The Epistemology of Inerrancy: Teaching the Doctrine in the Church

While a cornerstone of evangelicalism is the inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible, this doctrine needs a revival. Seminaries, churches, and parachurch ministries commonly ignore the doctrine, substituting terms like “authority” and “inspiration” which are alone insufficient. Many evangelical Christians have assumed inerrancy to be true for so long that we have forgotten to teach it to the next generation. But teach it we must. Any teacher worth his or her salt takes into account the context of the students. We are in a skeptical world which has just as much, if not more influence on our believing brethren than do the truths of Christianity. While we must certainly teach the theology of inerrancy, a solid epistemological foundation is needed as a platform for conviction. Inerrancy is not only a matter of faith; it is a matter of knowledge.

This conference will be held at Southern Evangelical Seminary, April 11-12, 2015. I will also be delivering a plenary address called The Apologetics of Inerrancy: Making our Case to the World. 

I’m pleased to be added to the list of faculty mentors for Columbia Evangelical Seminary, specializing in philosophy, apologetics, and comparative religion. This is a distance education program, so I will remain in Denver, primarily engaged at Denver Seminary. I’m excited for this additional opportunity! If you know of anyone in the Columbia program, send ’em my way.

As my 30th birthday approaches, I have reflected on some things I have learned in my first three decades on this earth. Some of the lessons have been easy, and some have been painful. May these brief reflections edify someone.

1. Degrees do not give you wisdom. Perspective does.
2. Selfless friends are rare. When you find them, hold onto them and reciprocate.
3. Hold firmly to principles, and tentatively to plans.
4. Teaching is dangerous because people will listen to you.
5. Don’t act like you know it all. No one ever does.
6. Men will never look good in skinny jeans.
7. Figure out the difference between mountains and molehills. Don’t put on climbing gear for a molehill. You will only waste your time and look ridiculous.
8. Following your heart is often a very bad idea (Jer. 17:9).
9. Cheaters do prosper, on this side of eternity at least. Karma is not in control (it doesn’t even make sense); Jesus is, and he will set things right when he returns.
10. Most people and situations offer something for us to learn.
11. Christian doctrine without practice is fruitless, but Christian practice without doctrine is meaningless.
12. Instead of finding reasons to be offended, find reasons to not be offended. This makes for better relationships and clearer thinking.
13. You will rarely “feel like” doing what you ought. So just “git r dun” already (to quote Larry the Cable Guy).
14. None of us deserve handouts or special treatment. That’s what makes special treatment an act of grace, deserving of gratitude.
15. There will always be smarter, more successful, and more attractive people. You are less important than you may think you are.
16. In addition to (11), the world is full of brilliant people. It has a shortage of virtuous people.
17. Do not let your ambitions eclipse your calling. Sometimes we are called to small things that are eternally significant. God knows why he created us; we do not.
18. What others want you to be will change rapidly. You might as well resolve to be the best version of yourself.
19. You cannot force anyone to change their behavior or ideas. You can and should try to encourage people to think, though.
20. Avoiding problems makes them worse.
21. The experience of suffering can greatly aid your ability to empathize with and disciple others.
22. No finite person or activity can complete you. That is because we were created for a relationship with a perfect Creator. Everything else falls short.
23. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good (Romans 12:9), but we must learn to recognize the good first. It is not as easy as it sounds.
24. In a swiftly changing world, God is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8).

Yesterday, I gave a 15-minute talk at Denver Seminary’s new student orientation on the value of critical thinking. Here is the audio, for those interested. https://soundcloud.com/sarah-geis-2/critical-thinking-for-the-glory-of-god

About a year ago, enormously popular “post-evangelical”  blogger Rachel Held Evans wrote an essay for CNN called, “Why Millennials Are Leaving the Church.”  It went viral. Since then, increasing numbers of Christians have lept to action, frantically trying to solve the problem. Since millennials are allegedly leaving the church, it follows that they are not getting what they want. In the last several years, evangelicals across the western world have had meetings, written articles, and conducted studies to discover what it is that millenials want. The evangelical community seems largely poised to do whatever it takes to entice the younger generation to attend church.

However, something is terribly wrong with this approach. In truth, a few things are wrong. First of all, it is not entirely accurate to say that “millennials are leaving the church.” According to George Barna, six in ten churched members of this age group walk away from the faith they were raised in.  However, that still leaves four out of ten, and since millennials are an enormous group, that four represents a large number. Therefore, a substantial set of millennials remain in the church. To act as though millennials are absent from the pews is simply an overreaction at best, and disingenuous at worst.

