Over the years I've attended various conservative churches and during the main part of the service there's typically a man up there in the pulpit pontificating about sin and how we live in a godless nation and how God's judgment is pending. Abortion often came up and sometimes evolution, depending on how conservative the place was. The preacher typically acknowledges that he is not God and that except by God's grace he would not be able to do any of what he does. At the same time there's the unmistakable claim that if one does not agree with or ultimately obey what is being promulgated from the pulpit then one is not disobeying and rebelling against a man but against God. So the preacher gets to disclaim his authority by telling his audience that he is not God and that he is just a man like every other that you see in the audience, yet his message is that of God and is not like that of a mere man (save perhaps those who are divinely appointed to similar positions of power and who promulgate compatible "biblical" messages).
John MacArthur, Jr. gives the following rationale for the totalitarian authority structure of an inerrantist church service:
"The only logical response to inerrant Scripture, then, is to preach it expositionally. By expositionally, I mean preaching in such a way that the meaning of the Bible passage is presented entirely and exactly as it was intended by God. Expository preaching is the proclamation of the truth of God as mediated through the preacher." (http://www.tms.edu/tmsj/tmsj1a.pdf, p. 3.)
So the preacher who is not God becomes God during the service. Even if it is not the preacher himself who is thought to personally undergo theosis (it's his message that does), the preacher is still thought of by the faithful as a man who can, in at least one important respect, be God for the people. It's not education or personality or intelligence that accomplishes the preacher's mediating capacity (although these traits would not hurt). The divine transformation of the preacher's words is made possible in the minds of many conservatives by the doctrine of inerrancy. And if one is convinced of a close connection between inerrancy and preaching, as MacArthur is, then to critically question a sermon is to ultimately question God, because to question the preacher is to question the Bible and to question the Bible is to question God. Now such a distinction between error and truth with regard to preaching may encourage a tendency to attribute all homiletic errors to the preacher and all homiletic truths to God. This reinforces the view that all human contributions to religion are bad and that only the divine contributions can be considered good. And if there's anything that a conservative evangelical does not want to be it's be based on merely human notions and traditions. I think this view contributes immensely to J.P. Moreland's "over-committment to the Bible" syndrome (on which see http://evangelicalinerrancy.blogspot.com/2007/12/fresh-start.html ).
MacArthur makes the following inferences a little later in the paper:
"[Liberals] err by a priori giving the critic a place of authority over the Scriptures. This assumes the critic himself is inerrant...Presuppositions are involved either way. Will men place their faith in the Scriptures or the critics?...If the Bible is unable to produce a sound doctrine of Scripture, then it
is thus incapable of producing, with any degree of believability or credibility, a doctrine about any other matter. If the human writers of Scripture have erred in their understanding of Holy Writ's purity, then they have disqualified themselves as writers for any other area of God's revealed truth. If they are so disqualified in all areas, then every preacher is thoroughly robbed of any confidence and conviction concerning the alleged true message he would be relaying for God." (p. 14)
Without inerrancy, preachers are unable to preach. No wonder they are unwilling to critically discuss the doctrine, much less give it up. With such dire consequences to giving up inerrancy and without any intermediate possibilities between inerrancy and "disqualified in all areas," it is no wonder that evangelicals fight for inerrancy as if they're fighting for their lives. At least in one regard, they seem convinced that they actually are fighting for their lives because without inerrancy, it's just a man up there on Sunday morning.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Sunday, December 30, 2007
They are on their own
A friend of mine a few years back complained to me that my concerns about inerrancy led to some real trouble for him as a preacher. He remarked that if we cast doubts on the Bible's inerrant authority then we would have to concede that it is "just him" up there in the pulpit (and not God) giving the sermon. He could not in good conscience concede that during his homilies he was simply preaching his own fallible interpretation of a fallible Bible; he could not concede this to himself, much less to his spiritually hungry congregation. They needed something more than that (and so did he). In fact, he saw it as an ethical matter of the greatest significance that he had to be preaching the Word of God to his congregants, else Christianity would be reduced to some kind of farce. John Frame illustrates the conservative fear when he offers the following surmise: "Liberals use Scripture in their theological work, to be sure. But they reserve the right to disagree with it. So, in the final analysis they are on their own, basing their thought on human wisdom, human tradition." (http://www.thirdmill.org/files/english/html/pt/PT.h.Frame.Traditionalism.1.html)
They are on their own, but we are not--that is the inerrantist mindset. True Christians are never on their own, they have Scripture; but fallibilists, and every other non-inerrantist Christian, are, when it comes down to it, on their own. This same line of thinking is what kept me an evangelical for 10 yrs or so, until finally, as I try to explain in my book, I was able to see for myself that evangelicals, too, are on their own. Very much to my surprise, I saw that inerrantist traditions are also based on human wisdom and human tradition, it's just that inerrantists are not encouraged to see this, much less admit it. Not only that, but inerrantists too are free to disagree with Scripture, they are simply socially bound to couch any disagreements as reinterpretations based on hermeneutical considerations. But it seems to me that inerrantists arbitrarily refuse to push the hermeneutical envelope as far as they might and that one of the main reasons they don't is a tacit fear that pluralism--the inevitable result of millions of Christians being on their own--seriously threatens the social tenability of inerrantist evangelicalism (a pluralism, I might add, that has developed in spite of, or perhaps even because of, inerrantist efforts to stop it).
