Some Thoughts on Popular Reappropriations of the Bauer Thesis

I uploaded a post in late March summarising the 2015 book Orthodoxy and Heresy in Early Christian Contexts edited by Paul A. Hartog, an evangelical rejoinder to the Bauer Thesis and its modern appropriations. We saw that, while the Bauer Thesis had an immeasurable influence on biblical studies by highlighting the theological diversity of the early church, it is by no means impervious to criticism and many of it's central tenants are far less watertight than some scholars have led popular audiences to believe. No matter what one thinks of Bauer's heed to the variegated character of early Christianity, there are clearly still questions to be asked about the precise nature of this character and whether Bauer is trustworthy in his reconstructions of those mysterious first few centuries.

While these contributions are absolutely worthwhile, there lingers a discomforting shadow over this discussion that goes far beyond what the evidence says about power and politics in early Christian religion. Since I uploaded the previous post, I have come to a number of disturbing realisations about the Bauer Thesis that, if accurate, have drastic implications for both interfaith discussions and the future of academic religious studies. I now believe that so many facets of our discipline, from things as fundamental as how we interpret the data of early Christianity to how we even speak to each other about these topics, are inextricably rooted in the ostensibly polemical principles asserted by popular versions of Bauer's reconstruction of early Christianity. 

It is important to remember that the Bauer Thesis does not raise the question of whether early Christianity was diverse in character, a notion that cannot and is not denied by even the most traditionalist scholars. Few if any would venture to suggest that there were not many different groups in the second and third centuries that called themselves "Christians." The modern controversy arises concerning what affect Bauer's portrait of the first couple centuries of the Christian religion has on the relevancy of modern orthodox belief. We have already seen that certain evidential questions remain open: Bauer's assertion that what was later deemed as heresy in the fourth century took root in regions with high Christian population densities before orthodoxy may be problematic, as could be the claim that the Roman church exerted a nigh-imperialistic influence over the other churches in the Mediterranean region, replacing their leadership with bishops of their own and exerting their influence far and wide in a quest for power.

Whether or not this is an accurate portrait of ancient ecclesiastical politics, it is this assertion that has been used in our present-day context to suggest that there is no singular (true) form of Christianity and that those who continue to delineate such boundaries in the 21st century are narrow-minded bigots seeking to exclude those they deem as unworthy of participating in Christian religion. As evidenced by the consensus-following info-board I witnessed in the Chester-Beatty library (one I have witnessed twice now having just come back from Dublin a second time), this perspective appears to have deeply permeated both the scholarly and popular imagination to the point of forming many of the essential presuppositions that many biblical scholars hold today. Here, I will criticise the popular notion of history being written by the victors and, hopefully, expose how the Bauer Thesis has been wielded to such effect as to do the very things it lambasts orthodox Christianity of doing.

Who is a Christian?

One of the first problems with how the Bauer Thesis has been reinterpreted for polemical purposes in the current day is how it has obscured Christian identity: who gets to participate in Christian religion and how does that participation affect Christian scholarship and faith practice? In and of itself, the use of the Bauer Thesis in such a way could be a very positive influence: it can aid us in eroding ideological barriers and undo any monopolisation of particular interpretive frameworks in biblical studies that marginalise new ideas. As a non-Christian in the field, I am all for this. Contrastingly, it can also be employed in such a way that mirrors the previous consensus stranglehold. It very much runs the risk of re-establishing those barriers in the name of alternative ideologies which may result in the creation of a new set of "orthodox" readings of early Christianity. One unquestionable understanding Christianity's early character is replaced with another—and that is exactly what appears to have happened: to question the Bauer Thesis in the current climate of biblical studies is akin to questioning the seemingly assured conclusions of Markan priority or the date of the Book of Daniel.

This attitude can be further illustrated by our conception of Christianity in the modern day and how this has coloured the interpretation of the evidence by certain scholars. Take, for example, the 2011 debate between Bart Ehrman and one of his frequent evangelical interlocutors, Mike Licona, on the Christian radio show Unbelievable. During the debate, Licona argued that the majority of scholars in groups such as the Society of Biblical Literature agree with what he presented as the "minimal facts" surrounding the resurrection of Jesus, an approach utilised by many Christian apologists to buttress their case for a historical resurrection. Ehrman rebutted Licona's suggestion with his own affirmation that "the majority of scholars [who study this stuff] are Christians," the implication being that such consensus is largely founded upon faith-based pre-commitments and not historical evidence. Licona responded in turn with the suggestion that John Dominic Crossan is an example of an SBL member who is not a Christian yet agrees with the bedrock facts about the passion and resurrection narratives. With some detectable ire, Ehrman simply replied "Does he call himself a Christian?" (47:52-48:25).

