From _The Skeptical Review_ 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 question 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 reliablility" 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 oppoents.

If this is so, it would be entirely consistent with Darwinism[sic],
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 nature, 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 evolution,
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 enterprising 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 living.

"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 acknowledge 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.

********************************

FREE SUBSCRIPTION: A free one-year subscription to The Skeptical 
Review can be obtained by writing to P. O. Box 617, Canton, IL
61520-0617.