Bruxy Cavey proposes that moving some words around in a common conservative faith statement (“We believe in the inerrant, infallible, authoritative Word of God, and his name is Jesus. . . .”) is the bridge that can bring conservative and liberal Anabaptists together.

Problem: The only generally accepted data on what Jesus believed, taught, preached and did are found in the Holy Scriptures, which are held by conservatives to be the living, supernatural, inerrant Word of God. Conservatives suspect that proposals such as Cavey’s are an attempt to remove or downgrade the Bible’s “objectionable” parts.

Either the Bible is the revealed Word of God, or it isn’t. It is nonsense to declare the parts of the Gospels that present what Jesus believed, taught, preached and did as inspired and the remainder as something less.

Delmar Yoder
Decatur, Ga.