Dempster on Fundamentalism
Posted by BryanNov 3
The last few weeks have been pretty crazy/busy—I wrote a paper on Isaiah 52:13-53:12, then worked on a sermon from Job which I gave this past Sunday, and now I’m working on another paper.
This paper will be looking at the role of creation in worship, primarily creation’s temple role in the Garden of Eden, and how each temple/tabernacle afterward picks up on the original goal of creation. Yesterday I finished Greg Beales book on The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God
“While it is true that the Bible ‘was never received as sacred scripture because of its literary merit’ (Carroll 1993: 89), ignorance of its literary features impedes understanding. This is part of the problem with fundamentalism, whether on the theological right or the theological left; the text is simply used and not studied.” Dempster, pg 24.
Right on the money.
4 comments
Comment by Jason on November 12, 2009 at 12:52 pm
What did you think of Beale’s book? And, weren’t you reading Recalling the Hope of Glory? I am curious what you thought of both volumes.
Comment by Bryan on November 12, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Jason-
Both were fantastic, and I highly recommend them both. Beale’s book is a hoss-you have to trudge through it in areas. Lot’s of extra-canonical stuff.
Comment by Matt on November 13, 2009 at 9:52 am
So Dempster says that the left and right ‘use’ the text rather than ’study’ it. This is similar to what CS Lewis says when comparing literary people with unliterary ones. The former ‘receive’ a text, but the latter ‘use’ it:
“A work of (whatever) art can be either ‘received’ or ‘used’. When we ‘receive’ it we exert our senses and imagination and various other powers according to a pattern invented by the artist. When we ‘use’ it we treat it as assistance for our own activities” (An Experiment in Criticism, 88).
Dempster and Lewis are on to something. When fundamentalists come to the Bible, they use it to their own ends. When literary types (for Lewis, and perhaps for Dempster, this class of people allows the artist to speak for himself) come to the text, they allow the literary “pattern invented by the author” to speak. Dempster is right on the money.
Comment by Jason on November 13, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Cool. I’ve had Beale’s book on my list for a while, so I’ll probably pick it up sooner than later.