Front Page: winter 1992

          SILENCE IN FANTASYLAND 

   On October 26-28, 1978, the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy 
(ICBI) met in Chicago to begin a ten-year project designed to define and 
defend the biblical inerrancy doctrine.  In this issue of TSR, we are featur-
ing an article by Dr. Robert H. Countess, who was present at the Chicago 
ICBI summit. Dr. Countess did not sign "The Chicago Statement on Biblical 
Inerrancy" that was released to the press at the close of the summit.  In the 
article we are publishing, he discusses a single "case in point" that will 
explain why he could not conscientiously sign a document that proclaimed total 
inerrancy in all matters that biblical authors "were moved to speak and write 
about."

   In the article, Dr. Countess quoted a comment about his "case in point" 
that Dr. Gleason Archer, the noted inerrancy defender, made in a personal 
letter.  We wrote to Dr. Archer several times and offered him equal space to 
reply to Dr. Countess's article.  In response, we finally received a letter 
from Dr. Archer in which he listed and discussed three "sinister conse-
quences [that] logically ensue from the assumption that the Bible is not what 
it purports to be, namely, the inspired Word of God, revealed to fallen man 
for his salvation."  We regret to say that none of his three points addressed 
or even mentioned the "case in point" that Dr. Countess discussed in his 
article.

   For that reason, we are not publishing Dr. Archer's letter.  Our policy is 
to print only materials that pertain directly to the issue of Bible inerrancy, 
and in Dr. Archer's letter, we saw nothing that related to the issue except 
passing mention that he made of "predictive prophecies" that prove divine 
inspiration.  He made no attempt to explicate any alleged prophecy to prove 
the merit of his point.  Because of Dr. Archer's reputation, however, we will 
gladly send a copy of his letter to anyone who requests it.  Please include 
with the request a self-addressed, stamped business envelope.

   Dr. Countess has described himself as a conservative Presbyterian minis-
ter "who holds a high view of Scriptures."  By this, he means that one 
"should say on the scholarly-historical-critical basis  NO MORE and NO LESS 
for the Scriptures than one would say UPON CAREFUL EXAMINATION of any 
other collection of ancient writings." In a letter to us, he said this about his 
approach to biblical interpretation:

        I seek to CONSERVE a document's historical, philosophical, 
     social, physical character.  To me, this is the "high view" of 
     Scripture....  In my opinion, a Gleason Archer does NOT hold to 
     a high view when he twists a text's error factor and seeks to 
     make unilaterally an error into truth.

We are delighted to feature a writer with Dr. Countess's credentials.  His 
"case in point" is simple but persuasive enough to destroy the illusion of 
Bible inerrancy.

   In this issue, we are also publishing another article about the "sons of 
God/ daughters of men" myth referred to in Genesis 6:1-4.  This one is a 
response to an article that Wayne Jackson, a prominent Church-of-Christ 
preacher, published on the same subject in Christian Courier, a monthly 
fundamentalist paper that he edits.  We have quoted Mr. Jackson's articles 
many times  in TSR, and each time we have offered him equal space to re-
spond. Each time he has refused, as he did this time too.

   We have often said that lay people who believe in Bible inerrancy are 
living in a fantasyland, but we are not so sure that the same is true of 
preachers who proclaim the doctrine so loudly in one-sided situations.  The 
silence of men like Archer and Jackson when they are offered publishing 
space to defend their belief in inerrancy only deepens our suspicion that they 
know enough to realize their position cannot survive close public (See SI-
LENCE, P. 16) scrutiny.  So when they are offered the chance to defend 
Bible inerrancy in any kind of forum where they will be confronted  by an 
informed opposition, they refuse it.  They prefer to confine their efforts to 
captive pulpit audiences and one-sided religious journals.

   They prefer silence in fantasyland to open examination of what they 
preach.

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