Literalism means adherence to the explicit sense of a given text or doctrine. It is practiced by some Christians, who are called biblical literalists. But as Conrad Hyers (professor of comparative religion at Gustavus Adolphus College) noted, “one often finds a literalist understanding of Bible and faith being assumed by those who have no religious inclinations, or who are avowedly antireligious in sentiment.” (Hyers, Conrad “Biblical Literalism: Constricting the Cosmic Dance“, Christian Century, August 4-11, 1982, p. 823.)
Those who believe that Christ is objectively present in the Eucharist — are they not promoting a literal interpretation of Christ’s words, “This is my body” and “This is my blood”? And those who believe in the social gospel — are they not taking what the Bible says about justice for the poor as literally true? Other religions also have literal interpreters, such as Islam’s Wahhabi (who prefer to be called “unitarians”). Ideological movements such as Marxism and scientism have their literalists, too.
Someone who exhibits literalism in some way is often assumed to be a wooden literalist, which is a literalist who ignores figurative language. While this may occur in some cases, even an extreme literalist such as Finis Jennings Dake acknowledges non-literal language. Dake stated his hermeneutic as follows: “Take the Bible literally wherein it is at all possible; if symbolic, figurative or typical language is used, then look for the literal truth it intends to convey. Statements of fact and historical accounts are accepted as such.” (Dake, Dake Annotated Reference Bible, Introduction).
Literalism is often associated with theologically conservative Christians who follow an historical-grammatical hermeneutic that strives to discover the meaning of a passage as the original author would have intended and what the original hearers would have understood. This is not literalism in a literal sense so the word literalism is being applied rather indiscriminately.
In a post-modern age in which all sorts of teachings that were formerly considered heresies are tolerated and promoted, literalism seems to be the last remaining heresy. It was first associated with Christian fundamentalism, which has been vilified since the early 20th century. With the rise of “Islamic fundamentalism,” literalism became associated with terroristic movements. It’s not difficult to imagine that literalism may one day be outlawed — literally!
January 2010