I stood in the doorway of the Maple Grove Church in 1951 greeting the congregation after the sermon, I was holding my Revised Standard Version of the Bible, which had been recently published in a hardback red buckram binding. When one of my more elderly church members reached for my hand, he said almost gruffly, "When are you going to get rid of that red book and get a Bible?" Many conservative Christians viewed as heretical this new translation that had dared to present itself as a church sponsored "standard" revision and updating of the King James Version. There were even RSV "Bible burning" protests. Now more than fifty years and dozens of translations and paraphrases later such an uproar over a Bible translation seems almost impossible. Even the more traditional church publishers sponsor every imaginable colloquial version of its text. Yet with all the variety of English versions available, and perhaps partly because of the many versions, reading and applying the biblical message to our contemporary world situation remains highly problematic. What is it about this Bible that so unites and at the same time separates us Christians? Christians and Jews of all descriptions respect the Bible as "holy Scripture"—that is, as an honored and authoritative book. However, we adopt quite different responses and life styles based on its teaching. Recently in a Jerusalem synagogue service I witnessed genuine reverence for the Torah Scroll with which I could identify, yet I find myself as a Christian responding quite differently to its message. Even within the evangelical Christian tradition there are major variations of interpretation, both in theology and ethics. For example, currently the theological question of "open theism" is dividing the Evangelical Theological Society. Does the Bible teach that God knows precisely everything that will happen in the future or not? And how shall we discern the proper "biblical" application of the teaching in1 Timothy concerning the ordination of women to the Christian ministry? Or how does one account for the contradictory differences that exist between Christian Zionists, who are able to justify from Scripture the hostility and violence of Israel against its Palestinian neighbors, and those, including Palestinian Christians, who according to Scripture find such behavior ungodly and immoral? How to read the Scriptures has become a major problem in our global world. How shall we determine their "meaning" for today? What kind of a book is the Bible? Shall we view it as a direct, personal word from God to each individual who reads it? Or is it primarily a book of instructions for the church as it continues the mission of Christ? Is it a magical (Christians prefer the word supernatural) book that contains no errors in its original version? The question of the "inerrancy" of the text is still a major concern among the ETS scholars. Is it a historical record of God’s self-revelation through Israel? Is it a book of transcultural principles—something like a constitution upon which everyday laws are to be based? And, if so, how is it related to the living self-disclosure we hold came to us in Jesus Christ? The pluralism not only in our world but also in our churches, along withour global cross-cultural consciousness, requires us to re-examine our rationale for the claims we make about the Bible and the way we use it in the church. Among the sacred Scriptures of the world, the Bible is unique in its historical character, and this has significant implications for the way we read and use it. Hindu Scriptures are mystical and philosophical. Buddhist writings are ethical and mystical in import, while Shinto sacred writings are mythocultural. The Koran claims an oracular origin—that is, its words were dictated by Allah preserved in heaven and represented in the Arabic original on earth. But the Hebrew-Christian Scriptures are historical documents recording Israel’s history according to its self-understanding as a covenant people with God as Monarch. God rules over Israel by sending them lawgivers, deliverers, prophets, and finally the Messiah. In this way God’s (Yahweh) holy selfhood and will is revealed, and this revelatory history is recorded in the Scriptures. This "historical" character of the biblical texts affects the way it is applied and used across cultures. Because it is so clearly oriented to a particular culture, the Hebrew, it cannot be read simply in a trans-cultural mode. Such a reading might be applied to the Wisdom books that claim to be universal in their perspective. But it cannot be applied to prophetic books like Amos and Zechariah, or to books like Exodus, Leviticus, or Joshua and Judges from the Torah tradition. These books require crosscultural adaptations, and it is precisely this cross-cultural adaptation that we see happening in the pages of the New Testament. Christians see the life of Jesus, the Messiah, as the fulfillment of this history, and the church of Jesus Christ as the continuation of the mission or movement, which he inaugurated. In a certain sense the story of the Bible continues through the continuing work of the Spirit of Jesus, who is recognized as the Holy Spirit of God. As heir and continuing witness to the revelation recorded in the Bible, the church has defined the parameters of the historical Scripture (canon) with which it identifies, and through the ongoing inspiration of the Spirit interprets and applies (contextualizes) its message in the contemporary age. The Bible has from the beginning been recognized as the book of the church and has been translated and used in cross-cultural mission. From its beginning the Anabaptist tradition has been Bible-centered rather than theology-centered. It can be argued that the Anabaptist movement of the sixteenth century would not have been possible without the textual work of Erasmus restoring the original Greek text of the New Testament and Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible into German. Today Mennonites around the world have begun to reclaim the term Anabaptist to describe their distinctive church position and again a biblical rather than a systematic theology has been the unifying factor. But what does this mean? How are we to understand and use the Bible as authoritative Scripture across the multiplicity of cultures in which the Anabaptist tradition has been introduced? Should we expect our Asian and African sisters and brothers to interpret and apply Scripture exactly as we do in the West? Western Mennonite biblical scholars have diligently exegeted Scripture but have given far less attention to the task of "exegeting" modern cultures and locating the message of the Bible in their contexts. "Discernment" has virtually become a shibboleth in church vocabulary, and discernment involves spiritual insight into its meaning and relevance for today. It means more than determining what the ancient text of the Bible meant in its original setting. It requires a discriminating analysis of the contemporary cultural situation into which the Scriptures are translated. It requires contextualization. Put in technical terms, what we need, and thus far have shied away from defining, is a theological hermeneutic that recognizes the freedom of the Holy Spirit to guide the church in interpreting and applying the text of Scripture in the multiplicity of global cultures. Stated in terms of church polity, this will necessitate the location of authority in the body of Christ. Is discernment reserved for an institutional hierarchy of the church? For biblical and theological scholars? For democratic conference decision making structures? Is it the work of the laity in the local congregation? This book of essays tackles these questions, but not as a sustained rational argument divided into sequential chapters. Rather, it is a collection of essays gathered around a theme. Several of the chapters examine the historical Anabaptist-Mennonite perspective on biblical interpretation and authority. Several more explore the methodological presuppositions of the hermeneutical process and suggest contextualized interpretations in the areas of peace, spirituality, and sexuality. Two of the chapters deal with biblical applications in discipleship and congregational life. And finally, two overlapping autobiographical pieces trace how my mind has changed and the experiences that led me from Mennonite fundamentalism to critical Anabaptism. —C. Norman Kraus Using Scripture in a Global Age orders:
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