With the rise of progressive Christianity in the last decade or so, there has come some harsh criticisms and critiques of what is known as inerrancy. These criticisms in our current climate are timely and somewhat warranted. Whether it is because of a heightened sense of the evolution of language, more accessibility to learning the original languages, or due time to critique a theological doctrine, we need to hear out these arguments and critiques. When we do hear them out, what happens is twofold: 1) we understand them and their positions because we hear it from their own mouth giving no room for assumptions; 2) We understand ourselves and position a bit better because it makes us dive a bit deeper. Once this happens, fair and substantive responses can be made. Unfortunately, this does not always happen and I would wager that this is not our default position or reaction (even though it ought to be). And let’s be honest, it happens on both sides. The result of any critique or criticism of either side is name-calling and personal jabs. This is known as ad hominem and is a conversation stopper not starter. Both sides have their respective favorites like: “homophobe,” “bigot,” “heretic,” or “unsaved (this one here is a more nuance slight that would need more discussion that would detract from the overall goal here).” Here, I do not want to perpetuate that. Rather, the goal is to deal with a very specific error many progressives tend to make.
You’ll notice that the title of this does not mention “progressive Christianity” at all. Instead, it uses the phrase “Red-Letter Christianity.” This particular flavor of Christianity really only looks at the words of Jesus, which in some Bible translations are red, as authoritative. Meaning, if Jesus did not say it, then it is not a part of his teaching. This stems from an acute sense of what is known as the argument from silence. But more on that later. These Christians do this because they likely stick with a historic perspective on Jesus as God and co-equal with the Father or they view Jesus as a good moral teacher/sage that does not have the exclusive truth. But because they follow the teachings of Jesus, they call themselves Christians.[1]
What is important to remember is that they call themselves Christians and until proven otherwise, we ought to honor it and treat them as such and therefore, make the conversation an “in-house discussion” as much as possible. Doing so helps establish some of the basic concepts that we are more than likely to agree upon. In denying them the basics, then we will have more work to do in breaking down emotional/intellectual/spiritual barriers before getting to the topic at hand. It is always better to give someone the that grace we would expect them to give us in a conversation like this, since for many, being a Christian is a central identifying marker, if not their main identity. We ought to do this out of respect for the person so as to treat them as a fellow image bearer on the path of sanctification. Not doing so I think would go very well against how Jesus himself conducted his behavior and interactions with those whom he had theological battles. Not to mention a Red-Letter Christian is going to spot that very early on and write off anything you have to say as “bigoted” or something similar.
Now that we have constructed our bridge, we can begin to confront some of the fallacious aspects of Red-Letter Christianity and its rejection of the doctrine of inerrancy as traditionally held and affirmed by the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. But before we can critique their position and rejection of the Chicago Statement, we should know what the statement lays out. The short statement, in paragraph two, says that Scripture is “written by men prepared and superintended by His Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches…”[2] The articles, which give the acceptance of and denials of, that are in reference purview here are Articles XI and XII. Article XI reads as such: “We affirm that Scripture, having been given by divine, inspiration, is infallible, so that, far from misleading us, it is true and reliable in all matters it addresses.” And Article XII reads: “We affirm that Scripture in its entirety is inerrant, being free from falsehood, fraud or deceit.” In other words, scripture does not fall into error at any point nor does it teach any falsehoods as if they were true.
Notice that when one affirms this, there is no commitment method of inspiration (how God used the authors to write scripture) such as verbal plenary inspiration or any of the other theories.[3] This is important to our discussion because it leaves room for someone to not hold that God superintended each word as if it were exactly what God wanted to say. One is perfectly able to say that scripture is inspired and that God imbued true concepts for the human authors to convey in their own words.[4] If one holds to the inspiration of scripture as something that is true and from God and that the authors that wrote it down without error to what it teaches then one can affirm, properly speaking, that scripture is inerrant as well as inspired. It must be made clear that if God truly is the source of what is record in scripture, then it necessarily is without error in what it teaches. This is because it flows out of the nature of God. God being a perfect being is not able to convey or relay any falsehoods. If he did, that would be an inconsistency and would violate his being consistent. Thus, he would not be perfect! How it is taught is another question.
