do not get in the way.

Plurality is no easier to maintain in the church. For centuries, the Church has been divided and despite efforts towards reconciliation and reunion, the differences have become too great. Complicating things further is that there is often disagreement over the importance of what divides. What for some becomes church dividing, for others should be of no importance.

As a case study, let's take the ELCA's attempt to live with a plurality of beliefs concerning the acceptability of same-sex sexual relations. I am not ELCA so what I know is what has been publicly written both officially and by members (and former members) of the ELCA in this forum. Moreover, my personal understanding of Scripture holds to the unacceptability of same-sex sexual relations. So this is how matters look from the outside.

At the 2009 CWA the ELCA Social Statement "Human Sexuality, Gift and Trust" was accepted. In it was an attempt to recognize the plurality of understanding of the Biblical teaching concerning human sexuality extant within the ELCA. Four positions were identified as being held by various people in the ELCA with none of the four being identified as the official position. Rather there was a call for everybody to respect the bound consciences of the others. So far, so good.

Also at the Assembly decisions were made as to how that plurality was to be lived out. That is where the difficulty of actually living out plurality on something as fundamental as what sexual behaviors and relationships are to be accepted become apparent. What I am suggesting was not that there was bad faith in the decisions made but that the attempt to fully respect the bound consciences of those who held all four positions was an impossible task from the outset. With the decision to authorize the ordination of partnered homosexuals to all levels of service in this church and other similar decisions, the identified position that same-sex sexual relationships God pleasing and to be accepted within the church on the same basis as are heterosexual relationship while not de jure the officially accepted position became so de facto. In all churchly interactions above the parish level, acceptance of homosexuality was accepted and expected. Within an individual congregation, rejection of same-sex sexual relationship as God please was allowed, but once one stuck one's nose outside one's own church walls, acceptance was expected. Partnered homosexual pastors were to be accepted on an equal basis, and when in a position of authority within the church at large also. Within large church gatherings and groups, youth gatherings, schools, colleges, and universities similarly.

And how could it not? Otherwise there would have to be created parallel church structures and organizations, equal but distinct, for those who accept and those who do not same-sex relationships. The attempt to accept a plurality of understandings of the Biblical teaching on human sexuality was perhaps a noble endeavor, but apparently a futile one. Or so it looks to an outsider.

One must also reckon with Neuhaus's Law: "Where orthodoxy is optional, orthodoxy will sooner or later be proscribed." Orthodoxy (or conservatism or traditionalism if one prefers) ends up if not flatly proscribed, restricted to the privacy one's corner and banned from the public square. Plurality in the end is often not preserved but paid lip service to and quietly banished to the fringes.

Within the LCMS there is also a degree of plurality, although our ambitions to embrace plurality are much smaller than the attempt in 2009 by the ELCA. We have churches and pastors who are more restrictive in the service and role of women in the congregation than others. Some disallow women's suffrage in congregations, others allow women to read some of the lessons in worship services, for example. This has led to some raucous debates, advocacy publications, pastors and congregations wiping the dust off their sandals as they left, and organizations formed to promote one idea or the other. I certainly cannot claim that the LCMS has always handled plurality well.

While divisions within Christendom reflect our fallen state and the effects of sin among us, given our fallen state divisions need to accepted as inevitable and at times when the conflict between Great Goods great a better alternative that living in a perpetual state of civil war. Since we do not have the capability of resolving these conflicting understandings of God's will and revelation, perhaps when the conflict is too great to hold an organization together, it is time to divide and let each work out their understanding in peace.

Sin, naturally would like to perpetuate division into ever smaller more particular (and peculiar) groups. That is to be resisted.

