Earlier this month Westminster theological seminary released Douglass Green an OT professor who had served there for 22 years previously because of his "christotelic" approach of reading the OT, specifically exemplified in this paper that interprets Ps 23. as a messianic psalm (but not as you might normally imagine messianic).
I like that Westminster admits this is not a heretical view but graciously says it is one that will just not fit within their boundaries, I also like that they put up Green's hermeneutical views as well as other staff's who contrast/challenge his. I do not like that they chose to dismiss an employee after 22 years for this.
Read through Green's paper on ps.23 (link above)....would you ask someone to leave your school, pastoral staff or institution after writing that??
Here is a good explanation of "christotelic interpretation" and why some react to the extreme usage of christotelic interpreting of the OT written by William B. Evans a former classmate of Douglass Green at WTS
What are the characteristics of christotelic interpretation?
First, there is a rejection of grammatical-historical interpretation as the only legitimate hermeneutical approach to Scripture. Yes, they say, it is important to understand the biblical text in its original linguistic and historical context, but we can’t stop there. Grammatical-historical interpretation is a creature of modernity, and earlier Christian interpreters were not tied to it—the NT writers sometimes interpret OT texts in ways that likely would not have occurred to Isaiah or Hosea. Also, grammatical-historical interpretation asks what the text would have meant to the original human author, but the Bible is also divinely inspired and our interpretation must take this divine origin and perspective into account as well.
Second, the larger meaning of the text resides in the text as it is inspired by the Holy Spirit, and this meaning is then progressively grasped by the human audience over the course of redemptive history. Here there is particular focus on the Scriptural canon as a whole as the context within which christotelic interpretation takes place.
Finally, all this leads to a programmatic distinction between “first reading” and “second reading.” In the first reading we encounter the text without reference to the conclusion of the story, while in the second reading we see levels of meaning we did not see before precisely because we know how the story ends and how things fit together.
It is not entirely surprising that this approach would be controversial. Proponents of christotelic interpretation have sometimes overstated their case, suggesting that the Old Testament, when interpreted simply according to grammatical-historical method, is not a Christian book. One can understand why some would view this as a denial of the “organic connection” between the OT and the NT and as an example of creeping naturalism. In addition, evangelical Protestants have generally had a rather static view of the text and its meaning as inhering in the intent of the original human author, and grammatical-historical interpretation is often regarded as the normative method of interpretation. Finally, this approach also seems to engage questions of Protestant identity in that grammatical-historical interpretation is often regarded as a hallmark of Protestantism over against Catholic allegorical and sensus plenior approaches.
Last blog link....here is a biting protest to the firing of another WTS employee a few years ago. (Bird also wrote about this current exodus of staff). All of this is work reading and thinking about seriously not just reacting too flippantly and thinking..."oh no the fundamentalists at WTS have again chopped a head off"....no..think seriously would you be ok with someone teaching and reading the OT in a christotelic way? It's a good question.
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