The Inner Call: Neither Christian Nor Biblical?
A reader responds to my entry titled Hearing the Harsh Voice:
"I stand by the primacy of being true to one’s own inner call."
Therein lies the whole problem of course. One’s "inner call" exists primarily to scratch those itchy ears, and will tell you whatever you want to hear. There’s nothing Christian or Biblical about it.
Sigh. Ironically, when my inner call directed me to leave Paganism and return to Christianity, it was the last thing I wanted to hear. So my experience directly contradicts the sweeping generalization that my reader here makes, for starters.
But there’s a larger question at issue here. When will we stop using the Bible — or our own personal beliefs regarding what is or isn’t "Christian" — as a weapon?
Certainly, Protestant Christians appeal to the Bible as the sole authority of their faith, not unlike how Catholics appeal to the teaching authority of the Church in a similar way. For that matter, scientists appeal to the scientific method, lawyers appeal to the legal code, etc. etc.
No argument here. But I remain convinced that the bottom line of authority — particularly when it comes to matters of faith — is the sovereignty of individual freedom, conscience, and intuition. If I were a "Bible-believing Christian" (which incidentally I am, only not in the way of which most people who love to call themselves ‘Bible-believing Christians’ would approve), something inside of me assented to that position. The Bible would have authority over me only because I gave it that authority.
Now granted, conservative Christians will insist that the Bible (or the Church) has ultimate authority whether we accept it or not — analogous to how gravity is real, and the person who chooses "not to accept gravity" will still break bones if s/he jumps out of an upstairs window. Why does the Bible or the Church wield such objective authority? Because the conservative Christian believes that such authority is bestowed upon the Bible (or the Church) by God. I keep mentioning both Bible and Church because the theology of authority really is different for different kinds of Christians. Now, while the veracity of an empirical statement can be empirically verified as true or not-true, matters are not so simple with assertions of faith. No one yet has come up with a way to independently verify the existence of God. One either takes it on faith, or not. The same goes with the authority of the Bible or the Church. And if someone believes the Bible is true even for those who reject it — well, that remains nothing more than a freely chosen matter of faith. And there are others who are just as insistent that the Bible is nothing but useless myths, even for those who place their faith in it. Again, it’s all about faith. The practical authority of the Bible rests on the conscience, inner guidance, and assent (read: inner authority) of those who submit to its authority. And even if the Bible has a God-given authority that exists whether or not I accept it, the Bible still has no practical authority in my life unless I accord it with such.
When I say that I stand by the primacy of my inner call, I’m speaking to those on my left: those who question my decision to return to Christianity. My experience is that those on my left typically reject claims of objective authority made on behalf of the Church and/or the Bible, but often they are very comfortable acknowledging the sovereignty of one’s inner call/conscience/reason/will. So to those on the left I say: I embrace the authority of the Church and the Bible, and I do so because my inner guidance directed me to do so (even though it was telling me something that, at least at first, I did not want to hear!) But I am also speaking to those on my right: those who insist not only that the Bible (and/or the Church) is the sole ultimate authority, but who routinely attack those who dare to acknowledge that they are guided by their conscience. Those folks on my right always seems to be saying "your inner compass doesn’t matter, only external authority like the Bible or the Church matters." Ironically, it often appears that such folks squawk the loudest about the primacy of external authority when one of their pet hot-button issues is on the line (like homosexuality), but then become strangely silent when other important Biblical issues make it to the table (such as justice for the poor, or forgiveness for prisoners, or Jesus’ unwillingness to tolerate divorce). Why is this? My suspicion is that many of those folks to my right love to hide the impact of their own inner guidance behind their favored interpretations of scriptural and ecclesial authority. They love to hide behind the theologies and ethics that they choose, out of the dictates of their inner call/conscience. They attack others for "diluting the traditional teaching of the faith," and yet their position is arguably just as much a dilution, only in different ways.
As a post-Pagan, postmodern Christian, I joyfully embrace both Church and Bible as sources of authority in my life. They both challenge and confirm my own beliefs, values, and conscience, all of which combine to create that semi-conscious experience known as "intuition." Thanks to the authority I recognize in the Bible and the Church, they have an impact on how my conscience and inner call develop over time. Hopefully, my engagement with the traditional forms of Christian authority will shape my conscience in good and Christlike ways.
But I know that numerous ways of reading the Bible are available to me; numerous ecclesiologies and theologies and approaches to church polity compete for my assent. At the end of the day, the Bible and the Church can have authority in my life only because I choose to assent to their authority; and only because I choose the ways in which their authority will speak to me. Hence, the primacy of the inner call.
When someone says that giving primacy to one’s inner call is neither Biblical nor Christian, that sure smells like someone who has a vested interest in marginalizing the voice of those who are honest about listening to their conscience. After all, there is more than one strong and persistent tradition within Christianity that insists their own sense of authority is alone "true" or "truly Christian." And they compete with one another, and are often vicious if not uncharitable when attacking one another. In the face of this tremendous variety of competing truth-claims, what is a Christian to do? My suggestion is that, ultimately, he or she has to pray, consult whatever authorities he or she respects, and then make a choice — prompted by his or her conscience or "inner call." Meanwhile… when the Orthodox and the Catholics and the countless varieties of Protestants come to consensus over what truly marks Christian authority and what doesn’t, then I will start to worry about whether my reliance on my conscience and my inner guidance is "Christian" or "Biblical" or not. But until that day arrives, I’m not going to lose any sleep over my position as a Christian who pays attention to his inner voice, imperfect and subject to change/growth as it admittedly is. And I’m not going to get too worked up over those who tell me that my position has "nothing Christian or Biblical about it," either. As I see it, God just loves and adores Christians who disagree with each other — even if they keep making each other miserable in the process.
