Patterns, Legalism and Grace: J. D. Thomas

February 9, 2009

 Patternism and a healthy theology of grace are not mutually exclusive. 

A previous post noted that Alexander Campbell did not make his particular understanding of the apostolic pattern a test of fellowship. The “ancient order” was not a soteriological category for him. Rather, it was a  matter of communal sanctification, a matter of growth, development and maturation. Consequently, he regarded other communities of faith than his own Christian.  What would “all that we have written on the unity of Christians on apostolic grounds” mean, he asked, “had we taught that all Christians in the world were already united in our own community?” (Millennial Harbinger 1837).

In this post I turn my attention to J. D. Thomas (1910-2004), Professor of Bible at Abilene Christian University for thirty-three years. He is the author of probably the most significant hermeneutical manual for Churches of Christ–We Be Brethren (1958).  It assumes (practically everyone assumed it in the 1950s), explains and applies the command, example, and inference (CEI) hermeneutic in some detail. The issue the illicited the book was the raging controversy surrounding institutionalism.

Between 1950-1970 about 10% of Churches of Christ banded together as non-institutional congregations. The issues are both broad and narrow. Broadly, these congregations rejected the cultural assimiliation of Churches of Christ, as they saw it, into the mainstream of American denominationalism. Narrowly, they opposed the use of church funds (collected in the church treasury for kingdom work) to support human institutions (incoporated entitites like schools, children’s homes, mission boards [e.g., sponsoring congregations], or any parachurch organization). To these churches the support of such human institutions to do the work of the church is analogous to the support of missionary societies to do the work of the church.

Churches of Christ were generally agreed upon an apostolic pattern in the 1940s:  five acts of worship (a capella singing, praying, teaching, Lord’s supper, and giving), congregational polity with a plurality of elders and deacons, silence of women in the assembly except for singing, etc. This was supported by the standard hermeneutic: command, example and inference (CEI). But the institutional controversy raised specific questions about how to use church funds and how to apply the received hermeneutic.

Thomas defends patternism, explains the hermeneutic and applies it to institutional issues. Roy E. Cogdill (1907-1985), one of the premier defenders of noninstitutionalism in the 1950s-1960s, reviewed Thomas’ book in 1959. That review, a series of articles, is available here. For Thomas, the NT contains a pattern–”a teaching that is binding or required of Christians today” and the “pattern principle” is “what bound the New Testament characters binds us, and what did not bind them does not bind us.”  And this pattern is “established by command, necessary inference, and example” (p. 254).

Thomas provided guidelines for how to apply the hermeneutic. His book has a glossary to define terms such as “generic authority,” “incomplete command,” “hypothesis of uniformity,” “hypothesis of universal application,” “excluded specific,” “overlapping classification,”  and “expedient.”  Sounds fairly technical, huh? Well, that is the point–Thomas took the standard CEI hermeneutic and gave it a “scientific” formulation in hopes of adjudicating the dispute between institutionalists and noninstitutionalists. My question has become–is reading the Bible for discipleship really that difficult?  See my series on “It Ain’t That Complicated.”

At the same time, Thomas is very concerned that the debate between institutionalists and noninstitutionalists reflects–on both sides–a deficient theology of grace. “Our real problem, and the place where we have become ‘bogged down’,” Thomas writes, “is in our tendencies to Legalism” (p. 119).  And “we should admit that we have all had Legalistic tendencies throughout the whole Brotherhood in tim past” (p. 116).  Hear his plea (239, 241):

The man who has not yet realized what it means that the Christian religion is a non-Legalistic, grace-faith system has not yet been able to be thrilled by its true meaning and beauty…When we truly realize the relatinship of faith and owrks in the Christian system–that we work because of our faith and to complete it, and not because of our relation to the Saviour, we find motivation for working even ‘beyond our power,’ yet with the greatest happiness and joy as children of the Most High God!…Matters such as ‘Love the Lord with all your heart,’ and ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,’ and ‘Christ liveth in me,’ cannot be reduced to little precise legal obligations.  Too many of us have thought of Christianity in too small terms and we have therefore failed to see its majesty and immensity and transcendent grandeur…All of us who have been in the church very long have been guilty of some Legalistic inclinations….none of us are ‘without sin.’ We have all no doubt argued strongly for points that we actually were not able to clearly prove to others. Perhaps there has been a degree of selfishness in the most of us, in being critical of the views of others without the ability to show clearly whereiin we were right. Tolerance, humility and a greater love for the Lord and for each other are in order if we want to solve our problems (and if we want to be saved). We must appreciate the fact that WE do BE BRETHERN, and that the tie that binds us in Christian unity is more important than our opinions.

 J. D. Thomas once told me that he was significantly influenced by the teaching and writing of K. C. Moser and that Moser’s understanding of grace was exactly the same as R. C. Bell, another of Thomas’ heroes in the faith and a primary representative of the Tennessee Tradition.  In fact,  Thomas once recalled that both R. C. Bell and G. C. Brewer were among the few who had a “good comprehension of grace” in mid-20th century Churches of Christ (Firm Foundation, “Law and Grace (2) 100 [23 August 1983] 579). And, I have argued, that it was partly the teaching of R. C. Bell and J. D. Thomas at Abilene Christian University that paved the way for a shift in the Texas Tradition toward a Tennessee (e.g., G. C. Brewer, K. C. Moser, James A. Harding) understanding of grace (see Thomas, The Biblical Doctrine of Grace). This shift, along with the popularity of Moser’s writings, led to “The Man or The Plan” controversy in the early 1960s. [As an aside, Harding College had actually kept this grace tradition alive through the teaching of J. N. Armstrong, Andy Ritchie, F. W. Mattox, and ultimately Jimmy Allen; and Harding College Press actually printed some of Moser's writings in the 1950s.]