It would be somewhat inappropriate to base the following analysis solely on the off-hand comments made in a radio debate. However, both Ehrman and Licona's statements here are very telling: their conception of what Christianity really is and how it affects hermeneutical lenses serves as a prime example of the popular commandeering of scholarship by the attitudes created by the Bauer Thesis. For Ehrman, Crossan merely needs to confess that he is a Christian to legitimise his faith. As per the ideological underpinnings of the Bauer Thesis, no singular view of Jesus is allowed to attain primacy. Thus, the only genuine criteria to authenticate a person's confession of faith is precisely that: a confession. A simple utterance is supposedly all that is required to participate in the Christian religion.

If this blatantly postmodern approach comes across as maddeningly open-minded, Licona represents the polar opposite: for him, there are brittle and unquestionable boundary markers that have been set in place to demarcate what legitimate and illegitimate faith is. Licona himself obviously did not establish these precepts, but is merely following what has emerged as acceptable in American evangelicalism. The existence of legitimate diversity within Christian thought is one that appears to be antithetical to Licona and many of his fellow evangelicals. Crossan's personal faith, however legitimate it may be to him, is deemed to be beyond the boundaries established by antecedent authorities.

Those lacking vested interests in this debate will see that Licona and Ehrman are two scholars who represent the extremes of an ugly spectrum. Licona is certainly not in any position to assess whether Crossan's personal faith is legitimate. Such a subjective element to one's scholarship is far beyond the prying eyes of a scholar who undoubtedly has his own faith biases. This is especially so given that Licona himself has come under fire by evangelicals for allegedly "compromising" his faith in his own scholarship: following the infamous inerrancy controversy of 2011 where he suggested that the undead saints episode in Matthew 28:52-53 is apocalyptic imagery and not literal history, Licona has subsequently been held in very low regard by many theological conservatives. The question must therefore be asked which tribe of exegetes are the arbiters of truth in a sea of disagreement? I also believe, however, that Ehrman's criteria for legitimate faith begs the question as to what Christian religion can be or even is. It is a modern philosophical controversy that appears to be maintained not because of its own consistency, but in order to accommodate an anti-evangelical political slant. In any case, if Licona cannot be the arbiter of true faith, why does Ehrman (an atheist) get to comment on who is really a Christian? If any secular person tried this with the theological conflict between Sunni or Shia Muslims they'd find themselves hiding from a fatwa.

Either way, I believe that both scholars have a stake in the diverse character of ancient Christianity which has negatively impacted their argumentation: for Ehrman, the vastness of sects in early Christianity precludes the existence of any one "true" form of the religion. Thus anyone who claims to be a believer must have their insistence accepted and anyone who places boundary markers of any kind should be scorned. But this still means that there is in fact a criterion for who is a Christian, only that Ehrman is the one setting the boundary markers by asserting that confession is the only necessary prerequisite. He can't have his postmodernist cake and eat it too. Contrastingly, Licona, under duress from evangelical pressure, negates such a premise for the sake of maintaining his position as an "orthodox" Christian who affirms the resurrection as a true, literal, and historical event. The Bauer Thesis makes or breaks either position! It is therefore clear how instrumental it has become to modern apologetic discussions, but raises the question of whether either positions are accurate in any way.

Almost identical incidents have occurred very recently in popular circles. One example is Christian apologist Mike Winger and atheist Assyriologist Joshua Bowen of Digital Hammurabi. While discussing the viral video Satan's Guide to the Bible, Winger pointed out that the scholars in the video consisted of non-Christians and heterodox Christian scholars, which suggests that their approaches will be inherently antithetical to the orthodox belief that he holds to. Bowen, irate at Winger's dismissiveness of these academics, labelled Winger as a fundamentalist and asserted he was guilty of the no-true-Scotsman fallacy (see the video here, 41:46-43:11). This has also occurred within recent weeks between Mike Jones of Inspiring Philosophy and LDS Bible scholar Dan McClellan who debated the nature of the no-true-Scotsman fallacy and whether setting boundary markers to delineate true from false belief is appropriate. 

