Abusing Scripture: The Consequences of Misreading the Bible [Paperback]

Manfred Brauch (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 17, 2009

Virtually all Christians recognize the centrality of the Bible to their faith. Yet many Christians misquote and misapply Scripture regularly. Often those who are most passionate about the authority of the Bible are at the greatest loss when it comes to understanding its message clearly and applying it faithfully. Professor Manfred Brauch believes this kind of mistaken interpretation and application of Scripture is a detriment to the integrity of our Christian witness and contributes to profound misunderstandings in Christian belief and practice. In this practical book written with the non-specialist in mind, Brauch identifies and corrects a number of basic errors in the use of the Bible that interpret and apply biblical texts in ways that distort their meaning and message. Chapters explore issues of context, selectivity, consistency, author intent and other important considerations with an eye toward addressing not just the act of interpretation, but also the attitudes behind the ways we choose to apply Scripture. Whether you lead a Bible study or small group, are a pastor or Sunday school teacher, are engaged in biblical study at a college or seminary, or are just an everyday Christian who wants to understand how to interpret God's Word well and recognize good interpretation (or the lack therof) when you encounter it, this important book will be an invaluable guide.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Manfred Brauch defends the Bible the way one defends a lion: by simply letting it out of its cage. Once out, it can take care of itself quite well, thank you. But there are those who would cage the Bible with obscurantist, selective and bowdlerized readings. And worse, they are the Bible's friends, not its avowed enemies. Like dysfunctional families, they abuse the one they think they love. Brauch loves the Bible, and he uses his considerable skill as a scholar to invite us once more to really hear the Lion roar." (Ben Patterson, campus pastor, Westmont College, and author of He Has Made Me Glad and Waiting )

"Abusing Scripture calls into question both the easy assumption of the Reformed emphasis on the perspicuity of Scripture and the presumption that those who declare the Bible to be the infallible or even inerrant Word of God will agree about what it teaches and illustrates. What it proves instead is that 'rightly dividing the word of truth' is a difficult and contentious matter--a matter demanding close attention to historical, literary and theological context; intention; and even the nature of language itself. Still the stakes are worth the effort. Too much rides on getting right the original meaning and present application. Professor Manfred Brauch not only helps Bible readers to identify the troubling issues but also provides a way of dealing with them." (James W. Sire, author of Scripture Twisting, The Universe Next Door and, with coauthor Carl Peraino, Deepest Differences: A Christian-Atheist Dialogue )

About the Author

Manfred T. Brauch (Ph.D., McMaster University) is retired professor of biblical theology and past president of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now Palmer Theological Seminary) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is the author of Hard Sayings of Paul, Hard Sayings of the Bible (with F. F. Bruce, Peter H. Davids and Walter C. Kaiser) and Set Free to Be. Since 2004, Brauch and his wife have done long-term volunteer work in medical missions and theological education in Chile, Russia and Cameroon, West Africa.

Product Details

• Paperback: 293 pages
• Publisher: IVP Academic (March 17, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0830825797
• ISBN-13: 978-0830825790
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #206,132 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Corrective for Evangelicals Who Abuse Scripture, May 13, 2009

By 

George P. Wood (Springfield, MO) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Abusing Scripture: The Consequences of Misreading the Bible (Paperback)

The first article of the Assemblies of God's Statement of Fundamental Truths concerns Scripture: "The Scriptures, both the Old and New Testaments, are verbally inspired of God and are the revelation of God to man, the infallible, authoritative rule of faith and conduct." This "high" view of Scripture is a hallmark of theological conservatism and unites the Assemblies of God with the larger evangelical community. It also differentiates the Assemblies from the mainline Protestant community, which--under the influence of biblical criticism--often has a "low" view of Scripture as the culturally relative and fallible record of human spiritual longing.

Unfortunately, a "high" view of Scripture in theory does not guarantee the correct interpretation of Scripture in practice. In Abusing Scripture, Manfred T. Brauch examines "the consequences of misreading the Bible," in the words of the subtitle. His intended readers are not mainline Protestants, however, but theologically conservative evangelicals--including those of us in the Assemblies of God. We routinely critique the "speck of sawdust" in mainline misinterpretations of the Bible, while wholly ignoring the "plank" in our own. Brauch refuses to ignore the plank.

Brauch is past professor and president of Palmer Theological Seminary (formerly Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary), as well as the author of Set Free to Be and Hard Sayings of Paul. The seminary has been described as "conservative, yet progressive" because of its combination of theological orthodoxy and social activism. The primary example of this conservative progressivism is undoubtedly Ron Sider, Palmer's best-known professor. Brauch is also an able exponent of that tradition.

