Why Am I a Biblicist?

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By Malcolm B. Yarnell III, Associate Professor of Systematic Theology, Director of the Oxford Study Program, Director of the Center for Theological Research, and Editor of the Southwestern Journal of Theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
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The editors of SBC Today recently queried me about whether I would still care to defend my periodic self-description of being a “Biblicist” in the light of criticisms made by evangelical theologian Scot McKnight, who so far has addressed two short essays to the subject under the title, “The Problem with Biblicism” (Part 1 and Part 2). McKnight bases his critique on the work of the sociologist Christian Smith, a former evangelical who converted to Roman Catholicism.

Before responding to McKnight, it may be helpful to summarily define the term, “Biblicism,” and its cognate, “Biblicist.” According to the Oxford English Dictionary, these terms first appeared in the early 19^th century and were utilized by evangelicals in a positive manner. The OED cites the evangelical Anglican, George Stanley Faber, who in 1837 approvingly opposed the “Biblicists” to the speculative schoolmen, and Thomas Carlyle’s contemporary, John Sterling, who in 1843 described 17^th-century “Biblicism” as simultaneously “rampant and vivacious.” Negative uses of these respected terms arose during the next few decades, alongside John Henry Newman’s influential critique of evangelicalism, which resulted in his groundbreaking conversion from the Church of England to the Roman Catholic Church. The OED itself defines “Biblicism” simply as “Adherence to the text of Scripture,” and a “Biblicist” as “A professed adherent of the letter of the Bible.”

Now, for a response to McKnight and the polemical tradition underlying his little essays: First, let it be noted that I agree with some of the criticisms leveled by McKnight and Smith, and behind them, the Newman tradition, toward an anthropologically naïve or theologically uninformed biblicism. The idea of a Christian sitting down on his or her own and reading Scripture without reference to the witness of one’s fellow Christians—a witness available through the confessions of one’s own church and of other churches throughout Christian history—strikes me as a pervasive problem. This problematic approach to reading Scripture is compounded when the individual Christian assumes that the text delivers truth to the unaided mind through the (rather modern) philosophy of commonsense without reference to the mediating work of the Holy Spirit. I also agree with their criticism that the Bible should not be read merely as some type of handbook or lawbook, for the Bible is, in my opinion, the active Word of the living God. In these matters, I agree with the anti-Biblicist critique of the Newman tradition.

Second, unfortunately, the problem with the Newman tradition’s withering critique begins with the fact that the practices of liberal evangelicals (who read the text as academic elitists apart from Christ’s explicit authorial locus within the churches) and enthusiastic evangelicals (who with a Pelagian attitude assume it is their natural ability that allows them to perceive the meaning of the text) do not define the prior traditional and favorable understanding of biblicism. McKnight’s definition of biblicism has moved dangerously beyond the term’s simple meaning into a Newmanesque caricature of traditional evangelical respect for Scripture’s ultimate authority. The danger with the use of any straw man in passionate theological argumentation is that its reasonable deconstruction not only burns the one who erected the falsehood but scorches all who rally around the distortion, believing it is made of solid rock rather than wood, hay, and stubble.

The Roman critique of evangelical biblicism fails the test of authenticity because it has too often employed soaring rhetoric without regard for reasoned response. As Frank Turner recently demonstrated in his outstanding book, John Henry Newman: The Challenge to Evangelical Religion, the mythic aura of the Cardinal’s sainthood, promoted through his self-redefining Apologia Pro Vita Sua, is more fictional than factual. Newman’s theological apologetic against evangelical biblicism deserves a similar re-evaluation, no matter how unecumenical it may seem. (Yes, painful truth is a better basis for Christian unity than pious fiction.) Alas, this little essay is not the place for this needed re-evaluation. As for evangelicals, they would do well to avoid the Roman straw man of biblicism in order to forgo the scorching of their own intellectual fingers as they make their way by degrees toward Rome. As for those evangelicals who have traveled well past Rome in their journey toward biblical fidelity and have become free churchmen, we should avoid the path blazed back to the city on the Tiber by Newman, as well as the road to Constantinople built by others, roads that often lead through the unbiblical, even if evangelical, logics of Wittenberg, Canterbury, and Geneva.