My point is that though J. D. Thomas was a good patternist–a defender of patternism and CEI as a sound hermeneutic–he nevertheless preached a healthy theology of grace. The two are not mutually exclusive.

The question to pursue, however, is when does patternism subvert the gospel of grace in such a way that it actually becomes a legalism.  That question belongs to a future post.

13 Comments | Hermeneutics, Stone-Campbell, Theology | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by John Mark Hicks

Patterns, Legalism and Grace: Alexander Campbell

February 6, 2009

It is not legalism to seek patterns or to live by patterns.    

It is legalism to use those patterns in such a way that they undermine salvation by grace through faith.

That is my summary of what I thought was the sentiment of Cecil May, Jr.’s concluding comments in his February 3, 2009 Freed-Hardeman Lectureship speech (see my previous post).

In this post and in a subsequent one, I will illustrate how this point has functioned in the thinking of two significant leaders in the Stone-Campbell Movement: Alexander Campbell and J. D. Thomas. Both were patternists (to differing degrees), but did not permit their patternism to trump the fundamental truth of the gospel: we are saved by grace through faith and not by works.

In the 1825 Christian Baptist Alexander Campbell inaugurated his famous series “A Restoration of the Ancient Order of Things.” He thereby introduced “restoration” as a key term in the self-understanding of the Stone-Campbell Movement.  A patternism of some sort inheres in the idea of “restoration” as Campbell used it.

Campbell assumed (1) “there is a divinely authorized order of Christian worship in Christian assemblies” and (2) “the acts of worship on the first day of the week in Christian assemblies is uniformly the same.” The “authorized order” is the “same acts of religious worship” that “are to be performed every first day in every assembly of disciples” (CB 3 [4 July 1825] 164-166). Campbell believed there is a pattern (his favorite word for it, in good Reformed fashion, was “order”). Subsequent essays explained the role of breaking bread (Lord’s Supper), fellowship (contribution), and praise (singing). In addition, the “ancient order” included topics such as congregational polity (bishops, deacons) and discipline.

Campbell’s series intended to identify particulars where the “church of the present day” needed to be brought up to the “standard of the New Testament.” To “restore the ancient order of things” is to “bring the disciples individually and collectively, to walk in the faith, and in the commandments of the Lord and Saviour, as presented in that blessed volume” (CB 3 [7 February 1825] 124-128).

It is clear that the “ancient order” is serious business for Campbell. It is a matter of obedience to the commands of the New Testament. The series was a call to the church of his day to conform to the “order” contained in the New Testament, that is, to conform to the apostolic pattern in the New Testament.

The interesting question, however, is whether he thought the “order” he discerned within the New Testament was a test of fellowship among believers. Did he believe that conformity to this order was necessary to salvation? Was it his intent to identify the marks of the church that defined the true church so that every other body of believers who did not conform to those marks was apostate and thus outside the fellowship of God?

This was implicitly raised in the Christian Baptist by one of Campbell’s critics. Spencer Clack, the editor of the Baptist Recorder, wondered whether Campbell’s “ancient order” functioned similarly to the written creeds to which Campbell mightily objected (CB 5 [6 August 1827] 359-360). Campbell’s response is illuminating. He maintained that his “ancient order” was no creed precisely because he had “never made them, hinted that they should be, or used them as a test of christian character or terms of christian communion” (CB 5 [3 September 1827] 369-370, emphasis mine–and thanks to Bobby Valentine who was the first to call my attention to this statement).

The pattern–the ancient order–was not a test of fellowship. It did not define Christian character. Campbell believed it was biblical and apostolic, but he did not believe obedience to it was a condition of salvation. The pattern was not a soteriological category, but rather an ecclesiological one.

If he did not identify these ecclesiological particulars as tests of fellowship, then what was the purpose of the series? He tells us. He believed that the restoration of the ancient order, though not necessary for fellowship and salvation, was “the perfection, happiness, and glory of the Christian community.” In other words, it was a means toward the unity of all believers. Restoration of the ancient order was not for the purpose determining true vs. apostate churches, but rather to set out a program upon which all believers might unite on the New Testament alone. If everyone would “discard from their faith and their practice every thing that is not found written in the New Testament of the Lord and Saviour, and to believe and practise whatever is there enjoined,” then “every thing is done which ought to be done” (CB 3 [7 March 1825] 133-136). He wanted to “unite all Christians on constitutional grounds” rather than on the basis of human creeds (CB 5 [6 August 1827] 360-61). The “ancient order,” according to Campbell, was the only legitimate (constitutional) and practical means of uniting all Christians, and it enable communities to discard their creeds and stand on the New Testament alone.

Theologically, this essentially means that eccelsiological patterns are matters of sanctification rather than justification (to use the classic terminology of Campbell’s era). The discernment, recognition and implementation of apostolic patterns were matters of growth and maturation. They were not the foundation of the church–who is Jesus, and the confession that he is the Christ, the Son of the Living God–but rather the sanctification of the church in conformity to a constitutional model of reading the New Testament.

Campbell never applied the “ancient order” as either a test of salvation or fellowship.  However, he did attempt to persuade others that a return to the “ancient order” was the way to restore unity to a divided Christianity.

Subsequent participants in the “Restoration Movement” turned the “ancient order” into a test of fellowship as the fundamental identity of the New Testament church, the distinguishing mark between the true church and apostate churches.  That was never Campbell’s intention and he would have regarded it as a subversion of the gospel itself–substituting the “ancient order” for the confession of Jesus as the Messiah as the true test of faith.

