The Cannons of Canonicity

Conservative Christians, such as those among whom Frank Schaeffer used to operate (see previous entry), claim that the Bible is the supreme source of authority. But this is not really the case at all. I will explain three ways in which this is so.

First, there is no clear “revelation from God” as to which books should be included within the New Testament “canon.” For centuries after Jesus, there was dispute among different factions concerning which books should be included. “The New Testament” consists of 27 books that one of these factions eventually chose for inclusion. But even in this faction, which eventually became “The Church,” there was a little disagreement. The first list that has all 27 books, and only those books, that was “universally” accepted was the list prepared by Athanasius in 327 CE. Athanasius was one of the men chosen by Emperor Constantine to help resolve disputes within the church that Constantine had joined and which became the official religion of the Roman Empire. (See Bart Ehrman’s book Jesus, Interrupted for more information.) Therefore, the authority of this list largely depends on the authority of Constantine. While he was far from being the worst Roman emperor, he was by no means someone who would be considered godly by today’s self-appointed Christian leaders. For example he had his wife Fausta and his son Crispus executed as political opponents. Before he was emperor he had vanquished Frankish kings and troops fed to beasts as entertainment. He had the decomposing body of a challenger, Maxentius, fished out of the Tiber and decapitated, and then had the head sent to Carthage. At about the same time that he was building the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, he also built a pagan monument, the Arch of Constantine. He was not baptized until just before he died. Jesus said, “By their fruits you shall know them,” but the life of Constantine was not particularly holy—not enough to give him the authority to have established by decree which books should be in the New Testament. So conservative Christians apparently accept Constantine as the supreme authority, since he (as Emperor) determined the canon.

Second, there is no clear “revelation from God” as to which exact wording should be accepted for the canonical books. There are several versions of each of the New Testament books, and it is not clear which, if any, is original. It is difficult to believe in “the exact words of Jesus” when the gospels that are in the Bible today, and the ancient variations of those gospels, contain words that are not exactly the same. Many fundamentalists solve the problem by simply declaring that the 1611 King James Version is the true Bible. What about all of those years before King James? Well, I guess those people had no hope of being Bible-believing Christians. King James I was not a particularly bad king, but he was not someone whom modern conservatives would consider to be a good one either. He initiated the first formal series of witch hunts in Scotland. Conservative Christians believe his version of the Bible but not, apparently, his book Daemonologie. Perhaps most astonishingly, conservative Christians embrace his version of the Bible yet overlook the clear possibility of King James’ homosexual relationships. Conservative Christians consider homosexuality to be the worst thing in the world, worse even than murder and torture and rape. There were rumors throughout James’ life of his affairs with male courtiers such as Esmé Stewart, later Duke of Lennox; Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset; and George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. A restoration of one of James’ palaces in 2004-2008 revealed a previously secret passage linking the bedchambers of James and Villiers. Perhaps, to conservative Christians, James’ homosexuality is made up for by his affair with Anne Murray (not the singer, but Lady Glamis). King James was most likely a practitioner of a lifestyle that conservative Christians consider most despicable, yet they base their faith on the Bible translation that he commissioned. James’ express purpose in having this translation done was to establish the divine right of kings. James was particularly bothered by egalitarian Presbyterians; he said of them, as I recall reading someplace, that “every Tom, Dick, and Harry tell me and my council what to do.”

[But you have to grant that King James got one thing right. He considered smoking to be morally bad and unhealthy. Here is a quote from a treatise he wrote in 1604: “Have you not reason then to be ashamed and to forbear this filthy novelty, so basely grounded, so foolishly received and so grossly mistaken in the right use thereof. In your abuse thereof sinning against God harming yourselves both in person and goods, and raking also thereby the marks and notes of vanity upon you by the custom thereof making yourselves to be wondered at by all foreign civil nations and by all strangers that come among you to be scorned and held in contemp; a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.”]

Third, there is no clear guide as to how the Bible should be interpreted. Each conservative Christian leader considers himself or herself to be the ultimate authority on how to interpret them. I do not have time here to mention the numerous ethical offenses of leading Christian Right preachers of the present day.

If we are to accept Constantine, or King James, or Christian preachers as authorities for what to believe about the Bible, then their lives should (as Jesus said) be exemplary. They were not and are not. Instead, Christian preachers merely enforce their own preferences about the Bible by sheer force—the cannons of canonicity.