Biblical Inerrancy

Biblical Inerrancy

The doctrine of biblical inerrancy asserts that the original texts or teachings of the Bible contain no errors. The word infallibility sometimes appears as a synonym for inerrancy, but strictly speaking, the term infallibility has a slightly different sense, namely, that the claims of a religious authority cannot fail.

A good case can be made that all major branches of the Christian faith historically embraced biblical inerrancy or its equivalent, yet also that the definition of biblical inerrancy took on additional connotations and significance for Protestant evangelicals in the late 19th century.

Roman Catholics generally prefer to discuss religious authority in terms of the infallibility of the Church, which entails the teachings of its councils, leaders (especially the pope), and official documents, including the Bible. Eastern Orthodoxy looks particularly to the religious authority of the seven ecumenical Church councils.

For some Protestants, biblical inerrancy provides a litmus test for determining who is an evangelical. Thus biblical inerrancy became the theological basis for founding both the National Association of Evangelicals (1942) and the Evangelical Theological Society (1949).


While the most widely accepted evangelical confession of the 20th century, the Lausanne Covenant (1974), states that the Bible is “without error in all that it affirms,” the phrase implicitly allows some ambiguity since there are serious debates over what in fact the Bible actually affirms. Hence, while many evangelicals would agree with the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, the meaning and implications of that belief have often been contested.

The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978) was an attempt by certain evangelical theologians to articulate clearly and delimit the meaning of biblical inerrancy. Nevertheless, there are at least four rather different senses in which the doctrine of biblical inerrancy has been understood by those who embrace it. For some, biblical inerrancy means that every propositional statement in the Bible—including statements bearing upon science or history—must be accepted as a divinely sanctioned literal truth.

For others, the Bible is still in some important sense true when referring to nonreligious domains, but such references should not be pressed too literally, especially when they are merely describing human experiences of the physical world. A third approach turns the focus upon the reliability of the Bible’s religious teachings. The fourth way of understanding biblical inerrancy emphasizes the Bible’s overall purpose of bringing people into fellowship with God, rather than asking whether this or that proposition is true.

The doctrine of biblical inerrancy is frequently defended by one or more of the following arguments: an appeal to the nature of God (God cannot lie and the Bible is his divine word), the teachings of Jesus (Christ) of Nazareth about the trustworthiness of Scripture, the Bible’s own self-authenticating claims, the threat to religious authority if the Bible is errant, or the analysis of test cases to show that apparent errors in the biblical text are instead true and that supposed contradictions are actually in harmony with each other.

Dorothy Day

Dorothy Day

Dorothy Day was a peace and social justice activist, journalist, and writer who cofounded the Catholic Worker Movement, with the aim of enabling the needy to support themselves with dignity.

Day developed a concern for the poor at an early age. Her family endured the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. When her family lived in Chicago, she often wandered into the poor tenement districts to observe the life there. At the age of 16, Day won a scholarship to the University of Illinois at Urbana, where she studied journalism.

At various times throughout her life she protested against conscription, championed women’s and African-American rights, and called for an end to war. Day was jailed numerous times for her participation in nonviolent demonstrations.

Day aborted her first child to please her lover, who deserted her. She was married briefly to an older man before entering a common-law marriage with a scientist. The birth of her daughter Tamar prompted a spiritual awakening that led her to the Catholic Church. She became a devout Catholic, attending daily Mass and immersing herself in Scripture.


Day’s particular concern was to find an equitable way of life by which people could “feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do.” She felt the solution was a return to the land and worker ownership of the means of production. In 1932 she met Peter Maurin, a poor French Catholic immigrant. Together they formed the Catholic Worker Movement.

The Catholic Worker was a journal Day and Maurin used to spread the news of the movement. They also formed Catholic Worker houses of hospitality and farms, where people would live together and share their resources with one another. These venues pitted the gospel against the realities of human weakness, often with disappointing results.

Viewed in her time as a revolutionary, Day’s radicalism as she applied it to the gospel now inspires many to view her as a saint. Pope John Paul II approved the opening of her cause for canonization in 2000.

Ecumenical Movement

Ecumenical Movement

In 1517 Martin Luther nailed Ninety-five Theses to the door of a church in Wittenberg, a university town in the German province of Saxony, to start a debate over indulgences and related questions about Christian salvation.

His action is often understood to be the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. In 1529 Protestant representatives to the imperial Diet in Germany presented the Augsburg Confession, which enshrined the Protestant position at that time and is still accepted by all the Lutheran churches.