38 Comments | Hermeneutics, Stone-Campbell, Theology | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by John Mark Hicks

Stone-Campbell Hermeneutics IV — Regulative Principle and Churches of Christ

May 30, 2008

My first two posts in this series focused on the Baconian and Reformed character of Alexander Campbell’s hermeneutic. My last post described how Churches of Christ have utilized the Baconian method. In this post I describe how Churches of Christ have embraced the Reformed regulative principle and applied it with a Reformed understanding of command, example and inference (CEI).

The Regulative Principle in the 19th Century

Alexander Campbell assumed a form of the regulative principle when he wrote his “A Restoration of the Ancient Order of Things” in the 1825-1829 Christian Baptist. He argued his case for the “ancient order” through command, example and inference based upon an inductive-deductive (Baconian) reading of the New Testament. But he did not intend the “ancient order” as a test of fellowship or a term of communion. Rather, he described the “ancient order” to persuade others to return to the teachings of Scripture alone for the unity of the church and the happiness of Christians. He refused to use inferences as lines of sands.

By the mid-1860s, as troubles arose concerning instrumental music and the missionary society among other things (including fund raising by means other than free will offerings on Sunday), the need to specify the exact nature of the (Reformed) hermeneutic became an intramural necessity.

Since the 16th century there had been at least two versions of the Reformed regulative principle and this is evident in contemporary discussions among conservative Presbyterians. For example, one can read the discussion between two eminent seminary professors who are both committed to the Westminster Confession of Faith–John Frame and Daryl Hart–to see their differences regarding the regulative principle. One version may be termed “general, broad or principled” and the other “specific or strict.” The former was championed by Calvin and the latter had its beginnings with Zwingli though it did not fully blossom until the seventeenth century when Puritanism emerged as a distinct English Reformation movement. The former locates the regulative authority in principles rather than the specifics of Scripture with a broader sense of expediency, but the stricter version locates the regulative principle in the explicit or necessarily implied specifics of the text. Both, however, believe that worship is limited by what Scripture teaches—whether in principle or specifically. The debate between the two versions continues in contemporary conservative Presbyterianism.

This difference emerged in the Stone-Campbell Movement on the questions of instrumental music (which also divided Presbyterians) and missionary societies. I will focus on instrumental music–not because it was the issue but because it illustrates the regulative principle so nicely. Remember, however, that the regulative principle is not the only reason some worship a cappella.  The Eastern Orthodox community has always worshipped without instrumental accompaniment and that tradition certainly has no love for a Reformed sola Scriptura regulative principle!

It is in the context of rising questions about instrumental music that Moses Lard penned a significant article entitled “Instrumental Music and Dancing” (Lard’s Quarterly 1 [March 1864], 330-336). He clearly articulates not only the regulative principle but also a Reformed method of seeking authorization from the text (emphasis mine).

We have solemnly covenanted that whatever cannot be clearly shown to have the sanction of this standard shall be held as not doctrine, and shall not be practiced. We say shown to have the sanction; for it is not enough to warrant a practice that this standard does not sanction it….To warrant the holding of a doctrine or practice it must be shown that it has the affirmative or positive sanction of this standard, and not merely that it is not condemned by it. Either it must be actually asserted or necessarily implied or it must be positively backed by some divinely approved precedent, otherwise it is not even an item in Christianity, and is therefore, when it is attempted to be made a part of it, criminal and wrong.

In effect, the Stone-Campbell Movement will not practice or teach anything that is not explicitly taught, positively approved by example, or necessarily implied. This involves a commitment to the prohibitive silence of Scripture since anything that does not find “positive sanction” is excluded from faith and practice. This became the mantra of Churches of Christ throughout the 20th century. Lard’s article is not the first articulation of this vision but it is one of the first rigorous applications of the hermeneutic in terms of identity and fellowship. (Tolbert Fanning of Nashville may have been the first, but that is another story for another day.) Lard had earlier laid out this premise in his programmatic essay “The Reformation for Which We are Pleading–What Is It?” (Lard’s Quarterly 1 [September 1863] 5-22; emphasis mine).

…the reformation demanded must take its rise in the expressed will of Christ. This will is now the supreme law of both doctrine and practice; and all reformations have reference to one or the other, or both, of these. Hence in this will must the present reformation have its rise. It must accept this as its supreme regulating principle….the reformation consists in an effort to induce all the truly pious in Christ to become perfectly joined together in the same mind, and in the same judgment, by accepting as doctrine, precisely and only what is either actually asserted or necessarily implied in the Bible; to speak the same things by speaking what the Bible speaks, and to speak them in the language of the Bible; and to practice the same things by doing simply the will of Christ.”

The above statement arises out of the worldview of Reformed theology and the Westminster Confession of Faith. The language is not the language of Scripture itself (which is ironic given the insistence to call Bible things by Bible names)–where does the Bible speak of “supreme regulating principle” or lay down the rule that “only what is either actually asserted or necessarily implied” is authoritative–but it is actually the language of the Reformed tradition. It is fundamentally legal language. And it became “our” language.

The Lard’s Quarterly (1863-1868), the The Apostolic Times (1869-1885) and the American Christian Review under Benjamin Franklin (editor from 1858-1878 ) led the fight against instrumental music and developed the arguments–which were essentially the arguments Reformed theologians used–that would shape Churches of Christ for the next 100 years.

J. W. McGarvey (1829-1911) was a key player in the early and ongoing discussions. His emphasis on the “silence of Scriptures” was critical to defending the ground against instrumental music (“Instrumental Music,” Millennial Harbinger 36 [1865], 88-89):

Is not the silence of the Scriptures the limit which God himself has assigned to the expression of his will?….There are other things which cannot be shown to be right, except by an expression of the will of God. To this class belong all acts of worship, and all religious ordinances. No man can know that prayer, or singing, or immersion, or the Lord’s Supper, or preaching, is acceptable to God, were it not for precepts and examples in the word of God. Where, therefore, anything belonging to this class of subjects, is introduced by men, the silence of the Scriptures in reference to it, is a sufficient ground for its condemnation.

