journal of pentecostal theology 27 (2018) 222-244
brill.com/pent
Response to Reviews of Spirit Hermeneutics
Craig S. Keener1 Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, usa [email protected]
Abstract
In this response to the reviews by John Christopher Thomas, Robby Waddell, and Chris E.W. Green of Craig Keener’s book, Spirit Hermeneutics: Reading Scripture in Light of Pentecost (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016), the author argues that it is important both to hear the biblical text in its original setting and to hear its message for us today. He states that the latter should have some relation to the former if we want to claim canon- ical authority for what we are saying. Keener insists that even the strongest critiques raised by his reviewers do not reveal substantial disagreement on these points. He states with assurance that he and his reviewers agree on this: the Spirit impassions us with not merely factual knowledge but with the intimate, relational knowledge of God.
Keywords
Pentecostal – interpretation – postmodernity – experience – authorial intent
I resonate with Chris Green’s discomfort with the style of the Wright-Hart sort of exchange, and one feature of sps that I most appreciate is that our banter is friendly, unlike some other venues. This is one of the few places where I could actually let my hair down – if I still had any. Since two of my respondents share the name ‘Chris’, I shall distinguish them in my response as ‘Chris G.’ and ‘Chris T.’ Lest anyone doubt the claim of Chris T.’s preface, he and I are good enough friends to be able to disagree firmly in love, and to respect one another for standing firmly for what we believe. (As
1 Craig S. Keener (PhD, Duke University) is F.M. and Ada Thompson Professor of Biblical Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary, 204 North Lexington Avenue, Wilmore, Kentucky 40390, usa.
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I will suggest below, however, I think that we disagree less in practice than he supposes.) For the sake of space, I will focus my response on responding to Chris T., since I can more simply say that I agree with much of what Robby and Chris G. said, and most differences will also be addressed in my response to Chris T. I agree with all of them that multiple approaches may be complementary rather than exclusive; it is such complementarity for which I was arguing in the book, although each of us has our own leanings and some concerns that we want to counterbalance.
1 Bridging Nomenclatures
I think that Chris T. and I may be closer than what it sounds like from his re- sponse, sometimes perhaps because I have miscommunicated my ‘authorial voice’. If Chris T. believes in an implied author and audience, as I understand the opening of his response to imply, and if he accepts the use of background where there are gaps in the text, then I suspect that in practice we read texts quite similarly. The differences would then be matters of different emphases based on our specific gifts and callings. To acknowledge and work from my own gifts and skills is not meant to devalue those of others. To some things I must say, ‘Good point, that would be something good to add’ (a number of points by Chris T. and the vast majority of points by Chris G. and Robby); to many points, ‘I would add that, but it is already in the book elsewhere’; to some other points, Chris T.’s responses sounded so different from the book I wrote that I actually checked to make sure that the editors had not changed some of the contents. I am glad that Chris T. notes that ‘many of these readers will not recognize the description of their work in this book’, since in most cases he cites it is not in fact their work that is being described at these points. If you already teach that we need to read Scripture in context, you are not the object of the critiques about that in the book. Most in-house criticisms in the book involve popular abuses, on which I will comment further later, and if the shoe does not fit no one is obligated to try it on. Throughout the chapter on popular readings, I am explicit about that point, and also that the problems stem not from anything inherently Pentecostal but from a popular way of reading Scripture that is not by any means limited to Pentecostals. I do challenge some academic approaches, including the dismissal of the importance of background by some scholars and colleagues with whom I my- self studied at Duke and in sessions I have attended at sbl. Seeking to provide
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2 I Do Emphasize Hearing the Spirit
Chris T. wanted to hear more concrete examples. I do mention that the Spirit sometimes shows me Jesus or teaches me about Scripture in my dreams.3 In- deed, those dreams often shape my thinking in ways that end up in my books. I also note how one power encounter experience forced me to rethink my the- ology, though I understood it only later as I was rereading Job 1 in Hebrew.4 Of course I could have offered many examples, had that been the point of the book. But it was already twice the prescribed length. Chris T. speaks of my ‘unrelenting apology’ for the original message. That description might be accurate, but I think that I am equally unrelenting on the importance of hearing what the Spirit is saying today. My focus on the original message is especially in one of six parts of the book (part 3). Regarding the Spirit’s voice: just as we are dialoguing here to get clarification from real authors, we can consult the divine Author of Scripture, and I often do, though I still have some outstanding questions. Psalms inspire in us a spirit of prayer, and reading the prophets the spirit of prophecy. I do affirm that the Spirit comforts and instructs us through Scripture, as taught in Rom. 15.4 and 1 Cor. 10.11, cited several times to this effect in the book. This applies not only to when we are reading Scripture but also to when the Spirit recalls Scripture to us regularly in our daily lives.
2 L. William Oliverio, Jr., Theological Hermeneutics in the Classical Pentecostal Tradition: A Typological Account (Global Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies 12; Leiden: Brill, 2012). 3 Spirit Hermeneutics: Reading Scripture in Light of Pentecost (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016), p. 115. 4 Spirit Hermeneutics, p. 116.
