The Myth of Biblical Inerrancy

This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. I’ve had some conversations over the last couple of weeks that have led to this week’s episode, where I’m going to try to break some of the myths about how Christians do (and should) read the Bible. Last week I was talking with someone who was questioning the more affirming stance that my own Anglican tradition has taken on the role of LGBTQIA plus Christians in the church. I was trying to explain how the Bible verses that this person thought supported their more conservative were in actuality just six verses in the entire Bible, and that none of them are actually talking about faithful same-sex relationship relationships between two people who have no choice over their sexual orientation. I explained how no biblical author had any conceptualization about gender or sexual orientation that we now have given the insights of modern science. I suggested that the insights of modern science should play a role in our interpreting ancient text, acknowledging at the original authors, wrote a specific time with this specific perspective that was at times imperfect in its understanding of the world. Of course, the response was something along the lines of the Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it. But then, interestingly, enough, the conversation turned to the question of abortion. I pointed out too specific tax in the Hebrew Bible, one from Exodus 21 and one from Numbers 5, that acknowledge the moral complexity of this question. In fact, the text from Exodus 21 explicitly says that the consequence for the death of a fetus, as is different than the consequence for the death of a fully born child or human would be. In response, the person I was chatting with told me that they didn’t care what the Bible said, they believed that a fetus was full person. That rather bizarre end to the conversation underscored a reality to me that I’ve noticed several times over the years. Even people who claim to be fundamentalists and believe in the inerrancy of the scripture, very rarely are. Every single person has some Bible verses that they will want to contextual lies or explain a way differently. And to read the Bible, it doesn’t really help to pretend that just cause the Bible says something you think that’s the only answer to a question. Instead, we all need to dig deeply into the biblical text, the original languages, the original context, to discern what God’s word would be to us today in the current situation. So, not only would I suggest that no one, in practice, truly believes in what’s known as the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy, I would also point out that Christians didn’t even read the Bible that way for 80% of the church’s existence. What most fundamentalists and many evangelicals believe in is what’s known as the doctrine of verbal inerrancy, an idea that just came about in the 19th century, and idea that every single word of the Bible came directly from God and, therefore, can contain no factual errors. That's a new way of looking at things. Churches like mine, that don’t believe in the verbal inerrancy of Scripture, still believe God inspired the Bible. In fact, at every ordination of a priest in my church, that priest solemnly declares that “I do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary to salvation.” That is not to say, of course, that all things in Scripture are necessary for salvation. I’ll get into that next week, as well as explore what a more robust understanding of Scripture might actually look like. Thanks for being with me. To find out more about my parish, you can go to sjegh.com. Until next time, remember, protest like Jesus, love recklessly, and live your faith out in a community that accepts you but also challenges you to be better tomorrow than you are today.