[Dan Fienen]

   Another question. What is the "setting," that is, the time, the place and the context for theological discussions and/or disputes? Herein lies much mischief. I have said before that were I a follower of Luther in 1560, I would have a different view of certain theological controversies than I do in my 21st Century life. Were I Christian in the second or third Century, the Christological controversies may have dominated how I look at Jesus and the Church. Were I a Christian in the 12th Century, I suspect my location in the world might determine where I stood on the schism between East and West.
   I am a "fan" of history and the social, political and religious happenings of past centuries. (Beloved Spouse contends I have more "in my head" about what was said in the 16th Century than in what happened to us on last year's vacation or which friend has a dog named Buddy.) But I do not live in those past centuries. My vocation in the church is not in those centuries. The world in which I am to proclaim the Gospel and let people know who Jesus is looks nothing like those centuries. 
   Furthermore, hoary disputes over Arianism, Nestorianism, Donatism, Chalcedonian or non-Chalcedonian councils and Rome in 1517 may have been critical, even life-saving for the church catholic in those days. I wonder which of the theological boxing rings that occupy so much time today are as critical for the advancement of the Gospel. And what within those disputes and in the practical life in faith shaped by theological battles should – in today's world – rise to the level of a fight to the death of fellowship, the condemnation and desired annihilation of the opponent or the sacrifice of one's own life to a "cause" already lost?

One thing that I do not see Jacobs doing in his essay is dismissing the plurality that exists as unimportant and easily overcome by simply ignoring disagreements. Some disagreements are unimportant and simply be shelved on the agree to disagree self and forgotten. Others should not. It is a feature of our disagreements that we often cannot even agree on what is important. All of us tend to have favorite hobby horses that we will continue to ride and bring up that others will just roll their eyes about. I could mention anonymous posters but will not. Nor will I mention posters who post that they will not post about a topic.

It would be easy to dismiss the great theological disputes of the past as no longer of interest to us today and so they can be relegated to the dusty back shelves of our minds and remembered, if at all, as "history." The great documents penned to settle those disputes, likewise. It would be nice if, for example, the Christological controversies of the early Christian centuries could be held to be fully resolved and no long troubling the church. Unfortunately, that is not the case. The heretics and the names of their movements may be largely forgotten, but the erroneous teachings they propagated keep being disinterred or rediscovered. Early in my ministry I discovered that one of my fellow ministers in the local ministerial association was a self-described Neo-Arian. He had decided that Arius was basically correct about Jesus. Should I have considered the Arian controversy so much ancient history and invited him to preach about Jesus in my church? Should I have accepted the idea that there really wasn't that much real difference between us, we all believe in Jesus?

I doubt that I have ever discussed by name the ancient Christological heresies or introduced my congregations to the technical language and structure of Lutheran Christology. They don't need that kind of technical knowledge. What they need to know, is that their preacher has his understanding of Christ straight, and that he understands the many ways to get Christology wrong that he can recognize someone going off track and get them back.

I love mushrooms. I love to eat them, I love to cook with them. I am not, however, a mushroom expert. I don't know all the varieties of mushrooms and how to cook with them. Neither am a expert in mushrooming in the wild. I would be hard pressed to distinguish in the woods between a button mushroom and the Amanita Phalloides mushroom, also known as the Death Cap mushroom. I don't need the technical knowledge because I obtain my mushrooms from reputable reliable sources, I cook from recipes that tell me what mushrooms to use and how, and if I ever went mushrooming in the forest around me, I would go with a reliable and knowledgeable guide. But thank God we have knowledgeable people who have studied the arcane mushroom lore to keep the rest of us out of trouble.

A young pastor, very learned, studied diligently for preparing his sermons. He would always start by translating the text from the original paying special attention to grammatical constructions and any unusual word choices. He would then sprinkle a few tidbits from his study into his sermon to educate and assure his people that he knew what he was doing. After church on Sunday, one of his members took him aside and told him that they much appreciated that he did his homework before preaching. But they really didn't want him to show it to them.

Heresy hunting can be a destructive hobby, especially since those who are always on the hunt for something will likely find it whether it is there or not. But a working knowledge of the dangers that people can get into when contemplating God and being able to warn them off the Black Diamond Runs is useful, even essential.