McGarvey’s characterization of Scripture as the “limit” of God’s authorization is common Reformed terminology. Though in this piece McGarvey only mentions “precepts and examples,” in a subsequent article he embraces heaven’s “loudest call…for warfare, stern, relentless, merciless, extermination, against everything not expressly or by necessary implication authorized in the New Testament” (“Bro. Hayden on Expediency and Progress,” Millennial Harbinger 39 [1868], 219).

James A. Harding (1848-1922), who lived within a hundred miles of the offices of the three periodicals mentioned above and read them faithfully as well as the Gospel Advocate (begun again in 1866), reminded his readers in The Way(“Laying on of Hands–The Grounds for Unity,” 3.26 [September 26, 1901], 203) that “I have been taught all my life that the Scriptures teach ‘by precept, by approved apostolic example and by necessary inference,’ and it is certain that this is correct….I am sure it is safe to do as they did; I am not certain it is safe to do any other way.” As the example of Harding illustrates (and notice he puts the formula in quotation marks as if it were a common one), the command, example, and inference (CEI) hermeneutic was already deeply ingrained by the beginning of the 20th century among leaders of Churches of Christ.

By the way, Harding was extremely disappointed that McGarvey was not as consistent with the regulative principle as he thought he should be. McGarvey, along with the other editors of the Apostolic Times, was one of the few who accepted the expediency of the missionary society because it was concerned with method but also regarded the organ as a violation of the regulative principle because it was an innovation in the public worship of the church. Harding was quite vocal in his opposition to McGarvey even at the time of his death (see “J. W. McGarvey and a Very Dark Spot“).

Controversies Related to the Regulative Principle

1. The first controversy was the opposition to the strict construction of the principle. Essentially, the Stone-Campbell Movement divided over the regulative principle in the late 19th century in the same way that the conservative Presbyterians divided in the same century. Neither rejected the idea that ecclesial faith and practice should be regulated by Scripture, but where they disagreed is how Scripture regulates.  The “progressives” used the principles of Scripture to regulate their practice while the “conservatives” followed the specifics of the Scripture as their regulatory authority. This difference regarding the regulative principle goes back to Geneva (Calvin) vs. Zurich (Zwingli). (See the resources at the end of the post to follow this debate in contemporary conservative Presbyterianism.) The Christian Standardtook the progressive (broader) view which emphasized principles and expediency while the Gospel Advocate took the conservative (stricter) view which emphasized specified authority and prohibitive silence. The former saw instrumental music as an expediency (in both the Stone-Campbell and Presbyterian traditions) and the latter saw instrumental music as an apostate innovation that corrupted the worship of God (in both the Stone-Campbell and Presbyterian traditions).

2. The second controversy (really a series of controversies) concerned the application of the regulative principle within Churches of Christ. Many debates have raged within Churches of Christ about the application of this principle by CEI. They range from how many cups to use in the Lord’s Supper to rhythmic handclapping in the worship assembly. The most significant, in terms of sheer numbers, has been the institutional controversy (approximately 10% of the congregations formed the noninstitutional wing of Churches of Christ). The specific hermeneutical question may be focused in this way: may churches use the money they have collected as part of the assembly of the saints as an act of worship for the support of human institutions (e.g., colleges, children’s homes, etc.)? I am not interested in discussing the issues related to this controversy because it is not just about hermeneutics. It is also about institutional power and denominational machinery, about separation from the institutional powers of culture. But I raise it because it was in the midst of discussing this question that several of the most thorough discussions of CEI occurred.

On the side of those who would answer “yes” to the above question (the institutionalists) is J. D. Thomas with is landmark book We Be Brethren (1958). On the other side is Roy Cogdill with his significant brief but important Walking by Faith (Lufkin, TX: Gospel Guardian, 1957). The two men discussed the hermeneutic, along with many others, in 1968 at Arlington, Texas as both sides sought mutual understanding and potential agreement (cf. Cecil Willis, ed., The Arlington Meeting (Marion, IN: Cogdill Foundation Publications, 1976). I will concentrate on Thomas since he has been the most influential hermeneut among institutional Churches of Christ.

Thomas’ formulation of the regulative principle as a hermeneutic is basically this: whenever a command is specified, it includes everything that is generic to that command (unless specifically excluded elsewhere) and excludes everything that is coordinate (belonging to the same generic) with that specific (unless specifically included elsewhere). The regulative principle includes what is authorized (by command, example and inference) and excludes what is unauthorized (that is, the silence of Scripture). It is not simply that the authorization excludes what contradicts it, but that it excludes everything that is not logically or generically included within that authorization. The definitions of generic, specific, coordinate (for example, are instrumental and vocal music really coordinates? is handclapping a coordinate of playing the instrument?), etc. are rather complicated. The room for disagreement on these points is illustrated by the institutional controversy itself and myriad of divisions within Churches of Christ.

Authorization includes examples and inferences as well as commands. On this there has been no controversy among Churches of Christ in the previous decades, according to Thomas (We Be Brethren, 6):

In the past we have all agreed that the Bible teaches us authoritatively, and outlines actions REQUIRED of us by: (1) direct command, (2) necessary inference, and (3) by approved apostolic examples. These basic methods have in general been accepted by all of us since the beginning of the Restoration period of church history. There has previously been no serious need to challenge any one of them.

