Does Public Theology Need Its Own Hermeneutic?

6 · Oswald makes his first major claim: Western civilization was built on a loose, subjective hermeneutic that modern seminary professors would reject

Now I'm not going to get into any kind of assessment of these movements and whether they're use of the Exodus story was right or wrong because that's not actually what I'm interested in discussing. I am actually in trying to start a discussion, especially with my fellow pastors about the exegesis that was at work in that time. My sense is, is that the Western world was built on a particular kind of exegesis and Bible application that would absolutely be tsk tsked by the average seminary professor today. The average conservative seminary professor today. For centuries, people instinctively put biblical data to work in their particular circumstances. And there was a very loose and subjective approach to Bible application that really I think was, is integral to the development of Western civilization.

7 · Oswald expands his claim: the subjective hermeneutic wasn't merely tolerated but was foundational to the development of Western civilization's major achievements, including science and literacy

People would just grab stuff from God's word and apply it to their circumstances in a rather subjective way. That really was a fundamental to the development of Western civilization. Whether we're talking about the United States specifically or well before that, frankly, the development of Western civilization and science and literacy and so on and so forth. It was very common for people or for leaders of public institutions to take hold of some particular story or a mix of stories and create something that resembled their circumstances and that provided encouragement and guidance.

8 · Oswald contrasts the historical norm with contemporary seminary training, which explicitly teaches young pastors not to apply Scripture in the loose, subjective way that built Western civilization

At least today, amongst the scholarly evangelicals, this approach has essentially disappeared. Young men going to seminary today are explicitly taught not to apply the Bible in these ways, and especially not in the political and national realm. And to be clear, there were certainly, and there certainly would be problems with this looser approach.

9 · Oswald illustrates the danger of the loose hermeneutic: the Confederacy also appropriated Exodus to frame Lincoln as Pharaoh and Jefferson Davis or Lee as Moses

For instance, you know the three instances I cited of Exodus rising to prominence. The Pilgrims, the Patriots and the slaves, I think that they all have some legitimacy. But during the Civil War, the South actually adopted the Exodus narrative to describe their national struggle against Northern aggression. For them, Lincoln was Pharaoh, who by preventing succession, would not let his people go. For them, Jefferson Davis or General Lee or someone like this was, was a were men in the line of Moses. So that's the problem that comes when a culture kind of instinctively appropriates Bible stories to appro. To support their particular situation. Some of them will get it wrong, and some causes which the Lord is not behind will be clothed in biblical justification. Some things that will should not be done will be done in the name of the Lord.

10 · Oswald raises the central question: by eliminating the loose hermeneutic to prevent errors, have evangelicals eliminated the hermeneutical approach necessary for public theology? He suggests it may be better to tolerate the mess and trust God to sort wheat from chaff rather than imposing rigid precision that disables Christian public engagement

But when we attempt to eliminate those errors by eliminating that entire exegetical approach, I'm just wondering if we're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Perhaps it's just better to encourage, to allow at least, or tolerate this older kind of Bible application, trusting that in the end the Lord will sort out the wheat from the chaff.

11 · Oswald offers a sociological diagnosis: evangelical elites may have tightened exegesis in reaction to New Atheist critiques during the neutral-to-negative world shift, overreacting in a Kelleresque winsome mode

One suspicion, and this is again, this is a. This is a podcast full of questions for me. One suspicion I have is that so many evangelical elites oppose this kind of loose theological application because they're coming from the Kelleresque winsome Centeredness Project. And there was a particular time, I remember this time when neutral world began to shift into negative world, and the new atheist types begin to make a lot of hay out of all the things done in history that were done in the name of God that appear to be, at least from first blush, unjust, sinful, and so on and so forth. And I suspect that one possible reason that the exegesis got tightened up in some sense was because the theological thought leaders on the right overreacted to these criticisms and they just introduced a more rigid and precision oriented exegesis that tended to gatekeep the more populist applications out of public discourse. There was a certain moment in time, and I Can't remember when this was, but I think it was in the late 90s when there was a noticeable kind of populist movement to adopt 2nd Chronicles 7:14 as a call to national repentance for Americans. So 2 Chronicles 7:14 is, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. Now, to the average Christian during this time, that text had obvious relevance. They saw that their nation was in serious trouble, and they wanted to encourage one another to pray and to seek God's face and turn from their wicked ways. And if they did so, they reasoned, God would heal their land. And yet, at that time, the theological precisionists immediately pushed back in various ways, chiding the populace for being overly flexible with their exegesis. After all, this verse was spoken by God to Solomon, the king of Israel. And applying that verse to any other nation beside Israel was exegetically dubious. And strictly speaking, they were correct. But in another sense, they were really wrong to do that. This was this verse, after all, was there was enough truth in that verse to be applied in the way that the populist wanted to apply it? The kind of verse was perfect for a population of average Christians looking to God's word, trying to figure out a solution to their degenerating nation.

