Shortly before his death in 2000, I heard Dr. Thomas B. Warren express that he had been reading the Bible for more than seventy years, and he never had done so without being amazed at some “enormously wonderful truth” in it. Professor Warren had a brilliant mind. When tested for the position of an aerial navigator in the United States military, which position he held during World War II, he achieved the highest score that had been earned on this test up to that time. He graduated magna cum laude from Abilene Christian University. He also earned the Ph.D. in Philosophy from Vanderbilt University. He corresponded with some of the most highly recognized philosophers of the twentieth century. He engaged in public debate, before thousands, with some of the most prominent philosophical thinkers of his day. Because of all of this, it would seem that it is not without great significance that a person of such great ability, training, and experience, after so many years, would acknowledge that he was still “amazed” and challenged by the depth of the information contained in the Bible.

Differing views of Scripture are a prime source of division in those nations historically following a Christian perspective. These nations would include Europe, the Americas, and former colonial outposts around the world. Nations with a European heritage were founded by people who believed, overwhelmingly, the Bible to be the word of God and, therefore, true and authoritative in all of its teachings.

Applying Scriptural authority to produce conformity is the normal way followed by those with confidence in the Bible. C. S. Lewis noted:

If I have read the New Testament aright, it leaves no room for ‘creativeness’ even in a modified or metaphorical sense. Our whole destiny seems to lie in the opposite direction, in being as little as possible ourselves, in acquiring a fragrance that is not our own but borrowed, in becoming clean mirrors filled with the image of a face that is not ours. (7)