Leave it to The Christian Century to find a link between the two great mainline bogeymen, Sarah Palin and biblical inerrancy. You might have read about Palin’s awkward description of Paul Revere’s famous Revolutionary mission and subsequent attempts to square her account with the historical record. Now it seems to Professor James McGrath of Butler University that “the same tactics that Christians who believe in the Bible’s inerrancy use to deal with evidence to the contrary are the tactics being used to defend the inerrancy of Sarah Palin.”
Bashing Palin, whose contentious relationship with the media guarantees never-ending controversy, is great sport for her many opponents. Their zeal to find her flaws reminds me of the relish university New Testament professors display when they expose the Bible’s supposed errors for wide-eyed college freshmen. Forgive me, though, if I recoil at Professor McGrath’s effort to compare Palin with Jesus, as if their words have been vested with equal authority. Then again, that might be exactly his point. It’s hard to see how his Jesus can amount to anything more than a failed politician. McGrath writes:
What do inerrantists do when it seems that the Bible, or even Jesus himself, is wrong? Among the responses are: looking for ad hoc explanations, things that might have been meant even though they are less likely meanings of the words/phrase in question, and, when necessary, rewriting Wikipedia or positing historical events for which we have no evidence because the Bible—or the politician—must have been right.
Interpreters who believe the Bible is utterly authoritative and without error in the original writings are commonly regarded by opponents as arrogant in their certainty and lazy in their confessionalism. Critics such as McGrath describe their exegesis as strained beyond credulity. Exposing the Bible’s supposed errors is considered noble, an act of profound faith, as McGrath argues:
Admitting the Bible was wrong, admitting Jesus was wrong, when the evidence points in that direction, is not a denial of the Christian faith, but an expression of one of its most basic tenets: the fallibility of human beings and the resulting need to be open to correction.
On this last clause, at least, all Christians can agree: our interpretations are fallible, and we need to be open to correction. But McGrath wrongly concludes from this call for humility that we must be willing to judge Jesus as misguided and misinformed. What kind of humility prefers the whims of modern, Western interpretation over church tradition extending all the way back to the men who walked and talked with Jesus and recalled his very words? Here is true arrogance, to suppose we enlightened few truly understand. What may appear to us the less likely interpretation of a troubling passage may in fact reflect the very different time and place where Jesus walked and talked among us. A host of alleged discrepancies vanish when we shed our Western blinders.
And don’t expect courage from the Bible’s critics. Jesus does not lack for suitors who would refashion him in their image to suit their purposes. But the careful, respectful scholar seeks to painstakingly understand Jesus on his own terms, however difficult that may prove to us, prone to sin and separated by time and culture. This is hard work with little reward. Indeed, such scholars are not likely to find work in America’s esteemed universities teaching the New Testament to the best and brightest.
When you take Jesus at his word as the one and only Son of God, you have committed yourself to a path of radical discipleship. You will follow him wherever he leads, just as his first disciples trailed him though beset with doubts and misunderstanding. Remember, these very disciples recalled for us while composing the Gospels how they initially confronted Jesus to correct his many errors, especially his strange insistence that the scribes and Pharisees would deliver the Son of Man up to death (Mark 10:33). They judged him mistaken. But he proved them blissfully wrong. He fulfilled his mission to give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:44), rising three days later, just as he said (Mark 10:34).
Then as now, the route of discipleship invites scholarly scorn. Exegetical obstacles loom around every corner. Who can understand the Bible’s great mysteries? But God has promised to lead us into all truth, if we’ll only open our eyes to follow his lead.
Is there enough evidence for us to believe the Gospels?
In an age of faith deconstruction and skepticism about the Bible’s authority, it’s common to hear claims that the Gospels are unreliable propaganda. And if the Gospels are shown to be historically unreliable, the whole foundation of Christianity begins to crumble.
