Revelation, Authority, and Worldviews in the Global South
Dr. Núñez (DMin, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is the senior pastor at Iglesia Bautista Internacional and president of Wisdom and Integrity Ministries in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He is a Council member of The Gospel Coalition and Coalicion por el Evangelio. He also serves as a professor of Pastoral Leadership at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Introduction:
Why “Worldviews”?
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matt 28:18–20 ESV)
The focus of this essay is the Global South. Notice that this text does not present two different ways of evangelizing or two different standards of truth but rather one single command. Whatever is important in one hemisphere is important in the other.
Everyone reading the Bible for the first time is doing so with a set of presuppositions. They read through a worldview, a set of values and assumptions gathered together and passed on to them by the culture in which they grew up, by their parents and family members, by books, writers, movies, and many other sources of information. It is a set of beliefs through which people see life and interpret their experiences of reality.
The problem is complex. Worldviews are closely tied to the emotions of the heart, and therefore people frequently make judgments about the Bible based on those faulty emotions. Our worldviews are flawed precisely because our assumptions are flawed. Let us remember that Adam—without a sinful nature, in a perfect garden, in a perfect world—eventually reached a wrong conclusion about God’s revelation. If that could happen under those perfect conditions, imagine what we are all capable of doing with the truth of God.
We are entirely dependent on God’s revelation to interpret life and the world around us. That is precisely what the biblical worldview is about. When it comes to revelation and authority, we start either with God or with man. There is no other option. Either God’s Word or man’s word becomes the final authority.
Understanding what worldviews are and how they work helps us understand where differing opinions about God’s revelation come from.
Worldviews Compared:
Global North and Global South
The Northern Worldview: Rationalism and Modernity
The Global South and the Global North do not share the same worldview. Since the Enlightenment, people in the West[1]—including Christians—have tended to separate the natural from the supernatural, giving us a split-level Christianity. According to the authors of one study on folk religion, this split has led most missionaries to teach Christianity as the answer to life’s ultimate and eternal questions but science, grounded in reason, as the answer to the problems of this world.[2]
This split is also closely linked to Deism, the belief that God the Creator did not remain in contact with His creation but abandoned the world to operate under the laws of nature. For the deist, there is no supernatural special revelation from God—a position shared with the atheist. For the deist, there is a God but no revelation from above; for the atheist, there is no God, and therefore no revelation from any god. For the deist, God is transcendent, but He is not immanent. He is high and lifted up, but He does not dwell with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit (Isa 57:15).
In the West, the main problems have been theological liberalism and apostasy. The triumph of so-called reason eroded God’s revelation, culminating in the ultimate expression of that project: “well-meaning” men who wanted all supernatural elements ripped from the Bible.
The Southern Worldview: Mysticism and Animism
In the Global South, that has not been the problem. Our main difficulty has not been apostasy but heresy, addition to God’s revelation. Many of these additions come through mystical experiences such as visions and dreams. Rationalism says that man has the authority to delete from God’s revelation. Mysticism says that man has the authority to add to God’s revelation.
Rationalism belongs to the North; mysticism belongs to the Global South. In the Global North, the prevailing worldview is modernity. In the Global South, the prevailing worldview is animism. The reality is that people sin, and after they sin, they embrace a worldview that justifies their sin—and when that worldview clashes with Christianity, a collision occurs. Orthodox biblical Christianity has been altered at different moments as a result of that clash: modernity in the North, animism in the South.
In many parts of the Global South, the question has centered on the finality of the canon—which in turn calls into question the authority of the Scriptures we already have. To understand our region, one needs to know that the Global South did not live through the Reformation, nor is it a child of the Enlightenment. “No matter how modern a society may look, basically Asian minds are animistic in orientation.”[3] “Most non-westerners possess a supernaturalistic worldview, which even a modern western scientific education could not fully eradicate easily. It is so much part and parcel of their cultural backgrounds.”[4]
Defining Animism
Animism may be described as “the belief that personal spiritual beings and impersonal spiritual forces have power over human affairs and, consequently, that human beings must discover what beings and forces are influencing them in order to determine future action and, frequently, to manipulate their power.”[5]
Many studies have shown that most of the world’s unreached peoples are animistic. In the late 20th century, one report gave the following estimate: “Among the 88 percent of those classified as unreached peoples, . . . 135 million are tribal animists and 1.9 billion are involved in a world religion based in animism.”[6] Another report said, “The unreached world as a whole is animistic at its base.”[7]
This information is vital if we are to understand the importance of revelation and authority in the Global South. For example, animists often believe that illness is caused by evil spirits. It is remarkable to see how Christian converts from that background continue to believe the same and thus continuously rebuke demons out of people when they are sick with ordinary medical illnesses.
