I voted for Jim Leyland once. I won’t tell you what the election was, but I was so disgusted with the candidates that I felt on the whole the manager of the Detroit Tigers would do a better job of leadership so I wrote his name in. If you’ve ever listened to Leyland semi-coherently grumble his way through a post-game interview, you understand “politician” is not a word that will ever be used to describe him.
Having said that, I should also admit I have a certain amount of sympathy for those who do choose to seek office because they are put under such an amazing microscope. I wouldn’t want that done to me -- I say stupid stuff all the time I wouldn’t want posted on YouTube.
For example, did you see the video last week of Rick Perry answering a little boy’s question about how old the earth was and then talking about evolution as a theory that has some gaps in it? Part of me said, “Hey, he’s referring to my last blog entry” and part of me wondered what difference his views on evolution could possibly make on his qualifications to be President.
But perhaps you wonder why Perry thinks the way he does. At least part of the answer comes in how he reads and interprets the Bible. This election is unique because there are two bona fide Biblical inerrantists running for President – Rick Perry and Michelle Bachman. Inerrancy is the view that the Bible has no errors. I don’t believe this. I believe the Bible is inspired by God and has no errors in the things it was designed to teach – matters of salvation, namely – but that in things it was not designed to teach (like biology or astronomy) the Bible is consistent with the ancient worldviews and understandings of its authors.
It would seem on the surface that someone who holds to inerrancy rejects reason in the name of faith. But there is an irony here, and in reality it is faith that gets rejected for reason in the inerrant world view.
The appeal of inerrancy is that it is black and white. Rationalism and logic triumph over faith, because faith is not black and white at all. Faith is about belief in the mysterious and unseen, and faith has the ability to hold contradictory notions in your head at the same time and know that both are true. Reason says if A is true than B is false, faith says A and B and even C can all be true at the same time.
200 years ago it was easier for people to say “Slavery is endorsed by the Bible” than for people to say, “Even though the Bible has verses that say things about slaves obeying their masters, the writers of the Bible never imagined slavery the way we have it today, and what Jesus said about loving your neighbor as yourself is far more significant.”
30 years ago it was easier for people to say, “Women should be silent in church” than for people to say, “Wait a minute, the same passage also says women should keep their heads covered in church and the guy who wrote all of that actually acknowledged women in leadership in the early church.”
Biblical interpretation is hard work and there often are not clear answers. Why is the church so torn on homosexuality? One reason is that there are legitimate Biblical viewpoints on each side of the argument. But if you are an inerrantist, there is no argument.
Inerrancy offers clear and quick answers. It works for sound bites. But ultimately it reflects an unwillingness to live with contradictions and gray areas. That, it seems to me, does have a lot to do with someone’s approach to being President.
We have an election coming and I find myself less than inspired by the candidates. At the same time we’re late in the baseball season and the Detroit Tigers are in first place. Jim Leyland seems to be pushing all the right buttons and seems smarter than ever. Not only that, but I’m pretty sure that if you asked Leyland about Biblical inerrancy, he’d take a drag on one of his ever-present cigarettes and look at you like you were crazy. He could talk about the errors Wilson Betemit makes at third base and why that led him to call Brandon Inge back up from Toledo at what was just the right time, but Biblical inerrancy?
I’m feeling that urge for a write-in vote again.
Thanks Jeff
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