“Zimmermann’s prototypical evangelical experience is emblematic in one additional, unexpected way. Since graduating from high school, Zimmermann has undergone a revolution in his thinking about evangelicals’ foundational text, the Bible, to the extent that he no longer regards the Bible as inerrant, dictated by God, historically accurate in all of its claims or even internally consistent with itself.”
““The Bible holds high authority in my life,” Zimmermann told me recently. And yet, he added,
I think it’s important to remember the intent and purpose of the biblical texts. These texts were not intending to portray exact historical fact but to show how God is moving with history, alongside people […] If we understand the term inerrancy to be “without error” then no, I don’t view the Bible as inerrant […] The Scripture is not trying to be without error. It is trying to communicate the love God has for His creation.”
“Evangelical Christianity in America is in the midst of a wholesale generational, cultural, and doctrinal transformation. Confronted by a secularizing and diversifying society, evangelicals are abandoning long-held political allegiances, softening their views on sexuality, grappling with the racial divide in their churches, and rethinking their entire approach to ministry and evangelization.”
“Underlying all of these developments is a more fundamental change in the way evangelicals understand and interpret their most cherished text, the Bible.”
“Though evangelicals proclaim themselves — and are portrayed in most media accounts — to be univocal followers of an inerrant, plainly interpreted Bible, in fact there is widening diversity in their approach to Scripture. Like Zimmermann, a growing number of evangelicals are abandoning “the simplified answers” and seeking a richer, more nuanced, more challenging engagement with Scripture, one grounded not in aphorisms or political ideology, but in what Zimmermann called the deeper “truth of who God is.””
“A new evangelical theology is taking shape, one that retains the Bible as its centerpiece, but understands it very differently. Evangelicals once summarized their approach to Scripture with a staccato catchphrase: “The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it.” Today, especially among younger evangelicals, each part of that formula is undergoing revision.”
“I’ve never been in the camp of wanting to draw these hard lines,” Zimmermann told me. He went on:
My hard lines are sort of, “Just go with the basic statements of the faith.” Yes, I believe in Jesus, and if people don’t believe in Jesus, alright, there’s room for conversation there. I never want to be the one to count someone out. I don’t think that’s my job. What I’ve seen in the Scriptures is to love, and love, and love, and keep on loving until they kill you.”
““For a long time, whatever white evangelical leaders said was theology was theology with a capital T,” Lee said when I spoke with her recently,
Today, because of the demographic shifts and because of where young evangelicals are theologically and the influx of people of color, we’re seeing that theology can come from many different places […] Theology is becoming more inclusive of the people who are within the church.”
“Evangelical observers do not dispute such claims. “There’s a shift as older generations are passing away and new generations are coming of age,” said Jonathan Merritt, an evangelical author and columnist for Religion News Service, whose coverage has closely tracked evangelicals’ evolving attitudes toward Scripture.”
“He added:
You’ve seen a fracturing of the movement. You’ve got an approach now where when people want to know what the truth is about something, young Christians are still consulting the Bible. But oftentimes they’re bringing the Bible into conversations with other forms and sources of knowledge […] To see the Bible as a one-stop shop for everything, science, history, every matter of faith, and anything and everything you need to know is contained there — that’s been a perspective that’s shifted.”
“Thanks to America’s recent about-face toward same-sex relationships, that shift is now observable in real time, both in print and online. “I’m opening a can of worms,” writes Ken Wilson, a prominent Michigan pastor, at the start of his 2014 book, A Letter to My Congregation: An Evangelical Pastor’s Path to Embracing People Who are Gay, Lesbian and Transgender into the Company of Jesus. In 216 densely argued pages, Wilson tells how what began as a “fleeting unease” grew into a wholesale reevaluation not only of what the Bible says about sexuality, but of basic assumptions about biblical truth long considered sacrosanct within evangelicalism.”
““We become understandably concerned when we think the authority, value, or trustworthiness of Scripture might be at stake,” Wilson writes. Nevertheless, he concludes that over-interpretation of a handful of biblical prohibitions against homosexuality has obscured a deeper biblical message:
We are called to practice the gospel discipline, the gospel glory, the gospel enactment, of mutual acceptance […] It seems to me that this ethic is emphasized so strongly because the Jesus movement knew all too well the danger of over-zealous or harmful application of the Bible.”
““I don’t know of anybody who’s a biblical literalist,” New York City megachurch pastor Tim Keller says in a 2009 online video tutorial about biblical interpretation. Keller, founder of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan and co-founder of the national conservative church network where Kevin DeYoung serves on the governing council, is widely hailed by evangelicals for successfully ministering in a secular city without compromising biblical integrity. Keller’s official position on the Bible is that “Scripture is our final authority” for all matters of faith. Nevertheless, he carves out room in his tutorial for skeptical New Yorkers to reinterpret individual biblical passages that conflict too discordantly with modern life.”
“Keller says he himself doesn’t take the creation story in the first chapter of the biblical book of Genesis literally because it is not written:
as historical prose narrative […] Obviously, Genesis 1 has a big impact on how you understand evolution and so forth. So, I would consider myself a person who believes in the full authority of the Bible, and yet even if you believe that, there’s room for debate about what parts of the Bible you take literally or not.”
“Trinity Grace offers a different form of Christianity:
We invite people into community. We invite them into groups exploring the Scripture and no question is taboo. Let’s look at the text and read it together and ask for wisdom from those who have gone before us and the Spirit itself […] I would make a lot of enemies in the evangelical world if I was quoted saying that parts of the Scriptures are parabolic, that there wasn’t a six-day creation […] [But] let’s argue that the Scriptures as a whole are parabolic in nature. Does that make them less true? Sheep don’t cry wolf but the parable still delivers a truth. At a 30,000-foot level, if we can agree with that, then maybe we can get past some of the hang-ups people have toward the text.”
“In practice, said Wasko, church members do not read all Bible passages with the same interpretive lens:
If my whole faith is ruined because all of a sudden creation wasn’t six days or Jesus didn’t walk on water, that’s not really faith. I still believe lots of crazy-sounding things, like Jesus’s resurrection from the dead. If you reject that, you’re moving away from orthodox Christianity […] I’m just saying that if my God of the Scriptures is not bigger than my ability to make sense of them, that’s not God. If I can figure everything out, then that’s pretty pathetic. A lot of people like to work with bricks, not rubber bands and springs. But I think life is more dynamic than bricks.”