Today, it is our delight to be speaking with
Dr. Ben Witherington III. Doctor Witherington is Amos Professor of New
Testament for doctoral studies at Asbury Theological Seminary, and is on the
doctoral faculty at St. Andrews University in Scotland. Dr. Witherington has written over forty books, including "The Jesus Quest" and "The Paul Quest." Both of which were selected as
top biblical studies by Christianity Today. We have with us "The Problem with Evangelical
Theology: Testing the Exegetical Foundations of Calvinism,
Dispensationalism, Wesleyanism, and Pentecostalism," and this is the text that we're privileged to be speaking with Dr. Witherington about today. Dr. Witherington, thanks for being with us. My pleasure. Sir, as we begin, in this book you challenged the Biblical foundations of four Protestant, theological systems, or streams of tradition: Calvinism
Dispensationalism, Wesleyanism, and Pentecostalism. How and when was it that
you decided to write this book? Well it's sort of a combination of
exegetical weaknesses in all of these evangelical traditions, in particular
text, you know, all these traditions have their strengths, their weaknesses in
various places, and what I discovered, in doing the exegesis over and over
again, was a remarkable thing. What I discovered was that it's precisely when
any of these traditions go, if you will, "out of the box," and want to
argue for some distinctive theological position like the idea of a pre-tribulation
rapture. Its precisely those points in their theological tradition that are
exegetically the least defensible and that's not just true of one of these
traditions. It's actually true of all of them. So I kind of went, ah ha, anytime we tend to stray from theology that we actually share mostly in common with both Catholics and Orthodox as well, anytime
we sort of go rogue on the faith once received, we start getting a little
strange and weak, and that's what I wanted to
explore. This is a book that takes a lot of courage to write no doubt because it
places you precisely in the camp of no one Were there some "ah ha" moments, or some challenging moments,
as you formulate this study. Well, I mean, I am a lifelong Methodist. My mother says my first two words were John Wesley; I'm doubting that, but you know I've grown up in the Wesleyan
tradition, and then I went to a more reformed seminary. I went to Gordon
Cromwell because I wanted to hear the other side of the conversation. So I've always
kind of known the foibles of the Wesleyan tradition in regard to a doctrine of the
entire sanctification, or even perfectionism some of the issues with that, but in
studying all these other traditions along the way and in participating in them
in various ways, I began to realize that we all have chinks in our armor. So instead of just defending an ideology, if we were honest it would actually bring us
all much closer together. If we simply admitted there are exegetical problems
with some aspects of our theological system and maybe we ought to talk about
that. Thank you, Dr. Witherington. In the first section of your book, in which you
critiquing reformed Calvinism, you have a chapter entitled "Awaiting the Election
Results," and I can read just a quick paragraph from that section. You write,
"Election, for Paul, is a corporate thing. It was an ethnic Israel. It is now in Christ. From Paul's viewpoint, which is simply an adaption of views found in early Judaism, election does not guarantee the final salvation of individual Christian converts, any more
than it guaranteed the final salvation of individual Israelites in the past." What can we say about Paul's doctrine of predestination? How would've Paul intend it function in his own theological system? Well, perseverance of the saints is sort of the end of the doctrine of predestination. Predestination is talking about
the process by which you became a chosen one, stayed a chosen one person, persevered as a chosen one, and finished as a chosen one, and so it really has to do with the whole arc of salvation for persons, and
I don't think it's an accident that this particular theology which originally was
sort of sounded by Augustine. It really wasn't part of the early church, and I
would say it's really not a major theme in the New Testament, itself. It was, in fact,
when we get to the Age of the Enlightenment, when we get to Calvin. Well, this is also
the age of individualism, in fact radical individualism, individualism even to the
extent of where we say each person should have the individual right of
conscience to decide what is false for you. There's not a sort of universal truth
there's a truth for individuals. I realized that in fact when it was said in
early Judaism, of which Paul and Jesus were both a part, the subject was rather different than what Calvin was saying or Jonathan Edwards was saying, and one aspect of the difference was corporate election.