Even so, evangelicals are just as on their own in the final analysis as "liberals." I argue in my book that the Bible is a cultural product that has an extended and very complex diachronic history. Biblical materials originated as part of a larger oral culture that circulated these materials in a broader cultural matrix comprised of various assumptions, interpretations and embellishments regarding the original souce material; in other words, the Bible was compiled in an inherently intertextual way such that it maintains a fundamental dialectical relationship with the culture within which it was produced. Inerrantist ways of looking at Scripture often prevent one from appreciating the diachronic history of the biblical materials and their cultural embeddedness. Not only that, but evangelicals, too, are embedded in their own cultural matrix of various assumptions, interpretations and religious embellishments to the effect that they cannot help but contribute culturally to the religious belief systems they construct. The difference between conservatives and liberals, then, is not that liberals are on their own and conservatives are not, but that conservatives tend not to be as open about how deeply constructivist theological speculation is whereas liberals give some lip service to trying to do theology a little more self-consciously. Now how well liberals actually go about doing this, of course, is another story.
They are on their own, but we are not--that is the inerrantist mindset. True Christians are never on their own, they have Scripture; but fallibilists, and every other non-inerrantist Christian, are, when it comes down to it, on their own. This same line of thinking is what kept me an evangelical for 10 yrs or so, until finally, as I try to explain in my book, I was able to see for myself that evangelicals, too, are on their own. Very much to my surprise, I saw that inerrantist traditions are also based on human wisdom and human tradition, it's just that inerrantists are not encouraged to see this, much less admit it. Not only that, but inerrantists too are free to disagree with Scripture, they are simply socially bound to couch any disagreements as reinterpretations based on hermeneutical considerations. But it seems to me that inerrantists arbitrarily refuse to push the hermeneutical envelope as far as they might and that one of the main reasons they don't is a tacit fear that pluralism--the inevitable result of millions of Christians being on their own--seriously threatens the social tenability of inerrantist evangelicalism (a pluralism, I might add, that has developed in spite of, or perhaps even because of, inerrantist efforts to stop it).
Even so, evangelicals are just as on their own in the final analysis as "liberals." I argue in my book that the Bible is a cultural product that has an extended and very complex diachronic history. Biblical materials originated as part of a larger oral culture that circulated these materials in a broader cultural matrix comprised of various assumptions, interpretations and embellishments regarding the original souce material; in other words, the Bible was compiled in an inherently intertextual way such that it maintains a fundamental dialectical relationship with the culture within which it was produced. Inerrantist ways of looking at Scripture often prevent one from appreciating the diachronic history of the biblical materials and their cultural embeddedness. Not only that, but evangelicals, too, are embedded in their own cultural matrix of various assumptions, interpretations and religious embellishments to the effect that they cannot help but contribute culturally to the religious belief systems they construct. The difference between conservatives and liberals, then, is not that liberals are on their own and conservatives are not, but that conservatives tend not to be as open about how deeply constructivist theological speculation is whereas liberals give some lip service to trying to do theology a little more self-consciously. Now how well liberals actually go about doing this, of course, is another story.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
People or doctrine?
What is Christianity all about anyway? Are Christians primarily interested in people or are they primarily interested in doctrine? Or perhaps this is too simple; perhaps Christians would not (publicly) choose one over the other but say that both are major facets of the total religious package. Or perhaps some would say that Christianity is really about the business of reforming people precisely by means of reforming their doctrine. Or perhaps they would proffer that although Christianity is concerned with reforming doctrine, this is done secondarily, so to speak, by primarily reforming people.