[Dan Fienen]

Of course it may be from our ELCA perspective, but God gave us 66 or 73 or 80 books of the Bible - and they do not all proclaim the same theology. As I've noted before, when asking an ecumenical group of Christians, "What is a Christian?" the answers pretty much differ along denominational lines, because of the priority of biblical book(s) and their teachings.


Some can emphasize THE MANY DIFFERENT PARTS of the one body where diversity is key. Others emphasize the ONE BODY where uniformity is key. This difference also occurs in biblical studies.

Mark Allan Powell (a NT prof at Trinity Lutheran Seminary) writes the following in his introduction to Chasing the Eastern Star: Adventures in Biblical Reader-Response Criticism:

The field of biblical studies presently seems to be divided into two general camps: author-oriented scholars who use historical criticism and reader-oriented scholars who use literary criticism. There is something of a cold war between these—not much outright hostility but not much interchange either. I remember a session of the Matthew Group at the Society of Biblical Literature where two of our country's top scholars were scheduled to engage in dialogue on a common theme. Dan Via presented a literary-critical study of an important text; Robert Gundry responded with his own redaction-critical analysis of the same passage. It was interesting to hear both papers but at their conclusion neither scholar had much to say to the other. To quote Gundry: "I don't really understand what he was doing." And to quote Via: "I just can't look at a text like that."

Are they from two different worlds? And if they are, is there any problem with that?

One significant difference between these two approaches is the way they address diversity in interpretation. Both acknowledge this existential fact: people can and do interpret texts in different ways. But how should we account for this? Is it because some people understand the text rightly while others misunderstand it? Or is it simply that different people understand in different ways? The former answer tends to be favored by historical critics; the latter by literary critics. In an extreme rendering—which is usually a caricature—historical critics may be depicted as claiming that a text has only one correct interpretation: the meaning that was intended by the author. Or, again, in an extreme rendering—also a caricature—literary critics may be depicted as recognizing an infinite diversity of interpretations, none of which can be ruled out by any objective standard. Removing, exaggeration, it is safe to say that scholars who favor authors maintain that some interpretations are tight and others are clearly wrong, while scholars who favor readers think it is abusive to impose understandings that limit people's creativity or imagination. [pp. 1-2]

One problem with the literary critical approach with a large variety of interpretations, all of which are in some sense correct, is that the text ends up not really telling us anything that we did not bring to the text.

[readselerttoo]

Of course it may be from our ELCA perspective, but God gave us 66 or 73 or 80 books of the Bible - and they do not all proclaim the same theology. As I've noted before, when asking an ecumenical group of Christians, "What is a Christian?" the answers pretty much differ along denominational lines, because of the priority of biblical book(s) and their teachings.


Some can emphasize THE MANY DIFFERENT PARTS of the one body where diversity is key. Others emphasize the ONE BODY where uniformity is key. This difference also occurs in biblical studies.

Mark Allan Powell (a NT prof at Trinity Lutheran Seminary) writes the following in his introduction to Chasing the Eastern Star: Adventures in Biblical Reader-Response Criticism:

The field of biblical studies presently seems to be divided into two general camps: author-oriented scholars who use historical criticism and reader-oriented scholars who use literary criticism. There is something of a cold war between these—not much outright hostility but not much interchange either. I remember a session of the Matthew Group at the Society of Biblical Literature where two of our country's top scholars were scheduled to engage in dialogue on a common theme. Dan Via presented a literary-critical study of an important text; Robert Gundry responded with his own redaction-critical analysis of the same passage. It was interesting to hear both papers but at their conclusion neither scholar had much to say to the other. To quote Gundry: "I don't really understand what he was doing." And to quote Via: "I just can't look at a text like that."

Are they from two different worlds? And if they are, is there any problem with that?

