The Real “Slippery Slope” of Inerrancy
by Jim Denison

Have you heard of the “Wicked Bible?” It was an edition of the King James Version issued in London in 1631. The word “not” was accidentally left out of the seventh commandment, so that Exodus 20:14 read “Thou shalt commit adultery.” William Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury, ordered the printers to pay a fine of 300 pounds. Errors can have consequences.

No one can claim that our versions of thc Bible are always error-free. However, many today make just this claim for the non-existent original manuscripts. One of their most compelling and popular arguments is the so-called “slippery slope” theory: if one gives up “inerrancy,” he or she will inevitably “slide” into liberalism. A Wicked Bible will lead to wicked doctrine. Biblical “errors” have consequences, indeed.

This article will examine the “slippery slope” theory, and see where the inerrancy argument actually leads.

Posting the warning sign

I enjoy hiking, but I’m not very good at directions. If the trail doesn’t have signs along the way, I’ll soon get lost. If I’m hiking a mountain path, I may slide right off the trail.

This is the warning we’ve heard about inerrancy. If we do not adhere to the inerrancy of the Bible, we have taken the first step in an inevitable slide down the mountain of faith. Inerrancy is the warning sign which protects us doctrinally and spiritually. In 1976 Harold Lindsell, then editor of Christianity Today, published The Battle for the Bible. His book was one of the first to raise the issue of inerrancy for Southern Baptists. In fact, his book contains an entire chapter alleging growing liberalism in the SBC. Perhaps his most powerful argument for inerrancy is the “slippery slope.” Here is Lindsell’s warning:

It is my opinion that it is next to impossible to stop the process of theological deterioration once inerrancy is abandoned. I have said that it is a theological watershed just as the Continental Divide is the watershed for the United States and Canada. The water that flows on one side of the divide ends up in the Atlantic Ocean. The water that flows on the other side of the divide ends up in the Pacific Ocean. But once the water starts down one side or the other, it continues until it reaches its oceanic destination. Errancy and inerrancy constitute the two principles, and which one a person chooses determines where he will end up.

No matter how sincere a man may be, and however carefully he guards against further theological concessions, they are inevitable once inerrancy is given up.l Earlier in his book Lindsell makes the same argument in even stronger terms:

embracing a doctrine of an errant Scripture will lead to disaster down the road. It will result in the loss of missionary outreach; it will quench missionary passion; it will lull congregations to sleep and undermine their belief in the fullorbed truth of the Bible; it will produce spiritual sloth and decay; and it will finally lead to apostasy. 2

Dire predictions. If Lindsell is right, the struggle over inerrancy is crucial, indeed.

And his rhetoric has fueled much of the battle.

As President of the Southern Baptist Convention, Jimmy Draper staked out the same warning sign for his fellow Southern Baptists. In his book, Authority: The Critical Issue for Southern Baptists, he wrote,

There are people among us today, teaching in our institutions, laboring in our denomination, pastoring in our churches, who have not departed all that far from classic biblical doctrine. They still believe that Jesus is God. They still believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ. They still believe in the virgin birth. But, they do not believe that everything in Scripture is necessarily accurate and without error. They have started over the edge…

This stance may be almost imperceptible. There may not be a deliberate abandonment of a doctrinal position. They may not even know that they have headed downhill. But they are in an unstable position. Whether such individuals ever let go and slip further down or not, they are still in an unstable position. They are at least admitting the possibility of going further. It is also extremely likely that those to whom they minister or those whom they teach will go a lot farther down than they do.3

Furthermore, Lindsell warns that once we start down this slippery slope, we will likely never make it back to the trail: “Rarely does one hear of a journey from liberalism to orthodoxy, from an errant Scripture to an inerrant Scripture. For the most part it is a one-way street in the wrong direction.”4

It is easy to see why the inerrancy argument has been compelling for so many. Who among us wants to slide off the mountain of faith onto the rocks of apostasy?

Surely we must insist that our leaders espouse the inerrancy of Scripture, or they will lead us where we do not want to go.

Warnings about the warning sign

A trail guide can be convincing and still wrong. Unfortunately, these guides have overlooked some important facts. Their warning sign simply doesn’t work, for at least four reasons.

First, espousing inerrancy does not guarantee that one will stay on the path of orthodox biblical interpretation. As one example, consider Dr. Clark Pinnock, Professor of Systematic Theology at McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario. Dr. Pinnock was one of the seven signatories of the “Ligonier Statement” which begins, “We believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the inspired and inerrant Word of God.”5 As Dr. Pinnock earlier wrote, “If one believes the Scripture to be God’s Word, he cannot fail to believe it inerrant.”6 Clearly he would be an “inerrantist.”

And yet Dr. Pinnock’s view of the Bible has not protected him from interpreting it in ways which would trouble most Southern Baptists. As one example, regarding the ultimate destiny of the unevangelized, he has written, “According to the Bible, people are saved by faith, not by the content of their theology… The Bible does not teach that one must confess the name of Jesus to be saved.”7 The point is not Dr. Pinnock’s position on this issue, but the fact that “inerrancy” did not keep him from “sliding” to it. Apparently the warning sign doesn’t protect him after all.