But how do examples and inferences obtain authority status? Examples and inferences are themselves implicit commands which give them legal authority. “Stated simply,” Thomas writes in Harmonizing Hermeneutics (49), “if the early Christians understood that they were required to do something, their example indicates that we have to do it.”  Examples are binding when it is clear that there is a command that drives the example; they are only binding if the actors in the biblical story believed it was binding upon them. “In other words,” Thomas assures us, “no example is binding upon Christians today unless it was binding upon the exemplary New Testament characters involved in it” (We Be Brethren, 53). Furthermore, this connection must be “clear, conclusive and without question” in order for it to be binding (We Be Brethren, 70). 

But how will we know they were binding upon the New Testament exemplars? “Binding examples,” he writes, “have a clearly implied and understood command lying behind them, and thus they have the same authority as the command that is implied.” When we understand that point, then, “in effect, they are commands” (51). In other words, before an example can be understood as binding, we must infer that there is a command lying behind the example. Examples are binding, then, based on an inference! Examples are reduced to inferences and then exalted to commands!

Alan Highers makes this clear at the Arlington Meeting in 1968.  He said (Arlington Meeting, 99):

How do we determine when an example is merely permissive and when it is exclusive? I believe the principle set out by brother Thomas last night is true, that when there is an exclusive example, when there is a binding example, there is some indication of that by background information that suggests, perhaps by a necessary inference that we draw, that there is a command involved…[quoting James Cope] ‘We also learn Christ’s will by reading or hearing read certain accounts of local church activity in connection with some commands of Christ, and, from this, draw certain necessary conclusions that other commands, not specifically mentioned, necessarily were given by Christ.’

He says we may draw the necessary inference from certain surrounding things that there commands given by the Lord, even though those commands are not specifically mentioned.

I surmise that the controversies surrounding the regulative principle and the application of CEI forced us to think more carefully about examples. It was no longer sufficient to say something like “we will do what the New Testament church did” because we recognize that we don’t do everything like the New Testament church did (foot washing, holy kisses, head-coverings, eating the Supper in an upper room, eating the Supper at night, etc.) and we do something the New Testament church did not do (hymnbooks, kitchens in our buildings, etc.). Campbell recognized this and attempted to deal with it (see his exchange with the German Baptist in his “Restoration of the Ancient Order” series).  But the controversies became minute, precise and burdensome. We needed to have some way of distinguishing binding and non-binding examples. Consequently, we spawned a whole series of articles and books about the topic–for example, Thomas B. Warren, When is an “Example” Binding? (Jonesboro, AK: National Christian Press, 1975) and Roy Deaver, Ascertaining Biblical Authority (Pensacola: Firm Foundation Publishing House, 1987) among many.

Thomas’ book is one of the classics. And his answer was that an example is binding when there is an implied command. A binding example is actually an inference!

Further, when push-came-to-shove Thomas ultimately depended on “common sense.” For example, recognizing that “not every commandis binding upon us today,” the distinction between what is local/temporary and what is universal/permanent is “obvious” because we discern that “by common sense” (We Be Brethren, 58). Moreover, the way we distinguish between essential elements from incidentals in the text (e.g., eating the Supper in an upper room at night which are the only examples we have in the New Testament) is by “common sense” (We Be Brethren, 43). Thomas is not unique in this but he is a clear example. Indeed, “common sense” has perhaps saved us from our own hermeneutic, but the appeal to “common sense” is about as subjective a criterion as one can implement. Whose common sense? Which common sense?

It is no wonder that with such principles–implied commands bind examples and “common sense” adjudicating between incidentals and essentials as well as permanent and temporary–Churches of Christ ended up in a hermeneutical nightmare of their own creation. It is little wonder they ended up divided and fussing with each other over the smallest details, especially when the Baconian method and the regulative principle placed a high premium on “precise order” and exact compliance with the pattern. We all wanted to get it “right” because our fellowship and salvation depended upon it. We had turned the Baconian method into a means of determining who’s in and who’s out, who’s faithful and who is not–which is not how either Campbell or Lamar envisioned the method.

3. The third controversy questioned the regulative principle itself or at least the use of examples and inferences in discerning biblical authorization. The 1970s saw some dramatic shifts. Reuel Lemmons, the editor of the Firm  Foundation, took the position in 1974-1975 that no examples were binding and that no inference could be a test of fellowship (see his “Examples and Inferences Again,” Firm Foundation92 [1975] 114). Lemmons was influenced by Milo Hadwin’s The Role of New Testament Examples as Related to Biblical Authority (Austin, TX: Firm Foundation Publishing Co, 1974). Earlier discussions, of course, took place in the 1960s through the Restoration Quarterly and Mission, but Lemmon’s change of views was empowering for many young ministers.

This laid the groundwork for the discussion of the so-called “new hermeneutic” in the 1980s and 1990s. Fundamentally, the “new hermeneutic” was a rejection of both CEI and the regulative principle as articulated by Churches of Christ in the 20th century. Those who objected to the “new hermeneutic” complained that no alternative had been offered in the place of the old. This divide still remains and is perhaps at the root of much agitation in the body of Christ. 

Many have rejected the “old hermeneutic” (Baconian-Reformed CEI), but the question remains as to what would (or did) replace it.  That is a discussion for another series…which I will begin when I conclude this one.

Resources

Olbricht, Thomas H. “Hermeneutics in the Churches of Christ.” Restoration Quarterly 37.1 (1995), 1-24.

Woodrow, Woody. “The Silence of Scripture and the Restoration Movement.” Restoration Quarterly 28.1 (1985/86): 27-39

Wolfgang, Stephen, “Speech Delivered at the Nashville Meeting: History and Background of the Institutional Controversy,” Truth Magazine 33 (1989)–four articles available online.

