A Moderate Baptist Affirms the Doctrine of Inerrancy

[Sandy]

https://www.baptiststandard.com/opinion ... inerrancy/

[Jon Estes]

[Sandy]

[Tim Bonney]

Did you all know that no one is having this conversation outside of the SBC? Having been in two other denominations since being Southern Baptist, it gives me some interesting perspectives. One of them is that the inerrancy debate is specific to Southern Baptists. In other denominations no one would know what you are talking about, even in denominations with definite faith statements about the Bible and its inspiration.

That doesn't mean talking about Biblical interpretation is unimportant. But the going around and around in circles arguing over the one interpretative English language term "inherency" or having anxiety over if one is an "inerrantist" or not is almost exclusive to the particular politics and history of Southern Baptists as far as I am able to tell.

[Sandy]

[Tim Bonney]

[Sandy]

There's a group called the Evangelical Presbyterian Church which has split off of PCUSA over several issues, inerrancy among them. Several other groups which believe in the inerrancy of scripture to the degree that it was expressed by this Texas pastor would include the Presbyterian Church in America, the Reformed Presbyterian Church and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. I had no idea there were that many different kinds of Presbyterians.

One of my good friends up here is, or was, a PCUSA pastor in a small town about 9 miles away. His kids went to my school. His wife was also an ordained minister, serving smaller, outlying congregations until most of those left to join the EPC. They would be among those who would describe their belief in the authority of scripture in a similar fashion to this Texas pastor. Most of the former PCUSA congregations in this area, mainly the two adjoining counties where I live, are now EPC affiliated. LGBT ordination is a factor, but inerrancy is as well.

Schools who are members of ACSI, or who go through their commission for accreditation, are required to adopt their statement of faith, which includes a statement about belief in inerrancy. The one school in our area affiliated with a Methodist church uses the ACSI statement of faith for their school, but I'm not sure about the church. Of course, most of their school constituency would be conservative Evangelical, and not necessarily Methodist.

[Tim Bonney]

If a United Methodist local church is subscribing to a statement about the Bible (or a statement of faith) other than what is in the Articles of Religion and the Confession of Faith of the UMC, they could actually be in violation of the Discipline if it contradicts our theology. The UMC position on scripture is sufficiency and not inerrancy. “The Bible contains all things necessary for salvation.”

However, sometimes people sign on to things without recognizing the differences in theology.

For example, we have a few churches that have AWANA even though the faith statement of AWANA contradicts the doctrines and disciples of the UMC. I had an AWANA recruiter try to get me to use their program and I pointed out that our denomination’s theology and theirs differs. His response was “we believe in the autonomy of the local church and that you can do what you want.” Which I then pointed out ALSO disagreed with our doctrine because we don’t believe in local church autonomy. He ended call rather quickly.