If I were to put the thing more broadly, obviously Paul is suggesting that there
is such a thing as assurance of salvation for those who have been saved. I think that's what Romans eight is about. Romans 8 in fact isn't talking about
being predestined to become a Christian. It's about what is the destiny of those
who are already in Christ. So what Paul is saying, as a reassurance to his
audience, is that God always had a plan. He had a wonderful plan for your life,
and once you have embraced Christ then you are not only called, but he's
gonna make sure you're justified, you're sanctified, and eventually you're glorified—
being conformed to the image of Christ. So it's a reassurance that God's hand is
on you through the whole process. That's what it is. What it's not is a sort of
guarantee that no matter what you say or what you do after conversion your
eternally secure. I like to put it this way, you're not eternally
secured till your securely in eternity. Because at the same time that we have
predestination text in the New Testament, we also have apostasy texts. Text that repeatedly talked about the fact
that genuine Christians who have really embraced Christ, or as the author of
Hebrews says has tasted of the gospel, and out of the actual salvific
power of Jesus and yet then afterwards commits an act of apostasy, of
deliberately consciously rejecting the gospel. Well then guess what? You
don't have an absolute guarantee of eternal security. What you have is a God whose angry with your rebellion and by golly you'd better repent. So I think what we fail to realize is that if it were really true that from before the
foundation of the world God had predestined everything, either actively
or passively, either He caused it to happen, but at the end of the day this makes God the author of
evil, because by golly we got plenty of evil in the world and plenty of suffering, and in fact the Bible repeatedly denies this. It denies that God is the author
of evil. In fact, James the brother of Jesus even says, "Do not say you have been
tempted by God. God is not temptable and he doesn't tempt anybody." Well then, who does? Well this means that there are other viable choosing actors in the human drama. It's
not just God and us being automatons. Its God; its Angels; its fallen angels; its demons; its human beings, and we all have some kind of measure of the power of
contrary choice. Now that's very hard for some people to reconcile with a
hard-line doctrine of predestination. When you go back to early Judaism and
see how they talk about this, they talk about this in a much more balanced way.
They don't say God as predestined everything in advance to happen, and
we're just sort of living out the script, and we don't realize we're leaving out
the script, but that's what's happening What happens in early Judaism is they
say things like God has destined things in advance but choice has been given. Now
that's very interesting. That's a much more balanced approach. It says that God is the most powerful actor in the human drama and that certainly God is almighty and
nobody else is, but it's also true that God in his own
divine design allowed us to have some choice about how and whether we would
respond to his overtures, and so that's what I would want to say about it. It is not
an either-or proposition. I'm not denying there are texts in the New Testament that
talk about predestination. I'm simply saying it's only part of the conversation, and
you need to have a viable view that takes all of the aspects of what the Bible
please subject. I'm very grateful for your response, Dr
Witherington. We're discussing "The Problem with Evangelical Theology: Testing
the Foundations of Calvinism Dispensationalism, Wesleyanism, and Pentecostalism. Dr. Witherington, in your next section in
which you addressed Dispensationalism, you have chapter entitled, "What Goes Up, Must Come Down," and you conclude that Dispensationalism does read Paul
properly about the millennial reign of Christ on earth, but also that
Dispensationalism reads Paul incorrectly on the point of the pre-tribulation rapture. How would you summarize Paul's teaching on the Parousia, or the coming of Christ? Well there's only one second coming. There's not two, an invisible one and a visible one, and again, I
would say that not incidentally this is the historic position of the church.
Dispensationalism along with Pentecostalism are the two new kids on the block in Protestant theology, that are dominant, or very important theological traditions, but
nobody in the early church was talking about a pre-tribulation rapture not in
the 2nd century, the 3rd century, the 4th century, in fact even Dispensational scholars, who have sent me reams of material and tracks, have not
been able to trace it back earlier than the 17th century—this idea of a pre-tribulation rapture amongst some early baptists, and I think there's a reason
for that, and the reason for that is its just not there in the New Testament, and
so is there a vision of Christ returning to earth and putting his enemies under
his feet and reigning until he has completed that task, and then after that
the new heaven and a new earth well that's exactly what revelation 20, and 21,
and 22 say, and I think I Corinthians 15 says the same thing, but what it does not say is that there is a "beam me up Scotty theology" that gets you out of some
kind of final tribulation, and frankly logically that whole idea makes no sense.