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I also affirm listening to the Spirit’s voice in general and not just in Scripture: because I treasure my own experiences with the Spirit’s voice, that was the subject of my one senior chapel message at cbc and the subject of my 187-page master’s thesis at agts.5 One reason that I agreed to write this book was to affirm personal hearing of the Spirit in the biblical text, because some leading colleagues in promot- ing Bible background have argued against this, and I wanted to be clear that the ancient-level meaning is not the only message that the Spirit is speaking. Because I have heard one colleague in particular criticizing ‘personal applica- tion’, I devote one section to biblical examples of applying earlier Scripture to new needs.6 At the same time, the Bible is not all about us: it is about God’s purposes in history. All the Bible is relevant for something; we need to study it in context so we can understand what is relevant for what purpose. I see hearing in prayer and hearing in Scripture as complementary and often overlapping, but I do insist that before we tell others that the Bible says something, thus speaking on its canonical authority, it needs to have something to do with the message that the Spirit already inspired there. God’s Word is not limited to Scripture, but I think most Pentecostals, especially in Chris T.’s narrower sense, recognize that Scripture as tested canon retains a special role as God’s Word for evaluating all other revelation. Because God knows the future, Scripture may indeed contain revelation the full import of which7 is not always evident to interpreters until after the fact – such as pre-Christian readers envisioning Christ coming twice. Yet it would be precarious to make that expectation a normative principle for interpretation, especially when we have not already witnessed a fulfillment. If the explanation of not-yet-fulfilled dimensions is in the hands of simply anyone who claims to speak for the Spirit, we relinquish the anchor of an authoritative canon. God can outline new insights related to older promises (e.g., Dan. 9.2, 21–27), but they should be consistent with his message, come from trustworthy agents, and should pan out. Most modern ‘prophecy teachers’ have a very poor track record of their interpretations panning out, and they have to recycle interpre- tations of passages as news headlines change.8
5 Craig S. Keener, ‘Studies in the Knowledge of God in the Fourth Gospel in Light of its Histori- cal Context’ (MDiv thesis, Assemblies of God Theological Seminary, 1987). 6 Spirit Hermeneutics, pp. 249–55. 7 What has traditionally been called sensus plenior. 8 See e.g., Dwight Wilson’s Armageddon Now! The Premillenarian Response to Russia and Israel Since 1917 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1977); Richard Kyle’s The Last Days Are Here Again (Baker, 1998).
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3 Context
I recognize that God may even speak through Scripture out of context – but this is not the canonical meaning that we have the right to teach others on the authority of Scripture. God can speak through anything noncanonical he cares to, even Balaam’s donkey or bald guys like me. When I was a new Christian convert eager to abandon my homework, which was translating Caesar’s Gallic War, in favor of exclusively reading my Bible, I flipped open the Bible and stuck my finger down. I expected it to declare, ‘Forsake all and follow me’. Instead, to my grave disappointment, it urged, ‘Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s’. I ac- quiesced and did my homework. But what if I had gone around to churches proclaiming, ‘God showed me in the Bible that you are all supposed to translate Caesar’? That is simply not the contextual, canonical meaning of the text, the universal basis for all our other appeals to how its authority applies to our di- verse situations. But when our reuse of biblical language is not consistent with its original point, we owe our hearers the courtesy of letting them know that we are speaking on the authority of what we believe to be our own experience of the Spirit, not on the authority of Scripture itself. In so doing, we acknowledge that our own finite hearing remains subject to correction if it diverges from the already-tested canon of Scripture. I think virtually all Pentecostal scholars – though in practice not everyone on a popular level – agree that we dare not place personal revelation about Scripture, or even a particular group’s claim to revelation about Scripture, above Scripture itself. To do so no longer allows the revelation that we all share to arbitrate other claims to revelation, and leads to the interpretive and consequently theological chaos that characterizes much of popular Christianity today, charismatic or otherwise. As scholars we need to be ready to speak correctively to such abuses, to the extent that God gives us a hearing among those willing to listen.
4 Background
In a book about hearing God in Scripture today, I needed to also include discussion of the ancient meaning to have a full-orbed hermeneutic, not emphasizing only the distinctively Pentecostal elements. I also needed to do that so no one would accuse me of being imbalanced by focusing only on the distinctive elements. The Spirit is not limited to engaging the affective aspect of our personalities; God is at work in our intellects when we seek to understand a
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9 See my fuller discussion in The Mind of the Spirit: Paul’s Approach to Transformed Thinking (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016). 10 ‘Refining Spirit Hermeneutics’, Pneuma 39 (2017), pp. 198–240. 11 Specifically: ‘Historical criticism and historical context, distinction between, 84, 124, 125, 132, 146, 347n55’. 12 Sometimes I do not go into more detail because I did not want to repeat what I have writ- ten elsewhere; for example, in my Acts commentary I respond at length to James Dunn’s view of Acts 8, which I challenge, building on the work of other Pentecostal/Charismatic and Lukan scholars (Keener, Acts, ii, pp. 1518, 1523–27; cf. i, pp. 985–86).
