Pete Enns on the Inconsistent Literalism of alleged “Biblical Literalists”

Pete Enns’ blog has moved to Patheos, as regular readers of it will know. Take this opportunity to update your subscriptions if you haven’t already, and check out his latest post, which points out the inconsistency of Al Mohler’s “apparent age” approach to dealing with issues at the intersection of Bible and science. Here’s the conclusion:

If Mohler were consistent, a literal reading of Genesis 1 would be as intolerable to him as a literal reading of those places where the Bible speaks of a flat, stationary earth with a dome overhead.

Mohler speaks of “apparent age” with calm assurance. But it is a explanation that creates many more problems than it tries to solve. Those problems are rooted in Mohler’s unexamined precommitment that Christians have no choice but to read Genesis literally.

They do have a choice, and Christians have been making it for a very, very long time.

Click through to read the rest and see how he gets there. Many other parts of the post are just as insightful and every bit as quotable.