Reformed Regulative Principle:  The broader view is defended by John Frame, Worship in Spirit and Truth: A Refreshing Study of the Principles and Practice of Biblical Worship(Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1996); Ralph J. Gore, Covenantal Worship: Reconsidering the Puritan Regulative Principle (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2002) and Timothy J. Keller, “Reformed Worship in the Global City,” Worship By the Book, ed. D. A. Carson (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002) 193-249. The stricter view is defended by David Lachmannand Frank J. Smith, eds., Worship in the Presence of God(Greenville, SC: Greenville Seminary Press, 1992); Derek W. H. Thomas, “The Regulative Principle: Responding to Recent Criticism,” in Give Praise to God: A Vission for Reforming Worship, ed. Philip Graham Ryken, Derek W. H. Thomas and J. Ligon Ducan III (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 2003), 74-93; and D. G. Hart, “It May Be Refreshing,” Calvin Theological Journal (32 (1997), 407-23.

5 Comments | Hermeneutics, Stone-Campbell | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by John Mark Hicks

Stone-Campbell Hermeneutics III – Baconian Hermeneutics and Churches of Christ

May 29, 2008

Warning:  this is another “brief” post of over 3000 words.  :-)

In the previous two posts I concentrated on Alexander Campbell–his modern Baconianism as his philosophical-methodological base and his embrace of the Reformed approach to theological hermeneutics. In this piece I want to think more specifically about how Baconianism shaped how Scripture was used in Churches of Christ.  In my next piece I will address how the Reformed hermeneutic has played out among Churches of Christ.

Lamar’s Baconian Method

J. S. Lamar (1829-1908 ) wrote the definitive hermeneutical textbook for the 19th century Stone-Campbell Movement–The Organon of Scripture (1859). D. R. Dugan also wrote a signifcant hermeneutics text entitled Hermeneutics: A Text-Book (2nd ed., 1888 ) which was still used as a hermeneutics textbook by some when I attended Freed-Hardeman University from 1974-1977.

They are bothcut from the same cloth. Both acknowledge their debt to Baconian inductivism and both specifically chose it over other potential methods. It was, in effect, the new hermeneutic of the 19th century as applied to the Biblical text. Dungan is a much more practical text (and thus endured in the schools) but Lamar lays the theoretical and methodological foundations. In Lamar we see what Dungan assumes. Consequently, Lamar is the focus of this post. Though many do not recognize Lamar today (while they may recognize Dungan), Lamar’s inductivism is what Churches of Christ imbibed by reading Dungan. They may not know Lamar, but they know his method and have rigorously practiced it.

The most helpful and simplest way to understand his method is to examine Lamar’s “temple analogy.” He imagines a field where the blocks for building the temple are strewn out on the ground just like facts are strewn throughout the Bible. It is the builder’s task to erect the temple just as it is the interpreter’s task to erect a system of doctrine.  Here is Lamar’s description (pp. 40-42):

If now, while those stones or blocks were all spread out upon the ground, before the building was commenced, as, for the sake of the illustration we may suppose them to have been, a skillful architect had gone with rule in hand, and carefully measured and compacted every several piece, he could have determined with accuracy the place of every stone in the future building. And if he had been employed to superintend its erection, he could have had the work carried on according to the method or plan which was indicated by the stones themselves. Every piece had an appropriate place, and the marks upon it showed what was that place; and when they were all arranged agreeably to those indications, the structure was Solomon’s Temple.

It is thus in the Scriptures. The materials of the Temple of Truth are accurately fitted, marked, and numbered, and spread out before the reader, it may be in some confusion, enough to arouse him from indifference to careful examination; and now if he will earnestly consider and carefully compare these materials, it is next to impossible for him to mistake their method, or to fail to arrange them in the precise order designed by their Author and Giver. And simple as it may seem, this just and natural arrangement of the facts or materials of the New Testament, without adding to or subtracting from their number–assigning to every fact, precept, promise, doctrine, blessing, and privilege its own exact place in the collection of the whole–will conduct us in the most direct manner to the clear, full, and correct understanding of Christianity. For the entire business of interpretation consists properly in the careful observation and comparison of the phenomena of revelation, preparatory to the determination of their respective places and relative bearings in the grand synthesis of the whole. The rules, therefore, by which we come to a just understanding of individual facts, and the method which controls the operation of those rules, and arranges those facts into the true Christian system, must be drawn from the nature of the subject as presented in the Bible itself.

This method amounts to the legitimization of proof-texting. It reduces the narrative of Scripture to a field of marked stones or facts. These are then treated as isolated (atomistic) facts that now must be correlated and synthesized. The facts must be arranged into the “true Christian system.” In other words, the present order of Scripture–in its narrative flow–is not sufficient. The data must be rearranged and put into it’s, as the Baconian Presbyterian theologian Charles Hodge put it, “proper order.” It is interesting, is it not, that the Bible is not sufficient as is. Rather, humans must fit it together in “precise order” to discern the “true Christian system”?

Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology  (1872-1873) is an example of Baconian inductivism by a Reformed theologian. In his introduction, his headings include:  “Inductive Method as Applied to Theology,” “Facts to be Collected,” “The Theologian to be Guided by the Same Rules as the Man of Science,” “Necessity of Complete Induction,” “Principles to be Deduced from Facts,” and “Scriptures Contain all the Facts of Theology.”  Sounds like Lamar, huh? Or, is it Lamar and Hodge both sound like Bacon?

I also find it fascinating that what is supposed to be so clear and plain to everyone who follows the rules of interpretation (as Campbell thought) actually involves earnest consideration and careful comparison because the stones (facts) of the Temple of Truth have been left on the field (Scripture) in some purposeful “confusion”! The method, then, becomes the savior. Without the method, we would know not how to erect the Temple of Truth. But it is a method dependent upon human wisdom though many have thought it was a divinely-given and intended method. [Bobby, does not F. LaGard Smith say something like this in his Cultural Church?]

