Recently a religious scholar, Walter Brueggemann, died. I have two of his books. He wrote in a thought-provoking way and got you to thinking, even if you disagreed with him (which I usually did). His most famous book is The Prophetic Imagination.
He was a liberal and his books made inroads (more than any other liberal I can think of) into the evangelical church.
Brueggemann had a manner of expression that made him interesting, but his theology was inadequate. He did not seem to have an evangelical view of salvation. I felt no sense of evangelism or discipleship from him–his main interest seemed to be in challenging the political power structures. For him, righteousness was in attaining a kind of religious/political socialism.
This push for socialism today is pretty strong, even within Christian circles. It’s like a modern idolatry–a substitute for God. Government can take the place that God used to have in people’s lives. Perhaps this view of ‘socialism is next to godliness’ helps to explain Brueggemann’s popularity.
I’m not judging Brueggemann’s soul–only God can do that. I’m saying that he, as an interpreter of scripture, did not reveal the full counsel of God. Why? I don’t know.
He liked to talk about how the prophets challenged the power structures of Israelite kings. But that’s not really the impression that the Bible gives. The Bible portrays the prophets as God’s messengers, giving a message to Israel to repent of sin and exhorting the people to righteousness. Yes, oppression of the poor was condemned, but that was condemnation of an act of sin, not a ‘power structure’. The prophets opposed all kinds of sins. At least one passage has a prophet opposing oppression, idolatry, and sexual immorality in the same breath: “They trample on the heads of the poor as upon the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed. Father and son use the same girl and so profane my holy name. They lie down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge. In the house of their god they drink wine taken as fines,” (Amos 2:7-8). Amos is often portrayed by scholars as a social justice prophet, but we need to look at his full message. He opposed sin wherever he saw it. The prophets were not about promoting socialism; they were about speaking God’s truth to the people.
Brueggemann was not the only scholar to fall short. Many scholars, writers of theology and commentaries, do not seem to have an evangelical heartbeat. Sometimes they almost seem to disrespect the scripture. Sometimes they leave you wondering if there is anything to be salvaged at all that we can apply to our faith. Some make you wonder if they really believe in God at all. But they have high degrees and prestigious titles! It’s like they skim a career off a Christianity they don’t really believe in.
It makes one wonder how Christianity ever became so ‘scholarly’. How did we ever get into the specialty of ‘Christian scholarship’ anyway? It seems too specialized, and too vulnerable to drifting away from vital faith, which is what has happened in many cases. I cannot imagine God being pleased with the current state of many seminaries and divinity schools.
I’ve recently read a book that shows how having a Christianity without Christ is worse than having none at all. The book is a big Russian novel: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. At almost a thousand pages long, it is leisurely treatment and contrast of three brothers who are very different: Alyosha the saintly, conscientious one, who is like the family fixer, the go-to guy when there are problems; Dimitry, the jerk, the bully who does whatever he pleases; and Ivan, who is the brilliant theological thinker.
My comments here will focus on Ivan, the theological thinker. There’s only one problem with his theology…he doesn’t believe in God! But he can write like he does, though. He wrote a religious article that essentially said nothing but had enough scholarly bluster to get published in a religious journal. He could do it. He could fake it. It was his special skill.
He could even come up with some pretty good thinking sometimes. He tells his brother Alyosha about a story he wrote. It’s called The Grand Inquisitor. In the story he visualizes the grand inquisitor, a priest about 90 years old, during the time of the Spanish Inquisition. The priest has just presided over the executions of some heretics, and then he sees Jesus doing miracles! His response? He has Jesus arrested! Later, he has a discussion with his prisoner and tells him that Jesus’ ways won’t work anymore; that’s not the way the church works anymore. ‘Improvements’ over the ways of Christ had to be made.
Thought-provoking stuff! But Ivan, the character to comes up with it, doesn’t even seem to have personal salvation.
Later in the novel, Ivan has a conversation with the devil (a calm, well-dressed, older man with a goatee). At first it seems that Ivan is having a vision but later we are not so sure–it may be the devil himself. Ivan doesn’t like the devil but has no real answer for what he says. Ivan cannot claim the power of Jesus, because he doesn’t really know Jesus. He has no peace.
At the end of the novel, Ivan succumbs to emotional breakdown. It is unclear if he is going to live or die.
Perhaps Dostoyevsky, in showing us this character, is making a statement–that we should know God, not just know about Him. To merely know about religious things, or the Bible, or church history without knowing God personally, makes the devil very happy. The devil will happily have us dabble in religion as long as we never believe in Christ personally–to have just enough religion to be insulated from the real thing.
A scripture come to mind: “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly,” (James 3:1). Let every Bible scholar and divinity teacher think about that before they teach or publish any more empty or liberal ideas. I believe that judgment will begin with the wayward seminaries and divinity schools, because they are the teachers of pastors. Much was expected of them and many of them are found lacking. The time to repent is now. And, true, it might be hard for a respected, tenured, honored professor with impressive degrees and a long list of publishing credits to repent, but doing this hard thing is better than the alternative. Better for them, and better for those they teach.