Inerrantists vs. Inerrantists

Boy, get a little busy and suddenly that post I've left sitting unfinished is several weeks old.  Anyway, I thought this essay was worth pointing out:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2013/10/22/strange-fire-fight-exposes-charade-of-biblical-inerrancy/

It highlights a very problematic point for biblical inerrantists: if the Bible is indeed free of error and intended by God to be usable as a clearly stated instruction manual for all people in all places and times, why is there such vast and irreconcilable disagreement between different groups of believers who consider themselves inerrantists?

The short answer, of course, is "Satan," by which the speaker always means that everyone but the speaker's group has been led astray by the enemy.  Being an inerrantist also means never admitting to the possibility that one's own interpretation of the Bible might be in error (at least not in any significant way), since ultimately there is no clear dividing line between biblical inerrancy and personal inerrancy.

Note that this applies primarily to fundamentalists like McArthur and not to all inerrantists equally, since more moderate evangelicals have a far more nuanced take on biblical inerrancy, but the problem never completely goes away.  At least, not until we stop treating the Bible like a divinely perfect rulebook and allow it to speak to us on its own terms.

Life Soundtrack 36

4:12, by Switchfoot

One of my favorite Switchfoot songs, and an oft-needed wake-up call for all those times I get caught up in the busyness of life.

Also, for the record, the original track runs exactly four minutes and twelve seconds.

A Few Good Links

A few recent items from my reading (and viewing) list that were worth sharing:

-Justin Snow's Decline and Fall of the Ex-Gay Movement provides an accurate and fairly comprehensive history of the movement.  While it still feels premature to announce its fall, I certainly pray that its decline is terminal as people continue to wake up to the fact that gay people are no more broken and no less valuable than everyone else.

-Nakedpastor's version of the blind men and the elephant nicely sums up how foolish we make ourselves look when we claim to have God all figured out.

-Momastery's Glennon responds to her critics, some of whom sound a lot like those blind men arguing over the nature of their elephant.

-Finally, on a lighter note, here at last is a horror movie that doesn't insult my intelligence.

Random Links

Well, not so much random as diverse.  Just a few interesting things I've come across recently.

1. If it happened there - how the media might report the US government shutdown if it were happening in another country.  We Americans could only benefit from occasionally engaging in the academic exercise of judging ourselves by the same standards that we judge other countries.

2. 19 everyday situations that are impossibly difficult for the socially awkward.  I can identify with almost all of these, and think Chandler Bing's quote at the end sums it up perfectly.

3. Every LGBT person could use a brother like this.

4. Another case to be made that Romans 1:26-27 works best as a clobber passage when its context is ignored.

5. Finally, a bit of geekery: size comparisons for a whole slew of ships from various science fiction properties.

Myths of the Not As Good Kind

Twelve Myths Too Many Christians Believe, nicely deconstructed here:
Part 1
Part 2

It wasn't that long ago that I believed all of them...

A Great Debate

At last, a conversation between a Christian and an atheist that makes me smile rather than cringe.  It's not our differences in belief that we need to fear, but how we treat those we disagree with...

Hell Within Heaven

This makes what Jesus does in his story about [the prodigal son] particularly compelling.  Jesus puts the older brother right there at the party, but refusing to trust the father's version of his story.  Refusing to join in the celebration.

Hell is being at the party.  That's what makes it so hellish.  It's not an image of separation, but one of integration.

In this story, heaven and hell are within each other, intertwined, interwoven, bumping up against each other.

If the older brother were off, alone in a distant field, sulking and whining about how he's been a slave all these years and never even had a goat to party with his friends with, he would be alone in his hell.  But in the story Jesus tells, he's at the party, with the music in the background and the celebration going on right there in front of him.

-Rob Bell, Love Wins

I've wondered more than once what it would be like for an individual like James Dobson to reach Heaven, only to discover himself surrounded by the people he had spent a lifetime denouncing and condemning to hell.  Would he learn to accept that God's love is more radical than he believed, and eventually reconcile with those he wanted to spend eternity apart from?  Or would heaven be an eternal hell for him?

I suppose it's not really fair of me to single out Dobson; history is rife with individuals (pious and otherwise) whose hatreds run even deeper.  And even the best of us have our own sets of prejudices and grudges that we must either battle or feed on a daily basis.

If reconciliation is indeed our future, as Bell proposes, what kind of eternity are we preparing for ourselves?

Links

And now for another installment of people saying things I wish I'd said...

-Donald Miller would rather be hated than loved with conditions.  I'm inclined to agree.

-Fred Clark points out how conservative Christians make the power of Gay more powerful than anything else in Creation.

-Australia's Prime Minister makes a principled case for supporting marriage equality.