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Yet I do value the designed sense. Scripture is more than text, but God did provide it in textual form, which invites us to engage it in part textually. It is more than its constituent genres, but inspired ancient biographies and ancient letters, for example, are still ancient biographies and ancient letters. That is why Paul first names himself and then his audience, in contrast to modern letters. Scripture’s message is eternal, but it was communicated in ancient lan- guages, written in ancient alphabets, uses ancient literary forms and often re- fers to ancient events. The Holy Spirit inspired it in these forms. Understanding these forms helps prevent them from being obstacles to us hearing these texts afresh; their very concreteness in one setting invites us to respond to them in concrete ways in other settings. Just as we seek to translate the language, we seek to take into account the background that the original communication takes for granted. Just as the Word became flesh with a particular ethnicity in a particular time and place, identifying with all of us because we too are shaped in historical particularities, so the books of Scripture came to us shaped by their historical particularities so we will take seriously our own historical particular- ities. I value hearing the settings that shaped Scripture with its particularities as well as the multiplicity of settings in which we hear it afresh today. Granted, we do not have access to the ancient human authors’ minds. But the text, together with some knowledge of the cultural setting, often allows us to infer to some degree the sorts of issues the text was designed to address. I could use a hammer as a weapon – if I were not a pacifist – but the shape of my hammer suggests that it was especially designed for pounding (and removing) nails. If I take a biblical warning meant to scare sinners into repentance, and use it to squeeze tithes out of impoverished seminarians, I may not be employ- ing a passage in the sense for which it was designed. If I take Paul’s praise of love outlasting tongues to mean that tongues passed away when the Apostle John died, I am not using the text in the sense for which it was designed. My point is that literary and historical context can help us understand the text better. And I personally regularly find that the Spirit helps me in using such context. I do not find spiritual life in ancient background, but I often find the Spirit using that background in helping me hear the text more clearly. Grammatical-historical interpretation is simply one way of describing an approach that, far from being a product of modernism, was taken for granted as common sense by many thinkers through most of history, including Chrysostom and many Reformers. I see it as common courtesy: normally we try to understand what someone is trying to communicate to us. If understanding that communication is crucial to us, we will even learn the language and context of the communicator, or will depend on resources (such as translation
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13 See e.g., Craig S. Keener and Daniel Carroll Rodas, Global Voices: Readings from the Majority World (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2013), based on papers presented at the session I helped design as Institute for Biblical Research program chair. 14 See e.g., George S. Sawyer, Southern Institutes; or, An Inquiry into the Origin and Early Prevalence of Slavery and the Slave-Trade (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1858); Fred A. Ross, Slavery Ordained of God (n.p.: J.B. Lippincott, 1857). Cf. discussion in Albert J. Raboteau, Slave Religion: The ‘Invisible Institution’ in the Antebellum South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), pp. 152–80; Katie Geneva Cannon, ‘Slave Ideology and Biblical Interpretation’, pp. 119–28 in The Recovery of Black Presence: An Interdisciplinary Exploration. Essays in Honor of Dr. Charles B. Copher (ed. Randall C. Bailey and Jacquelyn Grant; Nashville: Abingdon, 1995), pp. 119–28. 15 See e.g., La Roy Sunderland, Anti Slavery Manual, Containing a Collection of Facts and Ar- guments on American Slavery (New York: S.W. Benedict, 1837); Theodore Dwight Weld, The Bible Against Slavery (New York: The American Anti-Slavery Society, 1838); essays in Autographs for Freedom, vol. 2 (Auburn: Alden, Beardsley & Co., 1854), including Rev. Dr. Willis, ‘The Bible vs. Slavery’, pp. 151–55 and Lewis Tappan, ‘Disfellowshipping the Slaveholder’, pp. 163–64 (cf. also there Antoinette L. Brown, ‘The Size of Souls’, pp. 41–43; Rev. Dr. Wm. Marsh, ‘The Law of Liberty’, pp. 61–62; and Rev. Wm. Brock, ‘Slaveholding
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not a Misfortune but a Crime’, p. 158); the long collection in Leonard Bacon, Slavery Dis- cussed in Occasional Essays, From 1833 to 1846 (New York: Baker and Scribner, 1846); cf. John Woolman, Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes 1754; Considerations on Keeping Negroes 1762 (Philadelphia: James Chattin, 1754; reprinted by New York: Viking, 1976); Samuel Hopkins, Timely Articles on Slavery (reprinted from 1854 ed. by Miami: Mne- mosyne, 1969); George B. Cheever, God Against Slavery: and the Freedom and Duty of the Pulpit to Rebuke It As a Sin Against God (New York: Joseph H. Ladd, 1857); also the debate between Rev. W.G. Brownlow and the abolitionist Congregational minister Rev. A. Pryne, Ought American Slavery to be Perpetuated? (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1858). Cf. further Monroe Fordham, Major Themes in Northern Black Religious Thought, 1800–1860 (Hicksville, ny: Exposition Press, 1975), 111–37; Milton C. Sernett, Black Religion and Amer- ican Evangelicalism: White Protestants, Plantation Missions, and the Flowering of Negro Christianity, 1787–1865 (atlam 7; Metuchen, nj: The Scarecrow Press, and The American Theological Library Association, 1975), pp. 59–81; Charles Joyner, Down by the Riverside: A South Carolina Slave Community (Urbana, Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1984), pp. 156–58; slave James Curry in John W. Blassingame, ed., Slave Testimony: Two Centuries of Letters, Speeches, Interviews, and Autobiographies (Baton Rouge, la: Louisiana State Uni- versity, 1977), pp. 130–31. 16 Note my summaries and the notes in Glenn Usry and Craig S. Keener, Black Man’s Religion: Can Christianity be Afrocentric? (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1996), pp. 98–109, 184–90; Craig S. Keener and Glenn Usry, Defending Black Faith: Answers to Tough Questions about African-American Christianity (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1997), pp. 33–40, 174–78; cf. Keener, Paul, Women, & Wives: Marriage and Women’s Ministry in the Letters of Paul (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1992), pp. 184–224; idem, ‘Subversive Conservative’, Christian History 14 (3 Aug. 1995), pp. 35–37. 17 See esp. Susannah Heschel, The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008).