Notice how we have a repeat of the same superfluous back-and-forth that we saw in the Ehrman-Licona debate: Winger uses the heterodoxy of some scholars who identify as Christians as grounds to dismiss their claims about the New Testament, whilst Bowen dismisses Winger's criticisms of the Satan's Guide video because he is, allegedly, a "fundamentalist." Similarly, Jones and McClellan argue to-and-fro over whether orthodox Christianity has drawn arbitrary limitations. Cogency of argumentation and the investigation of objective results are superseded by hollow identity-based criticisms. This is not to say that there is no place for these kind of discussions: indeed, it is vitally important for us to reflect on our own preconceptions before we delve into topics that are highly contentious and subject to internal ideological controversies. But for such discussions of identity to become the forefront of our debate, it reflects not a rigorous postcolonial analysis of the Bible, but rather our personal political agendas aimed against individual persons. The foundations of this faulty criticism in the realm of biblical studies appear to be indirectly predicated on both a stalwart resistance to or an uncritical adherence to popular incarnations of the Bauer Thesis. Both sides have had their views on a particular issue tainted by their preconceptions regarding Christian theological diversity, both ancient and modern.

Which of the Christianities?

Ehrman and similar academics believe that Christianity today is nothing but the result of church politics and an accumulation of theological victories over the centuries: there is no "true" church because divergent congregations of believers in Jesus were condemned and suppressed as heterodox, leading to the political domination of Christianity by proto-orthodox Christians who paved the way for what has eventually culminated as modern Christianity—the type adhered to by Jones and Winger. Curiously, if what Ehrman and other polemicists say is true, then the object of their criticism is just one type of Christianity in a vast sea of Christianities—the one that won. It could not possibly encompass all Christian religion as it becomes virtually indefinable under their model. This is a vital observation that radically changes the essence of their criticisms and makes their attack on Christianity as a whole problematic.

To be consistent, those who use the Bauer Thesis as a conduit for their evidential criticism of Christianity must clarify which type of Christianity they are attacking; it cannot be an attack against Christianity as a whole as one of the premises of the very argument itself is that Christianity is hopelessly diverse and lacking a unified character. Most of us looking into this discussion already know what is typically the object of this sceptical criticism, namely the bogeyman of American conservative evangelicalism. But when the rest of Christianity, with all its diversity in both ancient and modern contexts, becomes collateral damage in the Bauer Thesis objection, it massively nullifies the impact of the criticism: there are other types of Christianity, supposedly equal in their stake and value as a form of the religion, that proudly accept diversity and are not very stringent in the enforcement of inflexible doctrinal statements of faith or declarations of allegiance to parochial affirmations of inerrancy—something that bogged down the recent Satan's Guide documentary that is indebted to the type of popular scholarship we are critiquing here.

For many if not most Christians, such a dominance in the Christian theological world does not exist. Believers in Jesus are free to disagree of a myriad of topics. The most rigid resistance to this notion is, for the most part, a phenomenon of a small subset of western Christianity borne out of an anglophone conservatism that is hardly representative of a global religion that is increasingly consisting of adherents from China and South America—locations far removed from the doctrinal brittleness of American evangelicalism. Thus, the Bauer Thesis objection used by popular counter-apologists is dependent on the existence (and even the perceived correctness) of a militant Christianity that is suppressive to alternative points of view. It is another remarkable case-study of anti-religious activists going hand-in-hand with hardline traditionalism: proponents of the objection by theological diversity require that such a close-minded Christianity be the representative and "true" type of faith.

Without explicit clarification, therefore, every instance in which the Bauer Thesis is invoked as an embarrassment to the evidential truth of Christian religion fails to take into account actual Christian attitudes towards theological diversity and presupposes that such diversity is undesirable. Even Kruger and Kostenberger, in their very ardent and overtly militaristic work Heresy of Orthodoxy (2010), have an entire section dedicated to "legitimate diversity." They, of course, define this diversity about as narrow as they possibly could, but they have at least considered it as a factor in defining Christianity whilst acknowledging the existence of a wide range of theological opinions. 

The Bauer Thesis argument, founded in an attempt to demonstrate that not one type of Christianity is allowed to attain pre-eminence over others, presupposes precisely what it is trying to undermine: a normative, domineering religion that finds alternative perspectives within it's own house discomforting and therefore asserts itself above them. As alluded to earlier, I am glad that such a perspective has been overturned in the scholarship so that the diversity in the early church is reflected better. But the way that it is used to bash "orthodox" Christians over the head is contradictory in that it requires the very thing that it insists cannot exist. Adherents to the Thesis must clarify each and every time which Christianity they are attacking, otherwise the object of their criticism becomes lost in the haze.

