[asa] Re: Lamoureux, Concordism, and Inerrancy

After hitting "send," in my spiritually skittish and lawerly way, I realized
I'd want to append a disclaimer, which is this: I don't pretend to be a
theological scholar or to offer the little statement at the end of this as
some kind of definitive thing. Along with the bulk of the Christian
tradition, I affirm that God does not err, in the scriptures or otherwise.
However, personally, and, I think, along with many other contemporary
evangelicals, I think our statements and postures about the nature of
scripture have become imbalanced and could fruitfully be restated in a more
holistic, flexible and positive fashion.

On Fri, Feb 29, 2008 at 7:58 PM, David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Denis Lamoureux's article in the current PSCF is interesting. It is
> similar to a longer article by Lamoureux in a recent issue of Christian
> Scholar's Review on evangelicals and concordism.
>
> I'm sure all of this will be discussed in more details in Denis'
> forthcoming book, but I feel that he's not doing justice to the spectrum of
> contemporary evangelical views on inerrancy and that his definition of
> "concordism" is a bit wooden. He seems to equate "the" evangelical position
> with Harold Lindsell and a strict reading of the Chicago Statement.
>
> But this begs the question, it seems to me, of what "evangelical" means.
> Is Fuller Seminary "evangelical?" Fuller's statement on Biblical authority
> diverges from the Chicago Statement, and certainly from Lindsell, in many
> key respects. Is John Stott "evangelical?" Alister McGrath? Stott might
> be closer to the Chicago Statement but in "Evangelical Essentials" he
> qualifies inerrancy basically to what the text "intends" to teach, and I'm
> not sure McGrath would even use the term "inerrancy" (query -- does anyone
> know anything specific McGrath has written on this?) How about Donald
> Bloesch? Bloesch's "Holy Scripture" IMHO is a wonderfully balanced text
> that discusses "inerrancy" in a particular way. Even one of the evangelical
> Baptist stalwarts Lamoureux cites, Millard Erickson, takes a much more
> nuanced position in his "Systematic Theology" than Lamoureux lets on:
> Erickson says *"The Bible, when correctly interpreted in light of the
> level to which culture and the means of communication had developed at the
> time it was written, and in view of the purposes for which it was given, is
> fully truthful in all that it affirms,"* and he specifically discusses the
> use of phenomenological language to describe natural and historical events.
>
> Likewise, the term "concordism" seems ill-defined to me in Lamoureux's
> usage. There is of course Hugh Ross style "high concordism," in which the
> Biblical text is seen to be making scientific claims that essentially
> remained hidden for millennia and can only be fully understood in light of
> modern scientific knowledge. But Lamoureux seems to suggest that an
> assertion that Genesis 1-11 refers to any "real" history is "concordism."
> It seems to me that he forces the reader into an artifical box: *either*accommodation or a dreaded "ism," "concordism."
>
> In my view, we need to get away from this "ism" talk. The question isn't
> accommodation vs. concordism, or inerrancy vs. errancy (or "limited
> inerrancy"). Why not just say this: the canonical scriptures are God's
> written word and are authoritative for the Church. They reflect God's
> character as perfectly truthful and good; they also reflect God's character
> as the God who empties Himself and condescends to meet us on human terms;
> and they reflect the humanity of the writers and editors through whom God
> has spoken. Part of the Church's task, under the guidance of the Holy
> Spirit, is to understand and apply the authoritative scriptures in each
> time, culture, and place in which the Church exists."
>

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Received on Fri Feb 29 20:28:49 2008