Progressive Revelation
or
Why I Am Not a Fundamentalist
Stephen Van Kuiken
Rincon Congregational Church
Tucson, Arizona
August 29, 2010
It’s time to realize that any belief in biblical inerrancy is itself unbiblical.
—William Sloane Coffin
The Bible is the means through which I hear, confront and interact with the Word of God. No, the words of the Bible are not for me the words of God. That distinction is, for many, a narrow edge, but it is an edge that must be walked consciously and deliberately if the Word of God is to be heard in this generation.
—John Shelby Spong, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism
Reading: John 3:1-10
Will Campbell, a kind of a maverick in the Southern Baptist Church, tells a story of a man who stopped by Will’s farm on day. The guy seemed to be probing Will to see if he believed in the right things. One of the things that the man asked was if he believed the Bible to be literally true. Campbell recognized where he was going with this line of questioning, so he said,
“Of course, I believe that the Bible is literally true. And I am so glad that I just met someone like me! In fact, you know what? Let’s you and me go on down to prison right now and take a sledge hammer and some wire cutters and let’s knock down those prison walls. What do you say?”
“I don’t understand,” the man said.
“Well, you believe in the literal truth in the Bible, don’t you?”
“Ya, sure.”
“Well, doesn’t it say that ‘the prisoners shall be set free’ and ‘the captives shall be released?”
“Yes, but you’ve got to understand the history and…”
“Now, don’t go exegete’n on me, friend. Did you say that the Bible is literally true or not?”
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