Unbelief is not a virtue

I really like Michael Kruger.

Dr. Krueger is a Professor of New Testament and President of Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, NC. He is also author of the enormously helpful Canon Revisited and The Question of Canon. In addition he is proprietor of one of the best blogs going - Canon Fodder.

Recently, Dr. Kruger began a series of posts in response to Dr. Pete Enns' series over at Petheos. Dr. Enns, formerly of Westminster Seminary is now teaching at Eastern University (presumably more amenable to a lack of confidence in the Scriptures). It is a sad thing to see the devolution of a man's faith played out on social media. Appropriately, Dr. Enns entitled his corner at Patheos "Rethinking Biblical Christianity." Once you get past the stunning hubris of the title, it is clear that Dr. Enns' project is not merely to deny the inerrancy of Scripture but to change the way we think about Christianity itself. I suppose he deserves credit for understanding that once you throw out confidence in Scripture, a redefinition of Christianity becomes necessary.

I am thankful that men like Michael Kruger, Greg Beale, Darrell Bock, Andreas Kostenberger, and others are not content to sit back and yawn at a fellow scholar's zeal to popularize skepticism and unbelief among ill informed evangelicals.

Taking God at His Word

When you get a chance, check out the videos from the Taking God at His Word conference that was hosted by WTSbooks.

The featured speaker was Kevin DeYoung. There were also panel discussions with Drs. Carl Trueman, Greg Beale, Scott Oliphint, David Powlison, and Jeff Jue.


Taking God at His Word: Panel 1 from Westminster Theological Seminary on Vimeo.

Taking God at His Word: Panel 2 from Westminster Theological Seminary on Vimeo.

Can I Trust The Bible?

The latest edition of the Mortification of Spin is up and running:

Todd and Carl interview Steve Nichols, author and professor of Christianity and Culture at Lancaster Bible College, and they respectfully dub their guest the "Peter Pan of reformed theology." While Steve may look young, he is certainly insightful when it comes to this episode's topics of discussion: the doctrine of Scripture and the current relevancy of church history. If you can put up with the hosts' frequent wise cracks, listen in to hear Steve raise what he calls the compelling question of the modern age.

Here are a few of Dr. Nichols excellent books:

The Reformation: How a Monk and a Mallet Changed the World

Ancient Word, Changing Worlds

Getting the Blues: What Blues Music Teaches us About Suffering and Salvation

J. Gresham Machen: A Guided Tour of His Life and Thought

The Attributes Of Scripture

From Kevin DeYoung:

Historically, Protestant theologians have highlighted four defining attributes of Scripture: necessity, sufficiency, clarity, and authority. Each of these attributes is meant to protect the truth about the Bible and safeguard against common errors.

The doctrine of Scripture’s necessity reminds us that we need God’s word to tell us how to live and how to be saved (1 Cor. 2:6-13). General revelation is not adequate. Personal experience and human reason cannot show us the gospel. We need God’s gracious self-disclosure if we are to worship rightly, believe in Christ, and live for ever in heaven.

The doctrine of Scripture’s sufficiency reminds us that God’s word tells us all we need to know for life and godliness in Christ Jesus (2 Tim. 3:14-17). We don’t need new revelations. We don’t need dreams or vision. We don’t need a council of prophets or a quorum of apostles to present to us new information about Jesus Christ and the gospel. Scripture doesn’t tell us everything we might want to know. But it tells us everything we truly need to know.

The doctrine of Scripture’s clarity (or perspicuity) reminds us that the saving message of God’s redemption can be understood by all who care to hear it (Deut. 30:11-14). This does not mean every passage in the Bible is obvious or that we should shun proper training in all the biblical disciplines. But when it comes to the central tenets of Scripture, we can discern God’s word for ourselves, apart from official church interpretation. There is a meaning in the text and God knows how to communicate it to us.

The doctrine of Scripture’s authority remind us that God’s word stands above all earthly powers (Psalm 138:2). On every matter in which the Bible means to speak, the last word goes to Scripture, not to councils or to catechisms or to science or to human experience, but to the word of God. We all have someone or something that we turn to as the arbiter of truth claims. For Christians, in the final analysis, this authority must be, and can only be, the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.
These evangelical attributes are an easy and important way to remember all that Scripture is for us and to us: necessity, sufficiency, clarity, and authority. Or to put the list into four sentences:

God’s word is needed.
God’s word is enough.
God’s word is understandable
God’s word is final.