To fear the LORD is to hate evil;
I hate pride and arrogance,
evil behavior and perverse speech.
...and wrong doctrines and the people who after years and years of honest research still come to believe them.
My mouth speaks what is true, for my lips detest wickedness.
All the words of my mouth are just; none of them is crooked or perverse.
To the discerning, all of them are right; they are faultless to those who have knowledge.
Perhaps "true" Christianity is about trying to pressure people to agree with one's doctrine for their own good and for their own eternal well-being and maybe even for that good feeling that comes with brazenly sticking up for what God has revealed to be true once and for all. Of course, those who resist what our mouths speak--even if they too claim to be Christians--do not really have knowledge and are bereft of true discernment since they do not hear what we are speaking since we are speaking the truth. I suppose this is one way of looking at it.
But whether Christianity is primarily about people or doctrine is a question that can be posed in a host of different contexts. My concern here is the evangelical doctrine of inerrancy. Is evangelicalism about the spiritual formation of people or preserving the doctrine of inerrancy? I pose this question here to myself and only indirectly to others. I am presently convinced that THE problem with evangelicalism is the doctrine of inerrancy. But maybe I am wrong; maybe I cannot see the forest for the trees. Maybe it's the type of people who are attracted to evangelicalism who make inerrancy such a natural view of Scripture to take. Said another way, perhaps evangelical culture necessitates inerrancy. Maybe it's not the doctrine of inerrancy that leads to spiritual malformation; but rather spiritually and psychologically unhealthy people (an unhealthy collective culture) who lead, through the course of their Christian formation, to inerrantist-type doctrines.
What do I mean by spiritually and psychologically unhealthy people? Consider the following list of character traits that many evangelicals tend to exhibit simply in virtue of conforming to the collective evangelical culture (taken from http://www.internetmonk.com/articles/H/hateus.html)
"1. Christians endorse a high standard of conduct for others, and then largely excuse themselves from a serious pursuit of such a life...
2. Evangelical Christian piety in America is mostly public... If its public, we do it well. If it's private discipleship, we probably don't do it at all.
3. Many evangelicals relate to others with an obvious- or thinly disguised- hidden agenda... [People] are annoyed and sometimes angered that we are following some divine directive to get them to abandon their life choices and take up ours. They want to be loved as they are, not for what they might become if our plan succeeds
4. We seem consumed with establishing that we are somehow "better" than other people, when the opposite is very often true...
5. We talk about God in ways that are too familiar and make people uncomfortable...
6. Evangelicals are too slow to separate themselves from what is wrong...
7. We take ourselves far too seriously, and come off as opposed to normal life..."
I can see how these traits, when taken together, contribute on a cultural level to the natural promotion and acceptance of a view of the Bible that is inerrantist. From this vantage, then, evangelicalism would be primarily about people, and evangelical doctrine could be interpreted, at least in part, as an ad hoc articulation of a pre-doctrinal mindset brought to religion by evangelical people themselves. This is an upsetting scenario because then those who are looking to reform evangelicalism are not merely dealing with either this or that unsuitable doctrine or even with a whole system of unfruitful doctrines. Much rather, evangelical reformers are dealing with people, a whole culture of people who profess to love God but who have created, whether implicitly or explicitly, a doctrinal framework that maintains that level of spiritual and psychological health that they formerly possessed upon hearing the gospel and that probably partially contributed to their believing the evangelical presentation of the gospel in the first place.
Dialectically speaking then, inerrancy cannot help but be what it is--a watershed belief for evangelical Christianity. Even so. inerrancy may not be the cause of the unhealthiness of the evangelical mindset, but rather a prominent symptom. Donald Dayton reviewed James Barr's Fundamentalism years ago (http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1786) and wrote: "Barr’s book, however, serves notice that the minor adjustments of modern postfundamentalist evangelicalism are unequal to the task. The rejection of inerrancy will require a more radical rejection of the underlying thought forms that produced it." I understand this to mean that it's not merely the case that inerrancy has not been overcome because the adjustments made by postconservatist theologians are too minor, but that the doctrine of inerrancy cannot be eradicated, unless the people who rely on it are collectively willing to undergo a radical process of spiritual and psychological healing. Dayton reads Barr as follows: "I take Barr to be suggesting that these facts are not unrelated and that confinement in the straitjacket of that intellectual system is a major reason that 'modernized and up-dated evangelicalism has [not] attained to any conceptual framework that is intrinsically different from the fundamentalist one, or that it has even tried.' I myself [Dayton] am inclined to agree with Barr about the poverty of this postfundamentalist theology and tradition for the future of evangelicalism -- though I would want my evangelical colleagues to understand clearly that I reject this tradition not to reject biblical or evangelical faith but to seek rather a more adequate conceptual framework through which to be more faithful to the Scriptures."
