My Dear Sisters and Brothers,
Lately, we have shown signs of having one of the same problems which has been plaguing mainline Christian churches for a long time – divisions on issues because of differences of opinion about inerrancy (biblical and other). I think it is time to deal with this problem before it gets out of hand. It is my firm hope that, once the issue is defined and laid out on the table, all sides will feel comfortable enough to live with our differences.
Any group of people, whether it is a family, a church, a company, a football team, a neighborhood, or a nation, has to deal with differences among its people. The success or failure of the group depends in large measure on how well it deals with the inevitable differences between members of the group. When a group is voluntary, those who are unwilling to live with the differences will simply leave. Even when a group is not entirely voluntary (such as a family), it can still lose members. In such cases, it is usually painful, and often tragic.
Those of us involved in pastoral counseling (and most of us are to some extent) have seen the tragedy of broken families. Fortunately, when a church loses a member because of its failure to successfully deal with differences, it’s not quite so traumatic. We are a voluntary group. With such groups, there will always be some who drift in and drift out. Some people do that. We shouldn’t overreact and engage in a bout of self-flagellation. A few such instances don’t indicate any failure on our part. But when those who have made a serious commitment to the Church contemplate leaving, then we must take notice.
We have had instances in the past where people have left because we “were too
Roman Catholic.” In other cases, it was
because we “weren’t Catholic enough.” (When
you get criticized by people on both sides of an issue, you’re probably doing
something right.) The truth, of course, is
that we are a “bridge church” as it says on our web site, “bridging the gap
between the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestants, and building a basis for future
unity between them.” Most of our clergy
understand this, and accept it (some even enthusiastically).
They are happy with the resultant diversity. You
can walk into one of our parishes and swear you were in a Roman Catholic Church in the
1950s. There is a Rosary before or after every
We failed to hang on to one of our priests because he could not accept difference. His web site condemned BOTH the Protestants and the post-Vatican II Roman Catholics, assigning them both to hell. He held to all the anathemas hurled by the Council of Trent (among others) and condemned recent Popes for withdrawing them. To him, ecumenism was a fatal error or worse. I tried my best to make him comfortable in our Church, but the truth is that you can’t be comfortable on a bridge if you believe both ends are in a lake of fire. We bridge-builders like to have both ends on solid ground. Eventually, this priest changed his views and returned to us. At least half a dozen of our clergy have left, only to return again. We should take this as a hopeful sign.
But there is another chasm which needs bridging. Forget Catholic vs. Protestant. Forget liberal vs. conservative. Forget progressive vs. traditional in liturgy. The real divide in Christianity is between those who hold to Biblical inerrancy and those who do not. It is precisely in this sense in which we are most urgently called to be a bridge church. And this one is harder than the other. We are attempting to bridge the gap between the inerrantists and the noninerrantists. In our founding document, “What Does It Mean to be Catholic: A Call To Unity”, we specifically state that while we have great reverence for the scriptures, and while we recognize that many Christians (including those in our Church) believe in Biblical inerrancy, this belief is not required. There are thousands of theologians on either side of this issue, and we are unlikely to know the exact truth of the matter this side of the “pearly gates.” It is true that belief in inerrancy was pretty much accepted from about 400 AD to 1800 AD, a strong argument for its catholicity. Yet in the first few hundred years of Christianity there was widespread disagreement over what writings were part of “scripture.” The canonicity of several books of the Old Testament is still being debated, with the Roman Catholics, the Protestants, and the Orthodox all coming up with different answers. How can you require belief in the inerrancy of the Bible if you’re not sure you’ve got the contents right? And in the last couple of centuries, belief in inerrancy has fallen so low that it can hardly be considered “universal.”
The attraction of inerrancy is obvious. It offers absolute certainty about absolute truth. And there is nothing wrong with absolute certainty. It is one of the things which attracted me to the Roman Catholic Church when I was a teenager. The infallibility of the Pope seems to offer a comforting certainty. You don’t have to figure things out for yourself. Just believe what the Church tells you to believe, think the way the Church tells you to think, and act the way the Church tells you to act. You can’t go wrong. To a young person seeking truth, that’s a powerful attraction. Many Protestants find their certainty in Biblical inerrancy. They have a “paper Pope.” Officially, the Roman Catholic Church also holds to inerrancy, although few of its clergy seem to believe it. Like the ban on birth control, it is politely ignored.
I also understand full well the arguments put forth by inerrantists as to why their position is essential. The “slippery slope” argument can be quite persuasive. If you can pick and choose, if you can reject even one part of the Bible, then you might as well reject it all, and you probably eventually will. Indeed, some of the Jesus Seminar folks seem to prove this argument, for they have wound up rejecting just about everything, including the virgin birth, the New Testament miracles, the resurrection, and the divinity of Jesus. Does this mean that they are heretics? By most traditional definitions, yes it does. But perhaps the majority of Biblical scholars and theologians agree with them, including professors of theology at most Catholic and Episcopal seminaries. Do we condemn them all? I say, “No.”
