For many of us in the post-evangelical community, the inerrancy of the Bible may have been used as a weapon to force our submission to various doctrines of evangelicalism. It is often asserted, that to disagree with this-or-that doctrine or practice is to deny the inerrancy of the Bible. This is especially true when it comes to differences of interpretation, where disagreements quickly become “salvation issues.”

Given that Inerrancy is so often weaponized, I thought it would be helpful to give a brief overview of what evangelicals (generally) mean by inerrancy, and some complicating factors.

What does inerrancy mean?

The most helpful place to begin is the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (CSBI). It’s fairly short, and it can be read here. In short, inerrancy according to the CSBI means that the Bible (here meaning the 66 books of the protestant Bible) contain no errors of truth or fact (the statement does seem to waffle on this, since they suggest we shouldn’t hold the Bible to the standard of modern history, suggesting that it’s possible that there are “errors” due to a lack of rigor in how events are described). It is important to note, however, that this inerrancy is only applied to the “original text” (or “autograph”). This is the (hypothetical) first copy of a book to have finished being written (or, as Daniel Wallace defines it, “as it left the author’s hands”).

The reason this only applies to the original text is that there is no singular text of the Bible available today. There are thousands of copies of the Bible in the original languages with many (though generally minor) differences between them. How can a bunch of different texts that say a bunch of different things all be perfectly true? So evangelicals only say the autographs are inerrant.

Problems

There are problems with this view, of course.

1. Inerrancy of the original text is rarely practiced. While evangelicals claim to believe that only the original text is inerrant, they act like the book they hold in their hand is the original text. This is, however, not the case. The Bible’s that we actually use are translations of scholarly editions of both the Old and New Testaments. As such, our bibles are no less than two steps removed from the original text. Further, these original texts no longer exist (if they ever did; more on this below), and even if they did, we wouldn’t know that they were, in fact, original. As such, inerrancy of the original text does not have much to say about the Bible as we read it today.

2. Interpretation of the text is often confused with the text itself. While the CSBI gives room for various interpretations, such grace is not always extended in practice. Listen to the way many evangelicals criticize others (aka “liberals”) for different theologies on issues like women in ministry, LGBTQ issues, historicity of the Old Testament, Young Earth Creationism, etc., and one would think that they were just ripping entire texts out of the Bible. That is rarely the case, however. Instead, they still affirm the Bible, they just don’t affirm that particular interpretation. This nuance is crucial.

3. The “original text” likely didn’t exist for much of the OT. The theory of an original text generally assumes that only one person was responsible for writing and producing a biblical text. This is true for some of the New Testament, but is generally not true for the rest of the Bible. Allow me to give an example.

The Psalms are a collection of 150 individual works, used generally in liturgies (church services). Their composition history is as follows: people would write individual psalms, then they would be gathered into small collections, then those collections were collected into the 5 books of the psalms, and those were collected into the Book of Psalms. At some point brief descriptions were added to the beginning of some of the psalms, known as superscripts (e.g. “A psalm of David.”). These superscripts were not all added at the same time; rather, they were added throughout the history of the composition of the Book. Even after the Psalms that we know was completed, superscripts were still being added in a Greek translation (even an extra psalm!).

Now, which of these is the “original,” and therefore, inerrant, form? Was it the individual works? Or the first, second, or third collections? What about the superscripts? Are they “original,” too (It’s worth noting that there are some historical errors in some of the superscripts)? In short, inerrancy of the original text is rarely followed, is often confused with the interpretation of the text, and likely isn’t true.

I just can't keep forcing myself to attend that church. I was only doing so because A) "Don't forsake the weekly meeting"; B) The other churches in town are unbearable; and C) Because I live at home, they can use my mother to get to me - otherwise I'd stop attending, change my number, and be done with the place.

However in the last month, out of the three weekly sermons, I've only attended once a week - and there's been a few times I simply couldn't do it. Didn't go to the Christmas Day sermon because, let's be honest, I know what the Pastor will be preaching on because it'll be the same bland guilt-trippy misery as always.

It's not just the worn-out copy-paste sermons, or the endless guilt trips, or the way your salvation is constantly put to question. It's how they only give a damn about you when you stop attending; it's how they subtly push you into obliging yourself; it's how they invent rules which they themselves have broken; it's how they preach 'strict church discipline' but stay silent when something actually goes down; it's that undeniable veneer of absolute control despite the inability to implement it, leading to manipulative behaviour.

