Hindenburg Theology
©Lawson G. Stone, 2005
From my earliest youth, I have stared in awe at the famous picture of the airship Hindenburg as it exploded and crashed spectacularly while docking at Lakehurst, NJ on May 6, 1937. Perhaps it was seeing the picture while listening to the old vinyl recording of the radio broadcast that locked the scene forever in my mind. Despite the naysayers, the catastrophe resulted from something very simple: hydrogen explodes spontaneously upon contact with oxygen, and the Hindenburg was pretty much a giant bag of hydrogen. One puncture, and down it came. So why did they take the risk of using such a volatile gas? Simple: the amazing amount of lift it afforded. They traded reliability for power.
I think a lot of us have a theology something like the Hindenburg. We love superlatives. We love maximums. So we not only speak of biblical inerrancy, we operate as though any problem in the biblical text invalidates its witness to the will of God, which in turn requires us to deny that any such contradictory evidence or valid contrary views even exist. We almost dare the world to prove us wrong on a single point. It's a high-wire act without a net. We believe the faith is reasonable, and then procede to invoke the "domino principle" that any deviation from any one point brings down the whole edifice. We get preoccupied with "presuppositions" so that the slightest impurity in our presuppositions results in defective theology, heresy, and possibly even the forfeit of redemption. So like the engineers of the great airship, we intentionally create a structure capable of being demolished in a heap if one single defect appears, all in the name of what? While we might have some basis in St. Paul's claim that "If Christ is not raised, we are of all men most to be pitied," the real reason is probably that, like the Nazi aeronautical designers, we love the lift. We love the power, the machismo, of declaring that we have based our lives on a faith system that, if flawed on any one point, collapses like a string of dominos. We love standing up on that high-wire and daring anyone to throw us off balance.
Among Hindenburg theologies, I would class several types of evangelicals. First, there are the Hindenburg inerrantists. Now, I confess biblical inerrancy. I just don't see a future in biblical errancy. I believe that when it's all said and done, we will not be able to charge a single biblical statement with failure to communicate that degree of focused truth toward which it aspired. But the Hindenburg Inerrantists go farther. More than simply stating their confidence in the ultimate trustworthiness and reliability of scripture, properly interpreted, they demand that in fact the inerrancy of the Bible be made apparent on every question. No lack of closure, no uncertainty, no acceptance of tensions can mar the appearance of perfection. Such a faith is brittle, and inevitably encounters problems of evidence and argument, and often collapses. Christian colleges and seminaries are full of professors who are burned out inerrantists. Refusing to bend the evidence to fit the ideology, they think the only other option is an erring Bible, rather than a more flexible faith.
I also put certain types of creationists in the Hindenburg Theology category. Taking the Genesis creation narratives to be a documentary description of God's first week at work, they make the entire edifice of Christianity depend not on the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but on the earth being less than 10,000 years old, on there being no new species since the creation, and on a whole chain of increasingly questionable exegetical moves. Anyone departing from this absolute--and recent--ideological orthodoxy is not simply mistaken, but a betrayer of the faith. But eventually, ideas like God creating the earth with the appearance of age to fool the scientists appear for what they are: nonsense, and usually the result is to abandon evangelical conviction and in bitter cynicism abandon any confidence in the trustworthiness and reliability of the biblical witness.
I had the privilege of leading a brilliant young Japanese man to Christ while I was at Yale. He was a PhD student in genetics, and in his residence hall, a group of "creationist" (I call them static creationists) students convinced him that if any macro-evolutionary theory was true, then Christianity was false. He knew that the rudiments of evolutionary science were true because he was working with them every day in the laboratory: so after a year of vibrant growth, his own intellectual integrity demanded that he abandon the Christian faith. Hindenburg Theology is not only wrong, it's damaging!
Then we have Hindenburg Apologetics. As a young Christian, I remember being thrilled to hear a dynamic campus speaker declare that he had come to Christ because he was compelled by "the evidence" and was "overwhelmingly intellectually convinced" that Christianity was true, and therefore he put his faith in Christ. I remember being nagged by the thought that maybe the Holy Spirit had something to do with conversion, but the triumphalist claims of the speaker soundly drowned out that quiet nagging. But over the years, I've watched the intellectual pendulum swing back and forth, and I noticed this man's faith has not swung with the pendulum. Apparently even for him, faith in Christ is a bit more than just assent to an intellectual argument, but involves a fabric of devotion and trust to the Person of Jesus Christ even when the chips are down, the evidence is ambiguous, and the arguments inconclusive. Sadly, every one of my friends from that era who were converted by the "weight of evidence" are no long following Christ. Hindenburg Apologetics set them up for disaster. One refutation, one unanswerable question, one successful challenge, and the whole thing goes up on flames.
Hindenburg Theology is a lot like hemophilia. Hemophilia is a disease of royal bloodlines. Intent on preserving the absolute purity of the royal bloodline, royals marry relatives, pooling recessive genes and bearing children increasingly frail, prone to insanity, and most notably, hemophiliacs. The Hemophiliac has blood that cannot clot. Cut him once, even superficially, and he bleeds to death. All in the name of absolute purity. Hindenburg Theologians are the spiritual hemophiliacs.