The rejection of that confession by the Roman Catholics with the support of the emperor, Charles V, has since been understood by many historians as the definitive division between the Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches, resulting in a plurality of churches in Western Christendom no longer in communion with one another.


Central to the Augsburg Confession was the doctrine of “justification by faith alone,” which together with “grace alone” and “scripture alone,” summarized the Protestant concerns. In addition, the Reformers insisted on changes in worship (especially the Mass) and the sacraments, changes unacceptable to the Roman Catholics and viewed by them as heretical. What began as a movement for the reformation of the Western (Latin) Church ended up with doctrinal division and ecclesiastical separation.

The Lutheran churches were not the only churches that came from the Reformation. Shortly after the Lutheran movement began, a similar movement, resulting in the formation of the Reformed churches, arose in Switzerland under the leadership of Ulrich Zwingli in Zurich. From there churches were established in many countries of Europe, with the predominant theological influence coming from John Calvin in Geneva.

In addition, groups of radical reformers (termed Anabaptists by their opponents) were formed and were persecuted by Reformed, Lutheran, and Roman Catholic Churches alike. Each of these groups developed distinct theological positions. From them, especially from the Church of England in England and its American colonies, came many new churches including the Baptists, Methodists, and Pentecostals.

In the 20th century the ecumenical movement was born. The 1910 World Christian Missionary Conference in Edinburgh is often considered its beginning. The conviction of missionaries that church division was harmful for their outreach gave rise to a worldwide (ecumenical) movement to overcome those divisions.

By 1948 many of the churches affected by that movement formed the World Council of Churches, an interchurch body representing a large percentage of Protestant churches. They were, in addition, joined by many Orthodox churches— churches that had become separate from the Roman Catholic Church long before the Protestant Reformation but that are much closer in theology and practice to Catholicism than to Protestantism.

At first opposed to ecumenical endeavors, the Roman Catholic Church during the Second Vatican Council in 1962–65 accepted the ecumenical movement as a fruit of “the grace of the Holy Spirit.” Afterward, it entered into more active cooperation with other churches and also began a series of dialogues over doctrinal differences with Orthodox and many Protestant churches, even though it did not join the World Council of Churches. Many Evangelical churches also did not join the World Council of Churches but have formed their own world alliance and national associations for cooperation.

As a result of the ecumenical movement, the climate has changed among a large number of Christian churches from hostility to friendliness and growing cooperation. In addition, dialogues among theologians representing their churches have produced a number of accords on previous doctrinal differences. The Faith and Order section of the World Council of Churches has sponsored multilateral dialogues.

The wide-ranging 1982 statement on Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, focusing on disputed areas of worship and sacraments, is often cited as the most successful result of those endeavors. In addition, various churches or church bodies have entered into bilateral dialogues with one another.

The bilateral dialogues have produced some notable doctrinal accords. Many Protestant churches have joined together or established communion with one another as a consequence of these accords. Some of the more significant have been concluded by the Roman Catholic Church with Oriental Orthodox and Assyrian churches.

Commissions of Eastern Orthodox theologians have come to agreements with their Oriental Orthodox counterparts. Doctrinal differences that antedate the Reformation by a millennium are now discussed if not reconciled. The Roman Catholic Church has, in addition, conducted a series of dialogues with the Anglican Communion that have produced a body of agreed statements on many of the disputed points between the two church bodies.

Not all of the important dialogues have been official dialogues between church bodies. Informal study groups like the Groupe des Dombes have made independent contributions. Perhaps the most significant result produced by such groups has been the series of statements by Evangelicals and Catholics Together, a committee of prominent Evangelicals and Roman Catholics in the United States.

The first statement, The Christian Mission In the Third Millennium in 1994, was widely influential in fostering rapprochement between two Christian groups that are sometimes considered to be the farthest apart from one another.

Symbolically, one of the most notable results of the bilateral accords has been the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ), signed by official representatives of the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation.

The JDDJ was prepared for by 35 years of dialogue between Lutheran and Roman Catholic theologians on the international level and the national level, most notably in the United States and Germany. In 1983 the United States dialogue produced an agreement, The Doctrine of Justification. This was followed by The Condemnations of the Reformation Era: Do They Still Divide?, a significant 1986 statement produced by a German study group.

Then the international commission in 1993 produced Church and Justification: Understanding the Church in the Light of the Doctrine of Justification. On the basis of these and other works, the JDDJ was produced and agreed to.