One significant difference between these two approaches is the way they address diversity in interpretation. Both acknowledge this existential fact: people can and do interpret texts in different ways. But how should we account for this? Is it because some people understand the text rightly while others misunderstand it? Or is it simply that different people understand in different ways? The former answer tends to be favored by historical critics; the latter by literary critics. In an extreme rendering—which is usually a caricature—historical critics may be depicted as claiming that a text has only one correct interpretation: the meaning that was intended by the author. Or, again, in an extreme rendering—also a caricature—literary critics may be depicted as recognizing an infinite diversity of interpretations, none of which can be ruled out by any objective standard. Removing, exaggeration, it is safe to say that scholars who favor authors maintain that some interpretations are tight and others are clearly wrong, while scholars who favor readers think it is abusive to impose understandings that limit people's creativity or imagination. [pp. 1-2]

One problem with the literary critical approach with a large variety of interpretations, all of which are in some sense correct, is that the text ends up not really telling us anything that we did not bring to the text.

This is on to something.  Those who critique texts assume that what authorized them (the texts) is for them to be reasonable, making an appeal to our own self-absorbed interests.  The interpretive value in scripture interpreting itself is its own authority in terms of always returning to the text for both authority and value.  It never seeks authentication elsewhere outside the text.  God's word is self-authentic in that the God's self is God's; and, the "I" (of me) or the "We" (of the you and me) never or never should be considered unless confession is involved.  And that's a separate subject for a thread of its own.

[Brian Stoffregen]

Of course it may be from our ELCA perspective, but God gave us 66 or 73 or 80 books of the Bible - and they do not all proclaim the same theology. As I've noted before, when asking an ecumenical group of Christians, "What is a Christian?" the answers pretty much differ along denominational lines, because of the priority of biblical book(s) and their teachings.


Some can emphasize THE MANY DIFFERENT PARTS of the one body where diversity is key. Others emphasize the ONE BODY where uniformity is key. This difference also occurs in biblical studies.

Mark Allan Powell (a NT prof at Trinity Lutheran Seminary) writes the following in his introduction to Chasing the Eastern Star: Adventures in Biblical Reader-Response Criticism:

The field of biblical studies presently seems to be divided into two general camps: author-oriented scholars who use historical criticism and reader-oriented scholars who use literary criticism. There is something of a cold war between these—not much outright hostility but not much interchange either. I remember a session of the Matthew Group at the Society of Biblical Literature where two of our country's top scholars were scheduled to engage in dialogue on a common theme. Dan Via presented a literary-critical study of an important text; Robert Gundry responded with his own redaction-critical analysis of the same passage. It was interesting to hear both papers but at their conclusion neither scholar had much to say to the other. To quote Gundry: "I don't really understand what he was doing." And to quote Via: "I just can't look at a text like that."

Are they from two different worlds? And if they are, is there any problem with that?

One significant difference between these two approaches is the way they address diversity in interpretation. Both acknowledge this existential fact: people can and do interpret texts in different ways. But how should we account for this? Is it because some people understand the text rightly while others misunderstand it? Or is it simply that different people understand in different ways? The former answer tends to be favored by historical critics; the latter by literary critics. In an extreme rendering—which is usually a caricature—historical critics may be depicted as claiming that a text has only one correct interpretation: the meaning that was intended by the author. Or, again, in an extreme rendering—also a caricature—literary critics may be depicted as recognizing an infinite diversity of interpretations, none of which can be ruled out by any objective standard. Removing, exaggeration, it is safe to say that scholars who favor authors maintain that some interpretations are tight and others are clearly wrong, while scholars who favor readers think it is abusive to impose understandings that limit people's creativity or imagination. [pp. 1-2]

One problem with the literary critical approach with a large variety of interpretations, all of which are in some sense correct, is that the text ends up not really telling us anything that we did not bring to the text.

What critical approaches bring to the text are questions. The answers, properly, come from the text, not one's own mind.

