No Slippery Slopes

Today’s entry is part of our Video Blog series. For similar resources, visit our audio/video section, or our full "Conversations" collection. Please note the views expressed in the video are those of the author, not necessarily of The BioLogos Foundation. You can read more about what we believe here.

Today's video features Joel Hunter. Joel Hunter is senior pastor at Northland, A Church Distributed in Longwood, Fla. Hunter is also a board member of the World Evangelical Alliance and author of the book A New Kind of Conservative.

In this video Conversation, Joel Hunter addresses the “slippery slope” argument supported by many evangelicals and suggests that not only is this perspective flawed, but it also may prevent believers from appreciating the fullness of God’s creation.

Hunter explains that when evangelicals argue that to accept science is to reject God (and biblical inerrancy), what is really being protected is a singular way to interpret scripture. Many evangelical parents are guarding the only type of literalistic interpretation that they themselves were taught because they fear that supporting scientific thought would negate the messages they have learned from scripture—when in fact, we can believe in the inerrancy in scripture without discarding scientific truths.

Hunter points out that sometimes we may be approaching biblical texts from an analytic or historical perspective when instead they are meant to be read as metaphor or poetry. By limiting biblical interpretations to a literalistic approach, we are missing pieces of the puzzle; the same is true if we ignore discoveries of the natural world. Thus, if believers are really raising children to know God, they will understand that allowing them to see more of God in nature (through science) will in turn allow them to see more of the creator in scripture.

Commentary written by the BioLogos editorial team.