A Side Effect of Nuda Scriptura

A friend on FB posted a link to the Heidelblog - Sola Scripture ≠ Nuda Scriptura. I wasn't familiar with the term, Nuda Scriptura, so I read the post, which says:

Evangelical Christians in North America sometimes misunderstand the Reformation doctrine of sola Scriptura to mean that the Bible is the Christian’s only theological resource, that it can and should be denuded of its churchly context (hence nuda Scriptura). Such an understanding is altogether incorrect.

While believers should be Bereans and search the Scriptures for themselves, we don't do it in a vacuum. Our study of the Word is not disconnected from what has transpired through church history. Neither should it be divorced from the context of the present local church.

So given the potential for deception if one is left to one's self, I wondered if any cults or erroneous teachings were conceived via Nuda Scriptura. Well in my recent reading, I happened upon:

- Caleb Rich "insisted that his own interpretation of Scripture should not be mediated by any other authority, historical or ecclesiastical - a conviction steeled by the competing claims of rival denominations and a new openness to visionary experiences." He begin "having  a series of visionary experiences in which celestial persons counseled him to avoid all other denominations and all other human advice." Rich became the main leader of Universalism in New England at the end of the 1700's. ¹

- Elhanan Winchester was a reformed Baptist minister who struggled with Calvinism versus the appeal of Universalism. The crisis came to a head in 1781, and he resolved the conflict by "locking the door and coming to grips with Scripture for himself." He "prayed to God to lead me into the truth, and not suffer me to embrace any error; and I think with an upright mind, I laid myself open to believe whatever the Lord had revealed… I am persuaded of the truth of Universal Restoration."²

- Lucy Mack Smith came to the following conviction: "I said in my heart that there was not then upon earth the religion which I sought. I therefore determined to examine my Bible, and taking Jesus and the disciples as my guide, to endeavor to obtain from God that which man could neither give nor take away… The Bible I intended should be my guide to life ands salvation." She eventually "sealed this individualization of conscience by finding a minister who agreed to baptize her as a solitary Christian without any attachment to any congregation." Perhaps she isn't very well known, but her son is - Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormons. ³

These are a few examples, but I think it's more than mere coincidence. This religious individualism puts naive confidence in our own discernment, as if we know better than generations of Christians before us. It also implies ignorance is somehow an antidote to error and a mark of greater "spirituality", which sounds a lot like pride in the guise of false humility. But pride goes before the fall, and error has no problem pulling down as many as possible with it.

For more on Sola Scriptura vs. Nuda Scriptura: 

A Defense of Sola Scriptura - C. Michael Patton

'Sola Scriptura' Radicalized and Abandoned - Matthew Barrett

1. The Democratization of American Christianity, Nathan O. Hatch, Yale University Press, 1989, pp. 40-41.

2. Ibid. 41-42.

3. Ibid. 43.