Dayton's review was written 30 years ago yet the same religious dynamics are still very much with us today. What Dayton describes as "seeking a more adequate conceptual framework" strikes me as such a profound change in thinking that it almost sounds like he's calling for another conversion, and if that is the case then this new conversion, as it were, would describe a new phase of Christian understanding whose genesis and emphasis travels more from people to doctrine than from doctrine to people or even from doctrine to doctrine. For some fundamental spiritual and psychological need is being met (however inadequately) by the doctrine of inerrancy, and whatever those needs may be, would-be evangelical reformers must address these first before anything like Dayton's conversion can take place.
According to Dayton, Barr observes that evangelical inerrancy belongs to a psychological matrix that is comprised of at least three main beliefs: "Barr defines the movement primarily in terms of three negative characteristics: (1) "a very strong emphasis on the inerrancy of the Bible," (2) "a strong hostility to modern theology" and "the modern critical study of the Bible," and (3) a sharp distinction between "nominal" and "true" Christians (i.e., fundamentalists)." Although these beliefs clearly do not exhaust the evangelical mindset, these three seem to me to stand or fall together and, accordingly, unless one can effect the cultural abandonment of these three conjointly, a doctrinaire fundamentalism will remain implicitly operative in evangelicalism, postconservative or otherwise.
To fear the LORD is to hate evil;
I hate pride and arrogance,
evil behavior and perverse speech.
...and wrong doctrines and the people who after years and years of honest research still come to believe them.
My mouth speaks what is true, for my lips detest wickedness.
All the words of my mouth are just; none of them is crooked or perverse.
To the discerning, all of them are right; they are faultless to those who have knowledge.
Perhaps "true" Christianity is about trying to pressure people to agree with one's doctrine for their own good and for their own eternal well-being and maybe even for that good feeling that comes with brazenly sticking up for what God has revealed to be true once and for all. Of course, those who resist what our mouths speak--even if they too claim to be Christians--do not really have knowledge and are bereft of true discernment since they do not hear what we are speaking since we are speaking the truth. I suppose this is one way of looking at it.
But whether Christianity is primarily about people or doctrine is a question that can be posed in a host of different contexts. My concern here is the evangelical doctrine of inerrancy. Is evangelicalism about the spiritual formation of people or preserving the doctrine of inerrancy? I pose this question here to myself and only indirectly to others. I am presently convinced that THE problem with evangelicalism is the doctrine of inerrancy. But maybe I am wrong; maybe I cannot see the forest for the trees. Maybe it's the type of people who are attracted to evangelicalism who make inerrancy such a natural view of Scripture to take. Said another way, perhaps evangelical culture necessitates inerrancy. Maybe it's not the doctrine of inerrancy that leads to spiritual malformation; but rather spiritually and psychologically unhealthy people (an unhealthy collective culture) who lead, through the course of their Christian formation, to inerrantist-type doctrines.
What do I mean by spiritually and psychologically unhealthy people? Consider the following list of character traits that many evangelicals tend to exhibit simply in virtue of conforming to the collective evangelical culture (taken from http://www.internetmonk.com/articles/H/hateus.html)
"1. Christians endorse a high standard of conduct for others, and then largely excuse themselves from a serious pursuit of such a life...
2. Evangelical Christian piety in America is mostly public... If its public, we do it well. If it's private discipleship, we probably don't do it at all.
3. Many evangelicals relate to others with an obvious- or thinly disguised- hidden agenda... [People] are annoyed and sometimes angered that we are following some divine directive to get them to abandon their life choices and take up ours. They want to be loved as they are, not for what they might become if our plan succeeds
4. We seem consumed with establishing that we are somehow "better" than other people, when the opposite is very often true...