Futhermore, the Bauer Thesis argument also presupposes a historicist approach to faith that views historical veracity and colloquial understandings of things "actually happening" in history as the basis for modern religious practices. Such a view is far from representative, as illustrated by perspectives like those of the Catholic scholar Luke Timothy Johnson, whose fideistic approach to historical Jesus studies fundamentally denies that history forms the foundation of modern faith. We can debate whether such an approach is consistent, but one using the diversity of views within Christianity as an argument to undercut it's foundations are forced to ignore such perspectives for the sake of their counter-apologetic. 

We can also observe that the Bauer Thesis argument undercuts itself in another way by suggesting the existence of a Christian monopoly on modern biblical studies, in which many anti-religious activists and even some scholars argue that the field is being held back by the faith commitments of the majority of its practitioners. But precisely what kind of faith commitments are these? The chasm between members of the Evangelical Theological Society and the Westar Institute is miles wide. For those who suggest that biblical studies needs a total secularisation, it ultimately devolves into exactly that which both ancient and modern Christians are accused of doing: playing power and politics. Those who define what "acceptable" faith is are now the ones delineating the boundaries in the same way that Licona did in his debate with Ehrman.

Only a few marginal and unrepresentative denominations are in mind with the Bauer Thesis argument. It is forced to ignore the fact that many Christians share these grievances. They too don't want militaristic American evangelicalism to become the face of the faith either. Only if one concedes that this type of Western (predominantly Caucasian) religion is representative of Christian attitudes towards diversity, does the Bauer Thesis argument attain efficacy. Yet in doing this, its adherents thereby invent the object of their own premises. The argument functions only as an attack against one form of faith and fails to be evidential proof against the "truthfulness" of Christian religion. It may only be an informal fallacy, but it reveals how far some counter-apologists are willing to go to oppose the phantom of religion that dwells in their mind.

The Modern Winners

The atheist YouTuber Drew McCoy, better known by his alias "Genetically Modified Skeptic," published a video several years back entitled "A Wild Story From a Gospel Excluded From the Bible" where he discusses the Gospel of Judas. Aside from having garnered over 2.5 million views, it was a video that I once made a response to as a religious apologist. Having since left the faith, one might expect a change of heart from me towards McCoy's video. Sadly, this could not be farther from the truth, and I regretfully find myself standing by many (though certainly not all) of my criticisms of this video.

McCoy spends most of the video detailing the story in the Gospel of Judas before outlining the relevance of this "missing" text, asserting that Christianity was diverse from the very beginning and that this likely meant that God had nothing to do with the genesis of the religion. A brief peek into the video's description reveals the extent of McCoy's research into this topic: a single lecture by Ehrman after the rediscovery of the Judas Gospel and a video by Andrew Henry from "ReligionForBreakfast." Hardly an in-depth research project motivated by a desire for truth. It is not surprising, therefore, that McCoy employs vocabulary eerily reminiscent of Ehrman's written work on this matter. This, I think, reveals major but unsung hole in the modern repackaging of Bauer's work that exposes it's darker underbelly. McCoy has barely scratched the surface when it comes to this topic: he has elected to blindly follow the consensus thinking wherever it took him, undeterred by nuance or counterargument.

This fails to take into account responses made by other, equally reputable academics to the Bauer Thesis. More than a dozen rejoinders were published in response to Bauer following the publication of the English translation of his work in the early 70s. Modern authors have, for the most part, failed to do justice to these responses: Ehrman's Lost Christianities (2002), for example, dedicates more than 7 pages to supporting evidence for Bauer's reconstruction of early Christianity whilst relegating critical responses to Bauer to only half a page and a single footnote. Elaine Pagels' work The Gnostic Gospels (2013) similarly falls into this trap, citing the responses to Bauer made by H. E. W. Turner and C. H. Roberts, yet neglecting to expand upon their criticisms. Readers are left in the dark as to why so many scholars found his work problematic. 

One cannot simply surmise it as resistance from theological conservatives and, although that is certainly an aspect of some pushback to the Bauer Thesis, these scholars still have a case to make against Bauer and modern writers who find his work amicable to their attack against Christian religion. McCoy has no clue about, for example, the volume edited by Hartog we had looked at previously. As we observed before, this is a pristine piece of scholarship that challenges Bauer on numerous fronts including his interpretation of the apostolic fathers, his understanding of Gnosticism, and his representation of Roman Christianity as a domineering force that supposedly engaged in ideological imperialism against other forms of Christianity. 