More Helpful Books on the Doctrine of Scripture

Last week I posted a list of books dealing with the Scripture's inerrancy. Here are a few more titles that are quite helpful:

Understanding Scripture, Grudem, Collins, & Schreiner editors

How To Read The Bible Through The Jesus Lens by Michael Williams

Canon Revisited by Michael Kruger

Scripture and Truth, Carson & Woodbridge editors

Inerrancy And Worldview by Vern Poythress

The Constant Reader

This month, Eerdmans is set to release a book attacking the doctrine of the Scripture's inerrancy. It is surely well written and accessible to the well-read layman. If the author holds to the positions in his previous book and articles for Biologos (all of which attacked the trustworthiness of the Bible) then this new volume will cause unsuspecting readers to question and perhaps even reject the Bible as God's Word.

With that in mind I would like to recommend to you a selection of books which affirm the Bible's trustworthiness as the very Word of God.

The Doctrine Of The Word Of God by John Frame

The Inspiration And Authority Of The Bible by B. B. Warfield

Do Historical Matters Matter To Faith? Hoffmeier & Magary editors

Words Of Life by Timothy Ward

The Erosion Of Inerrancy by Greg Beale

The Infallible Word Stonehouse & Woolley editors

The God-Breathed Scriptures by E. J. Young

The Trustworthiness Of God Trueman & Helm editors

Beale and Trueman on Biblical Inerrancy

Thanks to Justin Taylor for posting these videos of the Q & A with Drs. Greg Beale and Carl Trueman from the 2011 Clarus Conference:

What is Inerrancy?

One of my favorite new sites on the web is CREDO. It is an on-line magazine, blog, media and book review site. The inaugural edition of Credo Magazine is dedicated to the doctrine of Scripture. In it, Matthew Barrett addresses the doctrine of the Scripture's inerrancy. In defining inerrancy, Barrett writes:

The inerrancy of Scripture simply means that all of the Bible, in its original manuscripts, never asserts anything that is contrary to fact or in error, but always speaks the truth on every matter it discusses. Scripture, and all of Scripture, is free from falsehood, fraud, and deceit. While the Bible does not inform us of every fact on any particular subject, nevertheless, in what it does address on any subject it is true and without fabrication (2 Pet 1:21). One of the best definitions of inerrancy comes from Paul Feinberg when he writes, “Inerrancy means that when all facts are known, the Scriptures in their original autographs and properly interpreted will be shown to be wholly true in everything that they affirm, whether that has to do with doctrine or morality or with the social, physical, or life sciences” (Inerrancy, 294).

Unfortunately, many opponents of inerrancy grossly misunderstand its meaning. Feinberg, whose work dates back to 1980, outlines several misunderstandings of inerrancy (299). However, many, if not most, of these misunderstandings of inerrancy prevail today.

1. Inerrancy does not demand strict adherence to the rules of grammar.
2. Inerrancy does not exclude the use either of figures of speech or of a given literary genre.
3. Inerrancy does not demand historical or semantic precision.
4. Inerrancy does not demand the technical language of modern science.
5. Inerrancy does not require verbal exactness in the citation of the Old Testament by the New.
6. Inerrancy does not demand that the Logia Jesu (the sayings of Jesus) contain the ipsissima verba (the exact words) of Jesus, only the ipsissima vox (the exact voice).
7. Inerrancy does not guarantee the exhaustive comprehensiveness of any single account or of combined accounts where those are involved.
8. Inerrancy does not demand the infallibility or inerrancy of the noninspired sources used by biblical writers.

Each of these is worth further investigation, but for our purposes I only wish to highlight one, which crops its head up relentlessly in every generation. Inerrancy does not mean that there must always be semantic and historical precision. One can be truthful without being totally precise. If someone asks where I was born, I would likely answer California. Have I been untruthful since, to be precise, I was born in Southern California, and not just Southern California but Glendale, California, which is a city within Los Angeles, and not just in Glendale but in a hospital, room 452 to be exact? It should be obvious that my original answer was adequate, and therefore truthful in every way. No error was committed. Similarly, the Bible is not in error should it estimate, round up, give an average, or speak in generalities at times. The authors of Scripture are situated culturally and utilize simile, parables, hyperbole, metaphor, and many other forms of speech just as we do. None of these preclude the Bible’s ability to speak truthfully. Too often we impose our assumption that to be truthful there must be absolute technicality, when in reality we live in a world where reliability does not necessarily require meticulous exactitude. As The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy observes, “Scripture is inerrant, not in the sense of being absolutely precise by modern standards, but in the sense of making good its claims and achieving that measure of focused truth at which its authors aimed.”

