This is largely a summary of the previous piece found here:
Biblicism is in this case, an embraced epithet describing a
more robust and thorough understanding of Scriptural Authority. The Scriptures
are authoritative and sufficient in all things relating to Church life and
doctrine. Though many agree with this statement they nevertheless subvert and
undermine Sufficiency by employing a host of methods which in the end reveal
the Scriptures are not actually their supreme authority.
There are questions of prolegomena, epistemology and
hermeneutics that have to be wrestled with, questions often neglected or in
other cases answered within the frameworks of tradition and Western Philosophy.
Biblicism is a belief about the Scriptures and an implied method which seeks to
address these problems and argue for the ability to actually embrace the text,
granting it the authority it is due.
Thus we can strongly argue this view is in contrast to many
understandings of Sola Scriptura which when viewed in relation to Biblicism are
watered down and lost among the forest of creeds, confessions and assumptions.
And yet, this view does not ignore Church history and believes there's much we
can learn from it.
Additionally this view is in opposition to many
Fundamentalist expressions of Biblicism which all too often fall into
hyper-literalist traps that don't do justice to the meaning of the text.
Approaching the Scriptures on the basis of Common Sense Realism or an almost
scientific Baconian-type method is to bury the text underneath an epistemology
which has dominated Anglo-American culture for centuries and yet is not the
epistemology revealed in the Scripture itself nor is it in keeping with that of
the apostles or the early Church.
Biblicism argues that we can trust the text as authoritative
and sufficient and as such it seeks to protect doctrine from undue exterior
influence and from the tendency to use the Bible as a springboard for a grand
philosophical project. Biblicism necessarily focuses on the Person of Christ as
the central theme and governing influence within the Scriptures. As such the
New Testament or Covenant is its supreme expression. The Old Testament must therefore
be read as a covenant fulfilled and thus in many respects obsolete. Rather than
rely on Enlightenment conceptions of valid argument and limitations of reason
we instead submit to the Spirit-led authority of the apostles as they instruct
us in how to read and understand the Old Testament and revelation as a whole.
In a time when many understand that the Church is in danger
and in many respects has lost its way and fallen prey to the world and the
myriad of false teachers – Biblicism is really the only hope of recovering the
Christianity of the New Testament. All other roads and methods lead us into
quagmires and sideshow battles over history, tradition and empty, dead-end
philosophical questions.