Luther replied, “Since then Your Majesty and your lordships desire a simply reply, I will answer without horns and without teeth. Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason—I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other—my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen.”

After growing up in a couple squishy-evangelical churches, I headed to a conservative evangelical college, located South of the Mason-Dixon Line. And like many conservative Bible colleges in the South, this one had a pretty strict code concerning dress, alcohol, and movies. And like most strict Bible colleges, the campus burst with 18- to 21-year-olds full of angst and eager to put off the old garb of 20th-century fundamentalism and put on the new garb of freedom in Christ.

But there was also more serious types who turned against conservative evangelicalism. These guys now write blogs with bios that begin, “I grew up in a fundamentalist church and went to a fundamentalist Bible college…” They delight to show video clips of the lowest common denominator of what could pass for conservative Christianity and then conclude, “This is why evangelicalism has nothing to do with Jesus!”

These guys in college were smart, fast-thinking, and with my squishy-church background, I had little to rebut them. In fact, they often seemed reasonable. They came into debates with books from academic presses and drank fair-trade coffee before fair-trade coffee was hip.

Constant Battle

Inerrancy and the authority of Scripture became the center of what seemed like a constant battle on campus. Debates broke out in lecture halls and dorm rooms. Of course, it didn’t take long before debates over inerrancy and the authority of Scripture led to debates over homosexuality and women in ministry. Cultural and emotional baggage seemed to be a part of every discussion.

I remember, at one point, someone gave me an old photocopied article by Jack Rogers and Donald McKim on why the doctrine of inerrancy was a modernist invention of Old Princeton—Warfield especially. The article made me feel stupid for believing in inerrancy, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that giving up on inerrancy had more severe consequences for the authority of Scripture.

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