Stephen Barkley
I still remember my Bible College hermeneutics text from the 1990s: How to Read the Bible for All It’s Worth—first edition! Gordon Fee and Douglas Stewart. For the first time my eyes were opened to basic issues like genre analysis (you can’t read apocalyptic texts like historical narrative). That book, now in its fourth edition, grounds the reader in an evangelically slanted historical-critical method for reading the Bible.
Gordon Fee is a pentecostal scholar, ordained with the Assemblies of God. He would argue that pentecostals would do well to adopt an evangelical framework of hermeneutics rooted in authorial intent and the historical-critical method.
Kenneth J. Archer disagrees.
For Archer, reading scripture as a Pentecostal requires a different type of reading—a different hermeneutic—than standard evangelical methods. Expanding on work done by John Christopher Thomas, Archer proposes a strategy for pentecostal hermeneutics where meaning is discovered and created in a dialog between the Holy Spirit, the text, and the community.
This strategy shifts the locus of meaning from the world of the author to the text itself and from the text toward the reader. The best type of criticism to use within this three-way dialogue is narrative criticism. Other historical-critical methods, while still having a role to play, are dethroned.
A Pentecostal Hermeneutic is a well researched monograph which began as Archer’s 2001 doctoral thesis at St. Andrews University in Scotland. It should be required reading for all pentecostal teachers and pastors seeking to interpret scripture faithfully.
Archer, Kenneth J. A Pentecostal Hermeneutic: Spirit, Scripture and Community. Cleveland: CPT Press, 2009.
[…] modernism and postmodernism. I even had a working understanding of paramodernism (See Archer’s A Pentecostal Hermeneutic). Seán M.W. McGuire’s work has introduced me to another variation: metamodernism. As you’d […]
I would say that using this hermeneutic to approach scripture is why we have “Progressive Christian” ideology today.
To utilise Merold Westphal consideration of Marx, Freud & Nietzsche as “prophets of Christendom” and a basis to build a new interpretive method is wildly dangerous! Far overreaching of any Evangelical method, and the results could be catastrophic.
What is the problem with resting in the word of God and using the LGH method to avoid misinterpretation? Why base interpretation of the word of God upon the very opposition to Him found in the principles of these men which are antithetical to scripture?
I would say it is absolutely worth reading – that we can understand the Side B and progressive ideologies developing today which cater to men who have no time for sound doctrine but have itching ears.
I really appreciate your engagement, Michelle. I think we both desire to be faithful to God in our understanding and living out of his Word.
To clarify (for those who haven’t read Archer’s work), he doesn’t dismiss literary-historical criticism—just dethrones it.
In my view, Archer’s not offering a “new interpretive method” as you suggest, but taking us back to the way the early church ‘heard’ and lived out the Word together. It only feels new because exclusively literary/historical/critical methods are rooted in Modernist thought.
PS – I wrote on the Westphal book you mention: https://stephenbarkley.com/2019/07/08/suspicion-faith-merold-westphal/