The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology (Oxford Handbooks in Religion and Theology) by John Webster & Kathryn Tanner & Iain Torrance

Author:John Webster & Kathryn Tanner & Iain Torrance
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780199569649
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 2009-09-10T00:00:00+00:00

III. THEOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION IN AND OF THE DIVIDED CHURCH

First, as Christians and Christian communities seek to interpret and embody scripture faithfully in the contexts in which they find themselves they should expect to engage in discussion, argument, and debate with each other. This is simply a feature of Christian life between the cross and resurrection on the one hand, and the return of Christ on the other. For the most part, these discussions and debates do not divide and have not divided the church. Long before the Reformation, Christians engaged in rather sharp and substantial disagreements about scriptural interpretation without tearing the body of Christ apart. I would like to suggest that when such divisiveness occurs in debates over scripture it is not so much an issue of scriptural interpretation as the result of a separation of scriptural interpretation from a variety of other practices such as those mentioned above. These are the practices needed to keep the body of Christ whole in the midst of the inevitable debate, discussion, and argument that is part of the Christian community’s ongoing engagement with scripture. More fundamentally, these practices are held together and properly maintained by love, by the love Christ has for believers and which Christ commands believers to have for each other. Thus, all church division is fundamentally a failure of love. All division proceeds from believers assuming that they are better off apart from each other than together (Radner 1998). Doctrinal or scriptural differences cannot divide the church unless there is this prior failure of love.

Although disagreements over scripture did not directly cause church divisions, the church in the West is quite clearly divided. It is therefore important to understand how those divisions might affect theologically regulated and ecclesially located scriptural interpretation.4 In the course of doing this I will explore a variety of scriptural passages. Hence, addressing a theological issue I also hope to display a form of theological interpretation of scripture.

First, contemporary Christians should recognize that church division is a very different issue today than it was for Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, and others in the sixteenth century. At that time the issues were focused on where the true church was located and how to know this. Once the true church was found, all other options simply were not church. The problems of a divided church as we know it today are really the result of ecumenism. The more that Catholics and non-Catholics, for example, recognize each other as true Christians, the greater the problem of their division, the sharper the pain of this fracture. In this light, I would like to turn to some scriptural texts which might help us think better about this situation.

I will take my initial bearings from Ephraim Radner’s difficult and challenging book, The End of the Church (1998). Radner encourages believers to read their current situation through the scriptural image of divided Israel. Without rehearsing Radner’s views in great detail, I want to take up his invitation to begin to read our situation of church division through lenses provided by biblical Israel and her divisions.

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