The Temple analogy represents the Baconian method itself which Lamar summarizes in this way (pp. 180-81).

The induction which [Bacon] advocated required the collection of numerous facts or particulars; that they should be carefully weighed and compared; that whatever was special and exceptional, should be excluded or rejected; and that contrary or negative instances should be duly weighed; and that there should be no ascent to the general conclusion, until after all this care, diligence, and circumspection…. That included, besides this careful induction, which was exactly the reverse of it, namely, deduction; which descends from the general to the particular; from the whole to the parts included in it; which affirms that if a given general proposition be true, it follows of necessity that some other one embraced in it must also be true…[Though not developed by Bacon, deduction] is, nevertheless, an essential part of the magnificent scheme he projected….If asked to specify the precise province of deduction in this method, we reply that it is twofold: first, to verify the conclusions or generalizations of induction; and secondly, to conduct to new truth embraced in those conclusions.

The Baconianmethod includes both induction (gathering the explicit facts) and deduction (implications and inferences). Both are necessary in order to discern “new truth.” Induction alone is insufficient. To see the full system–to erect the whole Temple–we must fill in the blanks with the “new truth” that deduction obtains. Thus, ultimately we can build a system where missing blocks (where there is nothing explicit) are created by deduction (inference). Further, what is deduced becomes a lens by which to read other texts in Scripture with the result that the “plain” meaning of a text is recontextualized by a deduced truth.  In other words, the text cannot mean what it appears to say because it would contradict one of the truths we have deduced. It must, therefore, mean something else.  Anyone heard that before?

Campbell certainly used deduction (inference) and he believed truthcould be discern through inference.  However, the problem with this fuller explanation of the Baconian method is that now the “true Christians system” is not possible without deduction. What happened in the history of Churches of Christ is that the “true Christian system” became equivalent with the “ancient order” (marks of the church) and “sound doctrine” such that without a full knowledge and practice of that system the individual or church was apostate. In other words, inference once again, as it had in the Westminster Confesson of Faith, became a term of communion–something which the Campbells intended to avoid like the plague.

The following is my schematic summary of Lamar’s Baconian method:

1. Induction

Collect the facts.
Carefully study and compare the facts.
Whatever is exceptional is excluded.
Contrary instances weighed.
Draw a general truth from the specific facts.

2. Deduction

Draw a specific truthfrom a general truth.
Deduction verifies the induction.
Deduction yields new truth implied by general truth and combinations of previous deduced and explicit truths.

3. Erect the System (Temple of Truth).

Quarry out the facts and new (deduced) truths.
Systematize them and fit them together.

4. Result:  The Truth, the Whole Truth andNothing but the Truth.

The irony, of course, is that the Bible as a narrative of redemption is no longer the ultimate truth here.  Rather, it is the systematic conclusions of an inductive-deductive method that finally gets us to the truth–it collects the scattered truths (facts) of the Bible, unearths what the Bible only implies, assembles together, collates them, orders them and produces a system (“sound doctrine”). The truth as given to us in the form in which Scripture offers it is thereby insufficient. We need to induct the facts, deduce the new truths, arrange them, systematize and order them into a presentation of the Truth.

Is it any wonder, then, that though Scripture never offers us the “five steps of salvation” or “five acts of worship” members of Churches of Christ in the mid-20th century were as certain about these as they were that Jesus died for their sins.  Their certainty was derived from their confidence in the method–generated by the Enlightenment, popularized by natural science and applied by human wisdom. And, at the same time, they thought their method was “common sense” or even the Biblical method itself.

Churches of Christ and the Baconian Method

As Churches of Christ ended the 1950s they were involved a acrimonious debate over institutionalism. This was not simply a hermeneutical discussion but it became the focal point. I will write more about this in another post.  But I mention it here because perhaps the most significant book of that era among the institutionalists (the “liberals”) in the discussion was J. D. Thomas’ ‘We Be Brethren’: A Study in Biblical Interpretation (Abilene: Biblical Research Press, 1958). His subsequent books extended his discussion in defense of his method–Heaven’s Window: A Sequel to We Be Brethren (Abilene: Abilene Christian University Press, 1975) and Harmonizing Hermeneutics: Appplying the Bible to Contemporary Life (Nashville: Gospel Advocate, 1991). It represents a thirty-three year continuous defense of Baconianism.

Thomas is quite explicit that he is indebted to the Baconian method (p. 12) and notes that Churches of Christ are in general agreement about its legitimacy.  He writes (We Be Brethren, 16-17): “In general our brethren have used the Inductive-Deductive Method of reasoning in a practical way in the past and their conclusions have been quite satisfactory for the most part.” His phrase “for the most part” leaves considerable room for doubt in a method which is supposed to produce and verify the “Temple of Truth.”

I think I can best make my point about the influence of Baconian methodology by illustrating it.  Schematically, the method looks like this:  isolated text + isolated text = deduced truth.  The deduced truth+ isolated text = another deduced truth.  Deduced truth+ another deduced truth= another deduced truth.  The deductions (inferences) become as true as andas significant as the explicit statements of the text itself. In fact, the deductions often become the cement as well as a critical blocks in the “Temple of Truth.”

2 John 9 has been particularly abused by this method.  The “doctrine of Christ” is taken to mean “anything Christ teaches” or, more specifically, “anything the New Testament teaches post-Pentecost.” This is a fairly wide circle and everything the New Testament teaches is thrown into it, including deduced (inferred) truths.  As a result we get syllogisms like this (and I have heard one’s like this on many occasions–and the minor premise can be a whole list of the “marks of the church” as well as other “doctrines”).

