Since the word “honesty” has come up, I’m going to mention some situations where, it seems to me, honesty is the issue. (As it is, I believe, in the Kevin Kriedmann post.)

It’s pushing the envelope of honesty to say “We affirm inerrancy, but we don’t require you to believe in a young earth or 7, 24 hour creation days.” Actually, I think we left honesty well behind with that statement.

I work with a group of YECers. They were after me for a long time and finally gave up. We love each other but they are grieved over what they perceive as my abandonment of the Bible. (Made all the more frustrating by my constant, weekly references to events in Genesis 1-11 in my preaching.) They believe that if we don’t preach YEC, our students will not become Christians, won’t believe the Bible, won’t understand the Gospel and so forth.

Yet a lot of the inerrancy advocates I know are quite relaxed about their confidence that the Genesis 1-11 texts don’t require a young earth. To them, it’s no big deal.

I can’t judge someone else, but I tell all my students that the author or Genesis 1-11 believed the world was created in 7 24 hour days a couple of thousand years before he wrote. That was his understanding given the state of knowledge and the level of “scientific expression” at the time. I understand that there are linquistic issues with “day,” and I understand all the literary issues of the text, but we are talking about what did the author of Genesis 1-11 (and beyond, frankly) believe. In my mind, there is no doubt: 7/24.

Now I want to understand how an “inerrancy” affirming theologian gets around this from the standpoint of what the Biblical authors thought?

It’s not a problem for me, because I don’t see pre-scientific knowledge or non-modern forms of literary expression to be a problem for what God is doing in the Bible. The text of Genesis 1-11 answers the questions God is asking it to answer, the way he wants it answered. (Peter Enns, for those of you who want to read someone explain it a lot better than me.)

Everytime I hear someone called names such as I’ve been called this week by various internet Drs- a “pagan,” a denier of the inspiration and authority of the Bible, a “posturer,” a “danger to the church,” a “liberal,” who is “throwing out” all that is valuable etc etc etc ad yada yada- I wonder about the fellows in the PCA who reject YEC, but insist all of us affirm inerrancy.

Honesty? Integrity? Love of the brethren?

I don’t see it. I don’t have to use the same sentences as Jerome or Augustine, Luther or Calvin, Sproul or Mohler, Robertson or Hill. I have to believe the Bible is telling me the truth in the way God intends for me to hear it. I have to confess my faith in Jesus. If I am part of a particular communion, I have to confess what they require. But I don’t have to submit to another Christian over the word “inerrancy.”