Second, every generation has its own struggles just as it has strengths. There are valuable things millennials want to see more present in evangelical churches. Millennials want liturgy. Millenials want depth. Millennials want “authenticity.” Millennials want meaningful relationships (a rather vague and relative phrase). However, the church should not adopt or condone everything millenials want any more than it should adopt and condone the attitudes and biases of any other specific generation. According to Evans, “young adults perceive evangelical Christianity to be too political, too exclusive, old-fashioned, unconcerned with social justice and hostile to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.” Some of these are legitimate concerns, but some are not. Moreover, millennials have needs that they may not necessarily want, such as the need to be morally challenged, to be intellectually grounded, to be held theologically accountable, and to be spiritually convicted. If we forego what millennials need in favor of what millennials want, then we have undergone a tragic metamorphosis from historic Christianity to freestyle “Millennialism.”

Instead of preoccupying ourselves with what millennials want, we should ask a related, yet entirely different question: How can we better help all believers to become committed, convinced, mature followers of Christ? There is one unchanging standard for Christian maturity; God’s standard. There is no such thing as “millennial Christianity,” “baby-boomer Christianity,” “Gen X Christianity,” or any other generational variety. There is one church, bearing witness to one timeless truth. This teaching permeates Scripture. For example, see 1 Corinthians 12, and the entire book of Ephesians.

If we still find ourselves overly concerned about an ecclesiastical mass exodus of the younger generation, we need to remember something. God does not abandon his people, nor has he ever struggled to preserve the Church through the ages. The people of God will endure until the end. If we doubt that, we doubt not only his sovereignty, but also his trustworthiness. If he is not sovereign or trustworthy, then he is not truly God. Finally, if YHWH is not God, then millennials are right to leave the church.

But YHWH– Father, Son, and Holy Spirit– is God.  As we await the return of Jesus and the fulfilment of his promises, we should seek to be the nothing other than the continuation of Christ’s historic Church, preaching his Word, obeying his precepts, and discipling the nations. Millennials should not join in because their desires or even needs are being met; instead they should join because the message of Christ is the only true, final answer to the human condition, given once and for all generations.

I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.  As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified. – Jesus’ prayer for his disciples (John 17:13-18)

 

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*Note: For anyone wondering, I am 29 years old, and thus am solidly a millennial.

Misinformation abounds about the origins of Christianity. Some individuals assert that by the time of the Council of Nicaea under Constantine in AD 325, there were upwards of 80 (disagreeing) gospels which competed for the traditional four slots (this many-gospels account is quite a desperate move, having no positive support along with a sizable case against it). Most who hold to this view contend is that the Church rather arbitrarily selected Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John out of this pool of contenders for political reasons. Other contemporary writers assert that after a supposed period of conflict and division, alternative “Christianities,” such as the various varieties of gnosticism, were unfairly snuffed out by the growing power of the church of Rome. Perhaps the most influential of these theories is the Bauer thesis, which argues that Christianity began in diversity and only later moved into unified orthodoxy. Unfortunately for the Bauer thesis, the exact opposite is true, as Andreas Kostenberger and Michael Kruger argue in the book, The Heresy of Orthodoxy  (2010). It is increasingly common to believe that modern Christianity survived because it gained political power over other, equally compelling alternatives.

Recently in a used bookstore, I came across a strikingly and distressingly large section titled, “Alternative Church History,” which was filled with works on the gnostic “gospels” and gnosticism itself. Unfortunately for those who wish to revise history by exalting early heresies to a level of popularity far beyond what the historical record supports, the facts of history are not up for grabs. The early church did not hide these heresies from public view, or try to dispose of the evidence of “alternative Christianities,” but openly and confidently exposed and refuted their errors. In the early church, gnosticism was never considered to be a separate branch of Christianity, but was recognized as something else entirely. Thus, gnostic texts were never an option for inclusion into the canon. These historical realities are being obscured and must be reestablished. Early writers such as Irenaeus (active around the late second century, long before the existence of Constantine and the Council of Nicaea) are of great help to us in dispelling falsehoods and rumors caused by the irresponsible pens of certain contemporary writers.

