MORE ON CHURCH OF CHRIST INTERPRETATION
Robert Meyers

One has no sooner seen his thoughts in cold print than he wishes he had added this point, or made that one stronger. New examples of the problem he wrote about parade themselves before his eyes and he wishes he might have known them in time to add them to the essay. New experiences modify or corroborate his comments and clamor for expression. This has happened to the present writer in connection with comments he made earlier in this journal on the subject of interpretation. (See Vol. 4, No.3) Now, more than a year later, he begs indulgence while he adds a postscript.

The very word “interpretation” has caused us endless trouble. Those in the Church of Christ wing of the Restoration movement, especially, have shunned this word like a plague. They are quick to claim that they do not interpret the Bible at all. It says what it means, and it means what it says: this is the rehearsed response. Their doctrine is simply “what the Bible says”; your doctrine, where it may differ, is an “interpretation.” If you protest that your interpretation may be as valid as theirs, they reply: “We don’t interpret; we just let it mean what it says.’” It takes no philosopher to see that this circular defense is perfect. Nothing can penetrate it. It rules out all room for honest differences, because it equates the Bible itself with its own understanding. Any attack upon that understanding (or interpretation) is regarded as a direct attack upon the Bible, and therefore upon God, its author.

Since I tried in the previous article to show that every man who reads or listens is involved in an interpretive act, whether he likes it or not, there is no point in going over that ground again. Interpretation means to “bring out the meaning of, to show understanding of, to explain, or to translate” words or actions. My Church of Christ friends cannot avoid being involved in this action, but they prefer to ignore it. It is not hard to find a reason. Once we admit that we interpret, to the best of our ability, we must also admit that others are probably doing the same thing and that our differences may not be due to ignorance and stubbornness on one side but to equally plausible possibilities for interpretation within the material itself. Since this would destroy our temple of security, we prefer not to do it. We take refuge behind any semantic quibble we can discover to avoid admitting that we, too, interpret.

It is ever possible to batter through this defensive wall and get our people to admit that they interpret as capably as they can, then it will quickly dawn upon them that it is possible for people to have honest differences of interpretation. We know this already about politics. We see often how a single event, standing before us all like a rock, is interpreted quite differently by men of equal intelligence and equal sincerity. That some of the interpreters will be charlatans, there is no doubt. That some will be ignorant of many relevant facts for good interpretation, no one would deny. But lined up on both sides, or on several sides, will be men of equal sincerity, truthfulness, and capacity. All that keeps one faction from hanging the other is that all of them acknowledge the problems inherent in attempting to understand an action.

In literary criticism, highly capable men with no apparent motives beyond the objective effort to understand, interpret masterpieces differently. One man sees Hemingway’s Old Man of The Sea as a piece of maudlin sentimentality, weak in plot, diction and character portrayal. Another argues persuasively that the little novel is the perfect essence of all Hemingway’s strengths as a writer and that he richly deserved having it mentioned by name when he won the Nobel Prize. In between are a host of opinions. Our only recourse in a situation like this is to read the book carefully, give sober heed to the critics, and make a synthesis which will accurately reflect our own conviction. By that conviction we should stand until we, or another, has disproved it.

Why should it be different with sacred literature? Any honest and perceptive person knows that through every century since the Book was written men of equal sincerity and wisdom have been unable to understand some of its crucial issues alike. One may claim that they should have until he is blue in the face, but the truth is that in twenty centuries men have not been able to do so. This should give us pause and make us wonder if all our strident exhortation will make them do so within our generation. Perhaps it is time to take a long, hard look at the problem of interpretation. We may want to overhaul our position.

A fascinating illustration of this problem showed up several months ago on the editorial page of the Christian Chronicle, a widely-circulated journal of Church of Christ activities. Calling passionately for a discussion of “the Negro issue,” the editorial pleaded for more writing on this matter from Church of Christ preachers. It said that recently “two respected and distinguished ministers” in the Mid-South area of the paper’s coverage wrote special articles on the subject in the same issue. Then came this revealing admission: “It is curious to note that these two men --- in all sincerity and with much good Biblical logic --- disagree with each other on the issue.” It pointed out that both men relied for their arguments on “God’s will” and that both men are scholarly.

This raises a most interesting question. If these two Church of Christ preachers study the same book with the same sincerity and ability, yet come up with contradictory answers, may we not have a solution to the vexing problem of religious differences? If our own men can understand the Bible differently on such a crucial issue, why is it that we expect all the rest of the religious world to see exactly as we do on other major matters?

Surely the force of this cannot be evaded by claiming the race problem is “nonessential”! This is our escape on many disagreements about interpretation. But the race problem is major. Nothing, in fact, has pulled American Christendom closer together in recent years than has this compelling, vital issue. One of the Church of Christ ministers mentioned in the editorial used verses suggesting that racial discrimination was a sin, so that salvation was actually at stake. The other found verses which proved to him that God meant for the whites and the negroes to have a “great gulf’ between them. Obviously, if God meant this, then anyone who sought to destroy this God-ordained “gulf” would risk his sours salvation, too. It is apparent that to these two Bible students, the problem of racial discrimination is major. Each man is sure that his prooftext “means what it says, and says what it means!” Yet they cannot agree. Their interpretations differ.