Second, there are many who refuse to espouse a strict “inerrancy” statement who nonetheless persist in a very conservative theology. As an example, the historian Mark Noll points to evangelicals in England:

When British evangelicals failed to match their American counterparts around the turn of the century and did not define a sharply-edged concept of inerrancy, it seems not to have affected their general vitality. In fact, while continuing somewhat fuzzy on biblical inerrancy, British evangelicals experienced a renewal beginning in the 1930s, and this renewal finally led in the 1950s and 1960s to sharper, more decisive statements concerning the Bible’s complete truthfulness.8

I myself refuse to use the word “inerrancy” for the Bible, since the term is too ambiguous to be useful.9 However, I believe that every word of the Bible is inspired by God, and that the Scriptures are entirely trustworthy and authoritative. I am an example of one who disavows “inerrancy” while maintaining a conservative theology. I’ve not found the slope to exist at all.

Third, proponents of the “slippery slope” argument ignore basic Baptist polity. Every Baptist church is autonomous and independent. There is no hierarchy of enforced theology in Baptist life. Even if seminaries and colleges were teaching an “errant” Bible, and their graduates were thus destined to slide into further theological decay, the churches are totally free to reject these graduates and their theologics. Unlike mainline denominations, there is no theological or social position which can be forced on a Baptist church. There is no graduate which can be forced into a Baptist pulpit. The churches are free to reject any candidate who represents genuine theological liberalism. And every Baptist church I know or have heard of, would.

I have heard no one claim that theological liberalism has infected Baptist churches. Accusations have been leveled against seminaries and colleges, and we’re told that these problems have persisted for years. And yet l’ve seen not a single charge that such “liberalism” has affected a local church. Apparently the slope isn’t very slippery.

Fourth, the “slippery slope” theory rests on faulty reasoning. We’re told that if we admit there are questions with the biblical text regarding geography or science, we’ll soon slide into questioning vital areas of faith. If we cannot be sure how many angels were at the resurrection, soon we’ll be questioning the resurrection itself.

However, this reasoning doesn’t work in life. When you find typographical errors in a newspaper, do you question everything the paper contains? If you disagree with your pastor regarding his interpretation of a particular text, do you reject every part of his theology? By the “slippery slope” argument, once you’ve started down the precipice there’s nothing to break your fall. But the fact is, the slip doesn’t necessarily lead to a slope at all.

For these reasons, the “slippery slope” warning sign simply doesn’t work. In fact, no less an authority than Mark Noll disagrees with the argument:

A modern history of Scripture does not, in my opinion, justify the famous slippery slope argument. That is, I do not feel that it is accurate to conclude that giving up traditional views of Scripture is the first mark of a slide into liberalism and unbelief.10

This slope doesn’t necessarily slip at all.

The Real “Slippery Slope”

I would propose a different “slippery slope” argument regarding inerrancy. History demonstrates that any denomination which begins to use inerrancy as its test of biblical orthodoxy will inevitably slide down the slope into division and controversy. The most recent examples of this division over inerrancy are the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod split11 and of course the Southern Baptist Controversy. 12 The inerrancy warning sign doesn’t keep us on the road of doctrinal purity; instead, it starts us down a slope which sidetracks our work and fractures our churches.

Perhaps some still believe that the end justifies the means, and that what we will have at the bottom of this slope justifies the damage done by the slide. I don’t. Instead of warning fellow hikers on the mountain of faith about nonexistent slippery slopes, let’s proclaim the Bible to those who don’t know the mountain even exists.

The slope they’re sliding down is the most dangerous of all.

(Jim Denison is pastor of Second-Ponce de Leon Baptist Church in Atlanta. This is the second of a series of articles on inerrancy)

ENDNOTES:

1Harold Lindsell, The Battle for the Bible (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1976), 142.

2Lindsell, Battle, 25.

3James T. Draper, Jr., Authority: The Critical Issue for Southern Baptists (Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1984), 20- 1.

4Harold Lindsell, “A Historian Looks at Inerrancy,” in Evangelicals and Inerrancy, ed. Ronald Youngblood (Nashville: Nelson, 1984),57.

5God’s Inerrant Word, ed. John Warwick Montgomery (Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, 1974), 7.

6CIark Pinnock, Biblical Revelation: The Foundation of Christian Theology (Chicago: Moody, 1971), 74.

7Clark H. Pinnock, A Wideness in God’s Mercy: The Finality of Jesus Christ in a World of Religions (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), 157-8.

8Mark Noll, “A Brief History of Inerrancy, Mostly in America,” in The Proceedings of the Conference on Biblical Inerrancy, 1987 (Nashville: Broadman, 1987), 23.

9See my earlier article, “Inerrancy: Definitions and Qualifications” in the Texas Baptists Committed newsletter, July 1994.

10Noll, 21-2.

11For an informed description of this tragic event see John H. Tietjen, Memoirs in Exile: Confessional Hope and Institutional Conflict (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990).

12Even Al Mohler, a leader in thc “Conservative” movement, admits the enormous size of the current conflict: “Though the Southern Baptist Convention is no stranger to controversy and crisis, the denomination now faces an impasse of imposing proportions. Webster’s definition of an impasse as ‘a predicament offering no obvious way of escape’ offers some sense of the challenge facing the Southern Baptist Convention” (R. Albert Mohler, Jr., “Has Theology a Future in the Southern Baptist Convention? Toward a Renewed Theological Framework,” in Beyond the Impasse? Scripture, Interpretation, & Theology in Baptist Life, ed. Robison B. James and David S. Dockery [Nashville: Broadman, 1992], 91).

June/July 1995