5. We talk about God in ways that are too familiar and make people uncomfortable...
6. Evangelicals are too slow to separate themselves from what is wrong...
7. We take ourselves far too seriously, and come off as opposed to normal life..."
I can see how these traits, when taken together, contribute on a cultural level to the natural promotion and acceptance of a view of the Bible that is inerrantist. From this vantage, then, evangelicalism would be primarily about people, and evangelical doctrine could be interpreted, at least in part, as an ad hoc articulation of a pre-doctrinal mindset brought to religion by evangelical people themselves. This is an upsetting scenario because then those who are looking to reform evangelicalism are not merely dealing with either this or that unsuitable doctrine or even with a whole system of unfruitful doctrines. Much rather, evangelical reformers are dealing with people, a whole culture of people who profess to love God but who have created, whether implicitly or explicitly, a doctrinal framework that maintains that level of spiritual and psychological health that they formerly possessed upon hearing the gospel and that probably partially contributed to their believing the evangelical presentation of the gospel in the first place.
Dialectically speaking then, inerrancy cannot help but be what it is--a watershed belief for evangelical Christianity. Even so. inerrancy may not be the cause of the unhealthiness of the evangelical mindset, but rather a prominent symptom. Donald Dayton reviewed James Barr's Fundamentalism years ago (http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1786) and wrote: "Barr’s book, however, serves notice that the minor adjustments of modern postfundamentalist evangelicalism are unequal to the task. The rejection of inerrancy will require a more radical rejection of the underlying thought forms that produced it." I understand this to mean that it's not merely the case that inerrancy has not been overcome because the adjustments made by postconservatist theologians are too minor, but that the doctrine of inerrancy cannot be eradicated, unless the people who rely on it are collectively willing to undergo a radical process of spiritual and psychological healing. Dayton reads Barr as follows: "I take Barr to be suggesting that these facts are not unrelated and that confinement in the straitjacket of that intellectual system is a major reason that 'modernized and up-dated evangelicalism has [not] attained to any conceptual framework that is intrinsically different from the fundamentalist one, or that it has even tried.' I myself [Dayton] am inclined to agree with Barr about the poverty of this postfundamentalist theology and tradition for the future of evangelicalism -- though I would want my evangelical colleagues to understand clearly that I reject this tradition not to reject biblical or evangelical faith but to seek rather a more adequate conceptual framework through which to be more faithful to the Scriptures."
Dayton's review was written 30 years ago yet the same religious dynamics are still very much with us today. What Dayton describes as "seeking a more adequate conceptual framework" strikes me as such a profound change in thinking that it almost sounds like he's calling for another conversion, and if that is the case then this new conversion, as it were, would describe a new phase of Christian understanding whose genesis and emphasis travels more from people to doctrine than from doctrine to people or even from doctrine to doctrine. For some fundamental spiritual and psychological need is being met (however inadequately) by the doctrine of inerrancy, and whatever those needs may be, would-be evangelical reformers must address these first before anything like Dayton's conversion can take place.
According to Dayton, Barr observes that evangelical inerrancy belongs to a psychological matrix that is comprised of at least three main beliefs: "Barr defines the movement primarily in terms of three negative characteristics: (1) "a very strong emphasis on the inerrancy of the Bible," (2) "a strong hostility to modern theology" and "the modern critical study of the Bible," and (3) a sharp distinction between "nominal" and "true" Christians (i.e., fundamentalists)." Although these beliefs clearly do not exhaust the evangelical mindset, these three seem to me to stand or fall together and, accordingly, unless one can effect the cultural abandonment of these three conjointly, a doctrinaire fundamentalism will remain implicitly operative in evangelicalism, postconservative or otherwise.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
A fresh start
Is inerrancy burdensome for younger evangelicals?
Well, for some young people within evangelicalism that would be an extreme understatement. The fact is that inerrancy is in danger of sapping evangelicalism's most creative resource: its youth. In Inerrancy and the Spiritual Formation of Younger Evangelicals, I tried to convey six representative critical discoveries that younger evangelicals tend to make by the time they reach the age of thirty. The upshot? Evangelical leaders and teachers must become more responsible in the way they lead discussions regarding the inspiration and authority of the Bible, since a failure to do so will lead several of their students to successive stages of doubt, "liberalism," and unbelief.
Here's an opportunity to promote some constructive dialogue amongst interested parties. I hope this might become a preliminary forum where some thoughts can be shared, openly and without consequence.