It's an escapist theology. It doesn't make sense because in every generation of Christian
history, there have been persecuted, prosecuted, and executed Christians that
have suffered to the limit that it is possible to suffer—you can't suffer more
than being killed. I mean that's the end of the story. So
why would Christians be exempt from tribulation and suffering. This is simply a form of
escapist theology, and any time you run into a bad theology, it always
has bad corollaries. For example, this Dispensation theology often leads to the conclusion, "I don't need to worry about politics and elections and
that sort of stuff. I mean we're gonna be beamed up. If things get really bad, well too bad for the world, but I'm good. Right?" It can lead to a complete agnosticism about one
civic responsibilities, or caring about the rest of the world. It can lead to bad
Creation theology as well. "Well, you know, God's gonna give us a new heaven and a new earth, so we can just trash this one. It's not really a problem." Completely forgetting
the creation mandate that we are called to be caretakers of God's garden, and
we're supposed to give a preview of coming attractions of the new heaven and
the New Earth by the way we take care of the earth, so you know bad theology leads
to bad theological corollaries and Dispensationalism is one of the worst
because it really does promote an escapist mentality about human
responsibility in regard to our fellow human beings, the problem of religious liberty, caring about all kinds of problems in the world. It promotes not being engaged with the
world. Dr. Witherington, thank you for that reflection. You published the first
edition of your book in 2005, and now the second edition in 2016, and the revised edition includes a section of Pentecostalism. Why did you add this new section on
Pentecostalism to your text? Well the Pentecostals asked for it. I was at
Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee which is a university in the
Pentecostal tradition, very fine, vibrant university, and we had a debate about the
first edition of this book, and they said, "You gave us short shrift. You need to say a
lot more about Pentecostalism than you did. What are our week points? So they actually asked me to go back and give a more careful critique of Pentecostalism. In fact, this growing Protestantism in the
world, especially in places like South America and Latin America. It might be wise to say a bit more about that. He was my own teacher, Gordon Fee, and simply wanted to dialogue with and repeat some of the things I had learned from him at Gordon-Conwell, and I mean he's written on this subject many times over. He is first and
foremost a faithful exegete of the New Testament, and as such, he is a
critiquer of his own tradition which he wholeheartedly embraces warts,
wrinkles, and all, but he always qualifies by saying, "Yes, I am a Pentecostal, but no
that doesn't mean I agree with all the bad exegesis that goes along with that." So that's why I decided to do a more fulsome critique of Pentecostalism in
this edition. Dr. Witherington, citing Gordon Fee, your mentor, you critique Pentecostal theology and the baptism of the Holy Spirit as a spiritual transaction that come
subsequent to conversion. I've heard it said that the baptism of the Spirit might be
the primary doctrine of Pentecostal theology, but it seems clear to me that you would disagree, that it's not
the essential part of Pentecostal theology. In your view, what is the defining core of Pentecostal theology? Well, let me get at this by first talking as an exegete. We
really don't have the noun phrase "the baptism of the Holy Spirit in the New
Testament." So basically this is a deduction based on analyzing
certain texts in Acts and in Paul. I mean that's really where it comes from, plus the fact that Jesus promises the
Zebedee boys they're going to be baptized with the baptism he has
experienced, which actually has nothing to do with Pentecostalism. It has to do with coming suffering. He refers to baptism as you know a trial by fire—coming
suffering, death in fact—martyrdom. So the first task for me was to deal
with the exegesis that says anything remotely close to
what we're talking about here is I Corinthians 12, which says by one spirit we have all been baptized into the one body and given that same spirit we are allowed to drink.
