CBF: Bible Not Inerrant  

                                                                                                                                                                     Vol. IX, No. 6, June/July 1996

     In August 1990 the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship was formed as a “group of Moderate Southern Baptists and ex-Southern Baptists." In 1990 a paper titled "An Address to the Public from the Interim Steering Committee of the Cooperative Baptist fellowship" was written by Cecil E. Sherman and Walter B. Shurden, primarily Sherman, and presented to the August 1990 gathering. An excerpt is reprinted here. The full text may be found in The Struggle for the Soul of the SBC, Mercer University Press, 1993, pp 309-314. This selection reproduces the paragraph in "The Address" which deals with the Bible.

     "... the ideas that divide Baptists in the present 'controversy' ... are strong and central; these ideas will not be papered over. Here are some of these basic ideas.

     "1. Bible. Many of our differences come from a different understanding and interpretation of Holy Scripture. But the difference is not at the point of the inspiration or authority of the Bible. We interpret the Bible differently. ... We also, however, have a different understanding of the nature of the Bible. We want to be biblical - especially in our view of the Bible. That means that we dare not claim less for the Bible than the Bible claims for itself. The Bible neither claims nor reveals inerrancy as a Christian teaching. Bible claims must be based on the Bible, not on human interpretations of the Bible.”

Comment:

     We can all agree that "many of our differences come from a different understanding ... of Holy Scripture," though I would maintain that this is by far our primary point of difference. If language has meaning, there are many passages in the Bible which make exactly that claim. Moreover, note the contradiction in the above paragraph. The second sentence asserts that "the difference is not at the point of the inspiration or authority of the Bible."  Yet just five sentences later we read, "The Bible neither claims nor reveals inerrancy, as a Christian teaching."

     It is, however, most helpful for the leader of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship to acknowledge that different understandings of the nature of Scripture are a central point of difference between CBF'ers and Southern Baptists. If you believe the Bible is without error, you now know with which group you should stand.