Featured Is Bible Inerrancy an essential?

This is, in my opinion, the most important point regarding this issue.

Harold Lindsell describes well how the truth of Scripture’s inspiration logically leads to inerrancy:

However limited may have been their knowledge, and however much they erred when they were not writing sacred Scripture, the authors of Scripture, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, were preserved from making factual, historical, scientific, or other errors . . . God the Holy Spirit by nature cannot lie or be the author of untruth. If the Scripture is inspired at all it must be infallible. (The Battle for the Bible: page 30-31.)

Biblical inerrancy means the Bible contains no error. It is without error in faith and fact. If we have the self-disclosure of the holy God, it cannot be mixed with error. Error and truth cannot be contained in the same document which claims to be a self-disclosure of a holy, righteous God. If error is mixed with truth, then that is deception which violates the character of God. (Otis Yoder & Harold S. Martin, Biblical Inerrancy and Reliability, Harrisonburg VA (Fellowship of Concerned Mennonites, 1985) page 9.)

 

That's where I come from too. From my POV, Baptists historically are by definition evangelical. So, in many ways asking me if I support an Evangelical position is almost a nullity.

 

Not to mention many fundamentalists of today label anything/anyone "New Evangelical" who disagrees with them.

Personally I like to allow the man who coined the phrase to define it.

Harold Ockenga stated in the forward to "The Battle For The Bible," restate Christian theology in accordance with the need of the times, . . . reexamination of theological "problems" such as the antiquity of man, the universality of the flood, God's method of creation, and others.

He also said, "While reaffirming the theological view of fundamentalism, this address repudiated its ecclesiology and its social theory. The ringing call for a repudiation of separatism and the summons to social involvement received a hearty response from many evangelicals." (Ockenga, Foreword to The Battle for the Bible by Harold Lindsell, page 11).

Dr. Ockenga advocated what he called "Denominational infiltration" - to go back to the old, dead, mainline Protestant denominations and infiltrate them with the New Evangelical "gospel."

He went on to say, "Since I first coined the phrase “The New Evangelicalism” at a convocation address at Fuller Theological Seminary ten years ago, the evangelical forces have been welded into an organizational front. First, there is the National Association of Evangelicals which provides articulation for the movement on the denominational level; second, there is World Evangelical Fellowship which binds together these individual national associations of some twenty-six countries into a world organization; third, there is the new apologetic literature stating this point of view which is now flowing from the presses of the great publishers, including Macmillans and Harpers; fourth, there is the existence of Fuller Theological Seminary and other evangelical seminaries which are fully committed to orthodox Christianity and a resultant social philosophy; fifth, there is the establishment of Christianity Today, a bi-weekly publication, to articulate the convictions of this movement; sixth, there is the appearance of an evangelist, Billy Graham, who on the mass level is the spokesman of the convictions and ideal of the New Evangelicalism."

On the basis of the above I define New Evangelicalism as adhering to all three of the below.

(1) a repudiation of the doctrine of separation;

(2) a summons to greater social involvement; and

(3) a determination to engage in theological dialogue with Modernism.

 

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