The Heart of Being Reformed

Funny thing, how a negative comment can be the best thing to get you thinking.

I'd noticed the other day that my rather-less-than-bestselling book on faith and the multiverse had gotten a couple more ratings on Goodreads.  The overall rating: a "3," which was where it had been for a while.  That had been based on a whopping one reader, who evidently felt sort of meh about it.  Now, two new folks had bothered rating it.

One had given it a five out of five.  Yay!

The other, a one out of five.  Boo!

And of course, the one written review on Goodreads?  It's from the person who hated it.  Figures.  Because those negative things are, of course, where we tend fix our attention.  Why don't they like me?  What's wrong with me?  Snif...

But it's still worth listening, to this human being in their particularity, telling you why they hated it.   In this case, they thought the book was going to put multiverse cosmology in the context of the Bible, but it didn't.  There was no science in it!  There was no bible in it!  Evidently, they didn't bother looking at the footnotes.  Or the..um..text.  Maybe I should have bolded the science parts and put the Bible parts in italics.  Or used #hashtags.  I don't know.  Whichever way, it didn't register.  And the whole book was, as far as they were concerned, just standard-issue namby-pamby liberal hoo-hah, in which every faith is the same.

Sigh.  At least they put in the effort to write something, eh?

What was illuminating, though, was a particular one of their other complaints, the one directed at me personally.  Here I am, a pastor from a reformed tradition.  And though I talk about the Bible, the Bible doesn't seem to be my focus in the book.  Oh, sure, I reference the Genesis stories.  And other Torah.  And the Prophets.  And the Writings.  And yeah, I talk about Jesus, and God, and what the Kingdom of God means, and about the Gospel, with extensive footnotes from the Bible.

But I don't quote scripture in every other sentence I write.  I write and tell stories for those who aren't already steeped in the in-group language of my faith.  You know, like Ol' Uncle Paul did, up on the Areopagus, when he wanted to connect to people.  You know that story, right?  Ahem.

Which, as far as my dear reviewer was concerned, meant that I wasn't really Reformed.  My faith has to be entirely based in the Bible and expressed in its terms, or I am not upholding the purpose of the Reformation.

This is a good and valid thing to raise, because it's an issue worth talking about.  The Reformation, as I understand it, was not primarily about replacing ecclesiastical inerrancy with biblical inerrancy.  That was not its purpose, not if it was a God-breathed movement.

Its purpose was to break the grasp of a system that had been corrupted by human power and human grasping.  How?  By getting those who follow Jesus to realize that they can stand in the same relationship to God that Jesus did.  That's the point of the Spirit, that ephemeral third person of our philosophically complex Trinitarian faith.

In point of fact, the only way one can legitimately read scripture is through the lenses of the Spirit.  Otherwise, you can bend it and shape it and mangle it any way you see fit.  You can focus on irrelevant details.  You can justify your own sociopolitical biases, or your own position in the power structure of a culture.

The texts themselves are not sufficient.  John Calvin himself was clear on this in his Institutes.  Without the Spirit at work in the heart of the believer, those texts have no more authority than the church does when it has God's life and breath crushed out from it.

And as I reflected on that, I found myself grateful to the soul that stirred that reflection.  It's a good reminder of what it means to be reformed, and why being Reformed matters so very much.

"Biblical" Counseling

What is Biblical Counseling?

It was the sort of title that jumps right out at you, if you're a pastor flipping through a magazine where you generally don't encounter faithy stuff.  The magazine in question was Pacific Standard, a fascinatingly readable bi-monthly mag I was gifted a while back.  It's equal parts science and whimsy, and seems more interested in finding the interesting and unusual than riding the tides of cultural faddishness.  

Pacific Standard is a quality read, and it also takes pretty much no advertising, which is at first startling, and then refreshing.  Page after page of well-written and researched articles, and no shiny ads?  Lord, I could get used to that.

The article--which appears in the September/October edition--explores the Biblical or "nouthetic" counseling movement, which arose out of conservative Presbyterian circles in the late 20th century as a reaction to more overtly secular forms of psychotherapy.

The idea?  Push back against the concept that pastors are not equipped to counsel, and that "counseling" is something best left to clinically--and secularly--trained professionals.  Best to get back to the core principles of faith, argued the pastors who presented this concept, and to use them as they were meant to be used--to heal.