12 · Oswald restates his central concern: the loose, messy, subjective hermeneutic built the Western world, and despite its negative outcomes, it also produced many positive ones

This is my concern that there's this wider exegesis, especially when applied to public life, whether it be to justify Southern slavery or to justify the fight against slavery and to justify the founding of the United States of America or to justify the pilgrims crossing the Atlantic. There are going. It's messy. It's messy. It's subjective. It's not necessarily even undertaken by trained theologians. These are often, you know, institutional leaders, leaders, leaders that are of, you know, accumulating power and so on and so forth. And so it's certainly messy, but. But I would just argue that we probably want to note that that's what our world was built on, that what we have now is a consequence of that. This approach does lead to some negative outcomes. It also leads to many positive ones. And I just feel like. I think I'm just starting to wonder. Whatever the liabilities that come with it, I suspect that a Christian population in a public sense is going to require this looser, exegetical approach. They're going to require that to be able to proceed in reasonable certainty, that they're doing God's will, that they're going to be blessed if they obey, and so on and so forth. And I just wonder what happens if we take that away.

13 · Oswald analogizes his concern to C

I feel as if this is similar to Lewis's concerns about making men without chests and then requiring of them virtue, and so on and so forth.

14 · Oswald offers Spurgeon as an illustration of the tension: modern pastors admire Spurgeon but wince at his hermeneutical looseness

I mean, there's some examples that I will just wrap up with that. I think all the pastors I'm talking to would be familiar with. Plenty of us modern exegetes would both admire Charles Spurgeon while also routinely wincing at how messy and subjective his hermeneutics tended to be. But, you know, he really was just carrying on the same approach used by the Puritans. And that approach was looser than the approach we typically use. It was far more, in my opinion, apostolic in nature. I would say that it was far more dependent on the subjective Holy Spirit, the subjective ministry of the Holy Spirit in illumination than we feel comfortable with, we think. I just wonder if we're trying to prevent bad exegesis, which is, of course, an admirable thing, but what are we also cutting off if we're being overly rigid, specifically in the development of public theology?

15 · Oswald clarifies his position: he is not advocating for less precision in the pulpit or in the church's teaching ministry

I am not arguing for a reduction of theological precision in the church, certainly not in the pulpit. But you begin to see that this stuff is. It's just more complicated than what I think is being presented and has been presented over the last 25 years.

16 · Oswald illustrates the older hermeneutic with Jonathan Edwards, who preached the same sermon using two completely different biblical texts, revealing a doctrinal rather than strictly expositional approach

I mean, another example, you know, is I was reading through. When you really start reading the Puritans, you see this stuff everywhere. I was reading through one of Edward's sermons where in the margin he wrote, I preached this same sermon on such and such a date using this other text. And he had the other text referenced. And that other text was not merely the same verse in a different gospel or the same story repeated in 1 Kings, it was in 1 Chronicles or something. He had preached the same sermon with a completely different text, which means that that sermon was not a strict exegesis of a particular text. Rather, it was doctrinal or topical enough to have been able to be preached using two completely different texts. And this brings to mind, you know, in many respects, the last I thought, I think of, you know, robustly Puritan pulpit, which would be Martyn Lloyd Jones, who had a much more doctrinal approach to his exegesis.

17 · Oswald reiterates that he is not advocating for wholesale abandonment of current exegetical practices but raising a question: as resourcement is happening across theological disciplines, should we recognize that public theology historically required a more subjective hermeneutic than we currently teach? He invites dialogue and acknowledges his own limitations

So I'm not arguing. I'm really not arguing for anything, I don't think. But I'm not arguing for a whole cloth abandonment of current best practices related to exegesis and preaching. But I just want to suggest that as this kind of mass resourcement is happening in nearly every theological field. We might want to recognize that the exegetical approaches that built the Western world, especially in the realm of public theology, were far more subjective than the ones we're teaching professional exegetes to employ today. So that's, that's what I've been thinking about. I'd sure love to hear from you if you have any opinions on this. A lot of times I'll launch these sorts of conversations with my friends who are better educated than me, and they'll tell me, oh, yeah, there, you know, there's this whole book written about that, or there's a whole line of thinking about that. But anyway, that's, that's, that's all I wanted to share. I hope you have a wonderful day and love to hear back from you on your thoughts on this.