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5 Context in My Book
I found surprising at times the hermeneutic by which my friend Chris T. some- times understood my book. I believe that most of his points from which I de- mur are actually addressed in my book as a whole and often in the immediate context. Chris T. kindly provided the pages where he felt that I was challenging Pentecostal scholars. In context, usually these pages are responding to one of two things: (1) Scholars who are criticizing the value of background or original meaning; and (2) Popular interpretations not related to the views of the per- haps several scholars who have thought I was criticizing them. For example, on p. 115, I praise sound Pentecostal teachers; on 123, the context is ‘pop’ religion, without mention of scholars. In context, my statement about immersing ‘our minds in the world of Scripture’ refers specifically to the theological world communicated by Scripture, not to the extrinsic world surrounding Israel or the church. I actually do note that early Pentecostalism was not uniformly dispensational, in the same sentence that Chris T. references. Where I mentioned that ‘latter rain’ was the dominant paradigm, I specified ‘dominant’ and did not deny the alternative – though Chris T.’s primary sources here would make an extremely valuable addition to the book. Where I mention early Pentecostal restorationism, I was not specifying the particular form of restoration, nor did I actually fully disagree with restorationism.18 As for being ‘imprecise’ regarding what I mean by the truth of Scripture, the pages cited are precisely where I am explaining and nuancing what I mean; the context of pp. 190–94 explains that trust in Scripture does not require young-earth creationism, and on 198, the context is not my own perspective but allowing for a range of specific perspectives that still affirm Scripture. (Taking into account authorial context, I think that Chris T.’s language was being playful, but taking into account the context of readers of our essays, I am not certain that everyone will infer that, so I respond just in case.)
18 Spirit Hermeneutics, 27–28, 53.
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I acknowledge the value of Acts 15 for hermeneutics,19 and actually cite Chris Thomas on this point.20 I could have done more on Acts 15, but so many texts that were useful, and I could not include a full exegesis of each one. If anyone is interested in my understanding of how James reads Amos here (I think James is quite ingenious, really), there are 14 detailed pages on that matter in my Acts commentary.21 Regarding 2 Cor. 3.14–18, it appears several times,22 and ‘letter and Spirit’ is a subtopic heading in the book.23 But in retrospect I do fully agree, I should have focused more on the explicit model in 2 Corinthians 3. It does get nine pages in my Mind of the Spirit book,24 and features more fully in my follow-up presentations on the subject.25 As for intertextuality in the Apocalypse, I do address this,26 though in much less detail than in my Revelation commentary or my essay in the Aker Festschrift.27 I do contend that Revelation’s intertextuality involves allusions more than quotations; Revelation is usually evoking images rather than, as ex- egesis involves, explaining passages.28
19 See Spirit Hermeneutics, pp. 40, 277, 331n17, 373n10; see also Craig S. Keener, ‘Pentecostal Biblical Interpretation/Spirit Hermeneutics’, pages 270–83 in Scripture and Its Interpretation: A Global, Ecumenical Introduction to the Bible (ed. Michael J. Gorman; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017), p. 276. 20 Spirit Hermeneutics, p. 373n10; and others, p. 331n17. 21 Acts, iii, pp. 2244–2258. 22 Spirit Hermeneutics, pp. 74–75, 250, 375n35, but esp. 41. 23 Spirit Hermeneutics, pp. 257–58. 24 Mind of the Spirit: Paul’s Approach to Transformed Thinking, pp. 206–15; with less application to hermeneutics, cf. earlier idem, 1–2 Corinthians (The New Cambridge Bible Commentary Series; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 168–71. 25 E.g., on March 13, 2018, for the Vida Nova conference in Brazil; March 29, 2018, at Oral Roberts University School of Theology. 26 Spirit Hermeneutics, pp. 75, 248–49. 27 Craig S. Keener, Revelation (nivac; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000); ‘One Thousand Two Hundred Sixty Days: A Charismatic-Prophetic Empowerment Reading of Time and God’s People in the Book of Revelation’, pages 235–46 in But These Are Written … Essays on Johannine Literature in Honor of Professor Benny C. Aker (ed. Craig S. Keener, Jeremy S. Crenshaw, and Jordan Daniel May; Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick Publications, 2014). I do not see all allusions evoking their full original contexts. Sometimes, for example, the common connection is simply that both passages speak about divine judgment. 28 Spirit Hermeneutics, p. 248. For others on Revelation’s use of allusions more than quo- tations, see e.g., E. Earle Ellis, ‘How the New Testament Uses the Old’, pages 199–219 in New Testament Interpretation: Essays on Principles and Methods (ed. I. Howard Marshall; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), p. 215n27; Jon Paulien, ‘Elusive Allusions: The Problematic Use of the ot in Revelation’, BibRes 33 (1988), pp. 37–53; Steve Moyise, The Old Testa- ment in the Book of Revelation (JSNTSup, 115; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), pp. 45–84. Some language is, of course, more directly interpretive (cf. Richard Bauckham,