[Dan Fienen]

Of course it may be from our ELCA perspective, but God gave us 66 or 73 or 80 books of the Bible - and they do not all proclaim the same theology. As I've noted before, when asking an ecumenical group of Christians, "What is a Christian?" the answers pretty much differ along denominational lines, because of the priority of biblical book(s) and their teachings.


Some can emphasize THE MANY DIFFERENT PARTS of the one body where diversity is key. Others emphasize the ONE BODY where uniformity is key. This difference also occurs in biblical studies.

Mark Allan Powell (a NT prof at Trinity Lutheran Seminary) writes the following in his introduction to Chasing the Eastern Star: Adventures in Biblical Reader-Response Criticism:

The field of biblical studies presently seems to be divided into two general camps: author-oriented scholars who use historical criticism and reader-oriented scholars who use literary criticism. There is something of a cold war between these—not much outright hostility but not much interchange either. I remember a session of the Matthew Group at the Society of Biblical Literature where two of our country's top scholars were scheduled to engage in dialogue on a common theme. Dan Via presented a literary-critical study of an important text; Robert Gundry responded with his own redaction-critical analysis of the same passage. It was interesting to hear both papers but at their conclusion neither scholar had much to say to the other. To quote Gundry: "I don't really understand what he was doing." And to quote Via: "I just can't look at a text like that."

Are they from two different worlds? And if they are, is there any problem with that?

One significant difference between these two approaches is the way they address diversity in interpretation. Both acknowledge this existential fact: people can and do interpret texts in different ways. But how should we account for this? Is it because some people understand the text rightly while others misunderstand it? Or is it simply that different people understand in different ways? The former answer tends to be favored by historical critics; the latter by literary critics. In an extreme rendering—which is usually a caricature—historical critics may be depicted as claiming that a text has only one correct interpretation: the meaning that was intended by the author. Or, again, in an extreme rendering—also a caricature—literary critics may be depicted as recognizing an infinite diversity of interpretations, none of which can be ruled out by any objective standard. Removing, exaggeration, it is safe to say that scholars who favor authors maintain that some interpretations are tight and others are clearly wrong, while scholars who favor readers think it is abusive to impose understandings that limit people's creativity or imagination. [pp. 1-2]

One problem with the literary critical approach with a large variety of interpretations, all of which are in some sense correct, is that the text ends up not really telling us anything that we did not bring to the text.

What critical approaches bring to the text are questions. The answers, properly, come from the text, not one's own mind.

What would be the basis for disputing an interpretation in using a reader's based I interpretive method that would allow no limitation on the reader's creativity or imagination in responding to the text. On what basis could one say of a reader's interpretation, no the text doesn't mean that. If no interpretation can be wrong, what does it tell us?

[Brian Stoffregen]

Of course it may be from our ELCA perspective, but God gave us 66 or 73 or 80 books of the Bible - and they do not all proclaim the same theology. As I've noted before, when asking an ecumenical group of Christians, "What is a Christian?" the answers pretty much differ along denominational lines, because of the priority of biblical book(s) and their teachings.


Some can emphasize THE MANY DIFFERENT PARTS of the one body where diversity is key. Others emphasize the ONE BODY where uniformity is key. This difference also occurs in biblical studies.

Mark Allan Powell (a NT prof at Trinity Lutheran Seminary) writes the following in his introduction to Chasing the Eastern Star: Adventures in Biblical Reader-Response Criticism:

The field of biblical studies presently seems to be divided into two general camps: author-oriented scholars who use historical criticism and reader-oriented scholars who use literary criticism. There is something of a cold war between these—not much outright hostility but not much interchange either. I remember a session of the Matthew Group at the Society of Biblical Literature where two of our country's top scholars were scheduled to engage in dialogue on a common theme. Dan Via presented a literary-critical study of an important text; Robert Gundry responded with his own redaction-critical analysis of the same passage. It was interesting to hear both papers but at their conclusion neither scholar had much to say to the other. To quote Gundry: "I don't really understand what he was doing." And to quote Via: "I just can't look at a text like that."

