Ben Witherington, III Tells Evangelicals “All Of You Are Wrong!”

Dr. Ben Witherington, III has written a new book, The Problem with Evangelical Theology. In it, he complains that the four major strands of western Protestantism have serious exegetical problems in the areas of doctrine that are their particulars, where they differ from everyone else.

["Exegesis: Scholarly explanation or interpretation of a word, phrase, sentence, or passage in a written work, based on close study and critical analysis of the text, especially to clarify an obscure point in the Bible or some other sacred work." (from the Online Dictionary for Library and Information Science]

He’s pretty clear on the point that Evangelicals are all wrong:

Popular Evangelicalism has three main theological tributaries. Each of these three tributaries ultimately goes back to the Bible in one way or another and each has made serious and lasting contributions — the Augustinian-Lutheran-Calvinist juggernaut kept Evangelicalism focused on soteriology or the way of salvation. Dispensationalism renewed our focus on and thinking about the future in eschatological ways. Wesleyanism/Pentecostalism stressed the experiential dimensions of Christian thought and life and the need for holiness of heart and life. However, each of these contributions came at a priceâ??individualism and determinism in the case of the Augustinian heritage; systematic ahistoricism in the case of Dispensational reading of prophecy; and the raising of experience to a norm, sometimes even above the Bible, in the case of Wesleyanism/Pentecostalism. My concern is not just to point out the problems with each of these theological streams, but rather to clean up the streams by passing these theological tributaries through a more purifying and rectifying biblical filter.

…………………………………….

My interest is in the big ideas that serve as building blocks for looking at the biblical text in a certain kind of way and that undergird Evangelical theology in this tradition. My concern is that various of these seminal and interesting ideas are simply not biblical.

Personally, I know my beliefs should pass “through a more purifying and rectifying biblical filter” on a more regular basis. The rigor of the process that he’s advocating seems reasonable. Of course, we all think that the purifying process should bring everyone closer to our own beliefs and I wonder if Witherington feels the same way.

Some links:

• There’s an excerpt from the book online from Baylor University press, so you can see for yourself if it’s worth reading.
• Christianity Today interviewed Dr. Witherington about his new book
• A Reformed blogger has commented on the review, although he did not buy the book to read Witherington’s longer argument. (Thanks to Michael Spencer of the Boar’s Head Tavern for the link.) The blogger points out that Witherington is prolific: from his website, this looked like book number 28, which is a fair amount even by Juan’s standards, he of the 28-page CV.

I’m not very well-read in these circles, and I’ll admit that I found the first chapter pretty daunting. I blanked out in a couple of places, eyes glazing over, mostly because I just lack the background in order to understand the things that Witherington takes for granted that his readers will know. I still found it interesting. I enjoy these “let’s return to the what the author was really saying” types of books, having gotten the bug from reading Meeks’s series at a younger age. I’m intrigued enough to read

I will comment that I don’t see how this is all that threatening (surely a good, rigorous examination of the roots is a good thing, and certainly we all have made mistakes somewhere). I can’t follow everything he’s saying but it seems worth a spin through. I’ll probably wait until the local library has it — surely Valpo will get it in if the VPL doesn’t — but that’s more a function of my current book budget rather than not thinking it worth buying. Of course, I don’t know Witherington so maybe he’s a wicked, evil heretic. In which case he’ll be even more entertaining to read.

I will point out that Witherington desperately needs better editors than he currently has. Maybe he sells well enough that they let it fly by, or perhaps he’s difficult to deal with as an author. Many of us are and sometimes successful academic authors become impossible to edit properly, thinking that they can do a better job. But any press that allows the word “sound-bite” written as “soundbyte” is just plain sloppy. The various misspellings and typos are embarassing.

Plus, it seems to me that he could have gotten a more solid argument in these first pages with an editor. He kind of just sends things falling from on-high in a way. That’s pretty consistent with the various other academics whom I’ve edited in the past. It’s a function of really knowing your material, it seems.

So perhaps someone from the other traditions would like to read it with me and give me their take.

And let’s be honest here: what will end up happening is that the Reformed folks will quote him about the shortcomings of the Dispensationalists and Wesleyans/Pentecostals; the Dispensationalists will quote him on the Reformeds; and the Pentecostals will quote him againsts the Reformed and Dispensationalists.