Luther, Barth, and Mathison: Good? Driscoll, Piper, and Covenant Seminary: Bad?

Don’t get me wrong, Christian Smith’s new book against biblicism, The Bible Made Impossible, is very good. It’s just a bit confusing at times.

As I noted in my last post, Smith defines “biblicism” quite broadly (a bit too broadly for my taste), and then seeks to demonstrate how it cannot work as a system, but collapses under its own weight. When you get to the second part of the book, Smith moves from diagnosis to prescription, and this is where things get interesting and strange.

Smith argues that there is a central message to all of Scripture, but that message is Jesus Christ. Now although few would argue with a statement like that, Smith insists that this Christocentric hermeneutical principle runs directly contrary to biblicist systems that attempt to extrapolate from the Bible a so-called “Christian worldview” that touched upon “all aspects of life. He writes:

“Unfortunately for some evangelical authors and publishers, once this Christocentric hermeneutic is grasped and embraced, more than a few of the popular books they write and publish will become sadly inappropriate and embarrassingly misguided. The Bible is not about offering things like a biblical view of dating—but rather about how God the Father offered his Son, Jesus Christ, to death to redeem a rebellious world from the slavery and damnation of sin. The Bible is not about conveying divine principles for starting and managing a Christian business—but is instead about Christ in the cross triumphing over all principalities and powers and so radically transforming everything we consider to be our business. Scripture, this view helps us to see, is not about guiding Christian emotions management and conquering our anger problems—but is rather about Jesus Christ being guided by his unity with the Father to absorb the wrath of God against sin in his death and conquering the power of sin in his resurrection. Scripture then ceases to be about teaching about biblical manhood and womanhood or biblical motherhood and fatherhood—and becomes instead the story of how a covenant-making and promise-keeping God took on full human personhood in Jesus Christ in order to reconcile this alienated and wrecked world to the eternally gracious Father.”

I was told there’d be no math, but by my count Smith’s sights are set on no less than five sacred cows of American evangelicalism (Psst! Driscoll? Piper? He’s talking to you!)

I guess what I find strange is that Smith, who admits in the interest of full disclosure in his Introduction that he became a Catholic after finishing the book, seems to offer solutions to biblicism that don’t fully seem to escape its clutches. His statements about the Christocentric rule of faith sound similar to the arguments of Keith Mathison, who argues almost exactly the same thing in his defense of Sola Scriptura. Smith’s emphasis on Christ being the focal point of all revelation sounds at the same time Barthian and Lutheran (the latter insisting that only that which preaches Christ is to be considered true Scripture).

And further, I would be curious to hear what a representative from Covenant Theological Seminary thinks of Smith’s position (since CTS falls precariously in the middle of—and thus falls prey to—Smith’s critique, affirming a Christocentric reading of Scripture while stubbornly insisting that the Bible applies to all of life.

Some questions:

- Does reading the Bible Christocentrically avoid biblicism as Smith defines it?

- Is a Christocentric hermeneutic necessarily antithetical to the idea the Bible is applicable to all of life?

- Is there anything that a confessionally Reformed person would find objectionable in Smith’s position?