Inerrancy, again!

I just ran across this post on inerrancy and Russell Moore’s book. Go ahead and read it. I'll wait.

Good. She definitely is no fan of inerrancy, is she? Neither am I, but after reading it I mused as follows:

But isn’t there a place for the authority of scripture without inerrancy? Is it all or nothing? I’ve never believed in inerrancy, but I believe in the authority of scripture as prima scriptura—but the science nerd in me loves the findings of science. Perhaps the problem isn’t inerrancy itself, but the sola scriptura that it entails (or maybe it's the other way around, sola scriptura demands inerrancy)? I’m reminded of a line in Corrie ten Boom’s The Hiding Place where she says her father loved the findings of science and would pray to the God who set the atoms dancing and other such things. For me the findings of science incite the same feeling. Sometimes just as much as a cool new insight into a Greek or Hebrew text in scripture that I read—and sometimes even more!

Because I believe in prima scripture, though, I hold to a traditional view of morality. But—and this is where most people go off the rails—I don't see God as an angry parent, just waiting to club you into submission, or worse yet, an even more omnipotent version of Zeus on the rampage with his lightning bolt. I don't, and never have, believed in the popular version of penal substitution—and I definitely have problems with the "official" theological version of it. If you have to peg me, I would be a Christus victor person, but as Scot McKnight says in his A Community Called Atonement, theories of atonement are like a golf bag full of clubs. You don't hit a drive with a putter! And remember, the church didn't really have a "theory of atonement" for its first thousand years or so! The emphasis was on the redeeming, wooing, self-emptying love of God for humanity.

Ok, I've moved far from the origin of this and am riffing on my favorite topic now, which is the love of God for humanity as displayed in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, followed by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit so that we can live in communion with him, now and forever. (That's mouthful, isn't it?)

Thoughts?

By the way, I know I've linked to this video before, but I really like it because it sums up the problems with much Western theology. It's only nine minutes long, and it's probably one of the best uses you can put nine minutes to (what a rotten sentence grammatically!).