The Global Methodist Proposed Article on Holy Scripture: A Critique

Photo by Duncan Kidd on Unsplash

On May 1st I participated in a panel discussion on Jeffrey Rickman’s Plain Spoken podcast addressing the proposed Articles of Faith for the Global Methodist Church. In that discussion I critiqued Article VIII: Holy Scripture. In retrospect, I may have said too much, or too little (hard to tell). I was speaking off the cuff and perhaps not as carefully as I should. But under the heading that it is better to be criticized for what you believe than for what people believe you believe, I feel led to offer a more comprehensive account of my critiques so that others may judge fairly whether they have merit, and whether the proposed article should be the standard by which scriptural orthodoxy is judged in the GMC.

I want to applaud the writing team for their transparency and willingness to have their work critiqued for the good of the church prior to General Conference. The vulnerability of the committee is a demonstration of humility. I therefore have real hope that the openness with which all the proposed articles are being debated and the freedom of the whole body to weigh in, will bear fruit at General Conference, under the superintendency of the Holy Spirit, who guides “into all truth” (Jn 16:13). “If we walk in the light, as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 Jn 1:7).

The Article Itself

On an earlier Plain Spoken podcast, Matt O’Reilly, a member of the drafting committee, articulated four points the committee wanted to be sure it affirmed about scripture: authority, inspiration, truthfulness, and effectiveness. I heartily affirm each of those attributes as applied to Holy Scripture. I only wish, for the sake of the elders of the Global Methodist Church who will defend its language, that the article had named those attributes more clearly and stated their significance more simply. 

My difficulty with the article stems from a high theology of the Word, the foundation for a high view of scripture. I trust that my published books and articles evidence a concern to ground all teaching in scripture, though I would not call myself an “inerrantist” (for its historical references). Words matter to convey concrete truth. A Christian’s statement is “Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’; anything beyond these is of evil origin.” (Mt 5:37). The article, by contrast, muddles scriptural language about scripture, uses vague undefined terms and qualifiers, and fails to guard the church against error. I (an elder of the church) am unsure what its words mean concretely. Can they be “quite clear” to the “generality of common people?” They seem “altogether above the capacity of children to whom one can scarce ever speak plain enough” (Wesley, Sermons, “Unity of the Divine Being,” para. 10).

The Word of God

The article begins unscripturally: “We believe in the divine inspiration and authority of the Word of God, the Old and New Testaments in their entirety.” If the statement had simply left out “the Word of God” and said, “We believe in the divine inspiration and authority of the Old and New Testaments,” it would be straightforward and true. Scripture clearly states that “all Scripture [graphé] is inspired by God” (2 Tim 3:16). And while no scriptural believer disputes the “authority” of the Word of God to whose incarnation “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given” (Mt 28:18), nowhere does the Bible speak of the Word [dabar or logos] as “inspired”. Scripture says the Word, who is the Son (Jn 1:1), is “only begotten” [monogené] (Jn 1:18; Jn 3:16; 1 Jn 4:9) and “begotten” [gegennéka] (Acts 13:33; Heb 1:5; Heb 5:5; Heb 11:17). Thus, the creed, speaking scripturally, refers to the Son as “eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God. begotten not made” (Nicene Creed). “Begotten,” though, is not “inspired.”

Most scriptural Christians (including myself) would not quibble with scripture as the written word of God. Scripture communicates in written form the Word undergirding the created order, through whom “all things came into being” (Jn 1:3). “The Word [dabar] of the Lord” is manifested and testified to throughout the Old Testament (eg. Gen 15:1-4; Amos 7:16). Christian experience confirms that study of scripture forms and transforms our reason by God’s Word to have “the mind of Christ Jesus” (1 Cor 2:16). “The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple” (Ps 19:7). But while God “spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways” (Heb 1:1), it was not exactly as “in these last days … in His Son” (Heb 1:2). One can say scripture is the written word. One cannot say the Word is scripture. Christian scripture is not the Koran. When God proclaims, “So will my word [dabari] be which goes out of My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire” (Is 55:11), He is not speaking of scripture. 

Without Error in All It Affirms

More problematic is the sentence: “Scripture is without error in all it affirms and will accomplish the saving purpose for which it is intended.” I understand that objecting to this sentence is controversial, but I do so not because I cannot affirm it. I can. Anyone can. And that is the problem. The statement reads like a lawyer wrote it, but not one making sure your contract is airtight. With its undefined terms and vague caveats, the sentence sounds more like a politician’s applause line with no concrete promises. Every progressive bishop in our former denomination could affirm its language. They need only have in mind different things the scriptures do not “affirm,” and a different “saving purpose” for which scripture “is intended.” It is thus unhelpful for accountability, and as a means of grace.