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I note that the important contribution that early Pentecostal hermeneutics has made to the church as a whole, and when I say that this is a Christian read- ing, I affirm that its contribution, especially in matters like continuationism, should be embraced by the church as a whole. (That is, the way I am defining ‘Spirit hermeneutics’ is not limited to the denominationally Pentecostal com- munity.) We must all read Scripture as God’s living voice in the present, in the light and power of the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost. As for my usual use of ‘pentecostal’ beyond early Pentecostalism: my section on definitions at the beginning of the book explicitly says I am speaking pre- dominantly of global pentecostalism, and that the usual definition explicitly includes charismatics.29 Given the range of past presidents in sps, I assume the meaning even in sps’s title to be more about a unifying experience than about specific denominations. (Indeed, when sociologists give the half a billion plus figures that many of us like to cite, they include more than our usual Pentecos- tal and charismatic categories, as Allan Anderson points out.30 Sociologists of- ten include, although in much smaller numbers, even some theologically mar- ginal bedfellows that would probably make most of us uncomfortable, such as those with their own messiahs or healing through ancestor spirits, as in the Shembe cult,31 which most of us would not count.)
The Climax of Prophecy: Studies on the Book of Revelation [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1993], xi; Jan Fekkes, Isaiah and Prophetic Traditions in the Book of Revelation: Visionary Anteced- ents and their Development [JSNTSup, 93; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994], pp. 286–90; Gregory K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999], pp. 76–99). 29 Spirit Hermeneutics, pp. 7–8. 30 Allan Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism: Global Charismatic Christianity (Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 11; idem, ‘Varieties, Taxonomies, and Defi- nitions’, pages 13–29 in Studying Global Pentecostalism: Theories and Methods (ed. Allan Anderson, Michael Bergunder, André Droogers, and Cornelis van der Laan; AnthChr 10; Berkeley: University of California, 2010); cf. Nancy Schwartz, ‘Christianity and the Con- struction of Global History: The Example of Legio Maria’, pages 134–74 in Charismatic Christianity as a Global Culture (ed. Karla Poewe; Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1994); André Droogers, Droogers, André. ‘Globalisation and Pentecostal Success’, pages 41–61 in Between Babel and Pentecost: Transnational Pentecostalism in Africa and Latin America (ed. André Corten and Ruth Marshall-Fratani; Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2001), pp. 46–48, 57–59; Richard Burgess, Nigeria’s Christian Rev- olution: The Civil War Revival and Its Pentecostal Progeny (1967–2006) (RStMiss; Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 2008), pp. 5–6; Michael Bergunder, ‘The Cultural Turn’, pages 51–73 in Studying Global Pentecostalism, pp. 52–56. 31 See Edley J. Moodley, Shembe, Ancestors, and Christ: A Christological Inquiry with Missio- logical Implications (AmSocMissMonS 2; foreword by Howard A. Snyder; introduction by Eunice Irwin; Eugene, or: Pickwick, 2008).
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But I agree with Robby about the value of identifying our particular ecclesial location, though this is more evident in my summary essay32 than in this book, and this may be one of the major issues that Chris T. and Ken Archer have been wanting me to recognize more explicitly. Because I usually write for a broader audience, this may be a blind spot for me that I need to take more into account. Also, it is interesting that at least three times Chris T.’s response suggests con scious or unconscious motivations on my part, once as ‘overcompensation’.33 The one part of an authorial intention approach that nearly all scholars reject today is the preformalist approach of psychologizing the author.34 Still, I wel- come any free counseling.35 Turning now to the context in which I declare my gratitude that a particular implied author I cite cannot define for others the nature of Pentecostal herme- neutics: he suggests that a fuller understanding the Bible is not particularly desirable, that ‘spiritualising readers’ need ‘little interest … in the surface meaning of the text’ or attention ‘to the original intention of the author’. He suggests that ‘Pentecostals are infinitely less interested in’ what texts mean to their original audiences than in how the texts challenge us today. ‘Now that progressive scholars’ have mortally struck the Goliath of ‘grammatico- historical criticism’, he notes, tongue-in-cheek, Pentecostal Davids should fin- ish the job by cutting off the head of Goliath, ‘this monstrous alien’.36 Tongue-in-cheek, I might suggest that even if I and some colleagues are decapitated (historical criticism is not my focus, but I do engage in it when addressing scholarship surrounding matters of historical reliability), identify- ing us with blaspheming Philistines reflects poor hermeneutics. But Chris T. knows that author far better than I, so here I will defer to his superior knowl- edge of that authorial context.
