Scripture is the Christian DNA

Christian historian Phyllis Tickle argues in her book "The Great Emergence" that every 500 years there is a great "rummage sale" of culture. Similar to the shows on television that help people organize their life, culture sorts things into "keep", "toss" and "donate". These efforts raise important questions, specifically, who is the authority that decides what we keep, toss or donate? Thus, Tickle says, the cultural rummage sale always come back to a crisis of authority. 

The rise of the Protestant Reformation saw the Papal authority called into question and the authority of the Bible was elevated. This year marks 500 years since Luther's ninety-five thesis nailed on a door, and the crisis of authority is upon us. 

I have noted the difference in sola scriptura and prima scriptura and how United Methodists have a stronger history and connection to prima scriptura than sola. By way of a metaphor I would like to offer up that for the UMC, scripture is the Christian DNA.

The debate between nature (DNA) and nurture (environment) is setting when it comes to human beings. What makes a human being is not nature OR nurture, but nature AND nurture. DNA is our first draft and our environment can influence our bodies but our DNA is our starting point. Likewise, scripture is our starting point, but we understand the environment effects the writer and reader of that very scripture. Scripture is the Christian DNA - it is our first draft it is where we start.

Humans once had a need for tailbones and wisdom teeth, and the environment has made those parts of us no longer as critical. There are things in scripture that were at one time very helpful to culture, but culture has evolved and those same scripture are less critical. 

I do not fear the environment of tradition, experience and reason having an effect on the Christian DNA. Rather I celebrate that Christianity is a religion that is alive and that the scripture is called "the living word". I celebrate that our scriptural DNA is robust to respond to the ever changing situations facing the world while. I celebrate that scripture is robust enough to exist in a variety of environments and give everyone an excellent starting point to engage in a relationship with God in Christ through the Holy Spirit.  

Quadrilateral Egg/Chicken Dilemma

In some parts of the global church there is a thing called the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. The quadrilateral is a way of talking about four sources that are used in the pursuit of Truth. Those four sources are Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience. 

There are many ways to visually describe the quadrilateral which you can see with a google image search. Some people talk about all four sources as equal in weight, while others talk about Scripture being heavier than the other three. The debate between if Scripture is "heavier" is not as heated of a subject as how much heavier is Scripture. Are we a Sola Scriptura or a Prima Scriptura people? 

The element that I have not heard in this conversation is the Chicken/Egg Dilemma inherent in the quadrilateral. Here is what I am talking about:

If we take Scripture as first and primary, that is well and good. However, Scripture did not fall from the sky. Scripture is what it is because a particular Tradition won out over time. That is to say, the Biblical canon is what it is in the UMC because of the tradition of Martin Luther not the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church. With the chicken/egg metaphor, Scripture could be the chicken and Tradition could be the egg. 

Tradition was also not created out of thin air. Tradition comes out of a lived experience that reveals what is valued by the person(s) generating the Tradition. Luther had experiences that led him to believe that some books of his Bible were not canon-worthy (we call those the deuterocanonical books). In this thinking, Tradition could be the chicken and Experience could be the egg. 

We can't forget that a person's Experiences receive meaning through the filter of that person's own Reason. For instance, Luther did not think that books like Hebrews or Revelation should be in the canon because his Reason argued that they were not in his understanding of the Christian Tradition to be considered Scripture. Here, Experience could be the chicken and Reason the egg. 

Finally, the role of Reason filtered out stories and experiences that were not "of God" to a community as far back as oral Tradition - thus dictating what stories were told and ultimately having a chance at being Scripture. Is Reason the chicken and Tradition the egg? How does scripture fit into this analogy?

And we are back at Scripture.

Currently some in the UMC are debating the role of Scripture. Some sections of the UMC cannot tolerate anything on equal grounds as Scripture (example). I am not saying that anything should be. Here's a question worth pondering: Does the insistence of Scripture as "heavier" results in a dismissal of "lighter" sources? Maybe making the sources more equal does not result in taking Scripture lighter, but understands the Egg/Chicken dilemma.