[Note: This is one post in a series on David Gushee’s book After Evangelicalism: The Path to a New Christianity. The aim of these posts is to help you start conversations with people in your community. Invite someone to read this book with you and discuss it together. You don’t need to agree with each other or the author to benefit from doing this type of activity.]
Chapter 3: Resources: Hearing God’s Voice Beyond Scripture
In the previous chapter, Gushee challenged the stereotypical evangelical understanding of Scripture. He follows that conversation by suggesting Christians tap into other God-given resources for living as a Christian in the world. He identifies three categories of sources.
Church Tradition: Gushee suggests that Christians take the first 7 centuries of Christian history very seriously because it is shared by all the major versions of Christianity (Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant denominations). However, Gushee thinks our engagement with Tradition should be done in a critical manner. We may honor them while acknowledging places they got it wrong (i.e. rampant anti-Semitism).
Human Capacities: Gushee pushes back against the notion that Scripture can provide us all the answers we need. He points out that we routinely rely on external sources of knowledge. Thus, he suggests that we be honest about this and we intentionally tap into human capacities for rationality, experience, community, and etc.
The Arts and Sciences: Not only should we utilize our God-given capacities, Gushee suggests we should also tap into the arts and sciences. He argues that these are avenues for knowledge that do not need to be in competition with the Christian life. They are methods by which we can pursue truth and since all truth is God’s truth, they are methods by which we can pursue God’s truth.
Intriguing Quote(s)
“Post-evangelical Christians should allow explicit engagement with these internal conversation partners to inform our reading of the Bible and our efforts to follow Jesus faithfully, rather than pretending that tradition and church leadership are not mediating biblical interpretation” (47).
“We can pay due homage to the Tradition of Christianity. But we will not ask it to absolve us of the necessity to think for ourselves and to take responsibility for what we decide” (51).
Conversation Starters
What have you been taught about the Bible? (i.e. it has all the answers, it’s infallible, etc.) Have you ever thought about or struggled with the way the Bible has been explained to you?
How does your church/community relate the Bible and science to one another?
How do you search for truth? What sources do you look to for answers or guidance?