However, a partial appreciation for the Newmanesque critique, along with a summary assessment of its provenance, companionship, and destination, does not comprise the primary purpose of this prefatory composition. Rather, I would like to put forward summarily my own vision of what biblicism entails, as a means of indicating why I remain a self-described biblicist. First, if biblicism is “adherence to the text of Scripture,” then I personally cannot conceive of how any evangelical, much less any free churchman, could reject that definition as a self-description. When I survey the biblical text, I am convinced that the most noble inevitably turn to the biblical texts as a matter of course for perceiving truth. The Bereans “searched the Scriptures” in order to evaluate whether or not Paul’s proclamation was “the Word of God.” As a result of this activity, they came to faith in the resurrected God-man (Acts 17:10-15). According to the author of Hebrews, the biblical text is “living and active,” for it is God’s own speech extending from the text into the heart of the hearer, bringing the deepest judgment and accountability (Heb 4:12-13).

Perhaps most poignantly, we recall with passion the hours when the risen Lord encountered the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Jesus Christ, our Lord, did not rebuke these men as “foolish” because they were focused on the biblical text. No! The incarnate and resurrected Word of God rebuked these disciples because they did not “believe in all that the prophets have spoken!” He then proceeded to expound upon how “all the Scriptures” pointed towards Him and the events of His passion for sin and victory over death (Luke 24:13-27). After the disciples encountered Christ’s own biblicism, they spoke of how their hearts burned within them, for the encounter with Christ and the encounter with the biblical text were not separate but coordinate (Luke 24:28-32). From the letters of the apostles, we find similar indications of biblicism. Peter warned of the necessity to heed “the prophetic word” as speech originating with divine movement (2 Pet 1:19-21). John was so text-oriented that he relayed the judgment that would come upon those who dare alter the text in any way (Rev 22:18-19). Paul spoke of “all Scripture” as “given by inspiration of God” and thereby completely sufficient inter alia for doctrine and ethics, “instruction in righteousness” and “every good work” (2 Tim 3:14-17).

Second, the history of the churches recounts for us similar encounters. For John Wycliffe and William Tyndale, the biblical text must be rendered in the language of the people, for it is the means of the common man’s salvation, and these two English Reformers put their reputations and very lives on the line for the biblical text. For Martin Luther, at the head of the Reformation, the recovery of justification by faith alone was corollary to and dependent upon the Bible as the only authority that Christians have for judging every doctrine, hence the common evangelical claim to sola scriptura. For the Baptists in the seventeenth century, they were willing to hear any correction of their theology, but only insofar as it was from the Word of God. Such brave men and women were maligned, impoverished, imprisoned, even executed in fire and water because of their belief that the biblical text was the sufficient deposit and guarantee of theological truth. These people were biblicists, for they were “professed adherent[s] of letter of the biblical text.” Does this mean that the magisterial Reformers and the early free church theologians agreed with one another on everything? No.

Does such “diversity” among biblicists regarding the meaning of the biblical text, therefore, disprove what we believe? Does diversity of interpretation demolish the biblicist approach? According to Scot McKnight, the phenomenon of evangelical “interpretive pluralism” “disproves” and “demolishes” biblicism. As proof for this supposed calamity, McKnight cites as an example the biblically ambiguous claims of Reformed theologians regarding double imputation. We could buttress McKnight’s example with numerous other critiques of Reformed theology’s extrabiblical nature, and add quite a few more regarding the Arminian and Wesleyan theological positions. However, it should be noted that the problem with such theologies is not with their basis in the biblical text, nor with their adherence to the biblical text, but with the theological claims made that go beyond the biblical text.

