I read with interest the Christianity Today interview with the new president of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Dennis Hollinger. There was one particular response which caused me to raise my eyebrows. When asked about inerrancy at Gordon-Conwell, Hollinger completely avoided the question by talking about proper interpretive practice. When someone avoids a question such as this they need to be pressed on it further. There is no one of any theological stripe that would disagree with what Hollinger said about understanding the genre of revelation, so why say it? I have to wonder what he is hiding? I don’t want to be suspicious, but his answer with a non-answer approach makes me wonder.

Here is the question and answer. Am I reading too much into this?

Question: Inerrancy is a perpetual concern for seminaries, as we’ve seen with Westminster Theological Seminary and the revised statement of faith for the Evangelical Free Church of America, which is affiliated with Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. How does this ongoing concern about inerrancy affect Gordon-Conwell?

Answer: Gordon-Conwell has always had a strong commitment to the inerrancy of Scripture while recognizing the broad genre of Scripture — that is, that God did not reveal himself to us in just one way. When we talk about the truthfulness of Scripture, we also have to recognize that his richness speaks to us in multiple ways through Scripture. Sometimes we have allowed our views of inerrancy to lead to very monolithic interpretations of Scripture. We need to be careful about that. When we’re studying a poetic genre we have to understand that as poetry, which is not the same as an historic rendition or an apocalyptic rendition or a prophetic utterance. Gordon-Conwell has a strong history of trying to emphasize those things. Certainly the Gordon Fee and [GCTS Old Testament professor] Douglas Stuart book How To Read The Bible For All It’s Worth, which is used in so many colleges, reflects that.

What do you think?