Scripture is sufficient, or so goes the mantra of the movement.

On some levels, I get this.  Given that the Greek word used in the Bible for "soul" is psyche, the idea that pastors are out of their depth when it comes to souls is a little troubling.  I got this line repeatedly in some of my counseling coursework, and it always bugged me a bit.  For some reason.

The article itself is remarkably balanced in the way that the Pacific Standard always is.  It presents some of the flaws and overreach of this movement, sure, particularly in the tendency of some practitioners to avoid or dismiss helpful clinical interventions.  Some practitioners are also less helpful than others, as they focus on "curing" homosexuality and insufficiently obedient wives.

But it also notes that it *works* a surprisingly large percentage of the time, with a success rate essentially identical to other secular methodologies.  It notes that many of the practitioners and leaders in the movement do not rule out working in tandem with medical science, and that they're motivated by a genuine desire to care for others.

It's talk-based and semi-directive therapy, after all, just grounded in a particular corner of a faith tradition.

What I wondered, though, was at the foundational assumption of Biblical counseling: that what mattered was that it be "biblical."  

I could see rooting a counseling method in the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.  Personal transformation towards a self aligned with God's most gracious purpose?  That was at the heart of what he taught.  When I talk to people about things that are troubling them, I'd hope that's what I'm doing.  It's certainly what I'm trying to do.

But "biblical" can mean so many different things. The Bible, as one discovers when one spends a lifetime studying it, does not have a single voice.  That's what makes our canon so rich, and so real, and such a deep source of wisdom.  And there is so very much powerful, life transforming truth woven into it.

But seen through the wrong eyes, very "biblical" things can be damaging.  The Bible can be made into an excuse to justify ancient biases, against women, against other nations or peoples, against those who are differently wrought.

"Christ-centered," perhaps.  "Spirit-led," maybe.  "Oriented towards the Reign of God Jesus of Nazareth taught and lived out and was willing to die for?"  Well, that's a bit too wordy, but conveys the idea.  And sure, you get that from the Bible.  But there's scripture, and there's Scripture.

That a thing is "Biblical" does not, of itself, convey authority or even any coherent sense of direction.   

Cherry Pickin'

One of the most common charges leveled against progressive Christians is that we're the smorgasbord faithful.

We progs stand accused of wandering up to the Jesus buffet line and only taking those things that look yummy to us, while pointedly ignoring the stuff we don't like.  We serve ourselves a heapin' helpin' of Sermon on the Mount Roast, and a pour a big mess of 1 Corinthians 13 Gravy on our 1 John Mashed Potatoes.

The Revelation Hellfire Lentil Loaf doesn't even get a second glance, and we make a funny face at Ol' Uncle Paul's Obedient Slaveberry Pie.

For our pickiness, we're assailed from both sides.  Fundamentalists and atheists both assail us for...lets say it together..."cherry pickin'."  You only take what you like?  Cheaters!  Outrageous!  All or nothing!

So now, boys and girls, let's use the imaginations God gave us, and see ourselves standing in a garden.  Before us, there's a cherry tree hanging heavy with thousands of plump red morsels, the fruit ripe and delicious and in season.  We're hungry, and the smell is sweet.

Behind us and to our left, we've got the atheist, who looks at the entire tree with its leaves and branches and fruit.  I'm not going to eat that whole thing, he snorts.  Much of it is completely inedible!  And the fruit has pits!  How do I know I might not be allergic to it?!  He sits down in a snit, and with his best pinchy defiant two-year old pout, insists he'd rather starve.

Kneeling at the base of the tree, we have the fundamentalist, her mouth full of bark and twigs and leaves.  She gnaws vigorously at the indigestible hardwood near the bottom of the trunk.  Bits of masticated wood mingled with fragments of tooth enamel and dark green leaf juice drip from her lips.  It's absolutely, presuppositionally delicious, she insists.  By definition, it couldn't possibly taste any better.  And as an added benefit, she says with a slightly broken smile, I'm so much more regular now!

Cherry pickin'?  I suppose so.

Because What the Blogosphere Really Needs is Another Manifesto

On my day off, just because, it was editing day.

I cranked out another 5,000 words of that old novel I'm editing and typing up for Kindle publication, which I'm enjoying, as will maybe a half-dozen other people, my mother included.  OK, maybe not my mom.  She's not really the eBook sort.

