|
|
|
I don’t mean to pile on the SBC. First, by no means were they alone… this stuff was in the air. Second, the SBC has since experienced quite a renewal, which is at least partly due to the Chicago Statement.
The Statement was about more than a particular way of reading and interpreting the Bible: It was an unequivocal assertion of biblical authority over the lives of believers and the Church, in an age when all authority was being questioned.
It was an unequivocal assertion that Christianity, while it does involve a relationship with God, is also a “religion,” in the original sense of the Latin word “religio,” which means “bond,” “obligation,” and “reverence.” It’s a faith, in other words, with content, not just a warm fuzzy feeling.
Anyone who followed Chuck Colson can see how he was indebted to this effort. For him, Christianity was objectively true, and that truth could be communicated to others, both inside and outside the Church.
And the primary way God had revealed truth to His Church was the Scriptures. Not personal experience, and certainly not popular intellectual fads.
The need to reassert biblical authority may be more urgent today than it was forty years ago. When we hear things like “the Gospel is about radical inclusivity,” that just means the Gospel is being defined without Scripture. When we hear that “Jesus would’ve baked the cake,” that Jesus is not the Jesus of Scripture. When we hear, “It’s a relationship, not a religion” still, that often means we are ignoring the significant portions of Scripture that describe the people God is calling out to restore and activate for His Kingdom.