Setting the Record Straight on Biblical Inerrancy

Do children need to be protected from the Bible's teachings?

My local community (Oldham County, Kentucky) is currently engaged in a heated debate over whether to allow LifeWise Academy, a parachurch organization that offers public school students one hour of parent approved, “released time” Bible instruction off campus, to operate in Oldham County Public Schools. I’ve already posted one article I wrote for our local newspaper in support of LifeWise. Below I’ve posted my response to a disingenuous article from another local pastor. I’ve included these here because I believe they have broader significance for church and state debates in America and beyond.

When it comes to complex cultural issues, Christians often disagree with one another. It’s common to love Jesus and yet differ from other Christians about all the implications of what that means in a confusing world. For example, should Christians hold pacifist views about war, or can the case be made for a just war position? Should Christian parents be allowed to use their own tax money to fund Christian education for their children or should public education remain under the domain of secular progressive values exclusively? These are thorny issues, and well-meaning Christians will not always agree on the solutions.

Clearly, the current debate surrounding LifeWise Academy administering parent-approved, “released time” Bible instruction in Oldham County Public Schools is just such an issue. Reasonable Christians may reach contradictory conclusions. I’m on record in support of LifeWise, but I do not intend to bind the consciences of brothers and sisters in Christ who differ. While my own support for this important ministry has not wavered, I’ve heard several valid concerns expressed in opposition that deserve prayerful consideration and careful response.

With that said, public debate on complex issues between Christians ought to be conducted in good faith. When we make the weighty decision to publicly speak either for or against a position, we ought to do everything we can to ensure that we treat our opponents fairly and refrain from emotional manipulation. We ought, in other words, to love our oppositional neighbors as ourselves. In fact, as a former middle school logic teacher, I always instructed my students to choose only the strongest arguments from the opposition against which to argue.

I was thus disappointed to read Rev. Derek Robinette’s opinion essay the other week entitled, “Inerrancy as policy during school hours.” Robinette is a dear Christian brother and fellow minister. However, his essay misses the mark in three ways. First, he mischaracterizes those who hold to biblical inerrancy. Second, he fails to mention that it won’t be Oldham County Schools endorsing the Bible’s teachings but the parents who sign off on sending their children. Third, he outrageously suggests that LifeWise Academy will inevitably lead to abuse of children. While all three deserve lengthy rebuttals, I will only respond to his unfair critique of inerrancy here.

To summarize, Robinette opposes LifeWise Academy in Oldham County Schools because the organization believes that the Bible is the inerrant word of God. In his opinion, inerrancy necessarily leads to certain biblical interpretations that are at odds with the progressive values now prevailing in our schools. Particularly, Robinette believes that students will be taught that God calls men and women to different roles in the home and church and that practices celebrated in American culture—he names LGBTQ lifestyles, false religions, and divorce—will be labeled sinful as a result of studying Scripture.

According to Robinette, these interpretations can only be reached if one holds to inerrancy, and inerrancy is problematic because it “does not give historical cultural context and author intent enough authority.”

I’m a biblical inerrantist, meaning that I believe, in the words of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, that “Holy Scripture, being God’s own Word, written by men prepared and superintended by His Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches.” Further, I believe that “Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching.”

Interestingly, this same document goes on to clarify that “in determining what the God-taught writer is asserting in each passage, we must pay the most careful attention to its claims and character as a human production. In inspiration, God utilized the culture and conventions of his penman’s milieu.”

According to the most widely recognized definition of biblical inerrancy—a statement available online for free for anyone who cares to look it up—the doctrine specifies that the correct interpretation of the Bible must consider historical cultural context and authorial intent. Robinette thus mischaracterizes biblical inerrancy to score points for his side and to emotionally manipulate readers of this fine newspaper.

Since the beginning of the church, Christians have held the Bible in the highest esteem as the authoritative word of God on all subjects it addresses. We believe that Christ entrusted his word to his prophets and apostles who, inspired by God’s Spirit, wrote the documents that today make up the sixty-six books of the Bible. In the words of Paul, we believe that “all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching” (2 Tim 3:16). The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy was formulated in 1978, not to introduce a new teaching to the church, but to respond to the rise of theological progressives who openly denied core biblical teachings that had been believed and practiced for nearly two millennia.

Robinette attacks inerrancy, but if you look just beneath the surface, you’ll see that an authoritative Bible is really the source of his fear. He believes kids need protection from the Bible, and he uses culture and authorial intent to explain away the Bible’s clear meaning so as not to offend prevailing cultural values. His argument inverts Paul’s command that the church “not be conformed to this world” but “be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Rom 12:2). Instead, he suggests it’s better that our kids be transformed by the values of progressive culture and shielded from the Bible’s life-giving, countercultural teachings.

Oldham County, I’ll leave the question to you. What’s best for our children, the Bible or the transgressive values currently corroding our culture? Do you agree that we need to protect our kids from Bible study?