It’s been a rough week for Gavin Ortlund. On Sunday, it was announced that his gay pastor, Sam Allberry, was made to resign for “an inappropriate relationship with another man.” This garnered him a lot of scrutiny because he goes to the same church as Sam Allberry, Russell Moore, and Barnabas Piper. This was followed up with a video released by Ortlund that obfuscated the error of believing that the Bible contains error.
“Is inerrancy a first-rank doctrine? A lot of people want to say yes to this. Let’s be careful here.On the one hand, we want to affirm the basic instinct in the heart of a Christian to receive the Bible as the Word of God. One mark of a regenerate heart is to love what God says. We think Psalm 119.However, Christians can and do disagree on the vocabulary and understanding how Scripture functions as divine revelation. And there is room for difference on these points among legitimate Christians.We have to make a distinction here between total rejection of the divine qualities of the Bible versus disagreements among Christians about proper vocabulary and understanding in more specific questions.Many godly Christians who don’t use the term ‘inerrancy’ — C.S. Lewis, Leslie Newbigin, J. Gresham Machen — devoted his whole life opposing liberal attacks on Christianity. At the same time he recognized, quote:
‘It must be admitted that there are many Christians who do not accept the doctrine of plenary inspiration. That doctrine is denied not only by liberal opponents of Christianity, but also by many true Christian men.’ Plenary just means full. ‘That doctrine is denied not only by liberal opponents but also by many true Christian men.’
Note the distinction and ask yourself: Is this how we use the term ‘liberal’ today?
‘There are many who believe that the Bible is right at the central point, in its account of the redeeming work of Christ, and yet believe that it contains many errors. Such men are not really liberals, but Christians: because they have accepted as true the message upon which Christianity depends. A great gulf separates them from those who reject the supernatural act of God with which Christianity stands or falls.’You see, Machen is this bulwark against theological liberalism. If you look up ‘theological conservative’ in the dictionary, you see Machen. So to speak, even for him, the term ‘liberal’ was used carefully — that which is fully non-Christian, not necessarily…
Now you might disagree with Machen, but still I think we can recognize today that how… and this just grieves me… sometimes don’t you fear God? We are so uncareful as the fundamentalists of a century…”(The clip ends there, focusing on Gavin speaking directly to camera with a microphone, using hand gestures, and overlaying Machen quotes with a book cover image from Christianity and Liberalism.) This matches the critique in the X post: Ortlund cites Machen (a staunch opponent of liberalism) to argue that denying “plenary inspiration” (full inerrancy) doesn’t make someone a liberal or non-Christian, distinguishing it from core gospel truths.
Gavin Ortlund cites Gresham Machen who in the middle of an onslaught of liberalism recognized the reality that many genuine believers were being swept up in believing that the Bible contained errors as an endorsement for errancy being within the bounds of orthodoxy. He also cites CS Lewis who had a number of heterodoxical views, including on hell.
This is Gavin Ortlund’s pattern of argumentation is that he picks errors of great men who came before him, generally during the 19th century, through CS Lewis, to legitimize theological liberalism today. Although he is known to cite ancient sources, like when he lied about Josephus believing in a local flood.
Church history is something to learn from. Tolerating errancy is what caused many denominations to fall into apostasy. Ortlund, however, would rather cherry pick the wrong lessons as license for error today. The Fundamentalists of 100 years ago didn’t go far enough, as they likely did not have the time or capacity. Everyone who denied the supernatural claims of Christianity first denied the inerrancy of Scripture. And the rest of the 20th century is a testament to that.
Additionally, Gavin Ortlund is butthurt about being called a liberal, most notably over his local flood view and his video builds up to a renewed defense of this position. Ortlund’s grievance shows amid some of the fakest performative piety about online discourse captured on video.
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