A shift in the inerrancy debate

When I attended Bible college in the 1980s there was much debate about the inerrancy of Scripture.  It was the hot topic on the campus I attended and played no small role in the denomination of which that school was a part making a shift from being rather moderate to becoming very conservative.  Numerous books were written at that time stressing the importance of holding to an inerrant view of Scripture.  I certainly held to that position then and continue to do so today, but today the discussion about inerrancy has shifted, and many ministers and leaders of my generation may not understand the shift.

David Fitch and Geoff Holsclaw discusses this shift in one chapter in their book Prodigal Christianity: 10 Signposts into the Missional Frontier.  They point out that the debate about inerrancy is not about the Scriptures themselves but the interpretation of those Scriptures.  Holsclaw writes, "I knew that no one my age cared about inerrancy because they were always questioning the authority of the interpretation rather than the authority of the text.  My friends all assumed that a hidden bias was always controlling the supposed objectivity of an interpretation...In their minds, every interpretation is an imperialist act, seeking to control other perspectives."

In some of my workshops I address one of the main reasons people give for not going to church: they find it irrelevant to their lives.  They believe we are answering questions no one is asking any more, and too often they are right.  In the case of biblical inerrancy, we are often giving answers to questions that people are not asking today.  If the authors of this book are correct, people are not nearly as interested in whether or not the Scriptures are inerrant as whether our interpretations are correct.

By saying this I do not mean to say that teaching the inerrancy of the Scriptures is wrong.  I believe the Scriptures remain the foundation of all we believe, and if we cannot trust that they are correct then our theological foundation becomes very weak.  But, we cannot limit our teaching to that question.  We must go beyond that and address the question that people are now asking: is our interpretation of those Scriptures correct?  In a postmodern world where there are no absolute truths that becomes a much more difficult challenge.  I can claim my interpretation of a particular passage is true while someone else promotes a completely different interpretation of the same passage, and too many today are willing to accept both as equally true.  So, how do we convince others of the validity of our interpretation?

The authors of this book point out that the way to do this is through allowing others to see the truths we proclaim to be lived out in our lives.  They write, "As prodigal Christians, we should rarely find ourselves defending the Bible's authority.  Rather, its authority becomes undeniable when its compelling reality become visible among us.  The story of God as displayed in a people speaks for itself."  The book then fleshes this out for the reader in the next chapters.

In my opinion, this is what separates a missional church from one that is merely involved in social work.  Too often, we limit being missional to being involved in one's community, but there is much more to being a missional church.  Yes, a missional church will be engaged in ministry to its community, but most social organizations will also be involved in community service.  What makes the church's ministry different is the way it lives out the Gospel before the community it is serving.

Christians often do a better job of talking about their beliefs than we do in living out those beliefs.  When we fail to walk the talk we should not be surprised that those outside the church question our interpretation of the Scriptures we claim to believe in.  If we talk about the grace of God, then they have a right to expect that we will extend grace to people.  If they see us continue to shoot our own wounded then they also have a right to question our interpretation of what grace is.  If we talk to them about the love of God we should not be surprised if they are confused by the lack of love we often show others both outside and within the Christian family.  Obviously, I could go on and on, but I think you get the point.

To convince others that our interpretation of the Scriptures is correct we must consistently live out what we claim to believe and allow them to see the impact of living such a life.  If we do this well we will have answered one of their most important questions.