Biblical Authority

Protecting the Christian Narrative

“The more you read the text carefully and intensely, the more mistakes you find, and you begin to see that in fact the Bible makes better sense if you acknowledge its inconsistencies instead of staunchly insisting that there aren’t any, even when they are staring you in the face.” Dr Bart Ehrman

In the previous blog we saw that the 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy didn’t actually prove biblical inerrancy. The best they could actually say is that it is sufficiently accurate.

Scripture is inerrant, not in the sense of being absolutely precise by modern standards, but in the sense of making good its claims… at which its authors aimed.

Okay, let’s see if I have this right, the bible isn’t really inerrant in the sense that it’s error free, it’s inerrant because its authors made some good claims? Yeah, right!

The original intent of this blog was to prove without a doubt that the bible is full of errors, untruths, contradictions, discrepancies, and fictitious stories, and therefore has no authority over anything. However, that task proved to be a bit large for one blog. I decided that it would be futile to enter into the fray of biblical inerrancy. That would take an entire book* (or more). That debate will rage on until that time when the “nones” have increased in numbers so sufficiently that Christianity is irrelevant and there are no longer any practicing christians, or until that time when Jesus returns to set up a kingdom here on earth, in which case there will be no more non-believers. Neither of those scenarios seem highly likely, so the debate over the legitimacy of the bible will continue and books will continue to be written on both sides. None of them by me.

The revised intent of this blog is to explore some of the possible reasons why evangelicals feel the need to defend biblical inerrancy so fervently (even when they failed to do so in 1978.) What has become clear to me is that the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy is more about authority and power than it is about protecting the integrity of the bible.

Biblical Authority?

The authority of Scripture is in no way jeopardized by the fact that the copies we possess are not entirely error-free.

The Chicago statement used the word authority 27 times, so let’s start by defining the word; authority: 1) the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience. 2) power to influence or command thought, opinion, or behavior.

Fundamentalists take authority one step further by using the phrase biblical authority or authority of scripture. What exactly does that mean? Perhaps, by putting the word “bible or scripture” in front of the definition of authority we can get a pretty good idea what they are defending.

• The bible has the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience.
• The bible has the power to influence, or command thought, opinion, or behavior.

The question is, does it really? Does the bible really have the power to give orders, make decisions for us and enforce our obedience? The obvious answer is NO! There’s a bible sitting next to me on my desk. Right now, it’s pretty silent. It’s an inanimate object and has no power to do anything but sit there. It only has the power I give it, and I choose not to give it any. I could open it, read it, and allow it to control my life (like I did for several decades). But, at this point in my life, it has no power to influence my behavior or enforce my obedience, unless, of course, I give it that power. Which, of course, I no longer do. And neither should you.

 

 

(This brings up the humorous image of The Harry Potter Monster Book of Monsters. If you’ve never seen the scene from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Monster Book of Monsters is a book chosen by Hagrid. When it is opened and unleashed, it snaps, snarls, and chases its reader around the room. I have this imagine of my inanimate bible chasing me around the house, nipping at my ankles whenever I am not doing its bidding. Only then would it have authority over me.)

 

 

 

So, if this inanimate bible sitting next to me has no authority to enforce anything that’s written within it, the obvious question is, what does, (or more accurately) who does? Let’s look into that question.

Who enforces biblical principles?

According to the Chicago boys, scripture, by divine authority, is to be believed, obeyed, and embraced, but who enforces that declaration? Does God? Obviously not! God has been noticeably absent from this interaction. The Chicago boys have stated that no “normative revelation has been given since the completion of the New Testament writings,” which was two thousand years ago. So, if God is not enforcing what’s written in the bible, who is? The answer is obvious, men (and sometimes women) are doing the enforcing.

Although the Chicago Boys declare that the bible is authored by God, they also admit that it was indeed written by men. They declare,

• Holy Scripture, being God’s own word, (was) written by men…
• However, in determining what the… writer is asserting in each passage, we must pay the most careful attention to its claims and character as a human production.

Let’s use as an example, the government we live in. There are laws at every level of government that have some kind of authority over us. These laws were written by men and are enforced by men. Not surprisingly the men who write the laws are usually not the same men who enforce them. The enforcers are hired by the state to enforce the laws. The bible and Christianity are no different. Every single word in the bible was written, without exception, by men. Then, throughout the entire history of the Judeo-Christian religion men have been appointed (or have appointed themselves) to enforce what they believe their God has written.

Defending God?

The Chicago Boys pretend to be protecting the integrity of God. But are they really? Does God even need defending? All through the document they claim to speak for God saying, “we are consciously standing with Christ and His apostles,” and they defend their God because, “Holy Scripture is God’s witness to Himself, and to stray from Scripture in faith or conduct is disloyalty to our Master.” This obvious display of piety is defending something, but it certainly isn’t God. So, what are they actually defending? Their religion or better yet, their livelihood?