32 ‘Pentecostal Biblical Interpretation/Spirit Hermeneutics’. 33 In the version of the review I originally received, this is pp. 5, 11, 13. 34 Cf. e.g., Christopher Spinks, The Bible and the Crisis of Meaning: Debates on the Theological Interpretation of Scripture (Bloomsbury, 2007), pp. 44, 82, 92, 122; John Farrell, The Varieties of Authorial Intention: Literary Theory Beyond the Intentional Fallacy (Springer, 2017), p. 43. 35 Right or wrong, my statement about charismatic interests vs. intraPentecostal interests depends on and cites an article from Pneuma, so it was not an expression of personal bias (my wife, who knows me best personally, can testify of my personal Assemblies of God predilections) but an attempt to build on previous research. 36 Andrew Davies, ‘What Does It Mean to Read the Bible as a Pentecostal?’ pages 249–62 in Pentecostal Hermeneutics: A Reader (ed. Lee Roy Martin; Leiden: Brill, 2013), pp. 254–56.
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6 Why I Challenge Some Popular Readings
I see the corrective element as pastorally necessary, just as if I write a book on healing, I will also have to address why some people do not get healed, or if on tongues, why some zealous Christians who seek the gift do not experience it. While the consensus of the Pentecostal community, even in the broader way I defined it, is valuable, I think that probably all of us would agree that it is not enough in isolation; as already noted in important discussions of Pentecostal interpretation, we do not even all agree on the Trinity. There is considerable apologetic for Pentecostalism in the book. Neverthe- less, Chris T. is right that there is also some polemic. Though the latter is mostly directed against pop theology, I also believe that if we as scholars fail to chal- lenge some popular errors that harm Christ’s body, we abdicate our responsi- bility as those called to be teachers. Most of my in-house critiques address one of two kinds of Pentecostals: first, those who have inherited Pentecostal theology but abandoned its prac- tice of charismata; and second and more often, unbiblical pop theology that is dividing and tearing up churches. (I did not add as a third category sectarian Pentecostals who think that we alone have the Spirit, since that approach is increasingly marginal today and surely would be marginal at sps, where I think our working identity is global Pentecostalism.)37 Chris T.’s observation about global evangelism is important, and I do agree that God works through people with a range of views and hermeneutical skills. One does not even need to be able to read to communicate the gospel; indeed, some argue that most of the first apostles, such as Peter, could not read, although they could dictate. For evangelism the basic gospel is sufficient, and apostolic servants of the gospel with signs and wonders are advancing it throughout the world today.
37 Partly because the early Pentecostal revival has now leavened much of the global church and partly just because God loves his children many gifts are not unique to those of us who pray in tongues. My understanding is that many features of early Pentecostal inter- pretation, including hearing what the text says to us personally, carried over from Holi- ness practice among radical evangelicals. Randy Clark talks about God revealing things to his Baptist grandmother even though she lacked charismatic nomenclature for this gift. After Jacques Vernaud, a Swiss Pentecostal missionary with an apostolic ministry, laid hands on him, people were instantly healed when my father-in-law would pray simple prayers for them. But he was a deacon in the Evangelical Church of Congo and did not pray in tongues.
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But as some of those apostolic servants have expressed to me (and as the letters of the first apostles indicate they would have agreed), believers being conformed to Christ’s image eventually need more of the gospel’s implica- tions that depend on the distinct gift of teaching Scripture. Whatever else God might say, it will not contradict what he has already spoken in Scripture; if believers are not equipped to evaluate other teachings from Scripture, what is the future of the churches? Theological liberalism as promulgated in secular universities where many of our young people study? Fundamentalist legalism for local traditions? The pop religion circulating in many Christian bookstores and on the internet? The right-wing fusion of faith and nationalism or partisan politics dominant in much Christian social media? A popular approach in the West today is celebrating ‘whatever Scripture means to me’, usually based on a very selective repertoire of texts and usually without much regard for context. None of us biblical scholars recommend it; that is why we appeal to safeguards such as literary context, background, wider biblical theology, or the Spirit-filled community. But we are not the dominant voices in the popular conversation and we need to prepare our students for what they will hear from others. In many charismatic and Pentecostal circles, many winds of teaching (Eph. 4.14) have buffeted believers:
• Some Branhamists still await William Branham’s return • Some still accept Pigs in the Parlor demonology originally acquired from interviewing demons38 • Hobart Freeman, a former professor, rejected medical treatment, reportedly leading to his own death and that of many of his parishioners.
38 Frank and Ida Mae Hammond, Pigs in the Parlor: A Practical Guide to Deliverance (Impact Christian Books, 1973); see criticisms in James M. Collins, Exorcism and Deliverance Minis- try in the Twentieth Century: An Analysis of the Practice and Theology of Exorcism in Mod- ern Western Christianity (Colorado Springs: Paternoster, 2009), pp. 64–69. As of March 23, 2018, with more than a million copies in print, Pigs in the Parlor’s Amazon ranking was 4786, and it ranked #7 in the ‘Pentecostal & Charismatic’ category. By way of contrast, John Christopher Thomas’s well-researched and genuinely helpful The Devil, Disease, and Deliverance: Origins of Illness in New Testament Thought (JPTSup, 13; Sheffield, u.k.: Shef- field Academic, 1998), is ranked 1,420,094. Everett Ferguson’s well-researched Demonology of the Early Christian World (New York: Mellen, 1984), ranks 3,236,946. As a charismatic scholar, I find such comparisons extremely frustrating.
