A key issue in the Fundamentalist-Modernist debates of the last century has now resurfaced. The 2025 State of the Bible Survey revealed the astonishing fact that there are more Americans (and Christians) who read the Bible than who affirm its accuracy. Doubting the Bible is nothing new, but the extent of this doubt signals that Christians must once again resolidify a foundational principle of their historic faith: the doctrine of inerrancy.

According to the survey, weekly Bible reading among all U.S. adults rose sharply this year to 42%, but only 36% of U.S. adults said the Bible was 100% accurate. Likewise, the percentage of self-identified Christians who read the Bible weekly climbed to 50%, but only 44% of self-identified Christians fully affirmed its accuracy.

Not that affirming the Bible’s accuracy must be a prerequisite to reading it regularly. On the contrary, one hopes that every day more unbelievers are picking up and reading the Bible as an early step on the road to believing in Jesus. But it seems unlikely that fully 6% of U.S. adults fall into this class, and it is definitionally impossible for 6% of Christians to be unbelievers.

A more likely explanation is that some Americans have some cultural understanding that they “should” read the Bible and have chosen to do so this year, without understanding its central claims and tenets. And, sadly, it seems that approximately 6% of self-identified Christians fall into this category, the same percentage as the number of all U.S. adults.

If this explanation is correct (or partially so), then what........

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