The JDDJ is noteworthy as being the only agreement officially accepted by the highest authority in the Roman Catholic Church and a Protestant church body. It is even more noteworthy as being an accord on the doctrine of justification, the point of disagreement that began the Reformation.

While the JDDJ acknowledges that it did not resolve all questions about justification, it did resolve enough of the most fundamental ones that, in the view of the two parties, the doctrine of justification no longer had to be church dividing. Although other points of disagreement remain, the JDDJ in effect marked an official recognition by the two church bodies that they do not have incompatible views of what it is to be a Christian.

The JDDJ was signed in 1999, just in time for the beginning of the new millennium. It was signed in the city of Augsburg, the city where the Augsburg Confession was presented to the emperor. It was signed on Reformation Sunday, the day that commemorates the posting of the Ninety-five Theses.

The JDDJ did not put to an end the disunity caused by the Reformation. It was, however, in the minds of those who signed it, an indication that the crucial step towards ending that disunity had been taken.

Jesus Movement

Jesus Movement

The Jesus movement flourished in the late 1960s and early 1970s in the United States and Europe. Young people involved in the hippie, or counterculture, movement were targeted by unorthodox evangelists or found their own way to Christianity.

Previous experimentation with drugs, Eastern religion, the occult, and communal lifestyles affected the way these young Christians approached their faith. Just as important was the deep alienation many young people felt toward “anyone over thirty” and the traditional or conventional institutions, including the churches, they controlled.

Culturally quite conservative, older church people were often offended by the clothes and hair-styles favored by the young and adamantly resisted making any concessions to their sensibilities or desires regarding worship.


Originally based in innovative churches, Jesus movement churches served as bases for vigorous evangelism on university campuses, beaches, and the streets. Many Jesus people joined more traditional churches, usually evangelical Protestant but also Catholic, Orthodox, or Episcopal. By the 1980s–1990s most evangelical churches had accommodated the worship styles and sensibilities pioneered by the Jesus movement.

For many the belief in an imminent apocalypse led to an interest in “prophecy,” which often became a conduit for conservative politics during the cold war. Perhaps ironically, the Jesus movement helped lay the foundation for the New Christian Right.

Contemporary evangelical Protestantism was deeply affected by the Jesus movement, absorbing its moral intensity. The latter can be seen most vividly in the revolution that has occurred in worship and popular Christian music.

Pope John Paul II

Pope John Paul II

Karol Józef Wojtyła (Voy-TEE-wah) was born on May 18, 1920, to Emilia Kaczorowska and Karol Wojtyła, a lieutenant in the Polish army. The couple had two other children years earlier: a daughter, who died in infancy, and Edmund, who became a medical doctor.

When Karol Józef was born, the family lived in Wadowice, Poland, in a flat owned by a Jewish family, directly across from St. Mary’s church, where Karol was baptized.

His father retired from the army in 1927. Karol’s mother died in 1929. Edmund died three years later in Kraków. Karol and his father would live together until the latter’s death in Kraków at the start of the German occupation, while Karol was still a teenager.


From 1939 to 1945, Wojtyła eked out an education. Before the Gestapo shut down the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, he had begun studies in Polish philology. Professors who escaped deportation opened an underground university, which Wojtyła attended. To support himself, he worked in a rock quarry and later in a chemical plant, surrounding himself with books and teaching himself languages.

From his father and parish priests in Wadowice, Wojtyła had learned the importance of prayer. In occupied Kraków, prayer was his lifeline to hope. There young Wojtyła met Jan Tyranowski, a tailor, mystic, and spiritual director.

Tyranowski created what he called a “living Rosary”: a group of 15 young men who received from him spiritual instruction and who were commissioned to pass it on to other young people. From Tyranowski, Wojtyła learned contemplative prayer, especially the spirituality of St. John of the Cross.

After his father’s death in February 1941, Wojtyła joined Archbishop Sapieha’s underground seminary and was ordained by him in November 1946. Sent to Rome, Wojtyła earned the first of two doctoral degrees in theology. Upon his return, Fr. Wojtyła had to devise ways to disguise his ministry.

Throughout the 1950s he published plays, poems, and articles under an alias; chaperoned college students on hiking and kayaking trips to teach the faith without observation; and counseled engaged couples on marital sexuality.

He taught at two universities, as a professor of philosophy at the Jagiellonian, and of social ethics at the Catholic University of Lublin. In 1958 Pius XII named Wojtyła auxiliary bishop of Kraków, and in 1963 Paul VI appointed him that city’s archbishop.