Read the entire issue HERE. Read it in PDF form HERE.

Hath God Said?

Many years have passed since the serpent deceived the woman. His work, however, continues. And, as you will notice, the deception often seems so plausible; so positive.

The following video is an exercise in how to completely undermine the Word of God while professing to love it.

Trueman and Beale on the reliability of Scripture

Recently Drs. Carl Trueman and Greg Beale of Westminster Seminary spoke at the annual Clarus Conference in New Mexico. The theme was "Scripture: God Speaks."

G.K. Beale
•“The Effects of Meditating on God’s Word” (Ps. 1)
•“How to Guard the Good Deposit of Scripture” (2 Tim. 1:13)
•“The Centrality of Scripture in Marriage“
•“Receiving and Resounding God’s Word” (1 Thess. 1:6-10)

Carl Trueman
•“The Prophetic Word: What Preaching Is (and Is Not)"
•“Scripture’s Authority: An Ancient Doctrine"
•“A Clear and Present Word: Luther and the Clarity of Scripture"

HT: Justin Taylor

"A High Sanctuary of Authority"

There are uninformed individuals who hold that the doctrine of the Bible's inerrancy is an invention of "Old Princeton" (Warfield and the Hodges); the fruit of modernist categories. This is simply not true, of course.

The following two statements are from Augustine, the 5th century Bishop of Hippo:

"I have learned to yield this [total] respect and honor only to the canonical books of Scripture. Of these alone do I most firmly believe that their authors were completely free from error. And if in these writings I am perplexed by anything which appears to me to be opposed to the truth, I do not hesitate to suppose that either the manuscript is faulty, or the translator has not caught the meaning of what was said, or I myself have failed to understand it...Concerning which it would be wrong to doubt that they are free from error"

"It seems to me that most disastrous consequences must follow upon our believing that anything false is found in the sacred books; that is to say, that the men by whom the Scriptures have been given to us and committed to writing did put down in these books anything false...For if you once admit into such a high sanctuary of authority one false statement as made in the way of duty, there will not be left a single sentence of those books which, if appearing to anyone difficult in practice or hard to believe, may not by the same fatal rule be explained away, as a statement in which, intentionally and under a sense of duty, the author declared what was not true."

Our doctrine of Scripture matters...a lot

Peter Kreeft (Roman Catholic):

Most Protestants reject all Catholic doctrines they cannot find explicitly in Scripture–for example, Mary’s Assumption into heaven–because they believe sola scriptura: that Scripture alone is the infallible authority. This is the fundamental reason behind all the differences between Protestant and Catholic theology. (Catholic Christianity, 20).

Gary Dorrien (Liberal Protestant):

The essential idea of liberal theology is that all claims to truth, in theology as in other disciplines, must be made on the basis of reason and experience, not by appeal to external authority. Christian scripture may be recognized as spiritually authoritative within Christian experience, but its word does not settle or establish truth claims about matters of fact. (The Making of American Liberal Theology: Idealism, Realism, and Modernity, 1900-1950, 1)

Michael Horton (Evangelical Protestant):

Ultimate authority always resides outside the self and even outside the church, as both are always hearers of the Word and receivers of its judgment and justification. The church is commissioned to deliver this Word (a ministerial office), not to possess or rule it (a magisterial office). Thus, the authority is always transcendent. Even when it comes near us, it is never our own word that we hear (Ro. 10:6-13, 17). (The Christian Faith, 194)

HT: Kevin DeYoung

Inerrancy and Authority

Kevin DeYoung has posted several excellent articles on biblical inerrancy. His post from September 24 I found particularly helpful because he points out the link between the inerrancy of the Bible and its authority.

Here is the entire post:

Perhaps you’ve seen the conversation among Tim Keller, Alister McGrath, Brian McLaren, and Dempsey Rosales-Acosta on biblical authority from the Q conference a few months ago. I’m not sure it’s worth 38 minutes of your time, but I found Tim Keller’s remarks around the 5-minute mark to be especially helpful.

The first topic discussed by the panel was inerrancy–What does it mean?, Is it a helpful term?, Where did it come from?, etc.