Major Premise:  No one who goes beyond what the New Testament teaches post-Pentecost is in fellowship with God.

Minor Premise:  The New Testament teaches post-Pentecost that communion is every Sunday and only on Sunday.

Conclusion:  Anyone who practices communion on any other daty than Sunday andless than weekly is not in fellowship with God.

The major premise is a highly inferential way of reading 2 John 9. First, it takes as certain that the “doctrine of Christ” in the text is what Christ teaches rather than what one teaches about Christ.  Second, it sneaks in a dispensational distinction–and one that is necessary for the conclusion because Jesus himself ate his own Supper on a Thursday evening (but we’re not permitted to do what Jesus did; did I just say that?). Third, it sneaks in the notion of “New Testament” as a written document when there was no written testament at the time of Pentecost itself.  Fourth, “doctrine of Christ” is lifted from the historical context of the text and set in a new context.  In its new context–as a premise in a syllogism–it now can mean just about whatever we want it to mean.  Extracting it from its original context, we give it  a new context. And the new context is the intramural debates within Churches of Christ or the polemics against denominationalism, etc. So, the major premise is itself a inductive-deductive conclusion based upon Baconian reasoning. It is part of the matrix of temple-building.

The minor premise is an inference from a combination of isolated texts including 1 Corinthians 11:17ff; 16:1-2; Hebrews 10:25 and Acts 20:7. We Be Brethren uses this argument as a piece of common ground among all participants in the debates of the 1950s. They all agreed that this Baconian induction-deduction was certain.  But it removes each of these text from their original contexts, isolates them and combines them with other texts that have little, if anything, to do with each other. The result is we draw a conclusion (an inference) from this combination of texts which is not explicit in the text itself. We have concluded that Sunday and only Sunday is the day of communion and this is an inference.  The text nowhere states this but it is the inductive-deductive conclusion of Baconian methodology. [By the way, other Baconians in the 19th century did not think the conclusion followed; at the very least it is dubitable.]

The conclusion of the syllogism, therefore, is certain by the rigor of Baconian logic and methodology, but it is dubious in the extreme because it is fundamentally unfaithful to the historical nature of the biblical text itself. It does not read the text as it was written but reads the texts as pieces of data to be discerned, extracted, collated, arranged and fitted into a system.  And it is not surprising that the system actually comes first most of the time and we read the texts in a particular way iin order to support what we already believe.

An example of how a deduced truth is used to reinterpret another text is Acts 2:46.  While it might  appear prima facie that “breaking bread” in Acts 2:42 andActs 2:46 refer to the same practice given it is the same context, one of the cherished truths of deduction within Churches of Christ is that the Lord’s Supper can only be observed on the first day of the week. This deduced truth is regarded as certain.  Consequently, the daily breaking of bread in Acts 2:46 cannot possibly refer to the Lord’s Supper though the language of “breaking bread” in Acts 2:42 is usually thought to refer to the Lord’s Supper. A deduction drawn from isolated data is thereby used to color the reading of a text. The method, in this case, violates the context of Luke’s own narrative. The Baconian deduction undermines the historical and narratival reading of the text.

Further, this deduction is then used as a test of fellowship andas a mark of the true church.  The above syllogism is an example of this. An inference, then, becomes a line of communion. One does not have to look far within recent literature to actually find such use of inferences defended. See, for example, Jimmy Jividen, “Case Study in Breaking Fellowship Over Inference,” Gospel Advocate 132 (October 1990), 42 and “Should Fellowship be Broken Over Inference,” Gospel Advocate132 (June 1990), 21. Thomas and Alexander Campbell are turning over in their graves! They did not use Baconian inferences for that purpose. They used them to discern truth but they did not use them to draw lines of fellowship.

Conclusion

While the Stone-Campbell Movement began with a strong sense of the grammatical-historical method–embracing a new literary method of reading the Bible, this was done with the presupposition sof Baconianism. Baconianism soon overshadowed the grammatical-historical (contextual) reading of the text by forcing implied conclusions from the facts as part of a grand system of doctrine and practice to which everyone must submit as a test of communion. In this way the “ancient order of things” (not only the explicit but the impled) became “marks of the true church.” (Anyone remember those sermons which identify the true church by its marks–membership, worship, government, etc.?)

The combination of an inductive-deductive Baconianism, a Reformed hermeneutic (discussed in a coming post) and a primitivist (restorationist) vision shaped the Churches of Christ. This combination meant that we practiced a Baconianism on steroids because our every deduction became, in effect, a command and every command became a line in the sand.

Oh, by the way, Lamar ultimately rejected his own method by the end of the 19th century.  But Churches of Christ continued to apply it throughout the 20th century.

Resources

Broyles, Stephen E. “James Sanford Lamar and the Substructure of Biblical Interpretation in the Restoration Movement.” Restoration Quarterly 29.3 (1987), 143-151.

Lamar, J. S., The Organon of Scripture: Or, The Inductive Method of Biblical Interpretation (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippicott & Co., 1860).

Olbricht, Thomas H. “Hermeneutics in the Churches of Christ.” Restoration Quarterly 37.1 (1995), 1-24.

Allen, C. Leonard, “Baconianism and the Bible in the Disciples of Christ: J. S. Lamar and The Organon of Scripture,” Church History 55 (March 1986), 65-80.

D. R. Dungan, Hermeneutics: A Text-Book, 2nd ed (Cincinnati: Standard Publishing Co, 1888).

20 Comments | Hermeneutics, Stone-Campbell | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by John Mark Hicks

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 965 other followers

%d bloggers like this: