Inerrancy and the Spiritual Formation of Younger Evangelicals. Carlos R. Bovell
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theoretical questions while biblical scholars concern themselves with detailed biblical and extra-biblical data. As one who has involved himself with both, I decry a painful inability to synthesize these two realms of inquiry with spiritual and intellectual integrity. Accordingly, the present work looks to illustrate lines of critical thinking that a “younger evangelical” might experience during the course of spiritual maturation.
1 How the Bible Works: An Anthropological Study of Evangelical Biblicism. (New York: Altamira Press, 2004), 140, italics in original.
2 Deconstructing Evangelicalism: Conservative Protestantism in the Age of Billy Graham. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), 149.
3 “The Two-Edged Sword: The Fundamentalist Use of the Bible” in The Bible in America: Essays in Cultural History. (ed. N. O. Hatch and M. A. Noll; New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 117.
4 The Making and Unmaking of an Evangelical Mind: The Case of Edward Carnell. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 189.
5 Robert E. Webber’s phrase for an evangelical roughly thirty years or younger. See the introductory chapter below.
6 James Barr, Fundamentalism. 2nd ed. (London: SCM Press Ltd., 1981), 165. British writers tend to refer to evangelicals as fundamentalists.
7 Rudolph Nelson, The Making and Unmaking of an Evangelical Mind, 212.
8 How the Bible Works, 139.
9 The Making and Unmaking of an Evangelical Mind, 5, italics his.
10 William J. Abraham, Crossing the Threshold of Divine Revelation. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 142. Abraham does not capitalize “scripture”.
11 Barr’s terms: “dogmatic” refers to the argument that since Christ believed such and such so should everyone who professes belief in him and “maximal-conservative” to the argument promoting watered-down authorship claims such as the Pentateuch may not be entirely Mosaic, but it is essentially Mosaic; the Psalter may not be entirely Davidic, but it is essentially Davidic, etc. See Fundamentalism, 72–89.
12 Compare Preston Jones, “More Scandals of the Evangelical Mind” First Things 84 (June/July 1998): 16–18. Source: http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9806/opinion/jones.html.
Acknowledgments
A number of evangelical teachers and leaders have contributed in one way or another to the completion of this manuscript. Yet there is a select handful of professors that has enthusiastically received my thoughts and remarks regarding the relationship between inerrancy and the spiritual development of younger evangelicals. To these I would like to express my gratitude even if most chose not in the end to explicitly associate themselves with this book.
I would also like to thank the Reverend Harald Peeders for his constant encouragement; the staff at Wipf and Stock for making this book possible; Jamie, Elena and Mateo for their patience; and Jen for her love.
Introduction
For all the hype over the interface between postmodernism and evangelicalism and over the advent of “post-evangelicalism,”1 there remains a sizable constituency within evangelicalism that continues to affirm that the Bible is the Word of God and is therefore inerrant in its autographs. Within this broad slice of conservative evangelicalism I have observed a sort of disconnect among evangelical teachers and leaders between a desire to be doctrinally faithful and a desire to responsibly look after the spiritual formation of the youth under their care.2 Too often, evangelicals presume that by striving after the former they automatically achieve the latter; however, in some cases, this could not be further from the truth. Although it would not be fair to assume that all conservative evangelicals fit this mold, certain strands of conservative evangelical theology and philosophy contain insidious doctrines that hamper and, in some cases, stunt the spiritual formation of younger evangelicals. The term, “younger evangelicals,” was recently used by Robert E. Webber to describe primarily those evangelicals born after 1975. The present work focuses upon contemporary tensions associated with biblical inerrancy that Webber could only mention in passing.3 For some younger evangelicals the tension has proven existentially unbearable and the absence of an alternative, acceptably orthodox position on biblical authority has unnecessarily exacerbated the pains of spiritual development.4 In response, evangelical leaders might consider providing an alternate doctrinal refuge.
Over twenty years ago Raymond Brown had these words to say of the state of Roman Catholic theological training: “. . . [A]nd only now are we encountering a generation of Catholic theologians who were nurtured in their first studies on a critical approach to the Bible, rather than appropriating it late in life and having to unlearn some of their early formation.”5 As Brown pointed out then, to critically engage what it means for the Bible to be the word of God only after early spiritual formation is over can result in a loss of faith. Having attended, however briefly, at least three evangelical schools over the last ten years, I can attest to how penetrating Brown’s insight really is. In fact, my own experience suggests that this critical engagement with Scripture should begin in high school youth groups and other teenaged religious forums in order to help curtail future loss of faith.
Countless ecclesiastical, parachurch, and professional organizations such as the Evangelical Theological Society and the Evangelical Philosophical Society (ETS/EPS) continue to teach up-and-coming evangelical leaders that the Bible alone is the Word of God and, for this reason, is and will always be “inerrant” in the originals. What is not generally shared is that many leaders and teachers who belong to these and other like-minded organizations insist upon this high view of the Bible while they are still in the process of investigating and reflecting upon what the Bible really is and how it came to be. D. A. Carson has made mention in different contexts of “reflective” and “more thoughtful” Christians who “have always” been nuanced in their beliefs about the Bible and “not very well informed believers” who “understand so little about the humanness of the Bible.”6 Well, this book is written for evangelical leaders and teachers, reflective or not, who are concerned about the spiritual formation of their students and how they are affected by failures in their attempts to make sense of an ETS/EPS-like statement in the context of historical and psychological factors that not only comprise our human experience but so fundamentally contributed to Scripture’s own composition and compilation.
Younger evangelicals quickly figure out that although the investigation into what the Bible really is is perpetually underway, the verdict is inexplicably always already out that it is without “errors.” To wit, the implicit message is: no matter what we should find by way of scholarly research, the Bible will always be the Word of God, which means, if it is to mean anything at all, without