And then I went back and reworked a bit of online theological musing I'd done several years ago.  The impetus for that was a probing conversation in a Sunday Bible study, in which a young member of my congregation asked about how and in what way the Bible had authority.

It was...well...a bit more of a dialogue than a group discussion, but as we'd already finished up examining the deeply challenging text from Genesis, and I'd asked for general questions, it was cool. 

The issue was coming to understand how our sacred texts can have authority if they are not literally inerrant, perfect and without contradiction or flaw.  This is a non-trivial issue, so obviously, it's taken some of my processor time over the years.  Long of short of it:  I view scriptural inerrancy as spiritually analogous to ecclesiastical inerrancy.  Both represent human failures to understand the nature of the relationship to God that Jesus calls us to live out.

And so the Neoreformationist Theses returns to the web, tightened up and ready to sit there and look pretty.   

It's particularly entertaining, given that a quick run through Google indicates that I'm the only homo sapiens sapiens who actually uses that word.  That renders the odds of another person searching for it...oh, gosh, let's see...essentially nil.

Ah well.  

John Calvin Says Scripture is not the Word of God

Recently, there was a minor stirring within the shrinking corner of the Reformed Tradition that I inhabit. Landon Whitsitt, the new Vice-Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA), is someone whose blog I've been feeding since well before he got that rather long and impressive title. Up until he was selected for that esteemed position, he was...as I am...more or less invisible to the reactionary wing of our denomination.

Now, though, he's gotten their attention. He's done so by offering up this thought: Sola Scriptura may no longer be the rule of the church, and it's something he's moved away from. This pressed the rather large and well-worn panic button at the headquarters of the Layman, the right-wing publication which polices matters of fundamentalist orthodoxy in our neck of the woods. Claxons and red lights and alarms went off. They printed an actually-rather-fair summary of Whitsitt's conversation, attached to the headline: "Vice Moderator: Scripture is Not the Word of God." This was followed by much irate shouting and stomping around on their response page. How can a church leader suggest that Scripture alone is not adequate? We're going to heck in a handbasket! We're abandoning the core principle of the Reformation! Apostasssseeeeeeeeee!

Problem is, Sola Scriptura as a free-standing and defining principle is simply not adequate. Scripture...meaning the sacred texts and narratives of our faith...is not sufficient in and of itself. It does not stand alone. It can't. It never has. You can know those texts and stories backwards and forwards, and even the most detailed intellectual knowledge of that data will not make you a disciple of Jesus of Nazareth. Spend even 10 minutes in discussion with a committed and studied atheist with a chip on her shoulder, and the truth of that will become clear.

That's because Scripture derives its meaning from the power of the Holy Spirit working in the heart of a reader. It is the Spirit that guides our interpretation of Scripture. It is the Spirit that opens us to the significance of that narrative for our own existence. Scripture does not stand as an authority for us, and cannot stand as the basis for our salvation, without the Spirit at work. Yeah, I know, this is squishy liberal relativism. It's the sort of thing you get from hopeless pomo leftists like, say, John Calvin, who wrote:

The testimony of the Spirit is more excellent than all reason. For as God alone is a fit witness of himself in his Word, so also the Word will not find acceptance in men's hearts before it is sealed by the inward testimony of the Spirit. The same Spirit, therefore, who has spoken through the mouths of the prophets must penetrate into our hearts to persuade us that they faithfully proclaimed what had been divinely commanded. (Institutes, I.vii.4)

If what connects us with Scripture is our personal connection to the Spirit of the living God, and what allows us to recognize its authority is that Spirit, then Sola Scriptura cannot be a foundational axiom without making explicit that rather significant caveat.

That, as I see it, is the fundamental failure of Christian fundamentalism.

Mysticism and the Word

One of the ways mystics tend to get themselves into trouble is in their tendency to be... well... oblivious to the siren song of doctrinal purity and textual inerrancy. If your faith is grounded in the experiential and in deep contemplation, texts seem rather less satisfying.

It's a bit like having someone describe to you what it's like to spend a long evening eating steak fondue at the end of a beautiful summer day overlooking Lake Geneva. Hearing it is wonderful. But the hearing is not the thing itself. Neither are those symbols anything other than an imperfect vessel for conveying the heat of the oil, or the tenderness of the meat, or the cool breezes that played across the restaurant patio, or the way Mont Blanc stayed bright before the dimming sky.