Do we need any other proof of the truth that unity can only be achieved when men allow for differences of interpretation? Unity in diversity is possible; the unity of conformity never has been and never will be. By attempting to make conformity in interpretations the basis for unity, we have split our particular segment of the Restoration movement into some ten to twenty factions. We will go on splitting forever unless we learn the lesson which this difference about the Negro problem teaches us: that men of good will and high intelligence may read the same and yet arrive at different conclusions. It isn’t that God’s revelation speaks with two voices; it is simply that man’s interpretive power is affected by many factors and that one hardly ever finds two men on earth who are anywhere near alike.

When I talked about this problem in Dallas in July of 1963, a minister representing the Anti faction among us was deeply grieved at the suggestion that the Bible may be understood differently by honest men. He spoke with great power and massive scorn, saying, “The Bible says what it means, and means what it says, and you either believe it or you don’t. That’s all there is to it.” Following which, he sat down with a triumphant flourish. There was an opportunity later to read Romans 16:20, 2 Cor. 13:12, 1 Thess. 5:26, and 1 Pet. 5:14 to him, with this question: “Do you command and practice the holy kiss? Does the Bible say what it means here? If it does, do you believe it or don’t you?”

What happens at this juncture, of course, is that the beleaguered literalist begins at once to interpret. He claims that a handshake will do as well now, although he is quick to say that a similar change in form of communion or baptism or music will not do at all. He knows that the holy kiss was only a custom, destined to perish, although no one told him so and he cannot find any such comment in Holy Writ. But he knows it anyway, just as he knows that weekly communion was not just a custom but a universal and permanent injunction. Yet he does not interpret.

It is interesting, in view of these claims about “not interpreting,” to read 2 Thess. 5:25-27. Paul says: “Brethren, pray for us.” That imperative means what it says! Paul says: “I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren.” That imperative means what it says! Sandwiched in between these two commandments, which mean just what they say, is a third: “Greet all the brethren with an holy kiss.” That one does not mean what it says, and it is all right to change the form of it so long as we keep the spirit. How do we know?

Please be patient for one more example.

Our inconsistency is so immense that it has to be seen to be believed. In John 13, Jesus washes his disciples’ feet after telling them that if He does not do this, they are not in fellowship with Him. Later he says: “Then if I, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example: you are to do as I have done for you.”

It is impossible to find a clearer imperative than this in the entire New Testament. Jesus says (1) you ought to do this, and (2) I’ve set an example and you are to do as I have done for you. This is the clarity and force we have often longed for with reference to sprinkling, the organ, and missionary societies.

How helpful it would be to have Jesus speak as clearly on these points as he does on footwashing!

Yet we disregard the literal import of these words without a tremor of guilt. When I turn and ask my brother, “Does this mean what it says? Do you believe it, or not?” he can only say, lamely, that this was a custom, a way of showing humility, and we can do it today through other forms. How does he know this? Does the sacred Book tell him so? No, but by an act of interpretation he arrives at it and since it is his interpretation, it is worthy of acceptance.

Some months ago I heard a prominent Washington, D. C. minister of the Church of Christ speak in a great public hall. After talking for nearly an hour, he told his audience: “You don’t need anyone to interpret this book to you. Just read what it says and do it!” At which moment I began to wonder about some things: If we did not need anyone to interpret the Book to us, why were we paying him so much money to come so far and talk to us about it? Wasn’t it criminal waste to pay him to do the unnecessary? We had paid for the huge hall, we had paid for the newspaper, radio and television advertisements, and we had paid to make tracts available to the audience. All we really needed to do was buy New Testaments and flood the city with them, urging each recipient to read and obey.

So why didn’t we do that? All of us know why; we wanted to be certain that “outsiders” got our understanding of that Book. We did not want to risk the chance that without our expert help they might not see things the way we do. We wanted our brother, a powerful speaker, to tell them what the Bible taught and then tell them where to find it, so that there would be no danger of their interpreting improperly. For the same reason we flooded the market with our own tracts, rather than with New Testaments. We used to say of written creeds that if they had more than the Bible, they had too much, and if less than the Bible, too little, and if they were just like the Bible, then they weren’t needed. Should we reason so about our tracts on baptism and music? If they are more than just a collection of unadorned verses (in itself a distortion, since they inevitably appear out of context), then they represent a point of view. Which is precisely what they do represent, of course: our interpretation of the New Testament’s comments about baptism. That the interpretation may be completely accurate is beside the question. The point at issue is whether we interpret, and it is crystal clear that we do.

We need not change our understanding just because we admit that our views represent the best interpretations we can make. We may still urge others, with passion and honesty, to accept interpretations we believe are right. But once we see clearly that revelation is God’s action, while interpretation is man’s action, we can give up the assumption that all our views are infallible.

At that precise moment we shall rejoin the human race.

Robert Meyers is Professor of English at Friends University in Wichita, Kansas, and he ministers to the Riverside Church of Christ in that city.