When the Hindenburg blew in 1937, engineers realized that the rigid airship needed to be completely rethought. However great the lift gained by using Hydrogen, its explosive tendencies ruled it out as a fuel (except for moon rockets a generation later!). And however simple the "big gas bag" construction seemed, some means of limiting damage seemed demanded. The result can be seen in the familiar Goodyear Blimp. Helium, not hydrogen, provides the lift. Helium does not provide as much lift as Hydrogen, but it's resistance to spontaneous detonation trumps any disadvantage. Engineers also rigorously compartmentalized the interior of the dirigible so that if a leak compromised one compartment, the others would remain functional and prevent a catastrophic crash.
If Hindenburg Theology represents an obsessively perfectionistic approach to thinking about the faith, "Goodyear Blimp Theology" is the alternative. First, in humility, we recognize the limits of our knowledge, even given divine revelation in scripture. We have no promise that the revelation is exhaustive, nor are we promised that all our interpretations will possess the same freedom from error that the Word itself possesses. The humility James counseled regarding the plans of our lives (James 1:13-17) applies to our theology and apologetics as well. James calls us to abandon the presumption that what seems perfectly logical and possible to us must be the case, reminds us that we don't have the whole picture, and summons us to subordinate all things to God's sovereign will. Does this lead to timidity and inaction? No, in verse 17 he reminds us that knowing what is right, and not doing it, is still sin! So humility is not a post-modern repudiation of eternal truth, nor is it doctrinal indifference. We simply recognize that the Gospel stands in judgment over all, including ourselves. We will name heresy when we see it, but we will not name everything we see heresy just because it challenges or threatens us.
So Goodyear Blimp Theology won't reject the concept of inerrancy. As I said before, there is no future in "errancy!" But while we confess that the Bible is without error in all that it affirms, we also confess humbly that we do not always know exactly, or fully, what it affirms, and we cannot always be certain that our logical extensions of the word's affirmations carry the same force of infallibility that scripture carries. The concept of inerrancy does not decide in advance a single matter of interpretation, since it is interpretation itself that defines for us what scripture affirms. So we remember that the inerrancy of the Bible is a means by which God controls us, not a means by which we try to control others, the Bible, or God.
Goodyear Blimp Creationism will stand with any creationist in affirming that the world originates in the will and love of God and not from blind forces and chance; but we won't be so quick to rule out in advance processes like natural selection. We will affirm the dignity and uniqueness of human nature, but not deny that 95% of our genetic code is identical to that of a chimp, and that maybe we share more with the chimp than we dare admit. I wonder if that would make us treat the environment diffrerently? The interpretation of Genesis 1-2 on the fact of divine creation is clear, but the interpretation on the means has not achieved consensus. St. Augustine subscribed to the inerrancy of the Bible, but believed both Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 were figural portrayals of events beyond our conceiving. In fact, no orthodox interpreter of the Patristic era that I am aware of read the Genesis creation narrative as a documentary description, though of course the heretics and gnostic did so: it helped them prove the God of the OT was not the "real" God because he needed a week to make the world, a need incompatible with the absoluteness of deity.
Goodyear Blimp theology has a problem: it simply doesn't appeal to the testosterone the way Hindenburg Theology does. It provides far less basis for condemning others, consigning them to deviancy or heresy, or worse. It has no swagger, cannot dictate to others, but can only bear witness to the Word. It foreswears the use of coercion in the name of orthodoxy, but will accept responsibility to lead in confronting lies and error. It forces us to examine all things carefully, including our own convictions, with an open mind. It reminds us that theology is about God controlling us, not our control of Him!
Goodyear Blimp Theology, like its namesake, has one overwhelming advantage: it does not crash and burn when it takes a single hit. By avoiding the extreme dogmatism and arrogant certitude of the Hindenburg approach, we also avoid the danger of the fall to which pride always leads. And just as the Goodyear Blimp was compartmentalized, we can profit from an appropriate compartmentalization of our thinking about the faith. While Christian truth is a unity, and is reasonable, we have no insurance that (a) we know all the aspects of that unity and (b) that we know all the linkages that join it into the fabric that it is. But that's just the point: Christian truth is not a single line of dominos, but is a fabric woven from many threads in many directions. Unlike pigiron, which shatters under stress despite its rigidity, Christian truth, and the Goodyear Blimp Theology that serves it, is like steel, that bends and flexes, but always retains its shape and function. So if one area of our thinking is under the stress of fierce debate, contrary information, troubling ideas, or cultural conflict, the rest of the fabric holds.
Which brings me to my last aeronautical analogy: the B17 bomber, immortalized in the move Memphis Belle. Note to historical purists: I'm talking about the movie, not the history! In the movie Memphis Belle, the WW2 B17 bomber gets shot to pieces on its last run before its crew can return home. Engines are out, the gear is stuck in the up position, control surfaces are damaged, stuck, or non-functional, but somehow the boys manage to plant the Memphis Belle on the tarmac. However loose the movie was with the history, it presented an aeronautical truth: the B17 bomber had an amazing ability to sustain overwhelming damage and still return its crew safely to base. Unlike many modern aircraft that can be brought down by almost any malfunction, the B17 could take relentless pounding and stay aloft.
I suspect by the time I get to heaven, my theology--and my life--won't look very much like the Goodyear Blimp placidly floating among the clouds. I suspect I'll look like one of those shot-up B17s. Dropping precipitously, wobbling, two engines smoking, one engine gone, pieces of wing and fuselage blown away by withering enemy fire, control surfaces flapping loose, wallowing and dipping through the air as the crew desperately hand-cranks the landing gear down--but when the tires scorch the pavement, it's home, and all things are made new in the victory won at such sacrifice.
But that sure beats looking like...the Hindenburg!