It was really, really good, recalls now-vegetarian I, as the memory evokes a Pavlovian response.

That's one of the reasons that mystics are utterly unphased by the application of historical-critical method to the texts of our faith. As I continue my encounter with Scots mystic George MacDonald, I find he carries that same approach to texts. On the one hand, he respects them and is caught up in the story they tell. On the other, he acknowledges their limitations. They are limited in terms of technical accuracy in conveying an event. They also have within themselves the potential for spiritual danger, as he articulates here:

God has not cared that we should anywhere have assurance of His very words; and that not merely perhaps, because of the tendency of His children to word-worship, false logic, and corruption of the truth, but because He would not have them oppressed by words, seeing that words, being human, therefore but partially capable, could not absolutely contain or express what the Lord meant, and that even He must depend on being understood upon the spirit of His disciple. Seeing that it could not give life, the letter should not be throned with power to kill.

Human language is a marvelous thing. But the patterns of vibration produced by our vocal cords, the marks of ink on a page, and the patterns of pixels on your screen are intended to point beyond themselves. They are words, not Word. When we worship them and the patterns they form, and not the thing to which they attest, then we have wandered off the Way.

The Fight

It's always useful to pay attention to what your "adversaries" are thinking. That means reading stuff by folks with whom you disagree. You seek commonality wherever possible. It's the whole Hegelian thesis/antithesis/synthesis approach to finding new insights into life. It's a way to generate new energy, in a matter/antimatter collision sort of way. Some of the more transforming conversations I've had have been with folks with radically different worldviews.

But disagreement ain't all kumbaya, guitars, and roasted marshmallows. Certain differences are not surmountable.

I was checking in on one of my favorite fundamentalist jousting partners the other day, and found that an article by one of their contributors laid out what I think is the core issue underlying the ongoing Christian arguments about gays and lesbians. The matter, and both he and I are convinced, is less about the sexuality, and more about two different approaches to the Bible. As he describes the nature of the argument, he describes the essence of the fight as follows:

On one side are the evangelicals (and count me among them) who believe God has declared His standard for sexuality, expressly stated, once and for all, in His holy Word. On the other side are the progressives who feel the Bible is a “living word” that is interpreted by each individual to fit contemporary, personal enlightenment. Oddly many evangelicals barely acknowledge there are sides in the debate over Biblical authority and interpretation.

What struck me in reading this was that I had read exactly the same thing about four hours earlier, only written from the a perspective more similar to my own.

In his book Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality, Jack Rogers lays out his approach to the Bible. Rogers, who is an evangelical, articulates essentially the same dichotomy, but from the flip side. For him, the issue is whether you approach the Bible verse by literal verse, or whether you view Scripture as something sacred that is continually deepened and redefined as we come into a deeper understanding of God's purpose. It's not about "contemporary, personal enlightenment." It's about approaching interpretation through the lens used by the original Protestant reformers, who argued:

"..that interpretation of the Scripture to be orthodox and genuine which is gleaned from the Scriptures themselves..and which agree with the rule of faith and love, and contributes much to the glory of God and man's salvation." (Second Helvetic Confession, 5.010)

That's the nature of the struggle. Are we to interpret Scripture as if it were an empirical dataset, or do we approach it as a sacred and living text, governed and defined by the highest principles and purposes of our faith?

I know where I stand. Viva la neoreformation!

The Doctrine of Differential Authority

One of the most maligned aspects of religious traditions is the role of doctrine and dogma. Being called "doctrinal" or "dogmatic" isn't usually considered a statement of respect. Instead, those terms are pitched out at people whose "faith" seems to serve as an impenetrable outer shell, a carefully constructed wall of tradition and received teachings that insure that there's no chance anything outside could ever touch or change them. As the common wisdom holds it, such souls are safe from the the pernicious influence of things like other human beings, reason, and the Spirit of the Living God.

This isn't entirely fair, of course. We all "take things on authority," and holding to doctrines and dogmas means little more than that. Abandoning doctrine entirely means essentially dismissing the insights of everyone who has come before you. For Christians, that would mean you're trashing several thousand years worth of insights from brilliant, thoughtful, Spirit-filled Jesus people. I just can't do that. I love Paul. Augustine is my brother. Walks through the woods with St. Francis would be marvelous. It is only out of the strange, self-centered arrogance of this age that we're able to delude ourselves into imagining that our "personal relationship" with God doesn't connect us to all those other souls who've rejoiced in Him through the ages.

