A Pilgrimage Of Faith, J.B. Toews, 1993

ve evangelicalism left us with a gospel that doesn't impact our neighbors? Have we lost our passion for the call of Jesus: "Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it* (Mark 8:34-35)? Our theological pilgrimage has left us with three particu- larly troublesome issues. Over the years our congregations and schools have been preoccupied with questions about the nature of Scripture, the proper ecclesiology for the church, and the shape of the future. The Bible The debate of recent years on the inerrancy of the Bible is historically foreign to our people. Our forebears saw no need to debate "how" God's revelation was inspired and transmit- ted. For them the major question was "who?* and 4twhat?"-the 196 IDENTITY AMID DIVERSITY person of Christ and the message of the Bible. The unfolding of God's relationship to humanity in history throughout the Old Testament, the special revelation through Jesus Christ, the character and purpose of a redeemed community, and the certainty of Christ's retum-these were sufficient grounds for their faith. In 1934 my father sat in on my classes in apologetics where I, as a young theologian, put forth great efforts to prove the inspiration of the Bible. The prooftext method of logical argument, borrowed from the World Fundamentalist Association, was the basis of my teaching method at the time. Father replied: Son, is it necessary to defend the Bible? Would you find it necessary to defend a lion? Would not a lion much better defend himself if he were turned loose? Is not the Bible itself proof enough to prove itself as the power of God to salvation? Is there any need to defend the Bible where the Bible is believed, lived, and taught? Is there any merit to prove the inerrancy of the Bible to people who do not believe it and do not know the witness of the spirit? What was I to say? Were we wrong to let the Bible stand on its own merit, and through the witness of the Spirit con- firm it as God's Word? Abraham H. Unruh found my father's position common to an earlier generation. It is striking that our early brethren record no paragraph in their statement of faith in which they declare their posi- tion with respect to the Scriptures even though they were in possession of the Confession of Faith prepared by Cor- nelius Ris in 1747 ... in which the Scriptures are declared as the only reliable infallible sourc