{"id":28077,"date":"2015-01-10T07:07:58","date_gmt":"2015-01-10T12:07:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/?p=28077"},"modified":"2015-01-10T07:07:58","modified_gmt":"2015-01-10T12:07:58","slug":"protestantism-produces-pluralism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2015\/01\/protestantism-produces-pluralism.html","title":{"rendered":"Protestantism Produces Pluralism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Protestantism<\/p>\n

Richard Beck wrote<\/a> the following in a blog post on why being \u201cbiblical\u201d means being doctrinally tolerant:<\/p>\n

People who claim to literally interpret the inspired and inerrant Word of God do not agree on what the bible says\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

The problem at the heart of Protestantism is that the bible is unable to produce consensus. This isn\u2019t a theological claim. This is an empirical fact.<\/span>

Sola scriptura produces pluralism. The \u201cbible alone\u201d creates doctrinal diversity. Biblical literalism proliferates churches.<\/span>

And five-hundred years of Protestantism is Exhibit A\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2026If your are going to accept the burden of being of Protestant, of living with sola scriptura, then you are going to have to learn to welcome doctrinal diversity.<\/span>

If you want to be biblical you\u2019re going to have to reconcile yourself to pervasive interpretative pluralism. That\u2019s life being biblical. Being biblical requires a fair amount of tolerance for doctrinal diversity. Being biblical means creating a big tent.<\/span>

So if you want to be biblical\u2013if you want to go sola scriptura and drop the magisterium\u2013then\u00a0<\/span>you are morally obligated to assume the burden and responsibility of welcoming the doctrinal diversity you will create<\/i>.<\/span>

The alternative is to be delusional<\/i>, pretending that opening the bible brings everyone to a consensus. Unfortunately, that just doesn\u2019t happen. And pretending otherwise just sets you up to be judgemental and condemnatory. It tempts you into using the word \u201cbiblical\u201d as a weapon.\u00a0<\/span>

In the end, if you\u2019re going to be biblical you\u2019re going to have to learn to be tolerant.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Click through<\/a> to read the rest, as the above is just an excerpt.<\/p>\n

Of related interest, Jason BeDuhn has written an interesting article for\u00a0Bible and Interpretation<\/em><\/a> about Al Mohler\u2019s response to the recent\u00a0Newsweek<\/em> article about the Bible. See too Eric Alexander\u2019s blog post<\/a>\u00a0on how big the progressive Christian tent should be.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard Beck wrote the following in a blog post on why being \u201cbiblical\u201d means being doctrinally tolerant: People who claim to literally interpret the inspired and inerrant Word of God do not agree on what the bible says\u2026 The problem at the heart of Protestantism is that the bible is unable to produce consensus. This […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":28084,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[164],"tags":[2742,9259,9668,9669,10355,11538],"class_list":["post-28077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-protestantism","tag-diversity","tag-pluralism","tag-protestant","tag-protestantism","tag-richard-beck","tag-sola-scriptura"],"yoast_head":"\nProtestantism Produces Pluralism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Richard Beck wrote the following in a blog post on why being "biblical" means being doctrinally tolerant: People who claim to literally interpret the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2015\/01\/protestantism-produces-pluralism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Protestantism Produces Pluralism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Richard Beck wrote the following in a blog post on why being "biblical" means being doctrinally tolerant: People who claim to literally interpret the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2015\/01\/protestantism-produces-pluralism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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