There’s little doubt that Christianity needs defending. The authors of Answering the Music Man all have a master’s degree in Apologetics, and for some christian preachers, defending christianity is their fulltime job.  Think about this for a minute. Evangelicals believe that their God “created the entire universe out of nothing in six literal normal-length days about six thousand years ago. God did not need matter, large amounts of time, energy, or anything else.” That’s pretty awesome power, but fast-forward 6,000 years and we find that their god is basically absent. I find it highly improbable that this omnipotent God, who created the universe, needs the help of those 200 evangelical pastors help to protect his integrity.

Defending Christianity

So, if the Chicago Boys were not defending the integrity of their god, what were they protecting? Or better yet, what did those evangelical pastors stand to gain or lose by their statement of biblical inerrancy? It seems clear that they felt the need to control the christian narrative, (i.e. the founding doctrines and dogma of christianity.) In a nutshell here some key doctrines of the christian religion.

• We believe that God is the Creator and Sustainer of the heavens and the earth. The six-day creation account, as described in the book of Genesis, is factual, historical, and is the foundation of our understanding of the created universe.
• We believe in the full historicity of Genesis including the literal existence of Adam and Eve as the progenitors of all people.
• We believe that Adam and Eve were created in the image of God, but they chose to rebel, bringing sin into the world. Sin then spread like a virus to all humans, resulting in a divine curse on creation.
• We believe that every child of Adam is born into the world with a nature which is totally corrupt and without exception every man, woman and child is totally depraved.
• We believe that all people are sinners deserving eternal punishment in hell.
• We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ died for our sins as a representative and substitutionary sacrifice.
• We believe that whoever, by faith receives Jesus as personal Lord and Savior is born again of the spirit and becomes a child of God, but not until then.
• We believe those who are saved by Jesus Christ will spend eternity with Christ in heaven in a conscious state of blessedness; that those who do not personally receive Christ by faith will spend eternity separated from God in a state of conscious torment.

For evangelicals, controlling this narrative is extremely important. When I was a young christian, we were taught from the pulpit that all humans were corrupt and repulsive to God. And the only way to be called a “child of God” and be accepted by God, was to join the Jesus Club. By controlling this narrative, church leaders are in the authoritative position to decide (for God) who gets to call themselves a “child of God” and who gets to go to heaven.

Dominos

Imagine if you will, that these doctrines of christianity are set up like dominos standing on end.

The first one in line is the historicity of the creation story in Genesis 1. What might happen if christians actually faced the fact that the historicity of the creation story in Genesis is so obviously false? If the creation story falls, then the next domino in line is the story of Adam and Eve. When that story falls the next in line is the belief in “original sin.” And without original sin there is no depravity and condemnation of all mankind. And if that domino falls there is no need for a substitutionary sacrifice, and therefore no need for a savior.

It’s Game Over

It’s no surprise then, why evangelicals must defend the creation story with such fervor. If that fictitious story falls, all the other falsehoods found in the bible will fall as well. And if that happens, it’s game over for evangelicals. They will have lost their authority, meaning they will no longer hold the keys to heaven and as a result, their pews will soon be empty, as will their offering plates. Being fully aware of this possible reality, the Chicago Boys issued this warning.

“The authority of Scripture is inescapably impaired if biblical inerrancy is in any way limited or disregarded.  Such lapses bring serious loss to both the individual and the Church.”

There is better, more honest way!

Let me offer a better way to look at biblical inerrancy. Accept the reality that the bible is NOT inerrant, stop wasting time and energy trying to defend it, learn to live with it and find ways to glean the good that can still be found within its covers.

Dr. Bart Ehrman puts it this way.

“For students who come into seminary with a view that the Bible is completely, absolutely, one hundred percent without error, the realization that most critical scholars have a very different view can come as a real shock to their systems. The more they read the text carefully and intensely, the more mistakes they find, and they begin to see that in fact the Bible makes better sense if you acknowledge its inconsistencies instead of staunchly insisting that there aren’t any, even when they are staring you in the face.”

End notes:

#1) I just recently found out that my former pastor from my church going days was one of the signers of the Chicago Statement. It really didn’t surprise me when I heard that. He was the one who changed the moderate presbyterian church I grew up in, into a congregation whose beliefs were increasingly evangelical, which, in turn, lead to a forced separation and expulsion from the United Presbyterian Church.

#2*) Two authors who have been extremely helpful to me understanding problems with biblical accuracy are Thomas Paine and his book The Age of Reason, and basically any book by Dr. Bart Ehrman; especially Forged and (the one I am currently reading) Jesus Before the Gospels.

 

From Where I Stand

Dale Crum