A church in Tennessee faces backlash over a heretic teaching claiming that the Bible is not the Word of God but just "a human response to God."
Describing themselves as "Progressive Christians," GracePointe Church wrote their belief about the Bible in its Facebook post, alongside a photo summarizing their statement, dated Feb. 8.
"As Progressive Christians, we're open to the tensions and inconsistencies in the Bible. We know that it can't live up to impossible, modern standards. We strive to more clearly articulate what Scripture is and isn't," the statement says.
It further states that the Bible is not "the Word of God, not self-interpreting, not a science book, not an answer/rule book and not inerrant or infallible." But they believe that it is "a product of community, a library of texts, multi-vocal, a human response to God and living and dynamic."
The heretic statement was heavily criticized with the post garnering more than 2,400 comments, 896 shares and more than 1,600 reactions, as of Feb. 20.
Speaking to The Christian Post, GracePointe pastor Josh Scott said that the discussion over his sermon is "a conversation that needs to happen within" the "broader Christian culture."
He explained that since people treat the Bible almost as an idol, they fail to see "the real call" which is not "just to read something but always for us to read it, wrestle with it and then embody the rest of it the way we live our lives in the world."
"If there are any sort of conversations that are off limits in the Christian tradition then it probably just means we are afraid of them. We're probably afraid to engage them because we are afraid of being labeled heretics, we're afraid of people saying hateful things. In reality, these are important conversations. So yeah, I feel like it's something that needs to be talked about," he continued.
Scott also that the Bible is not "the source of the how" but rather "the source of why do we exist, why is there a world, what does it mean to be a human being in the world, how do we live our lives in the best way possible. I think those are more of the questions the Bible is trying to get at."
He went on to say that that the Bible contains "stuff" that of not God's character such as genocides, adding that people have used verses in the Bible "to support white supremacy, to defend slavery, to defend segregation."
"Saying the Bible is inerrant and infallible, it absolves us of our responsibility to do what our ancestors did, which is to wrestle," he further claimed.
GracePointe describes itself as a progressive Christian church that celebrates and affirms the LBGTQ+ community and that many of its staff and leaders are members of that group.
Scott, who they said has been a pastor for two decades, was introduced to lead the church in March 2019.
The long-time pastor, however, appears to have forgotten 2 Timothy 3:16-17 which says,
"All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work."
