Midwestern Seminary recently welcomed Andrew T. Walker to campus to deliver the annual Scudder Lecture. Walker, who serves as associate professor of Christian ethics and public theology at Southern Seminary, presented a Christian theology of free speech.
The Scudder Lecture series brings a guest speaker to campus to explore the biblical basis for dealing with contemporary social challenges and ethical issues. Walker’s March 25 lecture explored the biblical grounds of free speech, focusing on the image of God in humanity and humankind’s responsibility to pursue and reflect the truth.
Walker began by noting the relationship between freedom and the image of God. He highlighted the role of human rationality and agency in reflecting the image of God, who formed creation by His words.
Order and purpose
“A Christian view of freedom recognizes that certain human choices will align with the order and purpose of God in creation, and that freedom exists precisely for this end,” Walker said. He added, “Speech is a corollary and an outworking of our rationality and agency” with the aim of “bringing order to God’s world.”
Next, Walker dove deeper into the purpose of speech according to Scripture. He noted the numerous biblical commands concerning speech, such as prohibitions on lying and exhortations to speak the truth in love. He also noted the many ways Scripture depicts speech, including its power to build up and tear down, its reflection of a person’s heart, and its function in salvation.
“The meta-telos of our speech is the proclamation of the gospel,” Walker said.
He went on to note that while speech is meant to accomplish godly ends, speech is not a good in and of itself. “What we do with our speech constitutes the value of our speech,” he explained, adding, “While freedom of speech in our context means liberty to engage in any type of speech that the agent wants to engage in, that is far from the worldview of the Bible, where truth and virtue condition our speech toward the highest virtue, which is love.”
To watch this year’s Scudder Lecture, click here.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Michaela Classen and originally published by Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
