by Michael Bushnell
In May 1990, Michael Bushnell, a student at the University of New Mexico and a member of the Presbyterian Church (USA), began posting a personal confession of faith to soc.religion.christian, organized around the chapters of the Westminster Confession. The project was characteristic of the group in its early years: a space where thoughtful laypeople could work out their theology in public, receiving questions and pushback from across the spectrum of Christian tradition.
This first chapter concerns Holy Scripture — the place where the Westminster Confession, unusually, begins. Bushnell opens by noting that most historic confessions begin with God, not with Scripture (the Scots Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Barmen Declaration, the Confession of 1967). Only the Westminster and Second Helvetic Confessions begin with Scripture, reflecting the Reformed tradition's commitment to Sola Scriptura as a first principle.
What follows is a thoughtful Reformed account of the biblical canon, the Apocrypha, and the nature of scriptural authority. Bushnell breaks with strict inerrancy — Scripture was "written by fallible men" — while affirming its sufficiency and the necessity of the Holy Spirit for proper interpretation. He notes the unusual Christian practice of translating Scripture into every language, contrasting it with Islam, Judaism, and Hinduism, and insists that fidelity to the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek must guide translators rather than deference to traditional English versions.
The confession was written as a personal statement, not as an invitation to debate — though Bushnell was always glad to discuss. It is an example of what the best of early Usenet could produce: careful, personal, confessional theology, posted in good faith for the community of the newsgroup.
It is significant that the Westminster Confession opens with an analysis of Holy Scripture. By comparison, the Scots Confession's first chapter is titled "God"; the Heidelberg Catechism begins, "What is your only comfort, in life and in death?"; the first affirmation of the Theological Declaration of Barmen is that "Jesus Christ is the one Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death"; the Preface to the Confession of 1967 discusses the reconciliatory nature of the church. Only the Second Helvetic Confession also opens with an analysis of Scripture.
The other confessional statements are organized around the logical structure of their subject. Clearly, this places God first, and so they begin. But the Westminster and Second Helvetic Confessions are structured more like a treatise which will proceed from "first principles" and progress onward. So, they start with Scripture, and they quickly get to God.
This reflects the Sola Scriptura tradition of the Reformed Church quite nicely, and it is not coincidental that these are the "most Reformed" of the various Confessions. Sola Scriptura, as a watchword, means many different things, however. It is necessary to decide what Scripture is, how it came to us, and what place it should have in our lives before we can progress.
The Canon
One thing is immediately obvious: Christians are not united on the canon. We all accept those books found in the Hebrew canon, and we all accept the same corpus of writings from the early church. But we disagree about the Apocrypha. The Westminster Confession informs that they "are no part of the canon of the Scripture." While it cites early Christian tradition as a source of the canon, it is clear that some of the church fathers accepted the complete text of the Septuagint, which includes the Apocrypha.
The very name is suggestive. It means "hidden." For quite a long time, the books were hidden, and not to be used by Protestants. Why? The answer is to be found from two sources. First, the reasons for using the Old Testament at all. Second, the Jewish tradition.
We use the Old Testament because we view ourselves as spiritual descendants of the nation of Israel. We believe that the Jewish understanding of God is a logical prefix to our own, and, quite importantly, that the Apostles were all members of that tradition, and looked quite seriously to it.
The Jewish tradition does not accept the Apocrypha. It never has, with the exception of a small sect which included it in its translation, called the Septuagint. Were it not for the unique availability of that translation, we would not be concerned with the Apocrypha at all. It is not part of the faith record of the nation of Israel, and that record is precisely what the Old Testament is and why we use it at all.
The New Testament contains those books held by the early church to be the writings of the Apostles, or in accordance with their teachings. Any other books now available must be suspect of their genuineness precisely because of their omission from the canon and from notice for so long. They were not held to be important or genuine at the time, by people far more connected to and remembrant of the early church, and we have no reason to reverse their judgment.
The Sufficiency of Scripture
And so we have the canon. We believe it to be sufficient, as well as reliable, and so we do not seek for additions and modifications. The research we do conduct is to determine the accuracy of the texts available to us, but not to seek new texts to add to the old.
We believe that the Spirit of God is necessary to a proper understanding of scripture. This is not a special case, however. The Spirit of God is necessary to a proper understanding of all matters.
It is important, however, to regard the Bible in the proper light. It was written by fallible men. It is not necessarily perfect, though it is sufficient, and though there is no purpose in attempting to fix or supplant it, for we are equally fallible with its writers. God made us fallible beings, when he could have made us perfect, and similarly he has chosen to reach to us through fallible writers rather than infallible transmission.
Scripture in Translation
The Bible should be transmitted to all people in their own language. This is markedly different from the traditions of virtually every other world religion. The Vedas are read in Sanskrit, always. The Qur'an is read in Arabic, always. The Torah (in the Jewish religion) is read in Hebrew. In all these cases, the spiritual book in its language is important. To Christians, however, it is the message, and not the words or the language themselves, which are important. So we translate the book into whatever language is necessary for understanding. It is important to remember, however, that fidelity to the originals — in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek — is essential. Translators must not be bound by attempts to remain "faithful" to previous versions' use of the language of translation, nor should they be expected to preserve doctrine. They are to translate the words, as much as possible, into another language, without attempting to repeat past errors or encourage current mistakes.
Interpretation
Ultimately, Scripture and the reader guided by the Holy Spirit are the only guide to interpretation of Scripture. All directions, exegetic techniques, and church decrees must ultimately be subject to Scripture and the right of private Spirit-filled interpretation. No individual has the sure lock on the truth of interpretation of Scripture or any other matter, and should never attempt to impose a particular interpretation on others. We are all fallible, and must remain mindful of that.
Colophon
Michael Bushnell was a student at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque and a member of the Presbyterian Church (USA) when he began this personal confession of faith in May 1990. He noted his intention to post one chapter a week, working through the structure of the Westminster Confession of Faith. This is Chapter I, on the Holy Scripture.
Bushnell's position is broadly Reformed but not strictly inerrantist — he acknowledges scriptural fallibility while insisting on sufficiency. His comparison of Christian translation practice with the Vedas, Qur'an, and Torah is a characteristically ecumenical touch.
The post was part of soc.religion.christian, one of the earliest moderated theological newsgroups on the internet, administered through Rutgers University. Its quality in the late 1980s and early 1990s was unusually high — a community of thoughtful laypeople, clergy, and scholars working through theology in public.
Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. Original Message-ID: [email protected].
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