That made sense, to me at least. Thanks for your thoughts on this… Its good to hear from someone with a pentecostal background and with your current location in the UMC; I don’t hear that voice very often.

As for your post: I find it interesting because I didn’t grow up in a PCUSA church. I grew up in a conservative Pentecostal tradition, and I always considered the United Methodist Church to be liberal – until I became one. I am now ministering in a UMC church and have discovered they are far more conservative theologically than I would have guessed. There are a lot of similarities in the UMC and PCUSA regarding their view of Scripture (with the UMC focusing more on Arminian views and the PCUSA focusing more on Calvinist views – although as a Pentecostal, we focused a great deal on Calvin ourselves), but I think the PCUSA has been a little more relaxed and open in their interpretation than the UMC. I think that’s probably good.

There must be a healthy balance. I think if we read the Bible not from just a “life handbook” perspective, but from a “story of God and man” perspective, we see that events and history and science fit much more neatly than it does in the “textbook/handbook” scenario. I don’t even know if any of that made sense, but that’s my 2 cents.

You said…

I guess it’s all so fitting considering their praxis.

That’s kind of a gross generalization, don’t you think? I mean, I wouldn’t say something like, “Well I’m not surprised by those silly inerrantists considering their praxis,” because that would just lump a whole lot of well meaning people into a mass of perdition out of which one could never hope to escape. Moreover, it would be a vague and nearly meaningless thing to say.

If you mean to imply that PCUSA people are generally “liberal” and by that you might mean to imply that they are actually libertine (viz. not caring what is right or wrong), then I can assure you that you have never spent much time in a PCUSA church with PCUSA people. They can be some of the most nit-picky people I’ve ever known, for better or for worse. And I know for a fact that they care about the Bible and the way we read it. Just spend a few minutes with the Book of Order or the Book of Confessions. These are Calvinists, man.

Perhaps you have some final disagreements with those in the PCUSA, but don’t imply that they don’t care (if I was, in fact, correct about the implications of your enigmatic indictment).

The confession takes seriously (a) the human nature of the creation of the Scripture, (b) the divine source that inspired its creation and to which it points, and (c) the need to distinguish those and to work them out.

To me, its an act of mature faith to try to wrestle with that. Other hermenutics don’t seem intellectually honest enough to me. YMMV, though.

I never knew the PCUSA articulated their view on the Scriptures in that way . . . but then again, I guess it’s all so fitting considering their praxis.

Peace!