But even after considering these alternative perspectives on Bauer's Thesis, it becomes clear that the concept of history being written by the winners rings true for even those who seek to overthrow the (alleged) Christian deathgrip on biblical studies. Ehrman's view of early Christianity is the one that rules the road today. Anyone seeking to provide alternatives or rejoinders to "consensus views" in the modern scholarly Frankenstein that is Christian Origins have an uphill battle to fight against a new consensus that throws its weight around like the orthodoxies of old. The attitude from scholars who dismiss out of hand the works of Kostenberger, Kruger, and Hartog become contextualised in the broader apologetic discussions as little more than the censure of a perspective that has now been deemed as unorthodox. In short, if history really is written by the winners, there is no better embodiment of that concept than Ehrman and the Bauer Thesis.

This Undergirds EVERYTHING

Multiple goals were in mind with this not-so-brief post. Firstly, I wanted to illuminate the treacherous nature of the idiom "history is written by the winners" when applied to matters such as the historical study of religion and modern interfaith discourse. When used as a blanket statement to dismiss alternative perspectives on Christian origins (perspectives that were once-upon-a-time the dominant narrative), it finds itself becoming a marginalising force not too dissimilar to how early ecclesiastical politics is portrayed by the Bauer Thesis. 

The relationship between knowledge and power in the composition of both primary and secondary historical sources is a precarious one. Due to history's lack of predictive power, we can only make generalisations about historical patterns, not laws. These are not inflexible concepts and are very much open to reinterpretation and, when the evidence warrants it, rejection. We therefore cannot simply assume the concept of history being written by the winners as a law of history for the sake of courting popular imagination. This is the result of jettisoning a solid historical methodology for the sake of polemicizing against a perceived bourgeoise in the academy. As academics, we must be more cautious than this. 

Indeed, the application of such a stance is highly problematic when it comes to the original source material in all forms of historical inquiry. For example, the Tudor accounts of Richard III are undoubtedly biased and historically flawed, what with the glee which they pin the murder of the Princes in the Tower on him as well as his alleged physical malformities and perverse sexual escapades. But does this allow us to outright dismiss these Tudor historians when we try to reconstruct what Richard was really like? Far from it. What is more, many historians of late medieval England have noted that these Tudor sources are our best shot at uncovering the truth behind the character of Richard and what may have happened to his nephews. The quip of history solely being composed by the victorious powers can only aid us in being sceptical when approaching a text. It most certainly does not give us liberty to write off a source as a whole.

Secondly, it also does not give us the liberty to write off modern authors who side with traditional perspectives wholesale. Those who find the Bauer Thesis attractive to their activism believe that they are pushing back against a perceived Christian establishment in academic biblical studies. If the orthodox church is the historic winner of ancient theological battles then it's their perspective that has gained power and influence and thus needs to be removed. While there are potential gains to be made by such a position, one that has been illustrated by the great diversification of biblical studies in the latter half of the 20th century, it has the unintended affect of painting anyone who holds to what could loosely be described as "traditionalist" as not being worth listening to. As illustrated by Dr. Bowen's attack against Mike Winger, terms like "fundamentalist" get thrown around carelessly in order to discredit perceived pundits of the "old" ideas. 

The most radical adherents of the Bauer Thesis' modern incarnations view such interlocutors as perpetrators of an oppressive power structure. The logical implications of this is one group behaving like they are some kind of resistance against another's stranglehold of the discipline. If they truly believe this is the status quo, there is no reason whatsoever for them to be respectful in their dialogues with either the scholars or the laypeople who agree with them. This is precisely what we see in modern discourse, with numerous examples of detestable behaviour and vitriolic attitudes abounding on YouTube and even in the published literature itself. I think the concepts of power and knowledge perpetuated by popular versions of Bauer's ideas have made it especially virulent in biblical studies.

As illustrated above, it seems that such a perspective has led to new orthodoxies being created that silence dissent. Hartog's collection of essays has been written off in the same way that internet counter-apologists (and, regretfully, some academics) treat religious folk on the internet. It is a disturbing mirror-image of centuries past where heretics were hunted down for the sake of maintaining the established order. In an ironic twist of fate, its perpetrators perpetuate the very same dichotomy of knowledge and power they claim to despise. In order for biblical studies to move forward as a discipline, this approach must be abandoned in favour of neutral, scientific historical criticism that gives primacy to the data and forces ideological bickering on the internet to take a permanent back seat.