People often ask me, “How can churches justify same sex marriage and all the other deviant sexual orientations so prominent in today’s culture? Don’t they believe in the clear teaching of scripture?” No one single idea, philosophy, or period in history has brought us to such a shift in societies’ thinking. However, two pivotal points have challenged the way people think about the Bible. The Enlightenment period of history in the late 17th and 18th centuries with rapid advancements in science, gradually put reason and individualisms into the forefront and pushed Biblical authority into the background. Reason and scientism began swallowing up faith and revelation. This further advanced the erosion of Biblical authority.
A second catalyst came in the 1960’s from the secular philosopher, Jacques Derrida who formulated the hypothesis of deconstruction of language and words. Simply summarized, he said words are meaningless to any external realities because words refer only to other words in a text and there is no single correct meaning or interpretation of a passage or text. The “death of God” theologians fastened onto his ideas. They utilized his thinking, as further proof the Bible was just a book written by men locked in their own culture, experiences, and language who wrote about their own subjective experiences and never intended to communicate objective truths about God. This threatened the authority of scripture because deconstruction challenged all objective meaning and authority. It is little wonder a majority of people today do not believe in absolute truth.
One example of erosion of Biblical authority began with the challenge to Genesis chapters one through three, which give the story of creation. Those who refute the biblical truth about creation began wondering if Genesis is scientifically wrong here, what else could be incorrect in the Bible. I’m sure Satan seized this open door of doubt raising unending questions when scripture contradicted someone’s sinful lifestyle. With the prominence of reason and empirical logic, people began pondering things like, “The Bible is out of date. This only applied in the first century; the world has advanced. The authors of the Bible were limited by the lack of scientific knowledge. Love is never wrong. The Bible is full of errors. The words used against sexual perversion are mistranslated. The Bible is not the Word of God, but it contains the Word.” These kinds of doubts are as endless as the temptations of the sin nature. The LORD warned through Jeremiah, The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? (Jer 17:9). Yet, this skepticism has crept from individuals into churches and religious institutions.
Liberal churches that challenge the teaching of the Bible have been around long before my lifetime. However, one contemporary group of churches known as the Progressive or Emerging Church, most of them coming out of Protestant churches, have fallen into much of the above ways of thinking. One prominent leader in the emergent church movement says, “Take the Bible seriously, not literally.” Another, once conservative minister, who opposed same sex-marriage, recently announced, “The church should accept gay couples”. You are probably asking, “How could this be happening?” Simple answer is the erosion of Biblical Authority. Doubting one part can interject doubt to other parts or the entire whole.
Land erosion does not always take place overnight. The Grand Canyons formed after thousands of years of erosion. Deconstruction has left doubters, not only as readers, but also as the authority over the meaning of a text based on their own personal perceptions and sinful desires. This leaves the Bible with infinite interpretations. Word by word, verse by verse, true meaning is washed away like the sands and pebbles of the Grand Canyons until all Biblical authority has eroded in their thinking.
Paul wrote . . . prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life (Phil 2:15, 16). We live in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, but we not only have God’s written word, Jesus the Word lives in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. In reality, no one, no philosophy, not even Satan can erode or strip away the authority of the Bible. The Bible can only lose authority in the minds of people. The devil has fought God’s word since the Garden of Eden; Did God really say (Gen 3:1)? Our response should be, “Yes He did, and I believe it.” When Biblical Authority is lost in a person’s thinking, they become the authority of meaning and can make the Bible say anything they want it to say. Thus, individuals and churches can justify sinful lifestyles.
Don’t allow the teaching of the world conform your mind and erode away Biblical Authority, especially in these difficult and trying times. His Word will prove true.
Sustaining Word for the Week: Hold fast the word of life. Shine as a light in the mist of darkness.