From my last blog article, I have been frequently challenged as to whether being in a theological majority necessarily makes you right. After all, even Jesus started out with an absolute minority, challenging the majority religious elite of his day, and most would say that he was right and that they were wrong. So I will attempt to answer this question. And fail.

Whereas I do not wish to maintain that the majority is always right, first off, this is, however, most often the case. Famous cynical quotations apart. For example, most human beings – with or without a belief in God – want to live in a peaceful and fair society. And they are right, aren’t they? Most children do not want to be bullied at school. And they are right, aren’t they? Most people did not want Nazi Germany to take over Europe. And they were right, weren’t they? Most people expect women to receive the same treatment as men. And they are right, aren’t they? The majority of US citizens voted in 2016 for Hillary Clinton, and they were most certainly right, weren’t they? (See Footnote 1).

On this basis alone, I would say that the same principle should be applied to Christianity (Footnote 2). Hence, if your church’s theology is out of kilter with the majority of the worldwide church, you should at least be asking some serious questions. And in the process of this questioning, you need to remain open to the fact that a) it is impossible to maintain that there is only one correct interpretation of the Bible and b) that any interpretation is affected by the historical context in which it takes place (in the same way as, in democratic countries, attitudes towards equality for women are gradually changing for the better over time).

The problem is, however, that the founder of the Christian faith, the Jewish Jesus of Nazareth, turned up to challenge not only the religious majority but also every family on the planet. He himself said, “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” Luke 12:51-53.

I have to assume from the context here that Jesus is here referring to religious opinion. So now we have a problem that is impossible to solve. Jesus is here both a) prophesying religious division if you choose to follow him and b) giving religious minorities the right to say that they are right and that everyone else is wrong.

Hence, in the church I used to belong to, the preachers would often refer to alternative interpretations of the Bible to theirs as “pharisaical, legalistic, liberal, etc.” as if to say, employing Jesus’ model, that the inferior and erroneous exegesis of the misguided religious majority must submit to the superior, uniquely true interpretation of the much smaller, especially blessed and enlightened religious elite. In other words, our sect.

This kind of arrogant argumentation is an erroneous syllogism that per se excludes any other view. It is the essential form of argumentation that enables any sect to defend itself against the majority interpretation. A typical sect will, therefore, always be able to justify its theological, exclusively correct interpretation of the Bible. I cannot even use the argument that Almighty God is surely capable of communicating in an unambiguous manner with his creatures.

Why? First due to historical facts. Secondly, because God is in the business of having his chosen elite (“Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” Romans 9:13) be they Jews or Christians, Methodists or Charismatics. But that doesn’t really matter to the members of a sect, so long as God loves them within the safety of their uniquely correct interpretation of the Bible. All the rest can go to hell. And, according to their interpretation of the Bible, they will.

So, I have to admit that I will never really be able to maintain logically that the majority interpretation is necessarily the most correct. All as I can do is a) to argue that in most cases (see above) the social view of the majority at the very least provides a good measuring rod and b) to provoke those who are in a church to explore seriously the above mentioned syllogism (Footnote 3) and to take the conclusion very seriously.

Which is, in spite of all the above complications, another way of saying, if you are in a church that claims to have a superior interpretation of the Bible to the majority of churches around the world, you almost certainly are in a sect.

 

Footnote 1: Trump’s share of the popular vote, in fact, was the seventh-smallest winning percentage since 1828 and was significantly smaller than the size of the popular vote for Hillary Clinton.

Footnote 2: ‘Most Christian believers tend to echo the cultural prejudices and world views of the dominant group in their country, with only a minority revealing any real transformation of attitudes or consciousness. It has been true of slavery and racism, classism and consumerism and issues of immigration and health care for the poor.’  Richard Rohr

Footnote 3: The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking. A. A. Milne