McGrath’s response was disappointing. He explained that he doesn’t like the term because it sounds too self-assured, like we have everything figured out and our interpretations are all correct. He prefers to speak of the Bible as “reliable and trustworthy.”

McLaren’s remarks were frustratingly predictable and predictably frustrating. After asserting that many people in the room will get fired if they don’t affirm inerrancy, McLaren went on to talk about the atrocities Christians have committed by using an “inerrant” Bible (e.g., slavery, killing Native Americans).

When it came time for Keller to talk (around 5:20) the discussion had already moved passed inerrancy, but he deliberately brought the conversation back to the term.

Just for the record: I have no problem at all talking about inerrancy. As a pastor if I actually say to someone, any layperson–if I believe in the authority of the Bible but not the inerrancy of the Bible, they’re going to say, “what’s the difference?” And as soon as I begin to explain it, their eyes glaze over. And they’re going to think of it as a distinction without a difference. If I say it’s not authoritative in all its parts and it’s not inerrant, they understand that. And if I say it’s authoritative and inerrant, they understand that. But to say it’s authoritative and not inerrant, I’ve never in 35 years of working with people been able to get that.

Keller is absolutely right. Most people in the pew assume that when we say the Bible is trustworthy and authoritative we don’t also mean it makes some mistakes. For them, inerrancy, whether they know the term or now, goes hand in hand with a reliable, authoritative Bible.

I remember several years ago having a conversation with a deacon at another church. He was asking me why I chose one seminary over another. I tried to explain that the seminary he was asking about (the one I didn’t attend) did not believe in
inerrancy. This was a smart man, a lawyer in fact, but he had never heard of the term. So I explained that inerrancy simply means the Bible, in the original manuscripts, doesn’t make any mistakes in anything it affirms. I’ll never forget his response: “Isn’t that what all Christians believe?” He grew up in the church and heard his whole life that the Bible was true, reliable, and authoritative. He was not familiar with the term inerrancy and yet he assumed that’s exactly what all those other words implied.

Here’s the bottom line: if we try to parse some fine distinction between infallibility and inerrancy or between reliability and inerrancy, the average churchgoer will think we’re just trying to avoid a label for some reason or just trying to hide something. And very often they’ll be right on both accounts.

Here is the entire series of posts:

Did John Calvin believe in Inerrancy?

Does the Bible Teach Science?

Whose Afraid of Inerrancy?

An Argument Discredited

Can the Bible be Trusted?

In an article posted today, Al Mohler observes that the battle over the Bible's inerrancy is heating up once again. Since 1995 and the publication of Inspiration and Incarnation by Pete Enns the new battle over inerrancy has moved well within the "big tent" of evangelicalism. Kenton Sparks' book God's Word in Human Words added fuel to the fire by accusing Scripture of not only historical and cosmological errors but theological and moral errors as well.

Mohler writes:

God’s Word in Human Words is an erudite book with a comprehensive argument. Kenton Sparks does not misunderstand the evangelical doctrine of biblical inerrancy — he understands it and sees it as intellectually disastrous. “So like any other book,” he asserts, “the Bible appears to be a historically and culturally contingent text and, because of that, it reflects the diverse viewpoints of different people who lived in different times and places.” But a contingent text bears all the errors of its contingent authors, and Sparks fully realizes this.

The serialized articles by Sparks appear at the BioLogos Web site, a site with one clear agenda — to move evangelicals toward a full embrace of evolutionary theory. In this context, Sparks understands that the affirmation of biblical inerrancy presents a huge obstacle to the embrace of evolution. The “evidential threshold” has been crossed, he insists, and the Bible has come up short. The biblical writers were simply trapped within the limits of their own ancient cosmology and observations.

But Sparks presses far beyond this argument, accusing the Bible of presenting immoral teachings, citing “biblical texts that strike us as down-right sinister or evil.” The Bible, he suggests, “exhibits all the telltale signs of having been written by finite, fallen human beings who erred in the ways that human beings usually err.”

When Peter Enns and Kenton Sparks argue for an incarnational model of inspiration and biblical authority, they are continuing an argument first made long ago — among evangelicals, at least as far back as the opening salvos of the battle over biblical inerrancy. Sparks, however, takes the argument further. He understands that the incarnational model implicates Jesus. He does not resist this. Jesus, he suggests, “was a finite person who grew up in Palestine.” While asserting that he affirms the historic Christian creeds and “traditional Christian orthodoxy,” Sparks proposes that Jesus made routine errors of fact.