Red-Letter Christians (RLC) seemingly want to deny that inerrancy is something that can be ascribed to the Bible as a whole. However, what they do not realize, or are willing to admit, is that they apply inerrancy to the things that Jesus said in the red letters. Their claim is that what Jesus did or did not say matters and we need to take them at face value. Oddly enough, this is the exact thing for which they condemn fundamentalists. This is a tu quoque fallacy. To employ this fallacy is to point the direction back at the fundamentalists so as to not deal with the same claim of rigid fundamentalism of only the red letters of the Bible are authoritative. Let’s take some time to look at an example.
A common contemporary issue at hand is the issue of same-sex attraction and relationships. From interactions with RLCs, it seems that Matthew 19 is the primary text for which they use to defend their affirming position. By affirming, they mean that God can ordain and deem same-sex relationships and attraction as acceptable. In Matthew 19, what do we see? We see that Jesus is addressing the Pharisees amongst a crowd. They initially asked him about divorce. At the time there was a debate between Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Shemei about what the grounds were for divorce according to the Law of Moses. Jesus immediately points them back to the Genesis account of creation and points out that there is in fact an acceptable form of marriage that was ordained and set up by God: male and female becoming one flesh. He then goes on to give the grounds for divorce by expounding on the Law that Moses commanded—which are (sexual) immorality. To help clear up the matter even more with his disciples, who likely were bringing up the question for the crowd’s benefit, Jesus goes on to mention eunuchs and how they were sometimes forced into becoming one or become one on the their own free will for the sake of the kingdom or that it is a biological anomaly that they were not fertile men.
First and foremost, we need to ask, “What is Jesus plainly teaching here?”[5] Since by the standards of the RLCs we need to take what Jesus said very seriously and seemingly literally for if Jesus did not say it, then it is not part of his teaching. If it is not taught by Jesus, then it can be rejected. On a plain reading of the text, we can see that Jesus quotes the Genesis account and thereby affirming what is written. We can also see that Jesus shows not that there is a total prohibition on divorce but that if one party is sexually immoral then a divorce can be done in a manner that honors God. As for the eunuch, we can see that those who abstain from marriage relationships for whatever reason are also therefore blessed by God.
So how does a RLC come to say that this passage affirms the affirming position that we commonly see today? They draw upon the fact that Jesus never brings up same-sex relationships/marriages. His omission of the type of relationship here for a RLC indicates that Jesus passively was saying that the relationships were acceptable. They are applying what is called the argument from silence. This type of argumentation is simply that what the original utterance states as true or false, the opposite, or what is not mentioned originally, is either true or false. In other words, because Jesus did not mention any loving, committed same-sex relationships/marriages, they are permissible or even encouraged (because they are loving and committed). Unfortunately, this is not how this type of argumentation works.
The RLCs use the argument from silence fallaciously in that it is out of context for this type of saying/teaching of Jesus. They are looking at what Jesus did not say. Rather, what we should be doing is looking at what Jesus did say. Jesus was pretty clear on what marriage was to be defined as and the argument from silence (properly implemented) would say that anything outside of what Jesus explicitly taught is therefore outside of God’s blessing (dare I say it… sinful).
What does this tell us about the RLCs stance on inerrancy? All too much! What we see in this chapter is a clear teaching of Jesus and a RLC needs to take this seriously based on the tenets of their own system. Since what Jesus says is authoritative we need to take seriously what he says and focus in on it. Naturally, what Jesus does not mention will come up and be part of the conversation, but it should not be to the negation of good and proper hermeneutics. The question becomes, “What does their system mandate?” According to Matthew 19, what is mandated is that marriage is to be between one man and one woman because that is what Jesus taught. Anything further would be a bit far reaching for the RLC system. When one does go further and steps outside the red letters to between the lines, once ceases to be a RLC and has much more for which to answer.