A recent comment I was not able to import from my yahoo360 blog:
"A book that helped me a lot in this area is Peter Enns' book Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. He talks about the lame ways varius 'biblical difficulties' are explained and proposes a different approach - that the bible was written in terms of its culture of the time... After reading quite a bit in the realms of science and creationism (including Ronald Numbers book 'The Creationists' as well as Mark Noll's The Scandal of the Evanglical Mind I have come to the conclusion that the doctrine of inerrancy as it now is understood is part of the problem. So I am looking forward to reading this book. I haven't really seen any critiques of the doctrine." -Steve Ranney
I agree that inerrancy is part of the problem; in fact, I think it's THE problem. Inerrancy should not be the defining doctrine for conservative evangelicalism, the doctrine that distinguishes the real believers from all the 'liberals'--as many are taught to believe. For when students of Scripture finally become disabused of the notion, they will immediately be posed with what I've called the evangelical ultimatum: if the defining doctrine of true Christianity proves false (inerrancy), then the whole faith must be false.
Here's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. J.P. Moreland recently attempted to caution evangelicals that they should not convince themselves that truth can be found only in the Bible. Word of his Evangelical Theological Society paper hit the web and now not a few people are up in arms. http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctliveblog/archives/2007/11/postcard_from_s.html
All Moreland tried to say is that when people say that they believe that the Bible is evangelicalism's ultimate authority they should not understand that to mean that the Bible is evangelicalism's only authority. If that's how people respond to an established conservative evangelical thinker who merely sounds (and I don't know how anyone who has actually read the paper http://www.kingdomtriangle.com/discussion/moreland_EvangOverCommBible.pdf can say that he even sounds) as if he is saying something negative about the Bible, imagine how others will be received if they actually are constructively criticizing inerrantist views of the Bible. That's how scared evangelicals are to entertain even the slightest doubt about the authority of Scripture; they cannot stomach the thought that a fellow believer would say anything critical about inerrantist views of the Bible--so much so that they cannot even hear what Moreland is saying. I think younger believers observe this and say to themselves, "Inerrancy can't help but perpetuate an intolerant, spiritual and cultural paranoia. I do not want any part of this kind of fear-filled faith. This is no different from the fundamentalist Muslims they talk about in the news."
Well, for some young people within evangelicalism that would be an extreme understatement. The fact is that inerrancy is in danger of sapping evangelicalism's most creative resource: its youth. In Inerrancy and the Spiritual Formation of Younger Evangelicals, I tried to convey six representative critical discoveries that younger evangelicals tend to make by the time they reach the age of thirty. The upshot? Evangelical leaders and teachers must become more responsible in the way they lead discussions regarding the inspiration and authority of the Bible, since a failure to do so will lead several of their students to successive stages of doubt, "liberalism," and unbelief.
Here's an opportunity to promote some constructive dialogue amongst interested parties. I hope this might become a preliminary forum where some thoughts can be shared, openly and without consequence.
A recent comment I was not able to import from my yahoo360 blog:
"A book that helped me a lot in this area is Peter Enns' book Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. He talks about the lame ways varius 'biblical difficulties' are explained and proposes a different approach - that the bible was written in terms of its culture of the time... After reading quite a bit in the realms of science and creationism (including Ronald Numbers book 'The Creationists' as well as Mark Noll's The Scandal of the Evanglical Mind I have come to the conclusion that the doctrine of inerrancy as it now is understood is part of the problem. So I am looking forward to reading this book. I haven't really seen any critiques of the doctrine." -Steve Ranney
I agree that inerrancy is part of the problem; in fact, I think it's THE problem. Inerrancy should not be the defining doctrine for conservative evangelicalism, the doctrine that distinguishes the real believers from all the 'liberals'--as many are taught to believe. For when students of Scripture finally become disabused of the notion, they will immediately be posed with what I've called the evangelical ultimatum: if the defining doctrine of true Christianity proves false (inerrancy), then the whole faith must be false.
