The Narrow Path Ministries

Jesus Creed:
The Hermeneutics Quiz

I got a 60. Scoring between 53 and 65, means I'm a "moderate" on The Hermeneutics Scale.

Follow the links to the quiz & interpetation page....

where Scot wrote:The moderate hermeneutic might be seen as the voice of reason and open-mindedness. Moderates generally score between 53 to 65. Many are conservative on some issues and progressive on others. It intrigues that conservatives tend to be progressive on the same issues, while progressives tend to be conservative on the same issues. Nonetheless, moderates have a flexible hermeneutic that gives them the freedom to pick and choose on which issues they will be progressive or conservative. For that reason, moderates are more open to the charge of inconsistency. What impresses me most about moderates are the struggles they endure to render judgments on hermeneutical issues.

I'm happy with my score (think it's accurate overall).
I can relate to struggling over rendering judgments (decisions) on difficult topics and/or texts...it takes a while sometimes...and then some.
Btw, the question about Acts 15 seems to be mis-worded.
It's about first-century Gentile Christians, not Jewish Christians.
Enjoy, and think! think! think!

I got a 61.

62, but I had to lie on a couple because my answer wasn't listed. For example, there's no way to identify Christ as the fulfillment of the Sabbath.

Well... I fall in the moderate range as well. But it looks as if I'm a bit more conservative than you guys:

54

Don, I thought you'd be around 10 points different from me but higher.

To try to get a better understanding of the questions (how perceived, for clarity, etc.) I just read the comments on Jesus Creed and retook the test: 66 this time. I still don't quite "get" question 18:

The requirement of the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15:29) not to eat any meat improperly killed (strangled instead of having the blood drained properly):
1. Is a permanent commandment for all Christians today.
2. I fall somewhere between No. 1 and No. 3.
3. Is for Jewish Christians only.
4. I fall somewhere between No. 3 and No. 5.
5. Is a temporary custom for first-century Jewish Christians, and is no longer a concern for Christians.

I chose 4. I suppose it's about what your views on being kosher is. But if the answer were to be 3., the Council didn't have to demand this of themselves; they were Jews and already kosher. This Council requirement was applicable to the Gentile Christians back then. Or would 3. mean to say that, Jewish-Christians today must still require non-Jewish Christians who worship with them to follow the requirement?

Another thing is, and it has nothing to do with my beliefs; draining the blood out of animals in food preparation is simply sanitary. Ask any hunter. And, afaik, animals aren't strangled to death any more. That is, not in Western societies in food production, etc.

Did this question confuse any of you guys?

Maybe we "progressives" (I'm "in" by one point now, ) ask too many questions?
(I'm going to post this same post on Jesus Creed)....

I think I just changed it to Gentile Christians in my mind when I read it.

I did too, Michelle, to try to make sense out of the option! Then I went, "Wait a minute here?" Anyways, my dialup is sending my post toward Jesus Creed. Should be there in an hour or so, hahaha.

about 6 minutes later

It posted.
Btw, if any of y'all might ever wanna blog-post be forewarned: most don't have an edit feature! I've gotten used to that here and, now, I can't fix a minor boo-boo on Jesus Creed...which is one of the best blogs around!

Anyways, now I have to post the "progressives" since I became one overnight,

Scot McKnight wrote:The progressive is not always progressive. Those who score 66 or more can be seen as leaning toward the progressive side, but the difference between at 66 and 92 is dramatic. Still, the progressive tends to see the Bible as historically shaped and culturally conditioned, and yet most still consider it the Word of God for today. Following a progressive hermeneutic, for the Word to speak in our day, one must interpret what the Bible said in its day and discern its pattern for revelation in order to apply it to our world. The strength, as with the moderate but even more so, is the challenge to examine what the Bible said in its day, and this means the progressives tend to be historians. But the problems for the progressives are predictable: Will the Bible's so-called "plain meaning" be given its due and authoritative force to challenge our world? Or will the Bible be swallowed by a quest to find modern analogies that sometimes minimize what the text clearly says?

Wherever you land on this scale, it is my hope we all will engage the seriousness of how we read the Bible—and don't read the Bible.

Scot McKnight is professor of religious studies at North Park University in Chicago and the author of the upcoming book, The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible (Zondervan, 2008).

I have a panel discussion about "emergent" someplace Scot was in on. He mentions seeing a parakeet in his backyard, who had gotten outside somehow. Other birds, I think sparrows, were initially frightened of it. But soon, they saw he wasn't going to harm them and they came closer, being intrigued. Not real long after that, the sparrows began to "imitate" what the parakeet did and would go wherever he flew off to. They wanted to be like him.

I can't recall the exact moral of the story. But it had something to do with how "emergent" Christians appear like this parakeet to more traditional Christians. They're initially scared of the stuff emergents ask but eventually find that they ask the same things themselves...or something like that.

Scot talks about the blue parakeet here.
Emergent Village
Podcast, AAR Panel
btw, AAR = American Academy of Religion

McKnight is the first speaker I think.
Very interesting panel going from the postmodern & pretty liberal end of things and around to the ideas of the "linearly-thinking modernist" Scot McKnight, as he describes himself (I like that).

75 - Which is "progressive".

Guess that means I'll have to vote for Obama.

50 - conservative, but just barely. I think that's a pretty accurate description.

I would have liked more answer options on some. I wasn't sure what to put if my answer wasn't there.

Hi Rae,

Yeah, some people on McKnight's sight were saying the same things (were kinda confused like me & you). Also, I haven't congratulated you on your new baby.
Happy Belated Congrats