His conclusion: “If Jesus as a finite human being erred from time to time, there is no reason at all to suppose that Moses, Paul, [and/or] John wrote Scripture without error.”

That is a breath-taking assumption, to say the very least. But, even in its shocking audacity, it serves to reveal the clear logic of the new battle-lines over biblical inerrancy. We now confront open calls to accept and affirm that there are indeed errors in the Bible. It is demanded that we accept the fact that the human authors of the Bible often erred because of their limited knowledge and erroneous assumptions about reality. We must, it is argued, abandon the claim that the Bible is a consistent whole. Rather, we are told to accept the claims that the human authors of Scripture were just plain wrong in some texts — even in texts that define God and his ways. We are told that some texts are just “down-right sinister or evil.”

And, note clearly, we are told that we must do this in order to save Evangelicalism from an intellectual disaster.

Of course, accepting this demand amounts to a theological disaster of incalculable magnitude. Rarely has this been more apparent and undeniable. The rejection of the Bible’s inerrancy will please the evangelical revisionists, but it will rob the church of its secure knowledge that the Bible is indeed true, trustworthy and fully authoritative.

Kenton Sparks and the new evangelical revisionists are now making some of the very arguments that earlier opponents of inerrancy attempted to deny. In this sense, they offer great clarity to the current debate. Their logic is clear. They argue that the human authors of the Bible were not protected from error, and their errors are not inconsequential. We are talking about nothing less than whether the Bible truthfully reveals to us the nature, character, acts, and purposes of God.

Read the entire article HERE.

In September Church of the Saviour will be hosting an important event. It is called Full Confidence and will be held on September 24 and 25. You can register HERE for only $15.

What Jesus said about the Scriptures

The latest issue of The White Horse Inn focuses on what Jesus said about the Scriptures. You will notice that Jesus' opinion of the Scripture's reliability is far different from that of the bloggers at Biologos.

Having established in previous programs that the New Testament documents are the most reliable texts of ancient history, the hosts in this program discuss the way Jesus throughout these texts speaks of the Old Testament Scriptures. Are these a collection of myths and fables with helpful moral lessons? Is one interpretation just as good as the next? Since Jesus Christ rose again from the dead, his view of Scripture may be worth considering above all others (originally broadcast April 29, 2007).

Check it out HERE.

Only hard to believe if you don't believe the Bible...

Recently Sojourners ran an article by a woman named Anne Eggebroten who was shocked that Grace Community Church (John MacArthur, pastor) actually practices what the Bible teaches about male leadership in the home and church. Now, this isn't exactly new. Movements like "evangelical feminism" have been around a few years challenging the plain reading of Old and New Testaments regarding the God-designed complementary roles of men and women. What becomes clear is that evangelical feminists like Miss Eggebroten will either torture or simply dismiss those passages of Scripture which interfere with their opinions.

Al Mohler weighs in on Miss Eggebroten's article:

In “The Persistence of Patriarchy,” Eggebroten writes about “the wide reach” of complementarian views of manhood and womanhood among conservative Christians. Her article is subtitled: “Hard to believe, but some churches are still teaching about male headship.” Hard to believe?

Can anyone really be surprised that this is so? In some sense, it might be surprising to the generally liberal readership of Sojourners, but it can hardly be surprising to anyone with the slightest attachment to evangelical Christianity. Nevertheless, Anne Eggebroten’s article represents what I call a “National Geographic moment” — an example of someone discovering the obvious and thinking it exotic and strange. It is like a reporter returning from travel to far country to explain the strange tribe of people she found there — evangelical Christians believing what the Christian church has for 2,000 years believed the Bible to teach and require. So . . . what is so exotic?

She begins her article at Grace Community Church in California, where, in her words, “God is male, all the pastors, deacons, and elders are male, and women are taught to live in submission to men.” That is a snappy introduction, to be sure, but it requires some unpacking. When Eggebroten says that, at this well-known evangelical church “God is male,” she is echoing the arguments of the late radical feminist Mary Daly, who famously asserted that “if God is male, then male is God.” At Grace Community Church, as in the Bible, references to God are masculine, but God is not claimed to be male. Interestingly, she also missed the fact that Grace considers the role of the deacon in terms of service, rather than authority, so women in fact do serve as deacons with responsibility for particular ministries...