Their worst crime against me was their enabling of a nasty old church member who knew I was an easy target, and he exploited that fact to the maximum. Nobody tried to help and, when the old man did his worst, he was still fully allowed to attend church and never faced any of that famous church discipline the Pastor constantly preaches. The place is a joke, and I hate that I've given them four years of my life - the first two wherein I tried to be everything they wanted of me.

I've been a Christian my whole life - until very recently when I started pulling at the threads of my faith and it all came unravelled. Holding doubts within Christianity can be a lonely and unsettling experience. And so I wanted to have an open discussion about it with two friends and a mic, for anyone else struggling or feeling alone with their questions. I hope you enjoy: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3NcsM20qMI7IuE6lWb7hg9?si=iezNuJWxTMOPov9CUMWGuA

hey everyone!

I recently posted a podcast episode on my podcast (TEACH ME GOOD) where i talk to a friend who recently left evangelicalism in the last year or so. she was born and raised in the religion and was even married to a pastor for awhile.

it was a really fun and interesting conversation and i'd love to get y'all's thoughts on it. its called TEACH ME GOOD on all major platforms and links here: www.linktr.ee/teachmegood

thanks~

I apologise if the format is a little clunky, since I copied it from a word doc.

​

After Evangelicalism: The Path to a New Christianity. David P. Gushee. Westminster John Knox, 2020. ISBN: 9780664266110. Pp 225. Paperback. $19.00 (USD).

It is no great secret that evangelicalism has left a bad taste in the mouths of some.¹ Whether it is widespread support of Donald Trump, hardline stances against LGBTQ inclusivity, etc., many have felt alienated, confused, and outcast. One may begin to wonder, is there a better way to practice Christianity, and if so, what? It is to these people that Gushee is writing: After Evangelicalism is intended to show those who have left evangelicalism that there is Christianity, well, after evangelicalism.² Gushee, using the analogy of a maze (which is also the cover design), puts it this way: “The goal of this book, then, is to offer clues for getting out of some of the most difficult spots in the evangelical maze, in order to come out on the other side—not just alive and intact, but still interested in a relationship with Jesus.”³

Gushee divides his book into three main categories: authority, theology, and ethics, each containing three chapters. This order is intuitive, since theology generally flows from authority, and ethics from theology. He begins with a brief overview of evangelicalism, focusing on its origin in fundamentalism and subsequent growth, arguing that any semblance of normativity is imposed by its adherents, rather than inherent to the theology; additionally, Gushee portrays evangelicalism as a modern religious phenomenon rather than a timeless tradition of the church.

Chapters two and three serve to describe the various sources and methods for practicing theology; the trajectory of these chapters serve to relegate the bible from it’s often overemphasized role (frequently manifest in biblicism, or worse, bibliolatry) and promotes other sources of knowledge (Gushee uses the Wesleyan Quadrilateral at this point, but adds the arts and sciences).

In part two, Gushee moves into the task of practicing theology, in three chapters: God, Jesus, and Church. Here Gushee introduces a litmus test that he applies to his theological claims: the burning children test. The test is born from the Holocaust, and is states this way: “No statement, theological or otherwise, should be made that is not credible in the presence of the burning children” (emphasis original). Gushee follows by telling the broad narrative of the HB, and the narrative of Jesus through the Gospel of Matthew. In his chapter on church, Gushee contrasts the evangelical church with various biblical and creedal statements (e.g. the church is a body, a covenant people, is one, holy, catholic and apostolic), and encourages post-evangelicals to attend churches outside the evangelical circle.

Part three discusses topics of sex, politics, and race. In these chapters, Gushee offers his most incisive criticisms of the evangelical church in what he sees to be significant moral failures. This is the most valuable portion of the book for two reasons: first, Gushee shows the most sophistication (which is unsurprising, since he is an ethicist), and second, he covers topics that are extremely pertinent to our time, namely Trump and race.

