The Galli-'Christianity Today' Controversy

By Steven Jonas

A recent editorial by the retiring Editor-in-Chief of the Right-Wing Evangelical journal Christianity Today, Mark Galli, has caused quite an uproar, both among the Evangelical Right and some liberal commentators as well.

Before dealing with that controversy, let's briefly take a look at "Evangelical Christianity." It is a movement within Protestantism that is trans-denominational, encompassing, among others, Methodism, Baptism, Pentecostalism, and several different independent branches of Evangelicalism itself. In the United States, about a quarter of the population consider themselves Evangelicals. Not all of them adhere to the Evangelical Right, which is the noisy branch. In fact they are so noisy, and presently so intimately connected to the Trumpites and the Trumpublican(©) Party, there is no way of knowing just how many Evangelicals are Rightists.

In any case, common to the Evangelical doctrine is the concept of salvation by grace, the importance of the processes of conversion/being "born again," and the importance of the (English) Bible as representing the "inerrant word of God." Now the latter would be of only theological significance if Right Evangelism in particular did not want to use their interpretation of what that "Word" is to determine major elements of the law that apply to all of us, as for example, in the matters of abortion rights and the civil rights of the LGBTQ community.

Dealing with this subject for the moment, it is my understanding that not all elements of Evangelicalism refer to the same Bible as the one that is "inerrant" (and that understanding, if true, certainly undermines the concept of "inerrancy:" which one, exactly, is it[?]). But the common one bearing that appellation is the King James version. 

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Source: OpEdNews