Is the Bible Really Necessary?

I recently had the opportunity to have a discussion with a United Methodist minister in the form of missives left on a comment board of a blog.  The nature of the story we were engaged in this cyber interaction over is something that I choose not to share because I found it to be secondary to a larger issue that this Elder in full connection brought to the fore in his editorial.  That is the issue of Biblical “essentialness”.  This obviously intelligent, well-educated man, who seems to be earnest in his assertions, said something that had me wondering if some in our denomination are in danger of becoming Gnostics.  (Or maybe my fear is that some already are…) 

I will not share his name as I only want to discuss the merits of his arguments and not level personal attacks or “call him out”.  This is an excerpt from his initial post… I will admit that it is not the entire comment because, again, I do not want to focus on anything but the specific issue raised in this statement by Rev. A.  (His other stances on other issues are for separate discussion later.)

“Wesley suggested unity in essentials, liberty in non-essentials, and charity or love in all things. What, then, is essential? For people of faith God is essential. For Christian people of faith Jesus is also essential. That’s the extent of the list of essentials. Many other things are excellent and even sacred yet not essential. Accordingly, given that people of faith pre-existed scripture and given the Biblical scholarship of recent decades shedding helpful new light on scriptural understanding and interpretation, I believe it safe to conclude that scripture – while a wonderful gift – is clearly not essential and, therefore, we may – in loving faith – allow one another the liberty to hold differing views on [these] matters and the freedom to act in good conscience on those beliefs.”

This simply baffled me.  And I asked Rev A if he felt there was any disconnect experienced in embracing the Wesleyan ethos, while simultaneously dismissing the core source of its principles as “non-essential”.  His reply (or the part relevant to this conversation) was:

“I continue to cherish scripture as a primary source and as a wonderful gift that remains in ongoing conversation with the other legs of the quadrilateral stool. If this view does not fully comport with Wesley, I’m okay with that and were he alive today I suspect that Wesley might be, as well.” 

Would he?  In the end, I suppose that what Reverend Wesley might think “today” is only pertinent in a discussion held in Anglican and Methodist circles.  I readily admit that John Wesley did indeed seem to be able to sit in conversation with others that viewed faith from different lenses than he.  But I have to wonder if he would be accepting of the claim that Scripture, while a wonderful gift, is non-essential as an experience of guiding presence and a testimony to God. 

Beyond the Wesleyan debate, I have to ask myself a larger and more important question… “If scripture is not essential, then is it important?”  I am struggling with this concept of something existing in “primary” and “not essential” states simultaneously.  I understand that it may be that, semantically speaking, I am missing a larger point, but I don’t think that I am.  Rev A holds both of these beliefs in tension. 

I have a Dodge Dart.  It is my primary mode of transportation.  But if it breaks down, I can drive something else until it gets fixed.  So while primary, it is not essential for my vehicular transportation needs.  I can wrap my head around that.  BUT if it is my only vehicle, it is essential because I need it to get to work, or school, or the doctor, etcetera.  In terms of Christian beliefs (i.e. the mystery of faith, Christ died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again), there is no other source that asserts these claims central to Christian faith.  It is the vehicle in which we arrive at Christianity… and the only one that can get us there.  It is, at once, the best and only written record of what we generally (inside of orthodoxy) accept to be true... the divine nature, Passion and physical Resurrection of the Nazarene.  Does that not make it both primary AND essential? 

There is no other written source that testifies to these things.  There are extra-scriptural accounts of Jesus, and the Jesus movement in the first century, some that give accounts of miraculous action, but none that assert a belief in the physically risen Christ, nor in Jesus’ divinity.  The Quran contains a narrative of Jesus’ life, beginning with the virgin birth, and ending in a crucifixion account in which Jesus was not actually killed.  There is also a belief that he will come again; but Quran is explicit in its stance that Jesus, while a prophet of God, has no divine nature.  There are passages and gospels, though not included in cannon, that witness to the fact of resurrection… but they are not largely publically available; so what other source do we have, or can we claim in faith to believe, as people who proclaim the living Lordship of Jesus the Christ?  If something is central to the basis of our belief, is it not by definition essential?

And, as a final thought, using Rev. A’s own metaphor of the quadrilateral as a stool, I find a rather unsettling problem with his illustration.  (Though I might disagree with the idea that the quadrilateral is either an equilateral or a square.)  If Scripture is in conversation with the other legs of the stool (tradition, reason & experience), then it can be understood to be a stool with four legs of equal length.  In order to bear the weight of whatever sits upon it, all four are essential, else there is a deficit in its ability to balance that weight.  Eventually it will topple.  Whether it is jogged, or simply acted upon by gravity as it encounters pressure from an unbalanced load, it will not be able to maintain its integrity as a resting place.  Rev A’s own illustration makes an argument for the essential nature of Holy Scripture in Christian experience described by the Wesleyan Quadrilateral.  But as this is only an approach to determining a hermeneutic, and not a theological statement of belief, I will not push this point any farther.

Had Rev. A made the statement that Scripture wasn’t the exclusive experience of the Divine Personality, I would agree with him most heartily.  The Holy Spirit is not limited to movement only as we read the Scripture.  Nor is Jesus’ presence, as indwelling experience, constrained by the front and back covers of our Bible.  But Holy Scripture is ABSOLUTELY essential as a witness to, and an expression of, the incarnate God that we have come to know in faith.  Or why bother to call ourselves disciples of the risen Christ?  If a person has come to the conclusion that they no longer share the belief in Biblical narratives and its claims as they pertain to the Christ, or that they have grown beyond them, they can in good conscience realize that, maybe, they no longer need to be bound by the constricting label of Christian.  And I say that with no animosity or condemnation whatsoever.  Though I am large and have a beard, and may have a general resemblance to widely held images Santa, I don't claim the title "Father Christmas".  This is not a shunning, just a recognition of identification as being based in more than a surface resemblance to something.  

I have purposely not quoted scripture to this point.  This is not because of a feeling that it isn’t necessary or appropriate, but rather in a determination to make a reasoned argument to a position that would only dismiss the effort to quote scripture as being trapped by an inability to practice reason.  Somehow, some among us have come to believe that a belief in things we have not experienced, or a stance that the revelations of Divine and human natures contained in Scripture can be believed as infallible, have lost an ability to be reasonable.  People who feel that in spite of human capacity for imperfection, the God of perfection can still use humans to deliver a word that is intact (though it may be beyond our ability to comprehend completely) are therefore labeled as “stuck” in attitudes and beliefs that are trivial and ignorant.  Therein rests another underlying problem… a question of the existence of mystery and whether we can accept it.  But I suppose that subject may best be saved for later discussion as well.  I will close with my answer to that query though…  Scripture, like faith, is an unfolding mystery to be experienced… not a problem to be solved. 

But I have to confess, I may not be reasonable enough to make that claim without the Bible telling me so in the first place…  

Your servant in Christ,

Chris