Front Page: spring 1992

          THERE'S A LIVING IN IT 

     A subscriber in Florida recently raised an interesting question: "Why 
can't these preachers simply admit that the Bible is not the inerrant book it 
has been proclaimed to be and stop lying to their congregations?" The ques-
tion was asked in the context of comments the reader was making about the 
thoroughness of TSR's exposure of flaws in the inerrancy doctrine.

     I have to admit that I have often wondered the same thing.  Ten issues 
of The Skeptical Review have now been published containing over 30 major 
articles and several short ones that focused on discrepancies in the Bible 
text.  In every issue, we have offered inerrancy defenders the opportunity 
to rebut our lead articles, but twice we had to publish without rebuttals 
because we could find no one willing to argue the inerrancy view on the 
subject we were featuring.  We have been especially persistent in challenging 
Wayne Jackson, the editor of Christian Courier, to defend his inerrancy 
views, because he is especially vocal in his articles about "the uncanny relia-
blility" of the Bible in even "the smallest details" ("The Bible Passes the 
Test," Biblical Notes, Nov./Dec. 1991, p. 9). Jackson, like many of his 
inerrancy colleagues, has repeatedly declined our offers of space to defend 
his claim that the Bible is inerrant. We find it hard to understand why an 
inerrancy believer who writes as frequently on the subject as Jackson does 
would refuse an offer of free publishing space to write on the subject if he 
sincerely believes in what he preaches.

     So why do vociferous inerrancy spokesmen like Wayne Jackson and 
Gleason Archer refuse to defend publicly what they write books and publish 
papers to teach in one-sided formats?  Our reader in Florida probably has the 
answer.  "I think that the Bible is simply their meal ticket," he went on to 
say.

     For years, I have resisted this conclusion. As a former fundamentalist 
preacher who sincerely believed that the Bible was the verbally inspired, 
inerrant word of God, I have wanted to believe that those who profess belief 
in the inerrancy doctrine are just as sincere as I was, but the more I write 
on the subject and debate it with fundamentalist preachers, the more difficult 
it is to give them the benefit of doubt. Most will not even debate the issue, 
and those who will do nothing but evade arguments and parrot worn-out, far-
fetched how-it-could-have-been scenarios that only the naively credulous 
could possibly believe.

     So could it just be that our reader in Florida is right?  The Bible is 
simply a meal ticket to many of the fundamentalist preachers who proclaim it 
from their pulpits but won't defend it in public debate with informed oppo-
nents.

     If this is so, it would be entirely consistent with Darwinism, which, 
whether  fundamentalists like it or not, offers a far more likely explanation 
for the various life forms than does the Genesis story of creation.  In na-
ture, if there is a living to be made in some way, no matter how unusual it 
might be, there will always be some creature that will exploit it.  This, 
rather than creation, probably accounts for the millions of cases of special 
adaptation that we see in nature.  There was a living to be made in this way 
and that way and millions of other ways, so through eons and eons of natural 
selection have evolved the various species that are "good" at what they do to 
make a living.  Many species are so good at what they do that some people 
see them as marvelous evidence of creation, but it isn't that at all.  There 
was a living to be made in all these ways, so the creatures that successfully 
exploited them survived and  became specialized.  Those that didn't didn't.  

     My point is not to (See LIVING, p.  16) defend the theory of evolu-


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tion, but to give our fundamentalist readers something to think about.  As 
long as there is a living to be made at something, there will always be enter-
prising life forms that will exploit it.  Is it possible that this fact of nature 
is at work in the religious affairs of men?  One would have to deny the 
obvious to say that it isn't. We have seen too many Jim Bakkers and Jimmy 
Swaggarts exploiting the gullibility of people to deny that some preachers are 
preaching only because they have found it an easy way to make a good liv-
ing.

     "Oh, but that is Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart," some will say.  "My 
preacher would never do anything that dishonest."  Well, don't be too sure of 
it.  If the public suddenly stopped believing in Bible inerrancy, what would 
that do to the thousands of fundamentalist preachers in the land?  It would 
put them all out of work, so don't tell me that they don't have a vested 
interest in the outcome of the inerrancy controversy.  They have a lot of 
pressure on them to say that they believe in Bible inerrancy even if they 
don't.

     When I debate the inerrancy doctrine with fundamentalist preachers, I 
have no economic pressure at all on me.  If one of them should prove beyond 
question, so that no rational person in the world could deny it, that the 
Bible is the verbally inspired, inerrant word of God, all I would do is ac-
knowledge that I was wrong (which wouldn't be the first time I've admitted I 
was wrong), return home, go back to my job, and draw my salary as an 
English teacher. I would have to disband Skepticism, Inc., of course, but 
that would cause me no economic loss.  It is a nonprofit organization with a 
decided emphasis on the nonprofit.

     On the other hand, if I should prove beyond question, so that no 
rational person in the world could deny it, that the Bible is not the verbally 
inspired, inerrant word of God, what would that do to my opponents?  They 
couldn't return to their jobs, because there would be no one for them to 
preach to, no one to put money into the collection baskets to keep their little 
empires going. Their livelihood would be gone with the public's loss of faith 
in Bible inerrancy.

     If you think that they don't know that, you must be very na‹ve.

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