McKnight has not as yet offered what he believes is the solution to the problem with biblicism. Rather, he preliminarily (at least one hopes it is preliminary) concludes, “The fragmentation of the church denies the biblicist approach.” So, McKnight immediately shifts from bibliology to ecclesiology, from the doctrine of revelation into the doctrine of the church. The problem with biblicism, according to McKnight, is that it has divided the church. All of a sudden, his thesis transitions from God’s speech to man’s hearing. My immediate response to McKnight’s shift in concern is to point out two things: First, human fragmentation does not entail a problem with dominical and apostolic exemplification. Our problems in interpretation do not indicate a problem with Scripture’s own demands for an exalted view of the text. Second, I would simply ask McKnight, “What do you mean when you use the word, ‘church’?” Do you have in mind some type of amorphous and invisible church of the elect? Do you have in mind some reference to the eschatological universal church, which has not yet gathered? Do you have in mind the fact that not all Christians wish to come under the claim to universality made by the bishops of Rome? Surely, you are not going to argue that Christians should sacrifice their fidelity to Christ by eliminating interpretive conviction in favor of the lowest possible theological denominator for visible unity?

I do not know where the highly respected Scot McKnight is heading with his declamations against biblicism, but perhaps he would allow me to state what I believe is a better definition of biblicism, as opposed to the paradigm he has offered from his reading of Smith. A better theological definition of biblicism, in conversation with McKnight’s stated paradigm, is as follows:

1. The Word of God: The Bible is the Word of God inscripturated, through which the incarnate Word of God speaks today, even as He spoke yesterday.
2. Soteriologically Sufficient: The Bible is the sufficient means of God’s revelation for proclamation regarding humanity’s salvation.
3. Entirely Sufficient: The Bible is the sufficient means for the entire conduct of the Christian life.
4. Perspicuity: While the contributions of the academy and the church’s leadership may be and have been helpful (though sometimes they definitely have not been), the Bible is clear in its teachings to the church that hears.
5. The Spirit’s Illumination: Readers of Scripture can understand its meaning because the same Holy Spirit who inspired the prophets opens up the readers’ minds, i.e. the church’s mind, to its interpretation.
6. Sola Scriptura: Yes, “we can read the Bible without the aid of creeds or confessions or historical church traditions,” but we would do better by reading Scripture with Christians throughout the ages.
7. Internal Harmony: Since God inspired every Scripture text, and since His will and mind are in perfect harmony, all Scripture likewise has an internal harmony. This truth does not excuse those who wrongly exclude, elide, or otherwise misconstrue the amazingly simple yet beautifully complex teaching of Scripture, a beautiful complexity of which we should be constantly discovering more.
8. Universal Applicability: All of Scripture is valid for all Christians everywhere at all times, although the Holy Spirit may lead Christians to focus upon certain texts in certain crises.
9. Just Read It! Christians should just start reading the Bible, alone and together, day and night, wherever they are and with whomever will read it with them, for it is through the reading of the text that the Spirit corrects our thoughts, prompting us to take every thought captive to Christ.
10. A Book: The Bible is, indeed, a handbook or textbook for the Christian life, but as the living and active Word of God, it is also much more. It is also a book of devotions, of law, of poetry, of history, of biography, and of grace. It is a living book, but it is a book nonetheless.

The Bible is a book. It is a book composed of letters and words written by hands in different times and places, a book thus requiring historical and grammatical interpretation. The Bible is a trustworthy book. Unlike the writings of men and women around the world and throughout all time, it is the only book that humanity has that is utterly trustworthy. The Bible is the Christian’s book. It is a book that the Christian should cherish as if it were his or her own life, for God, the source of life, speaks and gives life through that book. The Bible is a book, but it is so much more than a book, for it is God’s book.

Am I a Biblicist? Yes, because the Bible is a book and God speaks in, through, by, and from this book, I am a text-focused man. I am a Biblicist, and I will make the greatest error ever whenever I stop being one. I am a Biblicist because that is what Jesus and the apostles were. I am a Biblicist because I respect the traditions of my forefathers. “Remove not the ancient landmark which your fathers have set,” says the Proverbs. My faith fathers, biblical and historical, were Biblicists. I am loath to remove, renounce, or lose respect for their landmark. I am a Biblicist because God speaks to me and to my people through this book, the Bible. Yes, Dr. McKnight, I am a Biblicist, as I hope you are and will remain so.
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Dr. Yarnell wrote this article from Gould House, Oxford, England, while there in connection with the Southwestern Seminary summer program at Oxford.

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