Reading the Way to Heaven: A Wesleyan Hermeneutic of Scripture

Abstract

In 1998 the British Methodist Church published a statement on the place of the Bible in the Methodist Church. A Lamp to my Feet and a Light to my Path made no attempt to construct a single Methodist hermeneutic; instead it described a spectrum of seven different approaches to scripture that might be found in contemporary British Methodism. These ranged from a strong adherence to biblical inerrancy and authority, through to a rather vague sense that the Bible represented a useful but fallible resource for those who seek ‘to follow, in some way, the example of Christ’. The implication was that there was no distinctive hermeneutic in Methodism and that its absence was a good thing.Joe Koskie's book, based on his doctoral research under Joel Green, sets out to oppose such a pessimistic—or latitudinarian—interpretation. He wants to develop an understanding of theological hermeneutics which can be both authentically Wesleyan and yet responsive to the massive changes in biblical studies and human thinking since Wesley's time. Koskie is minister of Antioch United Methodist Church in Louisiana, a contributor to Catalyst (a resource for UMC seminarians in the evangelical tradition), and the initiator of a new programme of theological education in prisons.Koskie's breadth of learning is impressive. He is deeply immersed in the corpus of Wesley's writings, and offers close readings of a number of Wesley's sermons and other works. He is also engaged with a range of recent theological writing from a post-critical perspective as well as a number of key thinkers from outside the circle of theology. This means he is taking us along a different journey from the one made familiar in, for example, Scott Jones's John Wesley's Conception and Use of Scripture.The philosopher Alistair Macintyre provides the starting point: his concept of a traditioned community gives Koskie a way into understanding what it means to be Wesleyan. This is a dynamic understanding of tradition that sees it addressing inadequacies in what has been received, and reformulating beliefs as it moves forward. A Wesleyan hermeneutic, therefore, is not going to be content with repeating Wesley's own exegesis. From Hans Frei, Koskie takes an emphasis on the literal sense of scripture. This is not a fundamentalist move; literal here means the sense that emerges from the community of faith's immersion in the narrative of scripture. In a later chapter, Umberto Eco's concept of the model reader provides a way to affirm the priority of the text while still allowing for context to shape the process of interpretation.Within this sophisticated framework of theological hermeneutics, Koskie develops an exposition of Wesley's own use of scripture and his regard for it as a means of grace. This centres on soteriology. Wesley finds the analogy of faith—what we might call the tenor of scripture—focusing the Bible on justification by faith.Two chapters on ‘Appropriating Wesley’ (Koskie's editor might have pressed him to adopt more imaginative chapter headings) are perhaps the most valuable in the book. They offer a critique of Wesley's hermeneutic, arguing that in our present context Wesleyans can no longer work with Wesley's own analogy of faith and his emphasis on justification by faith. A contemporary Wesleyan hermeneutic, contests Koskie, should be more ecclesial, more corporate, and more creedal, with less emphasis on the justification of individuals. Above all, sanctification and holiness will provide the analogy of faith for those who wish to read scripture in the Wesleyan tradition.Here, then, is a valuable piece of creative theology. Not being content with an archaeological approach to Wesley, Koskie offers a constructive way for contemporary communities in the Wesleyan tradition to combine faithfulness and critical engagement. It can be recommended to students, teachers, and practitioners—though some of the latter group might be impatient with aspects of the philosophical and theological discussion. It may overstate the case for an ideal Wesleyan reader of scripture, but Koskie does emphasize that his is only one among many possible perspectives.