Eggebroten argues that the church has simply perpetuated the patriarchal traditions of the Jewish and Greco-Roman cultures that formed the social context for the early Christian church. Against these she contrasts the Apostle Paul’s beautiful declaration in Galations 3:28 — “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

But this is the kind of sloppy and agenda-driven exegesis that reveals the desperation of those who would reject the New Testament’s limitation of the office of pastor to men. In Galatians 3:28 Paul is clearly speaking of salvation — not of service in the church. Paul is declaring to believers the great good news that “in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith” [verse 26]. He concludes by affirming, “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” [verse 29].

To read Galatians 3:28 the way Eggebroten reads the verse, you would have to believe that the Apostle Paul was in direct contradiction with himself, when he restricts the teaching office to men in letters such as 1 Timothy and Titus.

Or . . . you can try to deny that Paul actually wrote those latter letters. Eggebroten accuses conservative evangelicals of ignoring “evidence that the ‘pastoral epistles’ (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus) were written in honor of Paul long after he died and reflect a second-century debate over women’s roles in the church–whether to conform to social customs for the sake of winning converts, or to advocate radical social equality (and even celibacy) in the last days before the Second Coming.”

What this reveals, of course, is the argument of many evangelical feminists that we can discard the teachings of the Pastoral Epistles. We can keep the Apostle Paul we like (taking Galatians 3:28 out of context, for example) and disregard the Paul we do not like.

Read Mohler's entire article HERE.

Theological liberals have always dismissed the authority of Scripture. That is nothing new. What seems to be new is the number of those claiming the title "evangelical" who openly deny the truthfulness and authority of God's Word.

In recent posts I have noted the aggressive agenda at Biologos to rid the church of the doctrine of inerrancy by certain biblical scholars who claim to believe in the inspiration and authority of Scripture. But their own words testify against them.

One contributor denies the historicity of Adam and Eve. Interestingly enough, this same scholar was, only a few years ago, claiming to believe some of the very things he now denies. Another contributor claims that Scripture is in need of redemption, that it is "broken" and "warped." It is little wonder then that he also writes, "I have no interest in preserving Christianity ... I believe because, as I understand it, it makes sense of human experience. But if it turns out that Christianity fails to do that, I’ll simply turn elsewhere."

It is clear that without the Scriptures as our infallible guide we will inevitably look to what "makes sense" to us as that guide. If I don't like the fact that God used his people to be the means of judging wicked and depraved nations then I will simply say those passages of the Bible are immoral. If I don't like the fact that Jesus and Paul believed in the historicity of Adam and Eve then I will simply say that the Lord and His apostle were wrong. If I don't like what the Bible teaches about God putting his Son forth as our substitute to bear away His wrath in our stead (the heart of the gospel) then I will simply dismiss it as does the previously referenced scholar.

Gleason Archer warned that if we deny Scripture's inerrancy then we will replace the authority of God's Word with the authority of our own judgments.

Update - Okay, so I edited out a comment about Sojourners that some may realistically interpret as a slight against anyone who reads or benefits in some way from said magazine. That was not my intention. However, I am troubled by the position on Scripture that Sojourners tends to take.

"Vaguely religious quasi-theism"

In my previous post I link to an article by Phil Johnson concerning Biologos and their exotic handling of the Scriptures and historic Christian doctrine. In the comment thread Tom Chantry contributed some thoughts that are worth your time to read:

I met a guy on Saturday who told me about his conversion from Catholicism. He was raising his kids in the Catholic church, having grown up there himself. Somehow he got the idea that as a dad he needed to know enough to teach his kids, so he started reading them the Bible. Then one of his kids came home from Catholic school with a pamphlet from a religion teacher entitled, “The Genesis Myth.” And of course his kid said, “Dad, I thought you said Genesis was the truth!”

So he started digging. He discovered that none of the other parents, few of the teachers, and not even the nun who was the principal of the school knew what the church taught about creation, but when he talked with the priest, he was told, “The church teaches that you can’t take the Bible too literally.” He didn’t quite know what that meant, but he came to two conclusions: The church didn’t believe the Bible, and the people in the church didn’t know about it. He had to leave, because, as uncertain as he was about what he believed, he couldn’t see the point of being a “Christian” if you didn’t believe the Bible. Only later did Bible-believing Christians introduce him to the gospel of grace.

Obviously the same situation is developing in “Evangelical” churches today. The comparison raises some questions:

What sort of witness is it when we assure the world that just because we are Christians doesn’t mean we believe what the Bible says?

