The 16th Century Anabaptists discovered this to their horror in the tragedy of Münster – an interpretive community that were too easily guided by a charismatic leader into a millenarian position that brought about violence within and violence without, and its eventual destruction under siege.

Community interpretation is not enough, and, whilst potentially mystically beautiful, is also potentially very damaging.

The Anabaptists recovered from the disaster of Münster to adopt a four-dimensioned hermeneutic approach: 1) high regard for the Bible (as with mainstream Protestantism); 2) community interpretation (as with early Anabaptism); 3) by those full of the Spirit of God (as with Münster-era Radical Reformation groups); and 4) in harmony with the character and person of Jesus (in post-Münster chastened Anabaptism, under the guidance of Menno Simons and others).

This is more akin to the community hermeneutics of Stanley Hauerwas, in our era, drawing on but extending beyond the approaches of Stanley Fish or Alasdair MacIntyre.

The Bible is dangerous because Jesus is dangerous, and people who take his life, as well as his death, seriously themselves become dangerous people. The role of the Church as interpretive community is to create safe place in which dangerous things can happen.