Surrendering to Scripture's Authority

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If I hear one more person claim that progressive Christians “don’t accept the authority of Scripture,” I may have to go outside and scream my head off when a train passes, a la Liza Minnelli in “Cabaret.” Methinks that those who say such a thing have forgotten a pertinent scripture, Hebrews 4:12:

Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (NRSV*)

Evaluating the canard regarding scripture’s authority floods me with questions:

  1. If the “word of God” is indeed “living and active,” would it allow itself to be confined to any construct of a finite human mind? Would it not grow and change like all living things?
  2. If the living “word of God” grows and changes as all living things do, then wouldn’t our perception of its meaning change as well?
  3. If our perception of scripture’s meaning changes as it lives, then shouldn’t our doctrines adapt to conform to our new understanding? How many times have our traditions changed because of new understandings?
  4. Knowing that “the word of God’ lives and changes, shouldn’t we also be alert to signs that scripture has yet new wisdom to impart to us for our time?

These questions may seem like arcane “angels dancing on pinheads” theologizing, but they’re at the heart of United Methodism’s disunity. The question of how the church relates with LGBTQ+ people forms the presenting issue for how The United Methodist Church will interpret scripture as its authority for doctrine, policy and practice. At its most basic, the battle over scriptural interpretation comes down to two opposing forces: control and surrender.

We humans have a passion for control. We think that if we get all our ideas and actions straight that we won’t have to think about those tough moral and ethical problems anymore. We’ll just follow the rules and everything will be peachy with a side of keen. And God help anyone who breaks the rules we’ve decided to follow.

However, this mindset crashes into an experiential reality: life inherently runs out of control, messy and wild like God’s Holy Spirit that blows where it will. Over and over the lesson repeats: the struggles of life will break our hearts, and following any set of rules slavishly won’t help us avoid or endure the pain of living.

This surrender, for many, conveys a key message: Jesus surrendered his godhood to be born a human so that he could live and teach as one of us. When his message proved to be an ultimate threat to the Roman Empire – namely the idea that God, not Caesar, rules by love and not by conquest – Jesus surrendered again, even though to an unjust judgment. The empire enacted its strongest penalty against a political dissident by crucifying Jesus, yet God overcame even this worst human sin through love expressed in the Resurrection.

As followers of Jesus, our task then becomes not institutional control but unconditional surrender. We are called to surrender ourselves, first to God’s love for us, and then to God’s love for all others. We are challenged by a harsh reality: loving as Jesus teaches places us at odds with the world, sometimes even in mortal danger.

Yet only through this surrender to love – not by prescribing and enforcing any set of rules – can we make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of a world built on death. John Wesley’s concept of being “perfected in Christian love” calls us to a continuing journey, as with each experience of love we come closer to loving as God loves.

Moreover, think not that such loving lacks discipline. If anything, surrendering to love requires even more discipline than following rules, because love for God and neighbors compels us to surrender our own self-interests. If in love we speak out against injustice, we speak first for others. If in love we speak truth in the face of lies, we speak for the collective good of society. And if we speak for the rule of love rather than the reign of rules in The United Methodist Church, we speak with the intention of transforming a moribund institution into a worthy instrument of God.

One of the Christian stalwarts to whom I turn for strength when distressed is Saint Oscar Romero, the martyr of El Salvador who was canonized last October by the Roman Catholic Church. Red Letter Christians, an ecumenical group that emphasizes faith and social justice, based its Jan. 15 “Wake Up” newsletter on Saint Romero’s teachings. Author Sarah Withrow King noted: “[Romero wrote] in his homily on December 3, 1978: ‘...the person that is converted to Christ is the new human being that society needs to organize a world according to God’s heart.’ God’s heart is for reconciliation, from the image of the peaceable kingdom in Isaiah to the prayer of Jesus for the unity of his disciples to Paul’s call for Christ-followers to be ministers of reconciliation. We are called to be persons converted to Christ, ordered by love, and in fellowship with other believers.”

I could not write as I have here did I not accept the authority of scripture – not solely that of ancient laws given to shape a holy people, but also the overarching witness to the grace through which we are reconciled with God and one another. I firmly believe the same understanding to be true of those who advocate for resurrecting The United Methodist Church from its death-by-rules into a living community of faith governed by mercy and justice. I am praying for this resurrection for our church – not for the passage of this plan or that model, but for God’s Spirit of love to sweep through General Conference and make us into an utterly new community.

Cynthia B. Astle serves as Editor of United Methodist Insight, which she founded in 2011.

*NRSV New Revised Version of the Holy Bible. Copyright 1989, 1995 by the Committee on Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ USA. All rights reserved. Used by permission.