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Front Page: winter 1990

WHY ANOTHER RELIGIOUS PUBLICATION?


If there is anything the world already has enough of, surely that 
would be religious publications. The pouches of our mail carriers 
bulge with religious journals, magazines, periodicals, and bulletins 
already circulating through our postal system. The Church of Christ, 
which the publishers of The Skeptical Review were once affiliated 
with, produces the Gospel Advocate, Firm Foundation, Christian 
Chronicle, Reason & Revelation, Power, and at least a score of 
smaller, less known publications, and the journalistic production of 
many other churches is just as prolific. Why then would anyone want to 
add anything else to this mountainous glut?

We could quibble and say that ours is not a religious publication. In 
the strictest sense of the word, religion is the expression of belief 
in and reverence for a supernatural entity, so in that respect ours 
will certainly not be a "religious" publication. At no time will we be 
found admonishing our readers to "believe in God"; we won't even get 
involved in the theism-atheism controversy. Being primarily agnostic 
in our convictions, we will leave this matter to those who are far 
more sure of their positions (on both sides) than we could ever be.

Our purpose will be to promote critical examination of the Bible 
inerrancy doctrine, and that will make ours an unusual publication. 
There are journals that devote some space to this subject, but only 
one other we know about that exists only to challenge traditional 
assumptions on which this belief has thrived. As our readers get to 
know us, we suspect that many will concur in saying that we are far 
from religious. Some might even insist that "irreligious" more 
appropriately describes us. Nevertheless, our editorial purpose will 
focus in each issue on an important religious matter-- the doctrine of 
Bible inerrancy-- and so to that extent we have to agree that ours is 
a religious publication. We just can't think of The Skeptical Review 
as being only "another" religious publication. We think we will be 
quite different from the others.

An important difference will be our editorial policy of publishing 
competently written responses to our lead articles. Not many religious 
journals do this. Most of them publish only materials that agree with 
the particular doctrinal beliefs they were created to promulgate. In 
this issue, for example, we are publishing "The Inerrancy Doctrine Is 
Found To Be Impregnable," which Jerry Moffitt was invited to write in 
reply to "The Last Hurrah of the Inerrancy Doctrine," our lead article 
that begins on the next page. In future issues, we will continue to 
publish dissenting views.

We had a twofold purpose in adopting this policy. First, we firmly 
believe that no philosophical opinion, not even our own, is worthy of 
acceptance if it cannot survive the scrutiny of public forum. 
Secondly, we believe that printing responses to our articles will 
demonstrate the soundness of our position. If the best qualified minds 
in the inerrancy camp cannot refute our arguments-- and we believe 
they can't-- that should be a strong indication, at the very least, 
that our position deserves further consideration.

With the publication of our first issue, we earnestly solicit your 
consideration of our views on this important matter. If you disagree 
with us, write a response. We will consider it for publication. If you 
have questions, send them to us. We will try to answer them.