All Faculty Common Read

Guiding Question:

What do the Solas mean for our commitment to Biblical orthodoxy (Scripture and statement of faith), orthokardia (prayer, worship and community), and orthopraxy (teaching, research and service)?

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"I am much afraid that the universities will prove to be the great gates of hell, unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures, and engraving them in the hearts of youth. I advise no one to place his child where the Scriptures do not reign paramount.

Every institution in which men are not unceasingly occupied with the Word of God must become corrupt."

 - Martin Luther (1483-1546 A.D.), Es muss verderben, alles was nicht Gottes Wort ohn unterlass treibt. L. Opp. (L.) xvii. 486.

September (Sola Gratia, by grace alone)

Vanhoozer’s proposals (Chapter 1, pp. 35-69):

• “Mere Protestant Christians agree that the many forms of biblical discourse together make up a single unified story of God’s gracious communicative initiatives.” (p. 62)
• “Mere Protestant Christians believe that the Bible, the process of interpretation, and interpreters themselves are all parts of the triune economy of grace.” (p. 64)

October (Sola Fide, by faith alone)

Vanhoozer’s proposals (Chapter 2, pp. 71-107):

• “As persons created in God’s image and destined to be conformed to the image of God’s Son, mere Protestant biblical interpreters believe that the Spirit both summons them to attend and authorizes them to respond to the voice of the Triune God speaking in the Scriptures to present Christ.” (p. 104)
• “Mere Protestant Christians believe that faith enables a way of interpreting Scripture that refuses both absolute certainty (idols of the tower) and relativistic skepticism (idols of the maze).” (p. 105)

November (Sola Scriptura, by Scripture alone)

Vanhoozer’s proposals (Chapter 3, pp. 109-146):

• “The mere Protestant pattern of interpretive authority begins with the Triune God in communicative action, accords first-place to Scripture interpreting Scripture (the canonical principle), but also acknowledges the appointed role of church tradition (the catholic principal) in the economy of testimony.” (p. 143)
• “Sola scripture entails not a naïve but a critical biblicism.” (p. 145)

January (Solus Christus, through Christ alone)

Vanhoozer’s proposals (Chapter 4, pp. 147-177):

• “Mere Protestant local churches have the authority to make binding interpretive judgments on matters pertaining to statements of faith and the life of church members insofar as they concern the integrity of the gospel.” (p. 174)
• “Christ authorizes the local church to be in an authoritative interpretive community of the Word of God.” (p. 175)

February (Soli Deo Gloria, glory to God alone)

Vanhoozer’s proposals (Chapter 5, pp. 179-213):

• “Mere Protestant Christianity, far from encouraging individual autonomy and interpretive anarchy, calls individual interpreters to join with other citizens of the gospel as members of a universal royal priesthood and local embassy of Christ’s kingdom in order to represent God’s rule publicly.” (p. 210)
• “The genius of mere Protestant Christianity is its distinct converse (i.e. conversational “conference”), generated and governed by Scripture, and guided by convictional conciliarism that unites diverse churches in a transdenominational communion.” (p. 211)