“Scripture is without error” seems clear but begs questions about the use of the word “error,” which is not clarified by the article. What do we mean by an error? Is a New Testament misstatement about the location of an Old Testament text an error? Is a misplacement of an historical event an error? The caveat “in all it affirms,” presumably exists to place limits on “without error,” but begs more questions. Are there statements in scripture that scripture does not affirm? What are those statements? Could scripture err in things it does not affirm? Many in our previous denomination would agree to that! That scripture will “accomplish the saving purpose” qualified by “for which it is intended,” also invites questions. What is that specific saving purpose? For what saving purpose(s) is scripture not intended? 

It is always prudent, when possible, to speak as scripture speaks. The New Testament says scripture is “inspired by God” (2 Tim 3:16), “cannot be nullified” (Jn 10:35), and written (at least, prophesy) by those “moved by the Holy Spirit” who “spoke from God” (2 Pt 1:21). It was “written for our instruction” and “encouragement” (Rom 15:4), and is “beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness” (2 Tim 3:16). Both Old and New Testaments) “testify about” Jesus (John 5:39), demonstrate “that Jesus was the Christ” (Acts 18:28), and contain the promise of “the gospel of God…concerning His Son” (Rom 1:1-3). In terms of effectiveness, people receive “the word” by “examining the scriptures” (Acts 17:11), and the revelation of the mystery of the gospel of Jesus Christ in scripture leads to the “obedience of faith” (Rom 16:25-26). 

Nowhere does scripture state that scripture is “without error.” It does say humans can err (planasthe) because they do not “understand the scriptures nor the power of God” (Mt 22:29; Mk 12:24). It says some scriptures “are hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort … to their own destruction” (2 Pt 3:16). Scripture also says not to “exceed what is written” (1 Cor 4:6). To that point, Article VIII may violate Article V of the Articles of Religion and Article IV of the Confession of Faith. Both make the same point. The latter reads: “what is not revealed in or established by the Holy Scriptures is not to be made an article of faith nor is it to be taught as essential to salvation.” Like our spiritual ancestors, Global Methodists should heed Wesley’s advice to “be not wise above what is written. Enjoin nothing that the bible does not clearly enjoin. Forbid nothing that it does not clearly forbid.” (Wesley, Letter to John Dickins, 12.26.1789)

Using the phrase “without error” also risks importing non-Wesleyan theological categories into Global Methodism. A distinction between “without error” and “inerrant” is a hair’s breadth (if any breadth at all) and cannot be used without referencing the Reformed battles over inerrancy in the 19th and 20th centuries. Indeed, there was no formal doctrine of “inerrancy” until B. B. Warfield and A. A. Hodge clarified “verbal plenary inspiration” and affirmed the original autographs had no errors of theology, history, science, or fact. Hodge’s Systematic Theology (1871-1873) shaped generations of Presbyterians’ (and Princeton’s) commitment to inerrancy until the 1920s. The 1978 International Council on Biblical Inerrancy in Chicago, made up mostly of Reformed and Baptist evangelicals, also affirmed that “the autographic text of Scripture” (Chicago Statement, Article X), was “wholly and verbally God-given, …without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God's acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God's saving grace in individual lives” (Chicago Statement, Short Statement 4). I suspect the theological underpinnings of these conclusions is an unstated Reformed understanding of God’s sovereignty and the irresistibility of grace (the work of the Holy Spirit), which Wesleyans do not share.

Wesley held an extremely high view of Scripture, insisting on “neither more nor less than what is manifestly contained in, and provable by, the Holy Scriptures” (Wesley Sermons, “On Faith” 1:8). He affirmed “the written word of God to be the only and sufficient rule both of Christian faith and practice” (Wesley, “Character of a Methodist,” sec. 1). But to call Wesley an “inerrantist” is ahistorical. He had probably never heard the words “inerrant” or “inerrancy”. The Oxford English Dictionary records both becoming common only in the mid to late 19th century when Reformed theologians advanced “inerrancy” as a bulwark against modernism. In fact, it was Wesley’s high view of scripture that convinced him grace is resistible (Eph 4:30), and that the Holy Spirit works with us and in us, even before we realize it (Jn 1:9), especially in community (1 Jn 4:1). 

Scripture is a miracle. It is a single coherent testimony and narrative of salvation, revealing the Creator who is Redeemer. It was composed over thousands of years by hundreds of authors and redactors in a myriad of literary genres. It was canonized through a long, organic, untidy process, in uncoordinated diverse communities of faith, a process only possible by the present Word and Spirit guiding and enlightening those communities. I would argue Wesleyans’ understanding of God’s work with human wills and through His people gives greater glory to His mercy, love, and patient providential care for His Church, and is more true to history than a Reformed understanding with its (we would argue) errant perspective on predestination, and the irresistible work of a sovereign Holy Spirit.