But we don't like doctrines. Bleh. And because doctrines are so stinky, I'll..ahem...offer up another one. I've expounded on this a few times here before: The Doctrine of Differential Authority.

The rule of thumb...the "doctrine"...coming out of the Protestant Reformation regarding the reading of Scripture has always been that Scripture interprets Scripture. The intent of the reformer's approach was to liberate the interpretation of the Bible from the institutional church, and to allow it to speak for itself. If you read Calvin in particular, that liberation was intended to unfetter the Holy Spirit, which is the source and root of Scripture's authority.

This has taken us down two unfortunate paths. First, many Christians allow themselves to accept what I like...in my usual non-provocative manner...to call Satan's Method of Scriptural Interpretation. We've all seen it used. You take a random assemblage of unrelated texts that seem to prove your point, and count 'em all up to prove whatever point you wanted to make. Old Scratch used that one on top of the Jerusalem Tower. Whoever's got the most verses...wins!

Second, there's the tendency to view every single text in our canon as equally full of transforming power. Unfortunately, this lends itself to a level of cognitive dissonance that most sentient life forms can't endure. Let's say I'm in conversation with a woman, and she lets slip that she's a practicing Wiccan. Do I obey the infallible Word of God and immediately stab her? (Exodus 22:18) Or do I obey the infallible Word of God and engage her in an open and respectful conversation that surfaces my theological disagreement but remains guided by love? (Romans 12:17-18)

Many Christians get around the disagreements in Scripture by saying there is no disagreement. I understand this perspective, but I just can't do it myself. At a basic level, it doesn't seem to respect the authors of the texts...or the Author, for that matter. Instead, I prefer to interpret using the Doctrine of Differential Authority, which assumes that not all Scripture speaks with the same amount of God's power. To put it bluntly, some Scriptures are more rich with the Spirit than others, and those scriptures must be used to define those below them.

Well, you say, that leads us down the slippery slope of subjectivism! Though I appreciate your alliterative reply, I beg to differ. The Bible itself tells us that some passages are more important than others. Torah can be condensed into 10 Commandments. Those 10 Commandments can be condensed into the Great Commandment, the Love commandment, which is itself an expression of God's own nature.

As we approach scripture and seek its guidance as the rule of life and faith, it is this understanding that needs to govern our interpretation. Why approach it this way?

The point of such an approach is to do two things. First, to recognize and accept this innate hierarchy within canon. Second and more importantly, it's to help unlock the movement of the Holy Spirit in Scripture, which is its ecstatic source and the foundation of its authority.

Fundamentalist Dance Contest

Ah, literalism, how I love thee. The deeper I get into my walk with Scripture, the more I appreciate the Spirit that fills these holy texts, and the more I find the doctrine of literal inerrancy more and more—ah—interesting. Ahem.

Literal inerrancy requires that there be no flaw, no disagreement at all in scripture. The Bible must be perfect, if it is to be trusted. The task of fundamentalist apologetics is to defend the empirical truth of every last line of scripture. If a single line fails, the whole interpretive system fails. This makes fundamentalists entertaining, in a perverse sort of way. The rational gyrations a literalist must go through to show that not a single word of scripture can be factually incorrect are hypnotic, a sort of theological burlesque.

So for any literalists out there, I offer up the challenge text of the day. In the study series I’m running on the major prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel) in adult ed on Sundays, I’ve come across a few fascinating examples of cutting and pasting in scripture. Read, for instance, Isaiah 36:1-39:8. Then read 2 Kings 18.13, and then 2 Kings 18:17-20:19. You’ll find them essentially identical, as one scroll is duplicated and inserted entirely into another. It’s a logical editorial decision—the folks who compiled this portion of the book of Isaiah just wanted to include information on Isaiah that was found in another text. No problem there.

In preparing for my final class on Jeremiah, I found exactly the same thing in Jeremiah 52. The whole last chapter of Jeremiah is a duplicate of 2 Kings 24:18-25:30. Read them both…it’s a little eerie, like an echo in a Judean desert valley at twilight. That echo isn’t exact, though.

