If you are interested in the question of how the Bible relates to your life as a Christian, then Four Views on Moving Beyond the Bible to Theology (Zondervan, 2009) is a book for you. Here are the four views in brief:
- Principlizing (Walter Kaiser): We move beyond the Bible by looking at the text, extracting principles in the text, then applying those principles to particular situation today.
- Redemptive-historical (Dan Doriani): We move beyond the Bible by engaging in careful exegesis, synthesizing the biblical data, and applying the Bible in ways faithful to the biblical narrative.
- Drama-of-redemption (Kevin Vanhoozer): We move beyond the Bible by improvising on the theodrama to which Scripture witnesses in ways that are fitting to the canonical text and contemporary context.
- Redemptive-movement (William Webb): We move beyond the Bible by discerning the redemptive movement meaning in the Bible toward an ultimate ethic, which we seek to live out in our daily lives.
First off, this book probably should have been titled Moving Beyond the Bible to Ethics, since the authors deal almost entirely with ethical matters, including euthanasia, women in ministry, homosexuality, abortion, stem-cell research, slavery, weddings, gambling, architecture, transexuality, war ethics, and corporal punishment. So if the relationship between the Bible and theology sounds boring, don’t worry! This book deals with where the rubber meets the road: daily Christian living. This book shows that the Bible is really relevant to the practical issues of our lives, even if there is debate about how it is relevant.
Kaiser’s principlizing approach is good because it takes the authority of the Bible seriously, and is relatively easy to understand. In practice, however, principlizing does not look so simple. If you cannot imitate Kaiser’s fancy exegesis, you would be easily discouraged, and one wonders if the resulting principles are really all that timeless. Every other scholar admits that there is some level of principlizing in their method, but none of the other want to reduce the movement from the Bible to daily life as extracting and applying principles. So Kaiser is helpful, but not helpful enough.
Doriani’s redemptive historical approach adds important elements because he urges us to interpret and apply the Bible within its narrative structure and progression. In addition, Doriani recognizes that we cannot apply every genre of the Bible in the same way (e.g. by extracting principles), but we must be sensitive to the way the Bible presents the history of redemption. That being said, Doriani’s method is not that different than Kaiser’s, and one is still left to wonder how the average Christian can apply the Bible in faithful and fitting ways.
Vanhoozer’s drama of redemption approach is my favorite of the whole bunch, but it suffers from a lack of clarity and metaphor confusion. Allow me to simplify his view: the Bible bears witness to the drama of God’s redemption, a drama in which we are participating today. In order to play our part in the drama, therefore, we need to develop wisdom to improvise in ways fitting to Scripture (our script) and to our particular situations. Of the four views in the book, Vanhoozer’s received the most praise, despite being a little in the clouds. And I think if you take the time to think through his metaphors, you will find a rich resource for participating in the drama of redemption today.
William Webb’s redemptive movement approach probably received the most criticism, and for good reason. For one, it is not entirely clear what Webb means by “redemptive movement,” and I think Vanhoozer come closest to describing it as redemptive contrast, both between the Bible and its cultural context and within the Bible itself. Basically, Webb argues that if we view the Bible in light of its context, we will realize that it present a better ethic than the cultural context in which it is situation, even if this is not an ultimate ethic. Therefore, even though the Bible does not condone slavery, we need to discern the redemptive movement to realize that it is appropriate for us to have an abolitionist ethic today. I can’t go into further details of regarding other problems with Webb’s approach at this point, so I would encourage you to read his explanations and the responses yourself.
Even if the particular nuances of each view may be confusing, reading this book will help you to become a better reader and doer of Scripture, more self-aware and methodical regarding how to move from the text to applying it in your own context. You will also benefit greatly from the reflections by Gary Meadors, Mark Strauss, Al Wolters, and Christopher Wright, all of whom add great perspectives to guide you in processing this important material. Of course, the book does not deal with every possible view of moving beyond the Bible to theology and ethics, which explains why other important elements such as character formation, interpretation and application within community, and the role of the Holy Spirit are touched on at points, but not emphasized enough. Regardless of its weaknesses, however, Four Views on Moving Beyond the Bible to Theology is an important book regarding one of the biggest questions with which Christians should be wrestling: how does the Bible relate to our lives today?
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