Several vulnerabilities are built into
worldwide evangelicalism from a human point of view. One of them is a lack of
sustained hierarchy by which decisions are made and mandates are passed down,
especially when an initiative takes generations to accomplish.
The second vulnerability in evangelicalism is a lack of hierarchy to
determine what is or what is not an orthodox message of the gospel. Statements
of faith and various creeds provide a certain level of guidance. Leaders, schools,
professors, and pastors may expound on ideas or concepts upon which individuals
may choose to agree or disagree. But for the most part, there is a lack of
hierarchy to determine what is or what is not acceptable which is built into
the congregational system of church government.
We are left with only one foundation, the Bible. And it is truly in and
through the Scriptures that Christ actually governs His church. Moreover, the
Bible comes to each of us by way a mother tongue, translated by men from the
original language texts also passed down by men.
So where may the vulnerabilities lie?
- · Disagreements and shifting
consensus as to original language texts;
- · Increased drift in verbal
inspiration as applied to philosophies and theories of translation;
- · Increased centralized
control of Bible translations (an informal hierarchy by proxy); and
- · The recent shift to
digitized Bibles (a sole source for available Bible translations).
In the sovereign game of chess, which is church history and in which
all of humanity is “in play,” most will agree that the Protestant Reformation
inaugurated a worldwide revolution in Bible study, Bible knowledge, and
biblically based churches. In subsequent revival movements the Reformation’s
emphasis on sola Scriptura found
renewed energy. Such was the case for both the First Great Awakening (c. 1740)
and the Second Great Awakening (c. 1800).
The Second Great Awakening gathered and propagated a number of
simultaneous streams, including being the fountainhead of the Great Century of
Protestant Missions. A parallel stream was the founding of the British and
Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) in 1803.
By 1820 the BFBS could report: “The Auxiliaries of the Society itself
amount to 265, and the Branch Societies to 364; forming together a total as of
last year, of 629.” Their model of unity was a “federal model.” E. Stanley
Jones described the “federal model” in this way: “In a federation, the two entities uniting
each retain its own identity. …their purpose of uniting is to achieve some
mutually agreeable common purpose.” As long as they agreed on a mutual purpose, two entities
in a “federal model” could cooperate by way of comity agreements. Numerous
complex webs of written and unwritten comity agreements became the framework
for the worldwide Protestant missionary movement of the 19th and 20th
centuries.
Early in the founding of the Bible Societies, their common text was the
King James Bible, and their common
original language text of the New Testament was the “Majority Text.” Although
King James had made revisions to the English Geneva to suit his kingly biases,
the resulting Authorized Translation was viewed as a Protestant text. Pius IX,
the reigning pontiff during the early growth of the Bible Societies, harshly criticized
the Bible Societies and condemned both their translations as well as their
Bible colporteurs (door-to-door distributors).
The unity of the Bible Society Movement centered around its English
origins and its use of the Majority Text of the New Testament Greek. So when
Samuel Tregelles, a Plymouth Brethren, found deficiencies in the Majority Text
of the Book of Revelation in 1844, the science of “textual criticism” found a
conservative Protestant advocate. Tregelles studied an old Greek manuscript in
Rome, perhaps the same one later published by Constantin von Tischendorff, and
the battle began.
With the availability of conflicting original language texts,
significant infighting began among Protestants. Some accepted only the text
behind the King James Bible, while others accepted one or another of the
critical edition texts. Yet on the mission fields of the world, the King James
Bible and its original language remained the primary text used for worldwide
Bible translation.
About 100 years later serious translation question were raised by
Eugene Nida. Nida was the Executive Secretary of Translations for the American
Bible Society (ABS) for 35 years, beginning in 1946. His insider view of
evangelicalism and his marketing savvy was exemplified by the translation
theory used and marketing approach behind the New International Version.
Nida was in a position to move worldwide Bible translators away from
using the King James Bible and Majority Text as the basis for their Bible
translation. And he effectively did so. His lexicon was deemed preferable to
Strong’s Concordance, and his dynamic equivalence theory of translation moved
translators away from a word-for-word translation theory and toward a thought-for-thought
approach. These were important steps if Protestant dominated translations of
doctrinal concepts were to be replaced with more vanilla-fied terms.
Soon evangelical Bible translators were convinced that word-for-word
translations were obsolete and a hindrance to properly communicating God’s
intent.
For example, verbs like “justify” in the Book of Romans were considered
“borrowed” from the Latin or English, and therefore ought to be replaced with phrases
like “declare righteous.” Anyone familiar with the Protestant Reformation
should know that “justification by faith” was very important for Martin Luther.
Yet the recent “emergent church” adherence to “declarative righteousness” as an
alternative to “imputed righteousness” ought to sufficiently show the
deficiencies of using “declare righteous” to translate the Greek verb behind
“justify” in Romans.
Simultaneously, centralized control of the Bible Society movement began
in 1946 with the founding of the United Bible Society (UBS). At that time six Bible
societies joined to found the UBS, the BFBS, the ABS, the National Bible
Society of Scotland, the Netherlands Bible Society, and two other Bible
societies.
With the founding of the UBS, a movement was initiated away from the
“federal model” of unity and toward the “organic union model” of unity.
Weisenbeck described the “organic union model” in this way: “The parts or members of the organism
receive their identities from the principal entity, and their identities have
no meaning except in reference to the principal.” No longer are groups
united by common purpose, but they are united by common identity. A hierarchy
was being put into place.
Along with this centralized model of unity, a cooperative agreement was
signed by the UBS with the Roman Catholic Secretariat for Promoting Christian
Unity (SPCU) in 1968. This agreement included provisions for Roman Catholic
participation on every translation team of the Bible overseen by the UBS. Then,
in its 1987 revision, Rome was made primary over every UBS translation team, thwarting
any remaining resistance among various constituencies.
Centralization began in 1946, and its influence has only grown into the
era of digitization.
In the 21st Century, Christians moved from the printed page
to digitized Bibles. Likewise, evangelists worldwide are now being provided with
audio Bibles to use for evangelizing in remote areas. While digitized Bibles
can be changed with the click of a mouse, audio Bible translations cannot be easily
studied or analyzed by scholars and pastors.
It appears that a very interesting play and counter-play has been going
on since 2010. And it is very difficult to judge the future impact of these changes:
- · One centralized hub for
all digitized Bibles worldwide (the ETEN [Every Tribe Every Nation] DBL
[Digital Bible Database], controlled by the UBS) using proprietary software
(Paratext, jointly developed by the UBS and SIL [Summer Institute of
Linguistics]); and
- · The use of audio Bibles
instead of printed Bibles (or even those in digitized forms).
The changes are in fact astounding. This author remembers a time when
Evangelical Christians would look at the publisher of hymnals to be sure that Atonement
language in familiar hymns had not been altered, modified, or removed by
modernist publishers.
It is this author’s feeling that centralization and digitization provide
possible vulnerabilities for the future of worldwide evangelicalism. The pastor
and the theologian both use available mother tongue translations to formulate
their preaching and theology. And it appears Christ has used and will continue
to use the Bible in the mother tongue to rule over His church.
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