Is community hermeneutics still possible?

One of the early challenges of the Protestant Reformation came about after the Bible was translated into the common language. Luther believed that interpreting Scripture would be straightforward for readers. This was soon proven wrong, and both Lutherans and Calvinists quickly returned to more formal systems and restricted biblical interpretation to men who’d been theologically educated and approved (Beliefs: Mennonite Faith and Practice, John D. Roth, pp. 40–42).

Anabaptists had their challenges with peculiar and dangerous interpretations too, but they agreed that all believers had the privilege of reading Scripture, and the safeguard against heresy (and silliness) would be the believing community who discussed and interpreted the Bible together (Beliefs, p. 50). But that’s history.

It’s almost inevitable that our move to paid pastors and theological education would change that. We still nod to community by asking congregations to weigh in on some financial decisions, church vision and how our congregation gets involved in our neighbourhoods, but we rarely ask congregations to wrestle together about theology or how Scripture informs the moral and ethical questions of our age. We may discuss in small groups, but in general, those big questions are handled by trained leaders among themselves, and then the position they take is passed on to congregations. This is not haphazard. EMC leaders take great care in this process, expecting the Holy Spirit to be in their midst.

We may discuss in small groups, but in general, big questions are handled by trained leaders among themselves.

But we’ve lost at least two things when discussions are held without congregational involvement.

First, we lose the wisdom of people working on the ground. What the Bible says must be understood and applied in context. Doing that effectively requires the conversation to include educated theologians and biblical scholars of course, but also the people who live and work where that moral or ethical issue is lived out. Studying Scripture together, with the whole group being led by the Holy Spirit, should result in a truly God-honouring response: nuanced, applicable, and appropriate to the situation. It’s possible too that, though slower at the front end, it would be less prone to the decades-long modification process we’re accustomed to. Just one example of this is how we’ve responded to divorce and remarriage. The more we experienced divorce close hand, the less obvious the clean-cut answers seemed to be. We never became dismissive of divorce, but we recognized it was complicated.

The second thing we lose is the engagement of the congregation. We’re practical people for the most part, and few of us have the motivation to spend time studying something if the answer will be decided elsewhere and handed to us. And without investing some effort we don’t always own the outcome. Worse than that, for some people, the answers do not address the questions they are asking, and they are left to process those alone or away from the church.

Is it possible to change and practice true community hermeneutics? Yes, if we are willing to do the work of studying deeply and prayerfully and can be patient with a slower process. And if we are all able to share freely the knowledge we have, without fear or conceit.

And if, regardless of the topic of the day, we remain focused on Jesus and trust the Bible as our source of truth we might even remain unified as we talk. It is this gospel unity we focus on in this issue of The Messenger.