What point is there, indeed, in being a non-Bible-believing “Christian”?

If we don’t doggedly believe what the Bible says, how exactly are we going to hold onto the gospel of grace, a message which runs counter to every instinct of natural man?

At this point, just what distinguishes Evangelicals from Rome? From Mainline Protestantism? From vaguely religious quasi-theism?

It's their doctrine that's the issue...

Phil Johnson has been paying careful attention to the developments over at Biologos. Johnson points out that the repeated problem with Biologos is what they are saying about the Bible and what it teaches. And what Biologos is saying is clearly outside the stream of historic, orthodox evangelicalism.

Let me say this as emphatically as possible: My main objection to the BioLogos agenda is theological, not scientific.

Evidently I need to underscore that point, because every time the subject comes up here, our comment-threads swarm with zealots who are keen to debate about geology, paleontology, astronomy, the fossil record, the age of the earth, or whatever—as if my criticisms of BioLogos were scientific rather than biblical and doctrinal. To date, not one person who supports the BioLogos agenda has even acknowledged (much less replied to) the real point we've been making.

So I'll say this once more: What concerns me most about BioLogos is not merely the enthusiasm with which they champion theistic evolution (bad as that is). I haven't complained about their baffling opposition to the simple, obvious teleological arguments of the "intelligent design" community. And what spurred my objections to their campaign has nothing to do with the old-earth/young-earth conflict per se.

But my greatest concern—by far—is the blithe willingness with which they are prepared to trivialize, disregard, discard, or denounce the foundational doctrines of Christianity.

In every post I have made about BioLogos, I've been critical of two things in particular: 1) their relentless assault against the authority of Scripture, and 2) an attitude toward the doctrine of original sin that ranges from utter indifference to condescending dismissal.

The authority of Scripture and the doctrine of original sin are, of course, bedrock truths of all historic Christianity; they are not merely Reformed or evangelical distinctives. (Nor are they trifling "exegetical molehill[s]," as Peter Enns suggested in his reply to Al Mohler.)

The serious doctrinal problems raised by the BioLogos campaign don't end with those two issues, either. As I pointed out in an earlier post, if the BioLogos team applied their Genesis hermeneutic consistently to the gospel accounts and the resurrection narratives, they would soon relinquish every essential element of the Christian faith.

Read Phil's entire article HERE.

And the hits just keep on coming...

One wonders why some who claim to be evangelical seem so highly invested in enouraging people to reject whole swaths of the Bible as error or myth. I recall one visit with a scholar who rejects much of the Bible as erroneous. I asked if he believed in the resurrection of Jesus. His reply to me was, "Yes." I asked him why he believed in the resurrection of Christ but rejected most of the Old Testament and much of the New. His reply was curious to say the least. "Because I have not yet seen any evidence to the contrary." I was stunned by the answer because there is a very simple reply: Dead men are not raised. That is the most compelling reason I know of to reject the resurrection of Jesus.

If God did not create the universe as the Bible says, If He did not created man as the Bible says, if God does not direct history as the Bible says, if the testimony of the Scriptures is hopelessly contradictory, if the New Testament misinterprets the Old, and if Jesus did not perform the miracles attributed to him in the gospels then it seems foolish to suddenly accept the resurrection as fact especially on such flimsy grounds as, "I have not yet seen evidence to the contrary." Again, I say, dead men are not raised!

The fact is, I believe in the resurrection of Jesus because the Word of God declares it to be so. certainly there are other "proofs" of the resurrection that can be quite compelling. But no such proofs can stand apart from the attestation of God's powerful Word. It is God's Word which creates faith in the heart of the unbeliever. It is God's supernatural use of His unerring Word which creates faith where once dwelt only skepticism and rebellion.

So, for the one who wishes to endorse the ethics of Jesus but rejects His miralces; for the one who dismisses creation but holds on to redemption; for one who denies God's power to give us an unerring word but claims belief in resurrection, I ask, "Why?"

Still Under Attack...

It is nothing new that the doctrine of Scripture is under attack. This has always been the case. It is certainly the case in our day. The reliability of the Bible as God's Word has always been challenged. Even among professing evangelicals the doctrine of the Scripture's inerrancy is actively attacked.

The good folks at Modern Reformation and The White Horse Inn have been doing some outstanding work in recent months on the reliability of Scripture. I encourage you to take time to listen to some of the recent episodes of the White Horse Inn.