This one illustration shows how important the biblical doctrine of revelation and authority is for the Global South. If the animistic worldview is not completely replaced by the biblical worldview, many beliefs and practices will be only modified, not eradicated. The converted animist often still believes the lies communicated by evil spirits—but now, as a new Christian, he frequently believes that God continues to speak through angels, apparitions of Christ, dreams, visions, and other mystical experiences. He continues, in effect, to add to biblical revelation.
The “truths” and understandings received through these experiences frequently contradict the Word of God, yet they become part of the norm in worship services, prayer gatherings, and revival meetings. The collision between the old worldview of animism and the new biblical worldview often produces a syncretistic belief system, an attempt to “Christianize” prior beliefs and practices. Those of us who live there can attest that many evangelical superstitions exist in the Global South.
Supplemented, Not Denied
In our part of the world, divine revelation is not denied—it is supplemented. For those of us who minister there, the challenge is not to persuade people that revelation from God exists. The challenge is to persuade people that the revelation they already have is the final and complete revelation from the one God they now believe in.
This persistent belief in ongoing revelation helps explain how people in the Global South can hold beliefs that flatly contradict the very Word they confess has come from God. The law of non-contradiction is foreign to them, owing partly to the lack of training in the church in the Global South compared to the church in Europe or North America. Many leaders in our region were appointed during a time of need or crisis to fill a pulpit vacuum, and few were ever trained in biblical doctrine in the first place.
William Taylor asks who is responsible for the lack of biblical teaching among Latin American evangelicals. He answers:
All who have exercised leadership: pioneer missionaries whose emphasis was solely evangelistic, current expatriate and national leaders who evade serious Bible study and teaching, theological institutions that produce leaders unprepared to meet the deeper needs of the churches, and Christian publishers who push translated best-sellers.[8]
The Doctrine of Revelation
In a land teeming with false apostles and false teachers, the doctrines of revelation, authority, and a complete canon are foundational truths. New leaders can easily say, “Thus says the Lord,” when the Lord has not spoken—and we have heard and seen this many times. Those who speak this way do not believe in a complete canon; they do not have a high view of Scripture, and consequently they cannot have a high view of the Revealer—God Himself.
All biblical theology begins with revelation, which has been defined as “the disclosure by God of truths at which people could not arrive without divine initiative and enabling.”[9] God is the giver; we are the receivers. Nothing about God can be known apart from revelation. Revelation is a gift from God, and we should all be grateful for it. Without revelation, we would have no Bible nor any true theology.
Consider this: If God had given us a faulty revelation, He would have set us up for faulty theology. But that is inconsistent with the character revealed of God in the Bible. We know that God has revealed Himself in the Bible because He has said so, and there is no authority in the universe higher than God.
Revelation is the cornerstone of biblical theology—that is as true in the North as it is in the South. The doctrines of revelation, authority, inspiration, and inerrancy are vital to the health of the church. Some have said we do not need the doctrine of inerrancy in the Global South, that our mission can proceed without such a controversial topic. That may be true at a pragmatic level. But when inerrancy goes, confidence in the authority of Scripture goes with it, and when that goes, we begin to question revelation itself.
A solid doctrine of the revelation and authority of Scripture is sorely needed in the Global South. We must train leaders—and I am grateful for TMAI’s work in this—if we are to make a serious contribution to the Great Commission and to the development of healthy churches. That is a must.
The Question of Authority
Having addressed revelation and worldviews, I turn now to authority—the authority of that revelation.
The authority of revelation has been diminished in both Catholic and evangelical circles in many ways. One of the most persistent causes of this decline is the constant flow of purported new doctrinal revelations “from above,” a pattern many adhere to even after conversion, particularly those who convert from an animistic background.
When it comes to revelation and authority, two fundamental questions confront us, regardless of location: (1) Did God reveal Himself in the Bible? (2) If He did, what did He say?
If God the Creator revealed Himself in the Bible—and we know He did—then whatever He revealed as His sovereign will must be the final word. The creature is no match for the Creator, as God Himself put it to Job: “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it” (Job 40:2).
That is a good question for the faultfinders of our own day. Should we contend with God?
Authority in the Catholic Global South
As mentioned earlier, the authority of God’s Word has been compromised both in evangelical circles and in the Catholic Church. Consider paragraph 95 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which explains how authority is understood in that part of the world where so many Catholics live:
It is clear therefore that in the supremely wise arrangement of God, sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture, and the Magisterium of the Church are so connected and associated that one of them cannot stand without the others, Working together, each in its own way, under the action of the one Holy Spirit, they all contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.[10]
In the Middle Ages, Roman Catholic authorities developed the idea that only the Church could interpret the Bible, and the Church itself—not the Bible—became the ultimate authority, since the biblical text could mean whatever the Church determined. According to the text above, little has changed since. With that understanding, any tradition can be used to justify any practice within the Church. Recall the words of Christ: “. . . thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do” (Mark 7:13).
