Yesterday I listened to two fine presentations by a notable and influential evangelical scholar.  They were about the necessary marks of authentic evangelical faith.  He discussed three broad groups of evangelicals in Britain and America since WW2: the broad coalition evangelicals centered around Billy Graham and his ministries (including the National Association of Evangelicals), the neo-Puritan evangelicals (which seemed to me to be those I have called here “neo-fundamentalists”), and the “Bebbington-quadrilateral evangelicals.”  The first group tended to play down... Read more

According to SOME news reports (I always have to say that because news reports don’t always agree with each other) this past week the pastor of First Baptist Church, Dallas, publicly proclaimed that evangelicals cannot vote for a Mormon candidate for president because he belongs to a “cult.”  (One report said he qualified that by saying that evangelicals should vote for the Mormon candidate ONLY if the only other option is President Obama!)  Apparently, this pastor represents himself as speaking... Read more

Now that my book Against Calvinism is published I’m receiving invitations to debate Calvinists.  What I want to say is…everything I have to say on the subject is in the book.  Read it.  What I am doing in the book is NOT trying to shoot down Calvinism; I’m trying to explain as clearly as I can WHY I AM NOT A CALVINIST.  Unfortunately there is already a book of that title.  I happen to think my book is different even... Read more

Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible, Chapter 7 “Rethinking Human Knowledge, Authority, and Understanding” and “Conclusion” Smith here argues for evangelicals to “break from modern epistemological foundationalism once and for all, but without sliding into a problematic postmodernism.” (149)  As he sees it (and he’s not alone) modern and contemporary evangelical theology has “bought into foundationalism whole hog.” (150)  This is what Mark Noll and others have ironically labeled the “evangelical enlightenment”—evangelical theologians’ tendency to mimic the epistemology of the... Read more

Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible, Chapter 6: “Accepting Complexity and Ambiguity” There is no chapter in Smith’s book with which I agree more than this one.  While I don’t think his prescriptions here will go very far toward reducing pervasive interpretive pluralism (PIP), they are of paramount importance for evangelical honesty (toward the Bible) and generosity (toward each other and other Christians). I cannot recommend this chapter highly enough; I wish every evangelical (and that’s a pretty broad concept... Read more

I know without any doubt that some critic of Against Calvinism is going to gleefully point out that I cannot even get my New Testament references right.  I’m reading my own book for the first time in published form.  I come to page 68 and read: “Some Calvinists interpret 2 Peter 2:4 as referring only to the elect, but in light of 1 Timothy 2:4, that hardly works.”  (Fourth line from the top through sixth line from the top.) Obviously,... Read more

Now I turn to Chapters 5 and 6–both great chapters with which I mostly agree.  I think Chapter 5 especially is extremely helpful and all evangelicals should consider Smith’s (not entirely original) proposal.  It won’t fix the problem of PIP, but it will go a long way toward resolving numerous difficulties we run into when we try to treat the Bible as a flat terrain without highs and lows (not of inspiration but of authority for belief and life). Chapter... Read more

Last May I stirred up a huge controversy here by condemning newly minted state laws that criminalize Christian behavior.  The provisions to which I objected were those that criminalized (actually made felonies) knowingly transporting illegal immigrants and sheltering them. Several people here objected, claiming that these laws exempted humanitarian transportation and shelter.  As it turned out, however, those qualifications applied only to emergency service workers, hospitals and state-licensed humanitarian organizations.  No one ever proved here or elsewhere, to my satisfaction,... Read more

Now I turn to Chapters 3 and 4 of The Bible Made Impossible.  Chapter 3 is entitled Some Relevant History, Sociology and Psychology and Chapter 4 is Subsidiary Problems with Biblicism. First, let me say that, contrary to the impression some have gotten, I am not at all dismissive of Smith’s overall argument; I happen to think it is worthy of serious consideration.  Otherwise I would not be engaging it in such detail.  Nor do I disagree with it entirely;... Read more

Obviously my posts are not perfectly perspicuous–sometimes even to me (when I go back and read them)! This is not the second installment of my multi-part review of Smith’s book.  Here I just want to clarify some matters raised by some of you. One of my points is that EVEN IF the Bible were all that biblicism claims (as Smith defines biblicism) (setting aside his tenth assumption or belief of biblicism–that the Bible is a complete handbook of answers to... Read more