Here's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. J.P. Moreland recently attempted to caution evangelicals that they should not convince themselves that truth can be found only in the Bible. Word of his Evangelical Theological Society paper hit the web and now not a few people are up in arms. http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctliveblog/archives/2007/11/postcard_from_s.html
All Moreland tried to say is that when people say that they believe that the Bible is evangelicalism's ultimate authority they should not understand that to mean that the Bible is evangelicalism's only authority. If that's how people respond to an established conservative evangelical thinker who merely sounds (and I don't know how anyone who has actually read the paper http://www.kingdomtriangle.com/discussion/moreland_EvangOverCommBible.pdf can say that he even sounds) as if he is saying something negative about the Bible, imagine how others will be received if they actually are constructively criticizing inerrantist views of the Bible. That's how scared evangelicals are to entertain even the slightest doubt about the authority of Scripture; they cannot stomach the thought that a fellow believer would say anything critical about inerrantist views of the Bible--so much so that they cannot even hear what Moreland is saying. I think younger believers observe this and say to themselves, "Inerrancy can't help but perpetuate an intolerant, spiritual and cultural paranoia. I do not want any part of this kind of fear-filled faith. This is no different from the fundamentalist Muslims they talk about in the news."
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Publications
Books
By Good and Necessary Consequence: A Preliminary Genealogy of Biblicist Foundationalism. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2009.
Inerrancy and the Spiritual Formation of Younger Evangelicals. Eugene, OR: Wipf &Stock, 2007.
Articles
“Phenomenology and the Search for the Infinite God,” Fides Quaerens Intellectum (forthcoming).
“Can an Evangelical Say that God Does Not Exist?” Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society (forthcoming).
“Two Examples of How the History of Mathematics Can Inform Theology,” Theology and Science (forthcoming).
“If Scientists Can Naturalize God, Should Philosophers Re-supernaturalize Him?” Theology Today 64 (2007): 340-348.
“Husserl’s Phenomenological Reduction and the Exclusion of God,” Westminster Theological Journal 69 (2007): 87-94.
“A Right Angle is a Right Angle, Right?” Proceedings of the Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Mathematics 19 (2007).
“Eucharist Then, Scripture Now: How Evangelicals Can Learn from an Old Controversy,” Evangelical Review of Theology 30 (2006): 322-338.
“Scriptural Authority and Believing Criticism: The Seriousness of the Evangelical Predicament,” Journal of Philosophy and Scripture 3 (2005).
“Historical ‘Retrojection’ and the Prospect of a Pan-Biblical Theology,” Expository Times 115 (2004): 397-401.
“Gen 3.21: The History of Israel in a Nutshell?” Expository Times 115 (2004): 361-366.
“Symmetry, Ruth and Canon,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 28 (2003): 189-205.
“A Homiletical Spiral for Preaching Old Testament Narratives,” Journal of the American Academy of Ministry 9.1 (2003): 13-22; also appearing in Preaching On-Line 19.2 (2003).
“Pairing and Plus-ing the Godhead: An Algebraic Analogy,” Perspectives on Science and the Christian Faith 55 (2003): 166-174.
By Good and Necessary Consequence: A Preliminary Genealogy of Biblicist Foundationalism. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2009.
Inerrancy and the Spiritual Formation of Younger Evangelicals. Eugene, OR: Wipf &Stock, 2007.
Articles
“Phenomenology and the Search for the Infinite God,” Fides Quaerens Intellectum (forthcoming).
“Can an Evangelical Say that God Does Not Exist?” Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society (forthcoming).
“Two Examples of How the History of Mathematics Can Inform Theology,” Theology and Science (forthcoming).
“If Scientists Can Naturalize God, Should Philosophers Re-supernaturalize Him?” Theology Today 64 (2007): 340-348.
“Husserl’s Phenomenological Reduction and the Exclusion of God,” Westminster Theological Journal 69 (2007): 87-94.
“A Right Angle is a Right Angle, Right?” Proceedings of the Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Mathematics 19 (2007).
“Eucharist Then, Scripture Now: How Evangelicals Can Learn from an Old Controversy,” Evangelical Review of Theology 30 (2006): 322-338.
“Scriptural Authority and Believing Criticism: The Seriousness of the Evangelical Predicament,” Journal of Philosophy and Scripture 3 (2005).
“Historical ‘Retrojection’ and the Prospect of a Pan-Biblical Theology,” Expository Times 115 (2004): 397-401.
“Gen 3.21: The History of Israel in a Nutshell?” Expository Times 115 (2004): 361-366.
“Symmetry, Ruth and Canon,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 28 (2003): 189-205.
“A Homiletical Spiral for Preaching Old Testament Narratives,” Journal of the American Academy of Ministry 9.1 (2003): 13-22; also appearing in Preaching On-Line 19.2 (2003).
“Pairing and Plus-ing the Godhead: An Algebraic Analogy,” Perspectives on Science and the Christian Faith 55 (2003): 166-174.
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