My belief is that it is not our job to condemn. Rather it is our job to be the bridge – to show the churches that it is possible for diversity on such nonessentials to work. And I realize that many believers in inerrancy would classify it as an essential, a rock on which everything else depends. But it can also be seen as a quagmire in which the truth gets suffocated, a tar pit in which the church gets fossilized.
In just about every century there is a hot button issue which seems to challenge the inerrancy of the Bible. In Galileo’s time it was the relationship of the earth and the sun. The Bible (so the Church thought) clearly stated that the sun revolves around the earth, and since the Bible is inerrant, Galileo must be condemned. It took centuries for that error to be undone. In the nineteenth century it was slavery. The Bible (argued many churches) clearly approved of slavery, and since the Bible is inerrant, slavery must be God’s will. People of color are still suffering the effects of that one to this day. In the twentieth century it was creationism vs. evolution. The Bible clearly says the earth is only 6,000 years old, and since the Bible is inerrant, we won’t have people teaching our children the proven fact that the universe is about 13 billion years old. (Most who still call themselves inerrantists have now adjusted their reading of Genesis to allow for an old earth.) Now it is homosexuality. Science supports the fact that homosexuals are born that way. It is not a chosen life style. Most gays don’t want a life of furtive one-night stands. Like the rest of us, they want a committed relationship. But the Bible clearly condemns homosexual relations, and since the Bible is inerrant, we cannot allow it.
People think that homosexuality is splitting churches down the middle. It is not. It is but a symptom. The real issue is inerrancy. In the next century, homosexual marriage will be universally accepted. People looking back will consider it barbaric that we did not allow it. They will no more condone discrimination against gays than they would advocate slavery. Today’s hot button arguments will be forgotten. But the issue of inerrancy will remain. There will always be those who crave absolute certainty so much that they would embrace inerrancy to get it. There will be thoughtful theologians who conclude that the Bible is indeed without error, and there will be those who do not. There will be new scientific discoveries seeming to challenge what we think the Bible says. People will fall in place on either side of these new issues. But the real division will still be over inerrancy.
Now the inerrantists may be right. The Bible might be perfectly without error. The problem could all be in our erroneous interpretations. So while believers in inerrancy could be right about the Bible, they could also be wrong about everything else (just as they have been in the past). So to require belief in inerrancy would be to demand belief in the modern equivalent of a young flat earth about which the sun revolves, God-ordained slavery, and gays confined to their closets. It would stifle Biblical research (which, after all, could be one way the Holy Spirit works in the Church today). On the other hand, to condemn inerrancy, to say the Bible is not without error, would be to alienate and isolate ourselves from millions of believing Christians – members of the Body of Christ. It might also be isolating ourselves from the truth. We have chosen rather to leave inerrancy as a respected doctrine of the church, but not a dogma. Therefore our members and our clergy are free to hold to inerrancy or not.
This is what we had to say about scripture in our founding document: “Ultimately, our faith should be in God, not in the book. Neither, however, should we buy into a squishy liberalism. To treat the Bible as a collection of myths is unacceptable. To throw out everything miraculous (including the resurrection) is to proclaim God small, remote, and inept and leaves little worth believing in. While not requiring belief in inerrancy, we must teach the Bible as the reliable source of the truths that matter.”
So where does this leave the Jesus Seminar? They are an interesting group of brilliant yet
fallible Christian theologians and Biblical scholars.
They tend to be quite liberal. They do
not hold to inerrancy. They do not speak with
one voice. They seem to offer their
conclusions not as a new “Truth,” but as food for thought, shaking up old
beliefs and confirming others. Much of their
picture of Jesus is revolutionary and at odds with orthodox belief. They may be right about some things. They may be wrong about many things. I would recommend reading their material with a
little skepticism and a lot of discrimination. You
can, of course, ignore it altogether. Their
work has caused consternation in conservative Christian circles. On the other hand, it has caused some
non-Christians to be attracted to Jesus and to become Christians. Some of you may reject everything they have to say. That’s OK.
Others of you may accept their conclusions hook, line, and sinker. That’s OK too, although you must be careful. Our clergy should read our founding document again
(realizing that it is definitely not
inerrant), and take care not to teach things publicly which are at odds with our core
beliefs. What you believe in private is one
thing. What you preach from the pulpit is
quite another. If you harbor private doubts
about the divinity of Jesus, for example, that is unorthodox. But if you preach it, it becomes heresy. Remember what
We have clergy on both sides of the inerrancy division. I know that there are churches out there which come down on one side or the other. I also know that it would be easier for each of you to pick one of those churches and join it, finding comfort in being among like-minded people. But I urge you not to take that easy road. If we are to accomplish God’s mission for us in this society, we must respect each other and build that bridge of understanding that will lead to unity. If we can’t succeed at this, we who are consciously trying, then who can? If we don’t, who will?
“In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, diversity; in all things, charity.”
Allow me to conclude with the “Final Word” from our founding document: “In the final analysis, being a catholic or even a Christian is not about being a member of an institution. It is about being a member of the Body of Christ. It is not about what you believe. It is about whom you trust. It is not about following the rules. It is about following Jesus.”
Let’s decide to follow him together. “May God grant us all the grace to do his will and follow Jesus in all things. Amen.”