Mohler outlines his “essentials” of the faith; what he calls “first order truths” in his article on Friday.

Among them, of course, is the Biblical infallibility deal:

The truthfulness and authority of the Holy Scriptures must also rank as a first-order doctrine, for without an affirmation of the Bible as the very Word of God, we are left without any adequate authority for distinguishing truth from error.

The thing that makes this a “trick’ on their (the fundamentalists) part, is that with statements like this comes the implicit assumption that THEY are the only authorized interpreters of the Word. Never mind that “The Word” also emphasizes that “you shall know them by their fruits” and very obviously repeats over and over and over again a preferential option for the poor, which most fundamentalists will categorically oppose. That “adequate authority” is always going to be the one making the statement, or someone appointed by them. I mean, you can’t just say “That’s God’s word” and then (gasp) leave that to the whims of the actual reader……you have to convince them that the Bible is inerrant and then make sure whose insterpretations are assumed tobe inerrant along with that.

I’ll always remember Duke McCall’s words on this in a sermon he preached during the “Heart of America Bible Conference” held at Southern Seminary in 1980. He was one of the speakers in a line which otherwise included all of the “top dogs” in conservative and fundamentalist Baptist preachers, including WA Criswell and Adrian Rogers– the then SBC President, all of which had been sounding warnings about Southern Seminary teaching “heretical doctrine” and being “dangerously liberal”). McCall preached a semon that quieted that talk (for a while) , and he used a verse from (“My word shall not return to me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.” Isaiah 55:11) affirming his belief in the idea of the inspiration of scriptures, but also said: God forgive us when we confuse THAT WORD with our appropriation of THAT WORD.

The problem with the Mohler crew is not their belief in infallible scriptures, but where they take that notion, and how they use it as a justification for just about any kind of personal reputation destroying, in the name of “defending truth”. In doing so, they blaspheme truth, since a lot of what stands as truth is in the ethical appropriation of that truth in honest and humble relationships. Humility is required, lest we elevate ourselves to the position of being infallible ourselves (which includes what we insist as being “essentials to the faith, which ends up being a separator of souls who place “theological platforms” over Christ himslef as the sole measure of faith; a very “unBaptist” thing to do.