We need go no further to understand the importance of the doctrine of revelation and authority in the Catholic Global South to counteract this powerful, five-hundred-year-old influence.
Authority and the Reformation
In the secular world, ultimate authority rests with human reason. In the Catholic Global South, ultimate authority rests with the Church, that is, the reasoning of the Church. The Reformers effectively displaced the Church’s monopoly on interpretation, acknowledging that interpretation belongs to the Holy Spirit. J. I. Packer observes, “The self-sufficiency of Scripture was also recognized, and the Bible was set up [by the Reformers], according to its own demand, as judge of those traditions which had previously been supposed to supplement it.”[11]
The authority of the Bible is intrinsically tied to its source—a God who is truthful, omnipotent, just, holy, sovereign, and immutable, who cannot lie, who controls everything, and who desires to be known. The revelation of such a God must be infallible and inerrant. And such a revelation is authoritative completely not only because it is infallible but because it comes from God. There is no authority in the universe higher than God, which is why the Bible is self-authenticating: There is no higher judge to critique, condemn, correct, or alter it. To obey or disobey the Bible is to obey or disobey God. That understanding is vital everywhere, especially in the Global South.
Authority in the Latin American Worldview
Let me speak specifically about the region where I minister: Latin America. The Latin American worldview is a syncretism of animism, Catholicism, and modernism (postmodernism has not fully arrived there yet, and that is a good thing).
Consider how the concept of authority is understood across these worldviews:
● For the animist, evil spirits hold power and authority, and one must learn to control them.
● For the Catholic, authority in spiritual matters is shared between the Word and the Church.
● For the modernist, authority resides in science.
● For the orthodox evangelical, the Bible holds supreme authority. Philip Jenkins, writing about the Global South, describes it as conservative and even fundamentalist.[12]
Unfortunately, many who affirm the Bible’s supreme authority in spiritual matters also believe in all manner of supernatural “new revelations,” especially those brought by the latest prophet or apostle to visit their congregation. Populations accustomed to dictatorial regimes can easily be persuaded to submit to the authority of an imposing, charismatic personality, and that is precisely what we have seen many times. Just as totalitarian governments have maintained hegemony by keeping populations in ignorance, false teachers have kept their congregations in biblical ignorance, enabling them to sell all manner of unbiblical lies, fostering dependence on experiences, new revelations, and the latest fad.
The “name-it-and-claim-it” heresy can only flourish in the soil of biblical ignorance. The same can be said of the “signs-and-wonders” movement, the prosperity gospel, and many other movements prevalent in our region. Where the doctrines of revelation, inspiration, authority, and inerrancy are not well grounded, such movements are bound to arise. As Martyn Lloyd-Jones observed, “There can be no doubt whatsoever that all the troubles in the Church today, and most of the troubles in the world, are due to a departure from the authority of the Bible.”[13]
The Need for Expository Preaching
In answer to the pressing problem of biblical ignorance, I want to stress the need for biblical education in the Global South—in churches but also in training centers, seminaries, and institutions like TMAI. But the best place to begin is with the pulpit and the practice of preaching the Word expositionally. This practice is paramount for two reasons: (1) It protects against misinterpretation and misapplication of the biblical text. (2) In Latin America specifically, expository preaching is the missing jewel in the pulpit.
Most Latin American evangelicals are Pentecostal, and this tradition has not been well known for its emphasis on expository preaching. Taylor observes,
There are notable Pentecostal shortcomings, some of which Pentecostals themselves acknowledge: a serious lack of trained leadership, the problem of numerical growth without biblical training and discipleship, a tendency to center power in authoritarian leaders, artificial spirituality, lively but routine liturgy, and a spirit of legalism in the Christian life.[14]
I know of no better remedy for these maladies of the church than expository preaching. The lack of training described above produces thematic, pragmatic, non-doctrinal, anthropocentric, and prosperity-oriented preaching—preaching that lacks the power to transform. The weakness of this kind of preaching may explain why we have not seen commensurate change in our nations despite the statistical growth in the number of evangelicals.
The more a preacher recognizes that his authority rests not in his own words but in the Word of God, the more confidence he will have in the pulpit. We must rely on the authority of the inerrant Word of God. Without that confidence, we act out of insecurity, and the temptation to manipulate emotions through recurring extrabiblical “revelations,” delivered by a charismatic personality to an emotional audience, becomes an ideal tool for exploitation.
