Use, Misuse, and Neglect of the Bible Part 1

It can be instructive to notice how religious writers use, misuse, or even ignore the Bible when they examine various topics. This is going to be the first of two articles that explore some recent examples of this. 

Our first example comes from a writing by David W. Congdon at pres-outlook.org (January 10, 2025). The article is “Orthodoxy, not heresy, is the root problem of Christian nationalism.” This is a publication of Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), a merger of what used to be the United Presbyterian Church with its southern counterpart. 

However, that is just the boring background. Here is the interesting part: Congdon thinks, as his title tells us, the whole idea that there can be “heresy” is what even makes Christian nationalism possible. Keep in mind as we proceed that by heresy, he means what we might call false doctrine. We are not going to consider Christian nationalism here at all. What we are interested in is how Congdon thinks the Bible is misused when both promoting and combating Christian nationalism. 

In his article, Congdon condemns a list of opponents of Christian nationalism for viewing it as “heresy.” This is because they appeal to the Bible, or at least parts of it. He thinks some of these condemners of Christian nationalism make their appeal without thinking about what it implies. They think the Bible has commandments and principles which Christian nationalists violate. Congdon points out that one of these condemners even admits “one person’s heresy is another’s orthodoxy” and there is no way to decide which is which. Congdon agrees with this. He makes the point that proponents of Christian nationalism also appeal to the Bible and orthodoxy. 

Congdon is saying opponents who condemn Christian nationalism as heresy begin by accepting the idea (which he thinks is wrong-headed) that there can be heresy and orthodoxy, in other words, true and false doctrine. He attacks this idea with a brief survey of church history, which he sees as a pointless and groundless debate over heresy and orthodoxy. He sees this as beginning in the Bible itself. For example, he thinks 2 Peter 2 is a condemnation of “false prophets” that culminates in a call (vs. 12) to have these false prophets killed! (Even a quick reading of 2 Peter 2:12 reveals a simile comparing false prophets to wild beasts that must be caught and destroyed. Peter in no way calls for false prophets to be killed. He simply says they will “perish,” probably an eschatological reference to judgment.) 

The overall point Congdon wants to make is “the rhetorical battle between ‘orthodoxy’ and ‘heresy’ has its origins in this ancient conviction that divine revelation requires uniformity.” Congdon not only thinks this uniformity never happened to any significant extent, but he also thinks it cannot and should not happen. We might say that divine revelation would leave no room for the currently indispensable “diversity” when it comes to beliefs, and Congdon seems to think, if something has to go, that something needs to be divine revelation! 

Why can’t there be correct versus incorrect beliefs? Because “early Christians constructed orthodoxy.” While they might have claimed to appeal to “sacred texts and liturgical practices,” it was always just a matter of “adapting to the needs of whoever is in charge at a given moment.” This means “the doctrine of the Trinity, Christ’s consubstantial deity, eternal judgment, and the like” are nothing more than the result of decisions by those in power to declare certain people “heretics.” According to Congdon, those who oppose Christian nationalism as “heresy” have bought into a key principle of Christian nationalism—the whole idea that there can even be “heresy.” 

What can we learn from all this? First, the whole idea that orthodoxy (sound doctrine) was just constructed by those in power partakes of the “nothing but” fallacy. This is usually called reductionism. For example, it just isn’t plausible to think that in early church history, opposition to Arian teaching was “nothing but” a power play. That probably came to be involved from what we know, but it never was “just” that and nothing more. Remember, the Arians thought the Son of God was a created being. They liked to chant, “There was when he was not” in reference to the Son of God. 

The decision to reject that view was not and is not trivial, and it is not necessarily an arbitrary decision by those in power. Also, it is difficult to imagine what “power” anyone had in the earliest history of the church. They were glad just to be tolerated (when that happened) by those with political and social power. Yet, the earliest documents of the New Testament show there was an attempt to correct false doctrine by teaching, not by the kind of power Congdon is talking about here. 

Second, Congdon has simply rejected the whole concept of revelation. He is an example of the direction thinking always seems to go once the idea of revelation—particularly word revelation—has been abandoned. That is why Congdon is forced to conclude, “flawed human beings have constructed orthodoxy.” For him, there is no revelation. What we would call sound doctrine has two problems: first, since no one can agree on what it is, that must mean it can’t be known. Second, that shouldn’t surprise us because it was all just invented by people for their own purposes anyway. 

While Congdon takes this about as far as it can go, his principle is at work in several less extreme views. Some of these have occasionally popped up in the Restoration Movement. How often have we seen appeals made to the supposed fact we can’t understand the Bible? Or, even if we can understand some key parts of the Bible, the rest is to be kept in reserve, “up for grabs” we might say. These are often those convenient “non-essentials.” 

How often have appeals been made to the “human authorship of the Bible” to find some room for doubt about it being a message from God? Thus, room has been made for “partial inerrancy” in which some things in the Bible are true, and if others are not, it doesn’t matter. 

There is an important sense in which a fellow like Congdon is more honest than some. He thinks the Bible is just a product of human thinking—that and nothing more. That being the case, we will always go wrong when making appeals to it as though it were something more. 

That is an honest (even if completely wrong) view. It is much more respectable in many ways than those who want to hedge their bets with a Bible that often can’t be understood or a Bible that is only partially the product of God’s revealing activity. When the idea that the Bible is words from God is abandoned, everything is up for grabs. We can thank Mr. Congdon for making that very clear. 

This is one way to misunderstand and misuse the Bible. Next month, we will look at a very different way, one that is on the other end of the spectrum.