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This rejection appears not only in Dowie39 but even in some early Pentecos- tal theology40 • One may note also the shepherding movement • Prominent forms of positive confession and prosperity teaching • Some extreme faith and Manifested Sons teaching that believers will be- come Christ or gods • Allowing only positive, comforting prophecies, which if taken to extremes may lead to crying, ‘Peace, peace’, when there is no peace (cf. Jer. 6.14; 8.11)
Many of these errors reflect independent charismatics without larger spheres of accountability, i.e., community. But in 1989 Margaret Poloma showed that, although the Assemblies and nearly all its scholars and teachers officially rejected the teaching that sufficient faith always cures, more than a third of adherents in A/G churches accepted it.41 William Branham, A.A. Allen, Kenneth Hagin, Jim Bakker, and many others were initially in Pentecostal de- nominations and have had large followings there. (Granted, the level of error varied; Bakker later retracted his earlier views42 and Hagin protested the im- balance in the faith movement.)43 Counterbiblical teachings are of course no less common beyond charismatic circles: such as prayed-a-prayer-always-saved doctrine or widespread neglect of Jesus’s teachings about caring for the needy. (At least prosperity preachers
39 Jonathan R. Baer, ‘Perfectly Empowered Bodies: Divine Healing in Modernizing America’ (PhD dissertation, Yale University, 2002), pp. 150–51, 249; James Opp, The Lord for the Body: Religion, Medicine, and Protestant Faith Healing in Canada, 1880–1930 (Montreal: McGill- Queen’s University Press, 2005), pp. 103–11, 115. 40 Allan Anderson, ‘Signs and Blunders: Pentecostal Mission Issues at ‘Home and Abroad’ in the Twentieth Century’, jam 2 (2, Sept. 2000), pp. 193–210, here 207; Neil Hudson, ‘Early British Pentecostals and Their Relationship to Health, Healing, and Medicine’, ajps 6 (2, July 2003), pp. 283–301, here 294–97; Opp, Lord for Body, p. 32; Erlinda T. Reyes, ‘A Theo- logical Framework on Non-Healing in the Pentecostal Perspective’ (ThM thesis, Asia Pacific Theological Seminary, 2007), pp. 76, 87; Heather D. Curtis, Faith in the Great Physician: Suf- fering and Divine Healing in American Culture, 1860–1900 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Uni- versity Press, 2007), pp. 197–99; William K. Kay, Pentecostalism (scm Core Text; London: scm, 2009), p. 47. 41 Margaret M. Poloma, The Assemblies of God at the Crossroads: Charisma and Institutional Dilemmas (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1989), p. 62. 42 See Jim Bakker with Ken Abraham, I Was Wrong (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1996). 43 Kenneth E. Hagin, The Midas Touch: A Balanced Approach to Biblical Prosperity (Tulsa: Faith Library Publications, 2000).
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44 Vicky Baker, ‘The “exorcism” that turned into murder’, http://www.bbc.com/news/ stories-43205177. 45 Johannes Merz, ‘“I am a Witch in the Holy Spirit”: Rupture and Continuity of Witchcraft Beliefs in African Christianity’, Missiology 36 (2, April 2008), pp. 201–17. 46 Admittedly not everyone would agree, but I offer my case in . . . And Marries Another: Divorce and Remarriage in the Teaching of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1991); Paul, Women, & Wives; ‘Women in Ministry: Another Egalitarian Perspective’, pages 203–48 in Two Views on Women in Ministry (ed. James R. Beck; rev. ed. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005); ‘Remarriage for Adultery, Desertion, or Abuse’, pages 103–19 in Remarriage after Divorce in Today’s Church (ed. Mark Strauss; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006).
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47 For perhaps the most thorough critique of universalism, see Michael J. McClymond (a renewalist scholar), The Devil’s Redemption: A New History and Interpretation of Christian Universalism (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018). 48 Michael L. Brown, Playing with Holy Fire: A Wake-Up Call to the Pentecostal-Charismatic Church (Charisma House, 2018).
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7 Responses to Additional Points
Granted, on this project I did not mine early Pentecostal primary sources (as opposed to secondary ones) directly, in contrast to my copious use of early Pentecostal sources in my miracles book; indeed, I confess that I cited fewer than eighty even modern studies on ‘Pentecostal hermeneutics’, though I cited many of them often. Mining the historical sources is extremely valuable, and others have done commendable work in this area.49 But normally works are evaluated according to what they set out to do, and I did explicitly state at the beginning that this book was not a description of ‘Pentecostal hermeneutics’ but one biblical scholar’s contribution to how to interpret in light of the Spirit.50 I accepted this project on the condition that I could address the subject from Scripture itself, rather than writing a descrip- tion of ‘Pentecostal hermeneutics’.
