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Is the Bible Really Reliable? |
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“Can We Trust the Bible?” Seminar of Dr. Randall Gleason is continuing to make waves!  “CBAP has become the theological voice of Philippine evangelicalism!” says Dr. Randall Gleason, a CB missionary here in the Philippines since the early 80s. The theological voice is exemplified by the efforts of Conservative Baptist Seminary - Asia (CBS-Asia) to sponsor the seminar titled, “Can We Trust the Bible?” which teaches to affirm the reliability of the Bible. CBAP churches have received this seminar with utmost enthusiasm.
Last February 7, 2005 Dr. Gleason conducted this seminar in a jam-packed Calvary Baptist Church in Marikina. “Daming tao ah,” commented one CB pastor. The seminar exemplifies the aspirations of CBS-Asia to create a common theological ground among the CB churches. In recent months, the Bible has once again been under fire here in the Philippines because of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci CodeTM. For more than a year, Dan Brown’s #1 New York TimesTM besteller, The Da Vinci CodeTM, has been entertaining readers with its dark tale of a conspiracy to suppress the supposed ‘truth’ about Jesus and early Christianity — a ‘truth’ which the novel, on its very first page, insists is historical fact, not fiction. Among the novel’s central claims: that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and had children by her. Those who attended the seminar were correct in assuming that this seminar is one of the first steps in educating the CBAP constituency about the inerrancy of the Bible as strongly upheld during the 2004 Biennial Conference held in Subic. John Pesebre, professor of theology of CBS-Asia envisions a theologically mature CBAP constituency. “With the (1) formulation of the CBAP statement on biblical inerrancy [available at http://www.cbphilippines.org/cbphil/inerrancy.html], (2) the intentional effort of seminary training through the Regional Training Centers all over the country and (3) seminars like Dr. Gleason’s, I think CBAP is really becoming the theological voice of Philippine evangelicalism,” Pesebre says. |
