Are we the new Pharisees?
Dennis Veal
| 01 May 2008
Print This
TEXT
Top News...
- Latest
- Most commented
An evangelical's challenge to evangelicals
Tidying some papers I came across notes from a conference over 20 years ago. The opening address was from Roger Thompson on “Renewal”. He said that “vision, verve and vigour are missing from evangelicals. We’re in a rut, parochial, maintenance men with small ambitions, and a preoccupation with domestic trivia.
What would he say to us today?
I’m an avowed evangelical but I am concerned about our focus. Thus my question, “Are we the new Pharisees?” This unease was not dispelled at a “Communion in Crisis” conference where I thought the crisis was assumed rather than defined. In fairness I must add that as a participant in the conference “Anglicans in Communion: Rhetoric or Reality” at St John’s last year, I was equally disappointed at the wide open agenda.
Both conferences had value as Anglicans from across the theological spectrum talked and listened. In our church, as in the Middle East, the only lasting solution is achieved by dialogue. This does seem in short supply in the current debates that divide liberals and evangelicals. Both sides make assumptions and dig in, not a new situation if we look at Scripture. Jesus, who would have been regarded as a liberal in his day, was often at odds with the Pharisees, the conservatives of New Testament times.
Even in the gravest situation Jesus rarely condemned. He accepted people as human beings, God’s creation, but he never failed to condemn sin. He never advocated abolition of the law but was scathing about warped interpretations such as not healing on the Sabbath. He had priorities in building the kingdom. Little time in synagogue but a lot of time on the road, healing, teaching and spreading the good news.
In contrast, the Pharisees seemed to be locked into the law and their myriad interpretations. Any dialogue with Jesus was carping criticism or an attempt to trap him on a point of Scripture. The wearing of phylacteries containing verses of Torah were not generally reflected in the actions of the Pharisees judging by gospel narratives. Religion seemed mainly an intellectual exercise.
Are we evangelicals any different from the Pharisees? Are we too dogmatic in our interpretations of scripture? Tom Wright, in Scripture and the Authority of God, cautions us about dealing with Scripture narrowly or in isolation!
Homosexuality is a case in point. I had a friend who was a consultant physician and still corresponding with the editor of a theological magazine when he died at 90. He was very liberal on homosexuality but also very pragmatic about such a relationship. He pointed out that it had no natural end, i.e. children, so it could not be on a par with marriage.
Our love affair with the internal combustion engine is a far greater threat to God’s Creation than homosexuality. I sometimes wonder if our continuous desecration of the earth may precipitate its demise before Jesus can return. Yet how many churches have bike stands, and when did we last hear a good address on the stewardship of God’s Creation?
Surely our gross salary spectrum from millions to peanuts requires addressing as a matter of justice; and what of the chasm between living standards in first and third world countries? Such issues are clearly dealt with in the Pentateuch.
In debates such as these there are always generalizations and they can be quite inaccurate. But let’s return to the Pharisees. Not all of them were entrenched conservatives, as Nicodemus showed. Here was a man with an open mind who sought Jesus out in the evening for a quiet conversation; not for him the public confrontation.
Jesus was straight with him and Nicodemus left in puzzlement. Subsequently, he spoke up for giving Jesus a fair hearing, and his fellow Pharisees were scathing in their rebuke of him. When the crunch came his actions matched his words. Nicodemus helped Joseph bury Jesus. Where were the disciples?
Later in the New Testament, Paul encounters fellow Pharisees who insist on circumcision for Gentile converts, the orthodox Jewish position. Paul resists; salvation is through the grace of the Lord Jesus. He refers to the Law as a yoke we could not bear. The conclusion of the Council: “It seems good to us and the Holy Spirit...”
In replying to a teacher of the Law about receiving eternal life, Jesus was a good evangelical. “What do the scriptures say? How do you interpret them?” The teacher quotes the summary of the law which prefaces our Anglican Communion. Jesus interprets with the parable of the Good Samaritan, a man who would be poles apart from a Jew doctrinally – and yet he was an example of love.
Our world needs all the love it can get – the salt and light of both evangelical and liberal.
Dennis Veal is an Anglican layman living in Timaru.
Comments on this story
Log in or create a user account to comment.