7.1 Community On p. 276, cited by Chris T., I am trying to balance the sometimes proposed alternatives to avoid forced choices. On pp. 277–79 I offer biblical support for the community in interpretation, but on pp. 279–80 I warn against premature appeal to it.51 The limits are because I believe that Scripture, which was often given to correct God’s people, now stands over the community rather than under it. As I have granted in dialogue with Catholic peers, God’s people did sift and discern the canon, based on the Spirit’s testimony in the community. Never- theless, as I have gone on to insist, the documents welcomed into the canon often originated among prophets calling God’s people to repentance. Should
49 E.g., Martin William Mittelstadt, Reading Luke-Acts in the Pentecostal Tradition (Cleveland, tn: cpt Press, 2010). 50 Spirit Hermeneutics, pp. 1–4. 51 I studied at Duke in the heyday of Stanley Fish’s influence, so interpretive communities (see e.g., Stanley E. Fish, Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980]) were regular subjects of discussion with friends in the English department, religion department and divinity school.
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7.2 Postmodernism As for treating postmodernism negatively or as if all cut from the same cloth, here are references to postmodernism from my subject index: one general criticism;54 three references that specify opposition only to extreme post- modernism, which I expressly differentiate from the Pentecostal approach;55 four references to differences among postmodernists;56 one reference to weaknesses of both postmodern and nonpostmodern approaches;57 one ref- erence to the value of both;58 and four references to value in postmodern insights.59 Even assuming that I missed any references while indexing, it should be clear that the book does not paint all postmodernists with a single brush. So is the concern primarily that I am attacking postmodernism (or even one camp in Pentecostal hermeneutics), or simply that I emphasize ancient context in addition to today’s ones? Extreme postmodernism normally accepts historical facts, but it treats narratives as fictions; thus one cannot speak of the ‘Holocaust’ or of ‘Apart- heid’, but one can speak of many individual events comprising such larger categories.60
52 Cf. e.g., Benjamin Hardin Irwin, noted in Harold Hunter and Cecil M. Robeck, The Azusa Street Revival and its Legacy (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2009), pp. 114–15. 53 Cf. e.g., Glenn W. Gohr, ‘The Historical Development of the Statement of Fundamental Truths’, ag Heritage (2012), pp. 61–66, esp. 63. 54 Spirit Hermeneutics, p. 139. 55 Spirit Hermeneutics, pp. 120, 344n1, 344n7. 56 Spirit Hermeneutics, pp. 181, 342n31, 345n23, 368n10. 57 Spirit Hermeneutics, p. 207. 58 Spirit Hermeneutics, p. 120, with Oliverio. 59 Spirit Hermeneutics, pp. 19, 181, 345n23, 384n5. 60 Many publishing academic historians reject both extreme postmodernism and naïve re- alism, preferring a critical realism chastened by postmodernism (Michael R. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach [Downers Grove, il: InterVarsity; Nottingham, uk: Apollos, 2010], pp. 71–89).
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Yet postmodernism is certainly correct about different perspectives from different reading locations. Thus one charismatic Old Testament scholar wrote to me about this book, ‘I want you to know of my appreciation for Spirit Herme- neutics, and particularly the chapters in Section iii, which resonated with my narrative and post-structuralist proclivities’.61 Subjectivity is inescapable. Against nontheistic postmodernism, I do trust that God’s perspective is correct, and that biblical salvation history does offer a metanarrative. That is why I am committed to searching Scripture. I even believe that authorial meaning matters: for example, Paul under inspiration readily corrects some of his first interpreters’ misinterpretations of his letters (1 Cor. 5.9–13). But I readily concede that our own finite interpretive social locations are limited and that our access to that metanarrative, beyond the basic gospel message, is limited. Paul’s acknowledgement that, until we see Christ face to face, we ‘know in part and prophesy in part’, invites some serious epistemological humility.
7.3 Other Responses Regarding Spirit hermeneutics being intimately connected to the cross, I fully affirm Chris G.’s observations. John’s Gospel, in fact, blends Jesus’s death, res- urrection, and exaltation as his glorification and the coming of the Spirit as part of that event theologically. Likewise, Luke, who provides greater temporal distance in his narrative between Jesus’s resurrection, subsequent ascension, and subsequent outpouring of the Spirit, explicitly connects these theologi- cally (e.g., Acts 2.33). Chris G.’s warning about the triumphalist temptation to focus on charismata at the expense of cruciformity gets theologically at some of my concerns about certain forms of charismatic readings, later in the book (particularly prosperity theology).62 I agree with him, again, in what he says about experiential reading. Although I borrowed this language somewhat from my predecessors on the subject, I am thinking now that perhaps a better way of putting much of what I meant is relational reading – reading the text in light of our relationship with God and as part of that. I do not insist that the nomenclature of ‘meaning’ versus ‘application’ is necessary. I specifically note in the book that one can use either designation so long as one is clear what one means; I then explained a specific usage and followed it.63 Nor does Scripture delineate the meaning of the English word ‘meaning’, a term never used in the nasb for Scripture interpretation and only
61 Personal correspondence, Jan. 24, 2018. 62 Spirit Hermeneutics, pp. 272–73. 63 Spirit Hermeneutics, pp. 123–24, 246–47.
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Conclusion
It is important, to our best ability, to hear both the text in its original setting and its message for us today. The latter should have some relation to the former if we want to claim canonical authority for what we are saying. From even the strongest critiques that my reviewers have raised, I am not sure that we actu- ally disagree on these points. What I am sure that we do agree on is this: the Spirit impassions us with not merely factual knowledge but with the intimate, relational knowledge of God. May we grow to walk in this intimacy every moment of every day.
64 I treat this in the relevant passages in The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009).
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