Most of the fundies who claim to be biblical inerrantists aren't even close, so they should quit pretending, and stop trying to close the doors of fellowship to those of us who definitely are not. The Fixed Earth people are real biblical inerrantists.
Not only is he correct, it brings up a point I had not really considered fully, but needs to be addressed. This kind of thinking, if the word can be used in this context, has always been around, and not just in Christian fundie circles. I once visited the Flat Earth Society's website, and these are earnest folks, and not at all concerned with Biblical inerrancy and Jewish plots. For now, though, our concern is with the fundy wing of this particular idiocy.
It has been a quarter-century since the Christian Right entered the political world in a big way; I remember Time, Newsweek, and US News and World Report doing long pieces back in the mid-80's on the distinction, gradations, and varied positions on a variety of social issues amongst those usually lumped together as parts of the Christian right. The whole "creation science" thing was just then beginning to take hold, and Tim LaHaye's Institute for Creation Research figured prominently in at least one of the articles I vaguely recall.
Creationism is about more than rejecting Darwinism, although that is utmost. It is, as ER points out, rejecting five hundred years worth of looking at the world through eyes turned away from Christian scripture, or at least not allowing Scripture to overturn experience. So, now, as the right begins its retreat - and I believe it is doing just that, although that prediction has been made before - we are beginning to see where the logic of such nonsense as biblical inerrancy leads us. It is easy to make fun of people who believe this crap; it is also easy to reduce it psychological categories - arrested development, fear of modernity, even unfocussed Oedipal rage - but the simple fact is these people are, in the last analysis, nuts.
It would be nice if I could try to account for this nonsense in some other away. I do not doubt the sincerity of their beliefs, any more than I doubt the sincerity of Berkowitz' claim that his neighbor's dog was possessed by a demon who told him to kill women. I believe he believes the story; I just think he is deranged to believe it. In the same way, I believe people who hold that the earth is the center of the Universe, that Copernicus was wrong, etc., etc., truly believe these things. I just believe they are deranged to believe it. There is no reason to argue with them, to discuss the issue with them, to try to decipher meaning, purpose, or anything else that might lie behind these beliefs. They are just plain nuts.
These are the folks who bravely go where few fundamentalists dare; they are consistent on issues of Biblical inerrancy. By being so, they show how intellectually vacuous, and psychologically damaging, such a view is. This is the voice of true fundamentalism. They cannot hide behind rhetoric or dissimulation any longer.