Are they from two different worlds? And if they are, is there any problem with that?

One significant difference between these two approaches is the way they address diversity in interpretation. Both acknowledge this existential fact: people can and do interpret texts in different ways. But how should we account for this? Is it because some people understand the text rightly while others misunderstand it? Or is it simply that different people understand in different ways? The former answer tends to be favored by historical critics; the latter by literary critics. In an extreme rendering—which is usually a caricature—historical critics may be depicted as claiming that a text has only one correct interpretation: the meaning that was intended by the author. Or, again, in an extreme rendering—also a caricature—literary critics may be depicted as recognizing an infinite diversity of interpretations, none of which can be ruled out by any objective standard. Removing, exaggeration, it is safe to say that scholars who favor authors maintain that some interpretations are tight and others are clearly wrong, while scholars who favor readers think it is abusive to impose understandings that limit people's creativity or imagination. [pp. 1-2]

One problem with the literary critical approach with a large variety of interpretations, all of which are in some sense correct, is that the text ends up not really telling us anything that we did not bring to the text.

What critical approaches bring to the text are questions. The answers, properly, come from the text, not one's own mind.

What would be the basis for disputing an interpretation in using a reader's based I interpretive method that would allow no limitation on the reader's creativity or imagination in responding to the text. On what basis could one say of a reader's interpretation, no the text doesn't mean that. If no interpretation can be wrong, what does it tell us?

You've turned the process around. You talk about the reader responding to the text. I talked about the text responding to the reader's questions. My questions to an interpreter: "How does the text indicate that answer to your question?" "How do you support your interpretation from the text?"

[Mark Brown]

I remember reading this prior and having two reactions at the time. 1) It was a bunch of pettifoggery to avoid making clear statements.  2) He had half a truth.  Rereading I think a paragraph from page 33 is part of the key.

When someone in my church, or within the Christian fold more generally, says or does things that I believe to be terribly wrong, or terribly mistaken, I have many options available to me but among them is not the declaration that 'you are not a child of the kingdom, you are a child of the evil one. You are a weed.' That is, if I am going to obey the teaching of this parable, I have to treat this person as a brother or sister, as one of my fellow children of the kingdom.

Jacobs' half a truth is how we are bound, at least initially, to treat as fellow children.  That is the law, the golden rule.  Treat others as you'd like to be treated.  But what he mumbles away is the gospel.  Individually - if it is "someone in my church" - I should be speaking the gospel to a wayward brother.  And that gospel is repent, for the kingdom is near.  And he continues to mumble the gospel away in that proclaiming the gospel is the very purpose of the church.  The church has the burden of saying repent, for the kingdom is near.   I also then have the responsibility to accept that repentance 70 x 7 if it is offered.  I have gained my brother, rejoice.  But much like he invokes the context of de-Nazification for his main support from Thielicke, Jacobs' context is World War LGBT and to extend it a bit the entire crit-studies paradigm.  And the responsibility of the gospel is exactly what Jacobs wishes to avoid.  He want's the easy path of saying "we are all following different ideals" which is no different that the person who says "all roads lead up the same mountain".  All roads do not lead up the same mountain.  The Way of Jesus is unique and narrow.  If we were arguing about Reformation era doctrines that are beyond the 10 commandments and the creed, yes, different places have developed "saints" of remarkable difference.  That is Lewis' image of the house and the hallway.  But when you are talking the way the world was created, the natural law, what he has done is destroyed not the foundation of the house but the basement walls.  You can't support all the rooms of the great house when the basement wall has been intentionally destroyed.  Nobody enters the house except through repentance.  And a church that won't ask for it is denying the gospel.  It is denying entry into house, not inviting the poor in spirit into it.