What's Chicago got to do with it?

In an article in the April 2009 issue of Themelios, Jason Sexton urges all would-be revisionists of inerrancy to begin with the 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.

http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/publications/34-1/how-far-beyond-chicago-assessing-recent-attempts-to-reframe-the-inerrancy-debate/

He complains that five recent critical studies on inerrancy (by McGowan, Oldfield, myself, Allert and Sparks) do not engage seriously with the CSBI and the extent to which they fail to do this is the extent they will not merit serious attention from inerrantists. Sexton upholds "CSBI as a relevant touchstone today and basis for any further conversation on inerrancy." He does give six reasons for this assessment, yet it seems to me there are other considerations that suggest that his selection of the CSBI is somewhat arbitrary.

First, Sexton reports on the basis of James Borland's recount that at the very ETS meeting that sought to clarify that CSBI as articulating the intent and meaning of inerrancy for ETS, so few were familiar with the CSBI that the executive committee decided they should hand out copies of it to every member in attendance! (n. 2) This shows that the CSBI has very little cultural currency within evangelicalism.

Second, insofar as Sexton defers to James Borland for clarification on how the CSBI bears on ETS and its academic ethos suggests that his taking up the mantle of the CSBI might be a little ad hoc.

Third, positing CSBI as the default inerrantist position flattens evangelicals considerable diversity prematurely and artificially. CSBI may not have as much cultural currency as is claimed.

Fourth, D. Treier has observed that the Chicago project did not trickle down to churches and pews well. This suggests that CSBI has little to no cultural currency among lay people.

Fifth, the five writers in question--all from differing sectors of evangelicalism--independently decided that it was not important to interact directly with the CSBI. This suggests that CSBI does not permeate evangelical scholarship enough to warrant that the writers in question engage it directly.

Sixth, ETS should not be given preeminence for there are plenty of evangelicals who do not belong to ETS.

Seventh, there is also the uncomfortable matter of how it is likely the case that a surprising number of ETS members only half-heartedly affirm their yearly doctrinal affirmations.

I do appreciate Sexton's efforts in his most timely article, but I question his attempt to establish CSBI as the evangelical statement with which every revisionist must come to terms. I question his suggestion that evangelicals centralize the inerrancy discussion around this document. For not only does the article play down how its choice of this document is arbitrary, but it carefully and deliberately places all future terms of discussion under the direct auspices of conservative inerrantism. How convenient for the inerrantists!

Online review of Inerrancy and the Spiritual Formation of Younger Evangelicals

I am thankful to James Merrick, who is pursuing a PhD in theology at King's College, University of Aberdeen, for taking the time to review my book on Theology Forum (here and here). James is of the opinion that the book does not treat spiritual formation at all but is more an exercise in philosophy--a philosophical engagement that amounts to an argument against inerrancy. Spiritual formation will mean different things to different people but in the Christian philosophical tradition, philosophy can be carried out in a such a way that it constitutes a spiritual exercise, and the same with its reading. That said, as I've tried to communicate to James in the comments section of his second post, if inerrancy is presented in such a way that it becomes the condition for the possibility for spiritual growth, then if one has to give up inerrancy there will be little to no possibility for spiritual growth. And this has everything to do with the spiritual formation of younger evangelicals in the States, at least as far as I can see.

There's an ironic pattern to discern here.

I just read an older article by Donald Dayton responding to the publication of Harold Lindsell's Battle for the Bible. In it Dayton writes:

"Ironically, Lindsell’s book may very well prove to be a potent force for undermining the very position he defends. The superficiality of the book, combined with its timing in the midst of already swirling controversy, may provide the occasion for a wholesale repudiation of its stance. The rush of theologians and church leaders to dissociate themselves from The Battle for the Bible may indicate that this rejection is already taking place." (D. Dayton, "The Battle for the Bible: Renewing the Inerrancy Debate," http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1823)

This brought to mind Kent Sparks' remarks in God's Words in Human Words:

"Of course, I did not believe Van Seters. He was not any sort of evangelical Christian, and I had been warned about the deceptive and beguiling ways of the biblical critics. Paradoxically, it was Kitchen himself---not Van Seters---who convinced me that the critics were right...

At that moment, I began to doubt that evangelical scholars were really giving me the whole story when it came to the Bible and critical scholarship...

Only now are we witnessing the emergence of a new generation of evangelical scholars who are willing to admit that the standard critical arguments are often much better than the ill-advised apologetic that evangelicals have aimed at them. " (p. 11-12)

It is a great irony that reading conservatives' articulations of their "orthodox" positions can do more toward driving people away from their positions than reading any school of critical scholarship.