     Perhaps most important is [Irenaeus’] treatment of Scripture, which was not yet in canonical form throughout Christian communities. Irenaeus successfully appeals to a notion of catholicity, that most churches everywhere in the late second century see a certain collection of writings to be Scripture. He helps to prove that churches were not in disarray, uncertain of authoritative texts of the faith, but generally united in agreeing on most books and especially not agreeing on an entirely different and threatening genre of books: gnostic writings. Thus the voice of Irenaeus still disallows even contemporary gnostic fans like Elaine Pagels, critical historians like Bart Ehrman and popular authors like Dan Brown. He is the first to refer to a four-Gospel canon, to defend most thoroughly the apostolic authority of the Gospel writers and Paul, and among the earliest defenders of the book of Revelation while still disputed among some churches. — W. Brian Shelton, “Irenaeus,” in Shapers of Christian Orthodoxy, ed. Bradley G. Green, pp. 51-53

My current horse, Mabel

I am now primarily a philosophy professor, but for years I was a primarily a horse trainer who read philosophy on the side. Riding two to seven horses a day was intense, and the experience shaped me. I sometimes reflect on some of my lessons learned from horses, and how it has influenced how I live.  Here are some of those lessons.

1. Quit worrying. Bad things are going to happen that you can’t control. Good horses come up lame and you could come off and get hurt. However, if you are paralyzed by worrying about things that might go wrong, you miss out on the enjoyments of the present and still have to face inevitable problems later. Worry does not prevent disaster.

2. If you panic when problems arise, the situation will only get worse. There is no choice but to stop and think. Horses get stuck in fences, step on nails, and can manage to nearly kill themselves in a multitude of creative ways. Your panic does nothing productive, and another creature is relying on you to make good decisions. He will likely not.

3. Keep yourself under control. Your moods sometimes need to be restrained. If you are angry and overreact, your horse will overreact in response. If you are jumpy and distracted, you judgment will be impaired.

4. If you do not feel like doing chores, you must do them anyway. The beings you care for have consistent needs that cannot depend upon your inconsistent feelings. A job that needs to be done does not care how you feel.

5. Everyone can learn to fix things when something important must be done immediately. Helpless humans have no place among livestock. Duct tape and wire are your friends. Learn to improvise.

6. When faced with a set of problems, prioritize them. If you are riding alone and fall off, you must evaluate the situation quickly. Even if you have broken a limb, you need to ignore the pain, catch your horse before he runs off,  and get back home before you can melt down over your injury.  This is the art of triage.

7. Be creative and think on your feet. Unlike what is touted by some clinicians, there is no formula for helping horses reach their potential. This is because each being is an individual, and you have to be willing to pay attention to the talents, motivations, and fears of each one. The same goes for people. Learn all the skills you can, then adapt your skills to each situation.

8. Be patient. Learning is more important than artificial time limits. When teaching a lesson, sometimes you have to be willing to wait as long as it takes for the lesson to sink in. Sometimes this requires being stubborn in order to make a point.

9. Pay attention. Learn to recognize and appreciate the tiniest achievements, even if there is still a long way to go. This is how you help another being take steps toward a more difficult and complex goal.

10. Be mentally and physically tough. When working on something truly important, be willing to push through the blood, sweat, and tears until the job is done. Otherwise, next time will be just as hard, or even harder.

11. Your thoughts and actions have consequences. If you decide to wave a plastic bag around a skittish horse when the horse is tied up to a fence, that fence you chose better be strong. Horses can be dramatically reactive, and every move you make matters.

12. Be honest and humble. You can’t bluff your way through horse training. If you aren’t as competent as you claim, it will show.

13. Work hard. If you don’t, your skills and training will not improve. The path to progress is drenched in sweat.

14. Be disciplined enough to be consistent. If you are not, the horse will not understand what you want or who you are, and will not have any reason to listen to what you say– and certainly won’t trust you.

15. You never know it all. Get over yourself and embrace a lifestyle of learning.

This is a review I wrote last year, which was published in the Denver Journal. 

Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning

• Nancy Pearcey
• Jun 24, 2013
• Series: Volume 16 – 2013

A word to teachers, pastors, and other public speakers: Don’t try to sound like anyone but the best version of yourself. If you sound radically different on stage than you would over a cup of coffee, it is distracting and sounds glaringly inauthentic to those listening. When you develop and strengthen your own voice, you are better able to keep yourself from obscuring your message.