From an essay (sermon?) [UPDATE: parish newsletter; thanks to Kendall Harmon] attributed to The Rev. Dr. Michael L. Carreker, rector, Saint John’s, Savannah, posted at TitusOneNine:
The historic Church has believed and shall always believe that in the Scripture God has spoken definitively for all times and places.
(Emphasis added.) Some observations:
1. This is nothing short of blasphemy. Can Dr. Carreker really declare so categorically that God would never supplement or amend his prior teachings?
Consider an analogy. When our kids are toddlers, we teach them a simple rule that they’re capable of understanding: “Don’t hit.” But that’s not our final word on the subject. As the kids get older and more able to deal with nuance, our teachings get more sophisticated: “Don’t hit — unless it’s in legitimate self-defense and you have to fight back.” When our kids reach young adulthood, we get still more sophisticated, e.g., by teaching them about the doctrine of just war. We would do our children a serious disservice by insisting that the simple message of toddlerhood was final and definitive.
Dr. Carreker calmly denies that God might likewise be teaching us his children gradually, as (individually and collectively) we become more capable of understanding God’s message. One wonders just how Dr. Carreker knows this with such assurance.
(More about the possibility of gradual divine revelation at this posting.)
2. It’s one thing to acknowledge Scripture as a powerful and even primary record of God’s past revelations to us. It’s entirely another to claim that Scripture trumps everything else, for all times and places. Were that true, we might as well shove aside the golden calf and elevate the Bible in its place.
3. I’m no psychologist, other than what I’ve learned on the job as a parent. But I do wonder whether this kind of bibliolatry might be based on anxiety about whether God really loves us. Such an insistence on the supremacy of Scripture could represent a desperate, unconscious effort to earn God’s love by proclaiming the supremacy of his (supposedly) final and definitive word.
4. Jesus, on the other hand, trusted in God and his love. He took Scripture seriously, but he did not treat it as an idol, an object of worship and slavish adherence at all times and in all circumstances. (Witness his attitude about healing the sick or picking grain on the Sabbath, or about divorce.) His trust in God led him to pursue the truth no matter where the search led him; to seek to do God’s will, as best he could discern it — even unto death. Would that we could do the same.
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