What's this about? Well it's about conversion. It's about
being grafted into the body of Christ. It is not about some subsequent to
conversion, dynamic, spiritual experience. Now let me just say, I believe there are
possibilities of many subsequent to conversion dramatic experiences in the
Holy Spirit. The Spirit can give you new gifts. It can improve your sanctification level
in a dramatic way at a revival for example. I don't have any problems with
the notion of subsequent to conversion dramatic experiences in the Holy Spirit,
but what they are not is a reception of the Holy Spirit. You wouldn't be a
Christian in the first place, if the Holy Spirit wasn't in your life, and here's
the other part of the problem with this whole theology, you don't get the Holy
Spirit on the installment plan because the Holy Spirit is a person. It is not
like a quantity of water 30% now, 70% later. The Holy Spirit is a
person. When the Holy Spirit is in your life at conversion, the Holy Spirit is
in your life. You can't get more of the Holy Spirit. I mean it would be like talking
about being a little bit pregnant. You can't have a little bit of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is either in your life, or not. Now it's true that the Holy Spirit can
get hold of more aspects of your life progressively over time, more control of
your mind, over your will, over your feelings, and the Holy Spirit
can give you more fruit of the Spirit. It can give you fresh, new, spiritual gifts subsequent conversion. All that's fine, all of that's true, but none of that has
to do with a quote—unquote second definitive work of grace after
justification called the baptism in the Holy Spirit. That's not only a
misuse of New Testament language, it leads to a misunderstanding of what those
texts were actually talking about. So that would be my real "beef" with Pentecostal theology. Now, I am not a cessationist. I
believe that God still allows people to prophesy in our time, and that God
still gives the gift of speaking and interpreting tongues. I mean, I have a lot in common with Pentecostalism, which actually is an offshoot of the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Methodist revival movements. It's an offshoot of Methodism, really, that's really what it is. If you go back and look at the Azusa Street
revival at the beginning of the 20th century and what was the root of that.
Well guess what? The root of that was Nazarenes who were thoroughgoing Wesleyans starting a revival in Los Angeles. That's where it comes from. Right? So it's an offshoot of the tradition I'm a part of, and there's a lot of it I can embrace. Dr. Witherington, thank you. In the final chapters of your book, you reflect on how all of these inadequacies, these exegetical inadequacies in various streams of evangelical theology should teach us something
about the nature of biblical revelation, and you propose, I understand, that you
propose a new way of doing theology. You offer that the logic of the biblical writers
can be best articulated by tracing the connections they draw to these so-called
"storied world" of the scripture. You write, "When Paul thinks of sin, he thinks of
the story of Adam. When he thinks of law, he thinks of the story of Moses. When he
thinks faith, he thinks of the story of Abraham, and so on. Even Paul's letters are not compendiums
of abstract ideas laid out in syllogisms. They lead to the paradigm, symbolic
universe of ideas configured in stories, with the stories then becoming the
fodder and framework for theologizing and ethicizing into specific situations." How is it today that you would propose
that theologians can pursue faithfulness to Scripture? Well I think it's happening. I'm happy to say that on my watch and in the last 25 or 30 years, I
think this is happening because there are now courses in Narratology, the storied world
that is behind, in the basis of the articulation of the theology and ethics,
in both the Old Testament and New Testament, and what I'm really saying
is we need to stop reading the Bible anachronistically, that is in post-enlightenment or modern way, and that means we need to stop abstracting inchoate ideas from the Scripture, and then connecting one idea to another idea in
the history of ideas kind of way. When in fact that's not how the biblical writers
wrote. That's not how they thought. That's not how they wrote. For them, there was a
symbolic universe—big stars in their mental skies. So for example, God, none of
the writers of Bible deny like a rampant atheist, the existence of God. Some have doubts, but none of them deny. God is a fixed reality in their mental world,
and they're almost all Jews, and so a theology of the distinction between a
Creator and creation is taken for granted. It's absolutely taken for
granted, and it's the basis of thinking about the human story. We are
creatures; God has made us; we're all made in God's image. There's no debate
about this in the Old and New Testament. This is just taken for granted. That's part
of the symbolic universe, and also a part of this universe is this theology of sin
and suffering, and the fall. It's taken for granted that early on something went
dramatically wrong. Something went dramatically wrong, and therefore God's salvific plan is not act one or two of the drama, its act three of the drama, and it
is creation and creature that he is trying to renew, restore, and save, and
that's basically the arc of the narrative of the whole Bible. There is a plot
to the Bible. If you understand where you are in the
