Amidst all the pressure to make nice with evangelicals, there are some key issues that are often overlooked. You can pick up these key issues occasionally in commentaries, less often in bold clearly stated articles or sermons. To put it in a nutshell, I think the issues I am talking about can all be summed up in one word: inerrancy.<\/p>\n
I would say most who call themselves fundamentalists would say \u201cYes\u201d to inerrancy and many evangelicals would also. In fact, many evangelicals have gone so far as to sign an official statement on inerrancy, The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy<\/a>. Search for it on the web and you will find many references to this document.<\/p>\n So far so good, but only so far.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n One huge problem is the many evangelicals who say they support (and some have signed) the Chicago statement but then go on to deny the details of Scripture at various points. You will see examples of this over and over again in commentaries. Today an article<\/a> was drawn to my attention (HT: <\/span>Sharper Iron<\/span><\/a>)<\/span> where the author lists 8 things that don\u2019t make or break Christianity: young earth creationism, the authorship of the pastoral epistles, the inerrancy of Scripture, the universal flood, the character witness of Christians, the inspiration of Scripture, the unity of Christianity, the theory of evolution. In the discussion that follows, the author makes it clear that he also doesn\u2019t think it really matters whether Jesus was born of a virgin or not (See comment #7).<\/p>\n Those who are familiar with my views will not be surprised at how offensive this document is to me. I addressed similar themes in my recent message<\/a> at the Northwest FBFI Fellowship meeting. In my sermon, I was addressing the unity and inerrancy of the book of Proverbs (among other things). Proverbs, surprisingly enough, is under attack from evangelical scholars who accept liberal notions about the integrity and authorship of the book. It is the work, they say, of much later editors who stuck Solomon\u2019s name on the front to give it the ring of authority, much the way charlatans have done with what we call the New Testament pseudapigrapha (false writings) such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Barnabas, and others. What they mean to say is that when Proverbs starts like this \u2013 \u201cThe proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel\u201d \u2013 the words as stated are in error. They are not true, according to many evangelical scholars.<\/p>\n