In answer to these dangers, sola Scriptura must become the battle cry of the Latin American reformation. This single principle would:
● Eliminate doctrinal teaching that originates outside the Bible
● Silence those who flippantly claim, “Thus says the Lord”
● Bankrupt the prosperity gospel
● Remove the authority underlying the name-it-and-claim-it heresy
● Leave behind the entrenched traditions of Catholicism
Sola Scriptura affirms that the Bible is sufficient and is the highest authority for those who believe it. Scripture alone is inherently infallible and powerful; there is no error in it. Sola Scriptura is universal because it concerns the truth of God. Whatever is true in the North is true in the South. The Bible carries the same weight in one hemisphere as in the other; it is the final authoritative standard to be interpreted and proclaimed by the church. Sola Scriptura protects the revelation of God, the glory of God, and the people of God—which is why it matters so profoundly.
Without confidence in sola Scriptura, we are always searching for the next thing to move the hearts and minds of the people. In the North, that “something” is often marketed through technique or the social sciences; in the South, it has often been another new revelation added to what we already have in the Bible.
The Model of Christ:
Submission to the Word
The Global South needs preachers who proclaim the same truth proclaimed two thousand years ago. It needs preachers who rely not on their own experiences but on the Word of God. The South needs diligent students of the Word, students whose hearts are saturated with the truths of the Bible. Before proclaiming God’s truth, we must bend our knees, bow our heads, and pray, continuing until we grasp God’s intended meaning for every verse we are about to proclaim.
The man of the hour must submit to the authority of Scripture. Jesus did. To John the Baptist, Jesus said, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matt 3:15). He was referring to the Law and the prior revelation of the Old Testament. In John’s Gospel, He says, “For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak” (John 12:49).
To the devil, in one of the most critical moments of His life, Jesus answered three times, “It is written” (Matt 4:4, 7, 10)—and the devil submitted and left Him. At the moment of His death, Christ was still quoting Scripture: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt 27:46; Mark 15:34; cf. Ps 22:1).
He died and rose again—and even then, He was still quoting Scripture. On the road to Emmaus, He said to two disciples: “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:25–27). Throughout His life, at the moment of His death, and after His resurrection, Christ was still quoting the Scriptures.
Closing Charge
Let us pray and preach the same gospel that Christ and the apostles preached until we see the hearts of the people burning for God’s truth.
This is the need everywhere, in the Global North and in the Global South. If you are laboring in the Global South or heading in that direction, know that this is a monumental moment in the history of the Global South. According to many missiologists, the center of gravity for Christianity has shifted to the Global South. Nearly 70% of all Christians worldwide live in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Africa is known today as the most Christian continent on Earth, with about 750 million professing Christians. God seems to be doing something very extraordinary in this part of the globe. Seize the moment and rise to the occasion for the glory of God. Do it for the kingdom. Do it for the Son. Do it for His cause!
Embrace the Word. Proclaim the victory and glory of the risen Christ. Let us proclaim it every time we preach. He must increase, but we must decrease. Let us preach salvation and exalt Christ and Christ alone until He is the only One seen. Let us be a window through which people can see the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor 4:6).
Embrace the cross. Go forth. Be the man of the hour, for the fame of His name!
[1] “The West” is another way of describing the Global North, identifying the set of cultural values that have shaped the Global North between, roughly, East (Asiatic) and West (European). Western values are those shaped by the organization of Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian thought.
[2] Paul G. Hiebert, R. Daniel Shaw, and Tite Tiénou, Understanding Folk Religion: A Christian Response to Popular Beliefs and Practices (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1999), 19.
[3] Elijah Jong Fil Kim, “Filipino Pentecostalism in a Global Context,” Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies 8, no. 2 (2005): 238.
[4] Kim, “Filipino Pentecostalism in a Global Context,” 239.
[5] Gailyn Van Rheenen, Communicating Christ in Animistic Contexts (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1991), 20.
[6] Timothy James Kamps, “The Biblical Forms and Elements of Power Encounter” (MA thesis, Columbia Graduate School of Bible and Missions, Columbia, SC, 1986), 6.
[7] Timothy Warner, “Power Encounter” (classroom notes, D833, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, IL, 1988), cited in Van Rheenen, Communicating Christ in Animistic Contexts, 25.
[8] William D. Taylor, “Spiritual Dimensions of Latin America,” in Crisis in Latin America: An Evangelical Perspective, by Emilio A. Nùñez and William D. Taylor (Chicago: Moody Press, 1989), 164.
[9] R. W. Yarbrough, “Revelation,” in New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, ed. T. Desmond Alexander and Brian S. Rosner (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 732.
[10]Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2000), 29.
[11] J. I. Packer, Engaging the Written Word of God (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2012), 58.
[12] Philip Jenkins, The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 5–6 .
[13] Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “The Authority of Scripture,” C.S. Lewis Institute, October 3, 2009, https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/authorityOfScripture.pdf.
[14] Taylor, “Spiritual Dimensions of Latin America,” 157.