In Part 1 of my review of God’s Word in Human Words by Kenton Sparks, I set out what I saw as the central tenets of the book. We now continue with my report on a panel discussion of the book in which I participated this past fall.

PART 2: SBL Panel Discussion

On November 23, 2008, a Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) session was devoted to a discussion of Kenton Sparks’ book God’s Word in Human Words: An Evangelical Appropriation of Critical Scholarship (GWHW). The panel was made up of: Stephen Chapman (Duke Divinity School), Bill Arnold (Asbury Theological Seminary), myself, and Gary Anderson (moderator, Notre Dame).

For a discussion of an evangelical book to generate the interest that it did is telling, from my point of view. The meeting room was very large, by SBL standards, probably holding over 300 people; the crowd exceeded the seating capacity. When you understand something of the SBL world, where some sessions are attended by 10-20 people (I chaired a session like that earlier that same day), others by 50, big sessions by 100, and only the plenary sessions attended by larger numbers, one can get a sense of the general interest in this evangelical topic in a secular meeting of biblical scholars. The fact that the session was held just before the dinner hour, not a desirable timeslot, is worth noting as well.

It is gratuitous to mention that, as with any book, a careful reader of GWHW will find points of disagreement—even readers as positively disposed as I am. This came out in the session as well by way of some very observant comments by the panelists. Still, the general tenor of the panelists was strongly appreciative of Sparks’s work, even glowing at times. As Chapman put it, (and I paraphrase), this book had an “it’s about time” quality to it.

I agree with this assessment. In my view, evangelical theology has not engaged and adapted to modern biblical scholarship. To be clear, I am not saying that evangelicals must bow the knee to the latest word in the Journal of Biblical Literature. I am not saying that evangelical biblical scholars are hopelessly lost on critical matters. What I am saying, as I say on the very first page of Inspiration and Incarnation, is that the work that critical biblical scholars do, much of which is assumed implicitly or explicitly among evangelical biblical scholars, is either not taken to its theological conclusions in evangelical theology or is functionally ignored (i.e., the implications of evangelical biblical scholarship are not incorporated into how evangelicals are taught to think of Scripture).

This state of affairs causes difficulties for evangelicals who are taught to think one way about Scripture but then, either in college, seminary, graduate school, or just keeping abreast of popular culture, come to realize, sometimes fairly quickly, that the facts of the matter are typically much more complex than they were led to believe, and that the “solutions” given to the challenges raised in modern biblical scholarship often times ring very hollow indeed. This is why, in my estimation, GWHW needed to be written, more books like it need to be written, and why so many were in attendance in Boston this past November.

At the SBL session, each panelist had about 15 minutes to offer an evaluation of the book. Arnold’s comments may be found here (PDF download) and Chapman’s will follow soon. I was not working from a full manuscript, so I will outline some of my impressions below.

First, one cannot understand Sparks’s book apart from currents of thought within evangelicalism, particularly the seemingly indelible mark left upon us by the modernist/fundamentalist debates. This very palpable context is felt differently in various evangelical institutions, and I would argue that seminaries in particular seem to have more of a vested interest in some aspects of these debates. (Generally speaking, there is more of an indoctrinational dimension to seminary education than one might find at many evangelical Christian colleges.) Nevertheless, the general context of evangelicalism’s uneasy relationship with currents in modern biblical criticism is the context into which Sparks is speaking.

As the rhetoric goes, “battles have been fought,” and “blood has been shed.” Why would we want to go back and reopen old issues, conceding ground we have worked so hard for (authorship of the Pentateuch, Isaiah, Daniel; myth; historicity, etc., etc.)?

There is, in other words, a strong “social identity” issue that is at work, and a book like GWHW is perceived by some as threatening that identity. This is why I suspect, and have in fact observed, that many of the criticisms of the book speak more to sociology than theology: “This is not evangelical,” or “so and so from the past would never have said that.” These are not academic arguments but social identity arguments.

So, when Sparks says that evangelical positions have been misguided and need to be corrected, he is making far more than an academic claim to truth—he is criticizing an identity, and so reactions are (understandably) visceral. I am not suggesting that all criticism of GWHW (and I&I) are merely sociological, only that we delude ourselves if we think all this commotion is caused by differences of theological opinion.

The second general point I made at the SBL session concerned chapter 4 of GWHW, namely Spark’s assessment of traditional evangelical responses to higher criticism. This is a very important chapter in the book, and one that I suspect has done more than its share to upset some readers.

Sparks criticizes evangelical scholarship for what Mark Noll has called a posture of “critical anti-criticism,” meaning the use of higher-critical methods as deemed “proper.” A proper use is that which is deemed to support evangelical ideology, i.e., that which maintains evangelicalism’s social boundaries.

Sparks then outlines eight “strategies” evangelical scholars employ to insure a “proper” use of critical methods. The end result of these strategies is a failure not only to employ critical insights with integrity, but a failure to synthesize critical methods with evangelical theological commitments.

I found very insightful Sparks’s brief discussion of “Biblical Criticism and Christian Institutions” (Conclusion). Sparks laments the power of constituencies to control academic exploration. He reminds us of the truly sad example of Edward Carnell (1919-1967), whose academic trek from Wheaton to Westminster Theological Seminary, then doctoral work at Boston University and Harvard, then to Fuller (including a time as President), resulted in a cognitive dissonance so severe that he succumbed to a barbiturate overdose in his hotel just before a speaking engagement (which was labeled by the authorities as “either accidental or suicidal”).

Relaying this story is not manipulative on Sparks’s (or my) part. To be sure, emotional issues are complex, and Sparks is not suggesting a simplistic cause and effect. He is saying, however, that the combination of “emotional depression, intensive cognitive dissonance, and external pressures from criticism were finally Carnell’s undoing” (369).

Sparks goes on to say that Carnell is not alone in this experience. I would concur that many have found themselves on the same path and have had to exert considerable emotional energy to maintain some synthesis between these two worlds. Intellectual honesty would not allow a Carnell to abandon his education, and one’s Christian commitment and social identity would not allow one to abandon evangelicalism. The question Carnell’s case raises is why such a choice has to be made.

In general, I would say that a great strength of the book is Sparks’s assessment of the evangelical biblical scholarship landscape. One difference I have with Sparks is that he implies that evangelical scholars do not engage critical issues, whereas I say in I&I that evangelical scholars do engage them but generally fail to do the synthetic theological work of bringing their scholarship to bear deliberately on how they articulate their understanding of the nature of Scripture.

Others might contend that the “assured results of higher criticism” tone Sparks adopts will win over few not already disposed to his point of view (not to mention Sparks’s appeals to Barth, Barr, and Wink, to name just three, as examples of scholars who get it right). But I truly hope that critics of Sparks will not focus there. The real point is the overall portrait Sparks is painting. Appealing to less than agreeable examples here and there may offer some temporary comfort, but will do nothing to neutralize the general observations he makes. I would like to see critics engage Sparks on the level of specific matters of biblical scholarship.

From where I sit, even though the approach is more blunt than many of us are used to, Sparks is calling for a rediscovery among evangelicals of the legacy of such scholars as Ray Dillard and F. F. Bruce—not that they or others would agree with Sparks at every point. Rather, what Sparks has in common with these and other evangelical scholars is the understanding that a persuasive articulation of biblical authority must reckon with the overlap of divine authorship and modern biblical criticism. What is needed is a true hermeneutical self-consciousness, one that aims a synthesis of theological commitment and higher-criticism. Such a synthesis is to be found neither in fundamentalism nor liberalism. It should, Sparks argues, be found in evangelicalism.