Abusing Scripture offers a sixfold taxonomy of ways evangelicals (including us Pentecostals) are guilty of "doing violence to" Scripture:

* The abuse of the whole gospel through a failure to address human need for salvation in both "personal and social dimensions"
* The abuse of selectivity, which "is not an outright distortion of the meaning of given texts" but rather entails "ignoring or rejecting...other parts or passages of Scripture that support a different teaching, or present an alternative perspective, or advocate an opposing view"
* The abuse of biblical balance by means of "emphasizing certain biblical doctrines, perspectives, teachings, themes or mandates, while ignoring or minimizing the equal, or even greater, importance of complementary ones"
* The abuse of words, "when words and expressions are decoded (by teachers or readers) in ways that are not in keeping with the original encoding [by the biblical authors]"
* The abuse of literary and theological context, in which the meanings of specific passages are not derived from "the immediate textual materials that surround them" or from "the overarching theological concepts in broader literary contexts"
* The abuse of historical situation and cultural reality, which is really a failure to discern between "those things in Scripture that are culturally or historically relative, and, therefore, limited in their inspired authority to the people and situations addressed at that time, and the things that are transcultural and transhistorical, where the authoritative Word of God ins binding for all Christians at all times and in all cultures"

Throughout his discussion of this taxonomy, Brauch returns to three illustrations of these kinds of abuses in practice: "(1) the use and justification of force and violence in human affairs; (2) the relationship between men and women in home, church and society; and (3) the concern for justice and the sanctity of life in all areas of human relationships, institutions and culture."

Brauch avoids low-hanging fruit with his choice of examples. He easily could have written a multi-volume account of, inter alia, the abuses of Scripture by dispensational premillennialism, the so-called "Prosperity Gospel," and Christian Zionism. Instead, he focuses on attitudes and practices that are deeply entrenched in the evangelical community: its reflexive patriotism and knee-jerk support for America's wars, its still-too-common defense of patriarchy, and its privileging of evangelism over social concern.

The Assemblies of God has a slightly better, though still mixed, track record on these very same issues. As Paul J. Alexander documents in Peace to War, the Assemblies of God moved from being a pacifist church to a card-carrying member of the so-called "religious right" for patriotic rather than biblical reasons. (As an advocate of just-war doctrine, I think the Assemblies made the right decision but for the wrong reason, but that's an argument for another day.) The Assemblies has ordained women to the ministry since its founding, but it still has local churches that refuse to let women preach to men (and because of our practice of local church sovereignty, there's no way for district councils or the general council to force the issue). Finally, some in the Assemblies are reluctant to address social issues other than abortion and gay marriage, lest we fall prey to the theological errors of the Social Gospel Movement.

Although I do not agree with every reading of Scripture Brauch offers in this book, I do think his sixfold taxonomy and three illustrations of abuse identify real problems within evangelicalism generally and the Assemblies particularly. But read this book, and decide for yourself!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Thought provoking study, September 8, 2009

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Ronald - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Abusing Scripture: The Consequences of Misreading the Bible (Paperback)

This book is an interesting and thought provoking study of the translation and interpretation of scripture. the difficulties in translating any material are well-known. I'm not sure the author always proves some of his interpretations, but he is certainly correct in his evaluation of those who twist scripture to fit their theological preconceptions (something we all do, in one way or another). The work will force Christians to take a more careful look at their scriptures. This is one of the most important problems in Christian study today, and too many people don't want to face the daunting task of delving into the intricate study necessary to gain some understanding of the Bible,and what it actually says. I don't pretend to be anything more than an interested layman, and I found this book comprehensible and interesting. The book is very thought-provoking, and it spurred me to study even further into this fascinating and vital topic.

3 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The abuse of abusing scripture, August 1, 2010

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John Mitchell - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Abusing Scripture: The Consequences of Misreading the Bible (Paperback)

Maybe I've been overly dramatic in selecting the title of my review, but one who writes about the abuse of others must avoid such abuse in doing so. Specifically, one should be guided by 2 Timothy 3:16-17, "All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work." (NIV) Note that Paul did not say to Timothy (and through this letter, to us also) "except when the Scripture had a specific historical and/or cultural context that no longer applies". To say that any passage of Scripture may be disregarded outside its "historical/cultural context" is to say that one may disregard utterances by God; this sounds like an abuse of the first order!

I will be near the head of the line of people who express befuddlement at some passages of Scripture, but I always try to confront my uncertainty with the admonition to "try, try again" to understand - always with a word of prayer for help - what I do not yet understand and therefore cannot yet effectively apply. So if Scripture seems not to apply to our generation, our culture, it simply means that we lack the wisdom to understand how it does - not that we are abusing Scripture by attempting to use it when it doesn't apply.

I think this author has offered an interesting addition to the discussion of how best to understand and apply Scripture, but reader beware.