The Second Vatican Council (1962–65) brought the young archbishop to Rome, into the company of bishops from everywhere. Wojtyła spoke frequently in assemblies large and small, helped draft documents such as the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (The Church in the Modern World), and published poetry and articles for the people back home describing what the council meant for the church.

John Paul II statue

Karol Wojtyła was made a cardinal in 1967 and remained archbishop of Kraków for 15 years. He led a synod for the archdiocese, which met 119 times over seven years.

He strengthened the seminary and the Jagiellonian theology faculty, inaugurated marriage preparation programs and family ministries, encouraged youth movements, organized parish-based charitable committees, and made lengthy visitations to his parishes. He continued teaching and publishing without letup.

When Paul VI died in August 1978, Cardinal Wojtyła participated in the conclave that elected Albino Luciani, whose double name John Paul signaled his wish to continue the work of popes John XXIII and Paul VI. Wojtyła returned to Kraków.

But the new pope died a month later. Wojtyła departed again for Rome, fearing that he might remain there. He did eventually return, but not as archbishop. On October 16, 1978, Cardinal Wojtyła was elected the 264th successor of Peter and the first Polish pope ever.

Like Luciani, he took the double name of John Paul. Immediately, the whirlwind of activities that characterized his papacy began: visits to parishes in Rome, travels outside the Vatican, meetings, writings, and long hours prostrate in prayer.

Within three months, his marathon series of international journeys began with a pastoral visit to Mexico. In June 1979, much to the dismay of the communist government, he made the first of several visits to Poland.

The Soviet authorities realized that this pope was dangerous. On May 13, 1981, Mehmet Ali Agca, hired by the Bulgarian secret police at the behest of the Soviet KGB, shot John Paul as he rode through St. Peter’s Square. The wound was serious but not fatal.

Though recovery was slow and fraught with complications, the pope resumed his travels as soon as he could, even visiting Poland again in 1983. The most widely traveled pope in history, John Paul II visited a total of 129 countries, plus 145 trips within Italy, and visits to 317 of the 328 parishes in the diocese of Rome.

John Paul intended his papacy to address two major goals. First, he wished to implement Vatican II, a council full of hope for the church’s future. He promulgated in 1983 the revised Code of Canon Law for the Latin Church, and in 1990 the revised Code for the Eastern Churches, both built on council teachings. To restore clarity to church teaching, he commissioned the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. He delivered hundreds of catechetical addresses.

In 14 papal encyclicals, 15 apostolic exhortations, 45 “apostolic letters,” and numerous other writings, he taught on morality, life issues, the dignity of work, the dignity of women, the role of the family, the nature of the Trinity, and the meaning of the Creed. To provide models of the holiness called for in Vatican II, John Paul canonized 1,342 saints, more than the combined total of persons canonized since the 16th century.

A second goal was to prepare the church for the advent of the third millennium, an era John Paul saw as a springtime of hope. To that end, he announced a “new evangelization” of the world. His biennial World Youth Days attracted millions of young people from the world over. His first encyclical, published in 1979, had mentioned this jubilee as the beginning of a “new Advent” of the Son of God in human history.

A pope is a political, as well as a religious, leader. He is widely credited with a major role in the 1989 collapse of European communism. Perseverance, back-door negotiations, and providential coincidences resulted in the creation of diplomatic relations between the Holy See and the state of Israel in 1993.

During John Paul’s pontificate, 83 countries established diplomatic relations with the Holy See. Through dogged effort, his ambassadors at the United Nations were able to forestall activist efforts to reshape marriage and promote abortion on demand at the 1994 Cairo and 1995 Beijing women’s conferences.

But some problems proved insurmountable. The number of priests and seminarians continued to decline during John Paul’s papacy. Radical feminists persisted in challenging the church’s refusal to ordain women to the priesthood. Ecumenical dialogue with most Orthodox churches stalled.

Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, excommunicated in 1988 for ordaining bishops without authorization, died unreconciled despite efforts to reinstate him. The pope was criticized for appointing weak bishops and for failing to reform religious orders.

John Paul’s decline in health appeared to begin after the 1981 assassination attempt. Intestinal disorders and a series of falls in the early 1990s led to repeated hospitalizations. In 1994 he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, which gradually sapped his physical strength. On April 2, 2005, he died of complications from Parkinson’s. Karol Wojtyła’s reign as John Paul II lasted 26 years and 5 months, the third-longest papal tenure up to that time.