story, you understand far better what are the ideas that are generated by the
story. So there was the symbolic universe redemption and various acts leading finally to a new creation when Christ returns, and the theologizing, which is an activity,
are done out of this symbolic universe, out of these
narratives, and into specific situations being addressed
in the Old Testament times and in New Testament times. So it's a dynamic thing. Theologizing and emphasizing is not a canned, potted, can of spam that you can sort of open up and its just going to sit there inert and do nothing. Now what this is, is we see samples of how to do theology and how to do ethics out of the story. Now what happens when you get to an age of biblical
illiteracy like we're in? What happens when you forget the story? Well where do
you begin? Do you then hand them a spiritual track saying these are the five spiritual laws and here are the six doctrines you need to memorize, or do you start over again with the
story? I think that the way going forward into the 21st century to do mission is to
retell the story. Get people better grounded in the story, and get them to
ask the question where am I in the story. Am I inside the story of redemption, or am i outside of it? Do I want to be inside this story of redemption, or no thank you? So I think we're at a place where we
have to start over from scratch, and it's why I wrote the book reading and
understanding the Bible for Oxford recently because biblical illiteracy,
sadly on my watch, has become worse, not better in my lifetime, even within the
church. I mean it's just appalling how bad it really is, and and therefore, I
think you just have to start over from scratch and retell the story. Thank you, Dr. Witherington. If I can close with a final question, I would like to ask you what would it mean, in your review, for
the church to be united? How would we recognize this unity, and what
can Christians do today to pursue Christian unity? Well the first thing I would say
about that is, there is actually a spiritual unity in the body of all genuine
Christians of whatever genuine Christian faith tradition. So there is a "de facto"
unity that we need to simply recognize. There is a lot of ecumenical discussion working towards unity. Well, I think the
first of that is to recognize that we are brothers and sisters in Christ, and in a
world increasingly more hostile to that fact, whether the hostility is from another religion, or from atheism, or whatever it is, we need to get our act
together and affirm each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. It's why I've gone to the Vatican and done conferences and deliberately made friends with Catholics. It's why I've gone and visited with Patriarch Bartholomew in Istanbul, and
made friends with Orthodox people. Whatever degree of shipping of water is
true about all of our Christian traditions, which it is true, if we're
honest, it is true. We need to realize that there is a vibrant, beating heart at the center of Christianity, that is all genuine Christians are part of the body of Christ, and we need to stop anathematizing each other, and get on with affirming each other. that's point one, but I
agree with John Wesley that unless the church is seen to be unified, and is
deliberately working at its unity and working out unity we have in the spirit, then why
should the world listen to us because we speak with forked tongue. One group says
this, another group says that, etc. So there is plenty of room for
ecumenical work and discussion over time. So that we can actually get our act together. I was so impressed with Pope Francis when I met him because in the very first thing he asked of us who had the audience with him is, "Would you please pray for me? The
Catholic Church needs a lot of reform, and the task is too overwhelming for one
person. Please pray for me." This is a genuine Christian brother who wants help. Right? How could I possibly say no to that? Right? We need to stop antagonizing each other, anathematizing
each other, and we need to get it together, and we need to stand together
in the face of a world increasingly hostile. So do things with one another that are mutually agreeable. We can pray for each other. Occasionally, we perhaps can worship
together. Perhaps, actually share communion together as the symbolic act of being in
fact the body of Christ together. There are a lot of baby steps we can take, and
we have been taking. I was very encouraged by the discussions between
the Lutherans and the Catholics. Where they came to an agreement on, "Yes we affirm
justification by grace through faith." Imagine that! In other words, we are miles
from medieval Catholicism that talked about works as necessary to even beginning to be
saved, or for penance money, or buying your way into years off of Purgatory. There's no talk like that anymore. All of these church traditions have been
evolving over time, and we are at a propitious moment which, if we will take this sea tide at the flood, will give us an opportunity to work together and to be together. A lot
more work needs to be done. Evangelicals need to be part of the
conversation, and we need to get on with it. It's been our privilege to be speaking with Dr. Ben Witherington III, Amos Professor of New Testament for Doctoral
Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary, and is also on the doctoral faculty at St.
Andrews University, in Scotland. Dr. Witherington, thank you so much for being with us today. You are most welcome. God bless.