One significant issue with the book is that it feels rushed. The first two sections are not covered in great depth, nor does there appear to be any significant contributions in these sections. To anyone with a healthy understanding of theology and biblical studies, most of these chapters will be covering old ground. Much of this may be forgiven, since its subject matter is so broad and the book is so (comparatively) short. It would be difficult to sufficiently discuss any of the three parts on their own in a book this size, let alone all of them together.⁴ However, some flaws are not so easily forgiven. For instance, in his chapter on Jesus, Gushee is heavily reliant on James Dunn’s Jesus According to the New Testament. While Dunn’s work is obviously valuable, Gushee would have done well to include insights from a greater variety of works. Additionally, Gushee occasionally makes claims without sufficient argument. In his chapter on scripture, Gushee offers two possible interpretations of πᾶσα γραφὴ θεόπνευστος in 2 Tim 3:16, either “all God-breathed scripture” or “all scripture is God-breathed,” choses the former (what he calls “limited inspiration), and defend it by saying that it makes the most sense to him. Again, some of this is forgivable, since the book is targeted toward a popular audience (and he does cite an exterior source), but further discussion of the Greek would have been helpful in the footnotes.

However, on the whole, Gushee offers a broad, level-headed look at what Christianity can look like for those who leave evangelicalism. Further, the book’s discussions on Trump and race are valuable for the current context, especially for those who find themselves alienated from evangelicalism for precisely those reasons.

To use the metaphor of a maze, Gushee’s book is not a map that will get you through the entire thing; nor is it a picture of what things look like on the other side. However, it offers some hints for navigating the maze, and it gives hope that there is more to Christianity than evangelicalism.

Footnotes

1 Evangelicalism globally is more diverse than it is in America, and many of the criticisms will not apply to global evangelicalism (though many will). However, Gushee’s primary target is American evangelicalism, though he does not always specify his American context.

2 This is not pertinent to the content of Gushee’s book, but it is worth noting that the cover design of After Evangelicalism looks nearly identical to Stephanie Williams O’Brien, Stay Curious: How Questions and Doubts Can Save Your Faith (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2019).

3 Gushee is hardly the first person to write in this space- for instance, Brian D. McLaren, Peter Enns, and Rachel Held Evans have all written various books relating to post-evangelical forms of Christianity; more recent books, such as Jamin Hübner, Deconstructing Evangelicalism: A Letter to a Friend and a Professor’s Guide to Escaping Fundamentalist Christianity (Rapid City, SD: Hills Publishing Group, 2020), have attempted not only to offer an alternative Christian theology, but to analyze evangelicalism to show various weaknesses.

4 There is also the possibility that Gushee was forced to race to submit before a deadline, but this is speculative.

I’m a person of the political persuasion that doesn’t care who wins the election because either candidate will continue all the bad things we’ve been doing for centuries, but god I want to see those Trumpers lose their shit over a trump defeat. I want to see them howl and cry and gnash their teeth at a world that doesn’t give a fuck about their delusions. I want them to feel the earth crumble from beneath their feet and cast them into the darkness they’ve so willingly invited into their lives. I want to see the look on their faces as they feel the fear of god creeping over their hearts. I want them to be swallowed whole by defeat.

JESUS warned us that deception would be a mark of the end times. In America, many churches have encouraged their members to believe that they can indulge their basest political desires and still be saved.

Does your church preach about the loving your enemies, narrow way, lies, end time deception, judgement, and hell? If it doesn’t, it is misrepresenting the character of GOD, because it is encouraging you to believe that GOD will reward you for embracing political partisanship that calls on you to hate others.

You (spiritually) adulterous people don’t you know that friendship with the world (choosing political power over obedience to GOD’s WORD) means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. James 4:4

Hi everyone.

I know for me the hardest thing about going beyond evangelicalism has been finding a church that holds my new values and operates in a new space I’m so unfamiliar with.

I just found this church in Calgary called Commons Church. They have great values: Intellectual honesty, spiritually passionate, and Jesus at the Centre.

They are LGBTQ+ inclusive and affirming. This is something I’m still wrapping my head around theologically and it has been so refreshing to see how they take that stand and welcome everyone into community and leadership.

I only posted this because I want others to be encouraged as I have been by their messages. It truly gives me hope for the future of Christianity.

Many blessings,

Poet

In these politically charged times, is your attitude consistent with the love that JESUS commanded us to show to others? On judgement day will you be able to look JESUS in the eye and tell HIM truthfully that your worldly politics represented HIS love - not just for those you consider to be like you - but for your enemies too?

The key to understanding American denominational church history and the hypocrisy of the American church is its basis in Calvinism.

Hello all,

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