We are in the process of rewriting our theology department mission statement here at LCC. I am advocating that the term “authority” when applied to Scripture be removed. This is not because I reject the authority of Scripture. It is instead based on several practical and theological problems I have with the term. I sent the following points to my colleagues in the department as part of the debate. Since they are relevant to the academic study of the Bible, I thought I would post them here as well.

Here are my reasons for not wanting the term “authority of Scripture” in the mission statement:

  • The term is often used as a code word for a certain approach to the Bible. Often in debates, one side will say, “We accept the authority of the Bible, while you don’t.” What they mean by this is that the other side does not interpret the Bible in the same way. Take the issue of women’s ordination. Quite often, people who accept it are accused of not accepting the authority of the Bible, when in fact they do accept its authority but interpret it differently. Admittedly, this comes out of my experiences as a victim of the Bible wars in the Southern Baptist Church during the 80s and 90s, but I think it is something to consider.
  • The term is ambiguous. If you ask different denominations whether they accepts the authority of the Scripture, they will say yes. But Anglicans, Mennonites, Baptists, Pentecostals, Catholics, Orthodox, and others will each have a different meaning of how that authority operates. Now, we could argue that because it is a term accepted by everyone we should go ahead and use it. But can such a general term communicate?
  • Following on the last point, the term Scripture automatically implies authority. Referring to the authority of Scripture is somewhat redundant.
  • The statement that the Bible is authoritative is a theological (but not confessional!) statement. I have no problem with theological statements. But theoretically, our theology comes from the Bible, so the Bible should precede theological judgments. Now obviously, this rarely happens in practice. We are all working in a hermeneutic circle that moves back and forth from theology to text. But when students approach the Bible, I would like them to do so at the beginning with as little theology as possible or at least putting those ideas on hold for a while. This is somewhat problematic and is never completely achieved, but it is helpful as a beginning exercise for students. Since our theology flows from the Bible, let’s not burden our students with a preconceived theology before they get to the Bible. This is especially important, it seems, in a context like LCC, where the majority of our students are not Christian.
  • Picking up on [a point made by another colleague] about Christ as the word of God, I think it is important, as N.T. Wright has argued, that the expression “authority of Scripture” is in reality a shorthand for “the authority of God as exercised through Scripture.”1  Traditions that place a great emphasis on the authority of Scripture frequently overlook that distinction. Ultimately, all authority on heaven and earth has been given to Christ Jesus (Matt.28:18). I would think we would want to point students more to the authority of Jesus than the Bible.
  • Finally, I think the term authority can be off-putting for some students. They could accept or reject the Bible merely based on how they react to the term authority of Scripture. In my opinion, however, the Bible is powerful enough to have an impact on them even if they do not recognize the authority of the Scriptures. I would rather have them come to my class with an open mind and be surprised when they hear God speaking to them through the Bible than to have them shut down early because the idea of authority was put forward so strongly. Some of this comes from reactions to authority in a post-Soviet context, while some of it comes from standard student reactions to authority. Since this has the potential to scare them away from biblical studies, I think it should be avoided.

Any comments and feedback is appreciated.


  1. N.T. Wright, The Last Word: Beyond the Bible Wars to a New Understanding of the Authority of Scripture (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2005), 23-25. [back]
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