Inerrancy for the RLC is not something to give up, rather it gets arbitrarily redefined to fit the theology. If one really holds to the teachings of Jesus as a RLC would like to claim, then inerrancy holds firm since the red letters are the more authoritative between red and black letters. Why is it given up? This is pure speculation and I could be wrong, but it seems to be because of what C.S. Lewis called “chronological snobbery” and politically motivated theology rooted in post-modernism. Chronological snobbery is the idea that because we have better information currently than those in the past, we have better insights into the ancient world than the ancients did themselves. This does not follow and has no foundation in reality.
What it is essentially saying is that truth and access to it is founded upon scientific and cultural progress and the ancients because they were not as advanced as us in the modern era, have no real access to truth. This could not be further from the truth for if the Bible is really inspired by God, then God would be responsible for revealing that truth to them to write and record for future generations and peoples. Basing truth on a foundation that is God takes the burden off humanity as the source and foundation of truth.[6] When truth is based on God and the reality that he created and not us, we commit ourselves to the consistency of God in that truth is transcendent because he is transcendent. If we were to say otherwise, we would be calling God inconsistent. When that happens, God ceases to be God because he is acting contrary to his nature. This also leads us to the second reason why I think inerrancy is abandoned by the RLCs.
Our current culture is a political one and a post-modern culture. This is not to pass judgement on any previous cultures calling them being unpolitical/a-political or being in a different philosophical era. Rather, what I am saying is that politics seems to be the basis for our worldview and not what is true and real. For a Christian, Christianity should be the worldview and not your bi-partisan political party. Christianity should, however, fuel political views and what we support and do not support. A biblically rooted politic will take the truths of the Bible and then apply those concepts within politics. When inerrancy is abandoned, this becomes next to impossible. Usually what happens when political cultures become married with an ideology like post-modernism, a strange offspring arises: politics become the foundation of truth instead of reality.
RLCs seem to take this stance and impose post-modernist political views on the Bible so that it conforms to that political view. In the theological world, this is called eisegesis and is highly frowned upon because it strips the author of any real meaning and intent. Any hermeneutical scholar is going to say that this is a cardinal sin, if not the cardinal sin, when doing any sort of biblical interpretation. When someone does this the usual retort is that Jesus was a political figure and he did things that were distinctly political in the first century. To that any Christian should be able to say, “I agree that he did do things that were distinctly political! but I think you take it too far in saying that he was a political figure.” This importation of the fundamentality of politics as truth supersedes what the Bible actually says and what the author’s intent really was. The Bible ends up becoming a political manual rather than a religious one. But we should not be surprised that in our post-modern culture politics have become the newest religion and their parties its denominations.
The words of Jesus that are found in red letters are seen as literal but only when it applies to politics or a post-modern view of truth. RLCs can call into question inerrancy because each doctrine should be continually critiqued for its accuracy (just as we do with scientific theories and laws). However, when it is abandoned, the Bible ceases to be truly authoritative and the faith in which it teaches becomes subject to the person rather than the person subject to it. This is a slippery slope into religious relativism, a product of the post-modern school of thought.
As Christians who care about orthodoxy, we should be very much concerned with this movement towards Red Letter Christianity. We should be double checking our theology for consistency and always reforming when and where it is needed in accordance with the tested scriptures as laid out in the Bible. This does not mean however, that when we do this, the Bible is now errant in some things it teaches.
[1] This can happen with other sects like Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Simply because Jesus is the center of the religious teaching, they call themselves “Christian” however far askew they are from Christianity that is rooted in history.
[2] Chicago Statement.
[3] Matthew Barrett, God’s Word Alone, 225.
[4] Ibid. This is called the Dynamic Theory of Inspiration. This puts the truths of the Bible at a more conceptual level rather than a word-for-word inspiration like the Verbal Plenary Theory.
[5] I am a critic of the plain reading method as a stand-alone method. However, one cannot get away from the plain reading of the text as it is the very foundation by which we begin the hermeneutical task.
[6] Secular humanism is the view that humanity is the source and foundation of truth. This again commits the person to chronological snobbery and does not actually deal with the metaphysical questions. It avoids them.
Brewed Up Apologetics 