Take, for instance, Jeremiah 52:31, which reads: “In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the year Evil-Merodach became king of Babylon, he released Jehoiachin king of Judah and freed him from prison on the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month.” (NIV)

Then read 2 Kings 25:27: “In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the year Evil-Merodach became king of Babylon, he released Jehoiachin from prison on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month.” (NIV)

So…what day was he released again? The 25^th day of the 12^th month, or the 27^th day of the 12^th month? Of course, this is just a copyist’s error. One text or the other is off by two days. They can’t both be right. For those who understand scripture as primarily a vessel for the Holy Spirit, the disagreement is irrelevant. But for literal inerrancy, this is an issue that must be dealt with. There. Can. Be. No. Error.

Want to take a crack at it?

The Firmament

I often muse on the "author's intent" defense of a literalist interpretation of scripture. Following that line of reasoning, if the person who is responsible for writing a passage felt that it must mean one thing, then it must mean that thing. If--as tradition has it--Moses believed that the world was created in six days, then it can only mean that the world was created in six days. You can't say that the Genesis story is a metaphor, or a symbolic expression of God's creative power. It has to be taken literally, because it was intended literally. To do otherwise is to violate the integrity of the text, or so the argument goes.

I can appreciate the intent of that approach. However, there are a few minor difficulties with it. Take, for instance, the meaning of the Hebrew word raqi. This word, which surfaces in Genesis 1:6 and Psalm 150, has been translated in a variety of different ways. In the King James, it is "firmament." In the New Revised Standard, it is "dome." In the NIV, it is the somewhat misleading "expanse." The raqi, according to Hebrew and other ancient Near Eastern cosmologies, was the solid barrier separating the earth from the waters of chaos. It was a fixed boundary, into which the lights of heaven were mounted. It is the windows in this solid barrier that God opens in Genesis 7:11, sending a veritable Double Gulp of a flood down upon the earth.

Abraham, Moses, and Jacob would have all looked up at the stars and seen them this way. That was their understanding of the nature of the universe. That was their intent in presenting the heavens in that way. Raqi was meant to be understood as a physical reality.

Moses--as an ancient Hebrew-- would have believed that a great solid dome with recessed lighting covered the earth. Has NASA been pranging rockets off this dome for years, then covering it up? I'm sure there's a web site somewhere arguing just that. When I place my eye to my father-in-law's nifty reflector telescope and see the rings of Saturn or Mars as a clearly three-dimensional object, am I defying the intent of scripture? Which leads me to wonder...how far are we willing to go to defend literalism?

Faith is enough of a leap without descending to Flat Earth Christianity.

Scripture and Idolatry

In a fit of grumbling dudgeon about the Intelligent Design movement, I once said: "Literal creationism requires that the universe not be as old as it seems to be. It must reject science completely in order to defend its carefully constructed--and ultimately idolatrous--approach to interpreting scripture."

I'm going to have to 'splain my position a bit more.

First, what is an idol? We get the word--as we get so many words--from the ancient Greek word eidolon, meaning a visible image, symbol, or object. Of course, that describes everything in the world around us, even the symbolic representations that direct us towards an awareness of the divine. The practice of idolatry comes when you direct your worship towards an object or symbol, and not the God to which that symbol points. The symbol, instead of directing you to an awareness of the divine, becomes a magical token. It becomes a fetish--no, not THAT kind of fetish, sinner--but fetish in the classical sense of an inanimate object that is worshipped. Idolatry is a Queequeg faith, a belief in the thing you can carry around in your pocket, utterly comprehensible and manipulable, stripped of all of the mystery and glory of our real and living God. The insanity of that type of "faith" is expressed with delicious poetry and satire by the Prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 14:9-20.

The doctrine of literal inerrancy, I would contend, does precisely that to Holy Scripture. That isn't to say that there aren't large portions of the Bible that can be read literally. Nor is that to say that much of the moral teaching and spiritual guidance that can be found in Scripture won't convey to those who read the Bible literally.

But the words that we read in our New International Versions or our King James Versions are just that...words. As words in a human language, they are a form of symbolic representation that is intended to point us deeper, to the Word that rises up through those symbols. When we say that they are perfect in and of themselves, that they are literally inerrant, we turn our worship to the symbol itself. It is the symbol that is perfect. It is the symbol that becomes the object of faith, instead of the Holy Spirit that gives it true authority.

As a system for approaching Holy Scripture, that is inherently idolatrous.