The Perils of a Big Tent

While I appreciate the irenic spirit that attempted language to gain broad support, I fear the committee may have fallen prey to a form of big-tentism like that which plagued the United Methodist Church at its inception in 1968. The UMC attempted to incorporate denominations stemming from four separate reformation traditions, with both evangelicals and liberals. That project resulted in the Wesleyan Quadrilateral rather than new articles of religion, which may have been impossible given those diverse constituents. The quadrilateral’s language sounded good but meant everything and nothing. It could not guide the denomination that approved it. Article VIII is evangelical big-tentism: general evangelical shibboleths with nothing to hold us accountable, and little specifically Wesleyan or Methodist content.

The phrase “without error in all it affirms” came from another big tent project: the Lausanne Conference, held six years after the founding of the United Methodist Church. That conference, announced by Baptist evangelist Billy Graham, met to discuss world evangelization and brought theologians and practitioners together from around the world. Its major statement was the Covenant, meant to signal unity among post-war Grahamian “evangelicals” across disparate theological traditions. The article on Scripture read in part:

We affirm the divine inspiration, truthfulness and authority of both Old and New Testament Scriptures in their entirety as the only written word of God, without error in all that it affirms, and the only infallible rule of faith and practice. We also affirm the power of God’s word to accomplish his purpose of salvation. (“Lausanne Covenant”, art. 2, emphasis mine)

The second sentence contains the same confusion as the first sentence of Article VIII. The gospel (the incarnation, death and resurrection of the Word) “is the power of God unto salvation” (Rom 1:16), not the Bible. But it is the first sentence that contains language incorporated into Article VIII. That language, crafted to enable individuals who held quite divergent views on scripture to sign the same document, attempted consensus through obscurity. 

Say what you will about the Chicago Statement, its object was truth, not popularity. The same was true for the original Articles of Religion which sought to guard against errant Roman Catholic and Anabaptist teachings. Surely Wesleyan Methodism’s understanding of the work of God with human agency, even “without [us] knowing it” (Heb 13:2), has something important and true to say about the process by which texts of Scripture were produced by those inspired to write and redact them. Surely Wesleyan Methodism, with its understanding of the presence of the Holy Spirit in Christian community as a means of grace, has something important to say about God’s work in history to oversee the collection, preservation, and canonization of these texts. Sola Deo Gloria. 

Conclusion: Plain Speech for Plain People

Statements of faith exist to correct error and protect theological traditions, not present broadly palatable talking points. I fear, Article VIII is big-tent evangelicalism, offering evangelical shibboleths, devoid of Methodist distinctives, with caveats that undermine the clarity needed to defend GMC theological positions from others’ - whether Roman Catholic, Reformed, progressive, or secular. Most significantly, its big-tent squishiness fails to guard a high view of scripture. It leaves our children and those new in the faith vulnerable to college-freshman-level arguments, using simple observations of content and historical fact to undermine scripture’s authority, inspiration, truthfulness, and effectiveness. An article of faith should not raise more questions than it clarifies. Affirming Article VIII is easy. Individuals may (and must) define its language on their own terms. Defending Article VIII is hard. Those individual definitions destroy any definitive meaning.

I may be in error about Article VIII. One of Wesleyan Methodism’s soteriological observations is that we are not saved by right opinions, even on matters of doctrine or discipline. The “faith of a devil” cannot save. We may be as orthodox as Satan and just as damned (Jam 2:19). What saves is affections transformed by the love of God to love God and neighbor, the image of God restored. If I have written too harshly, I ask forgiveness. I do not intend to impugn the faith, intelligence, or sincerity of commission members.

I do not want to offer critique without a proposal. In imitation of the commission’s vulnerability, I submit a modification of the EUB article on Scripture: 

The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the written word of God. These writings, inspired by the Holy Spirit, are, through the Holy Spirit, received by the Church as the true authority, rule, and guide for all matters of doctrine and discipline. They contain all things necessary for full salvation. Whatever is not revealed in or established by the Holy Scriptures is not to be made an article of faith nor taught as essential to salvation.

After such a statement could follow the list of the books of the Old and New Testaments. I think this language would be more Methodist, less ambiguous, hold us more accountable, and affirm Scripture’s authority, inspiration, truthfulness, and effectiveness.

Scott T. Kisker is the Associate Provost at Asbury Theological Seminary and is an ordained elder in the Global Methodist Church. He serves on the Firebrand Editorial Board.