Inerrancy. Does it matter?

David A. McGee, a member of Idlewild Baptist Church in Lutz and a candidate for the doctor of education at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., recently completed research used in his dissertation titled “A Mixed-Methods Study of the Variables that Influence Florida Southern Baptists' Affirmation of the Inerrancy of the Bible." The research was sparked by McGee’s interest in understanding if a historic struggle over the inerrancy of Scripture—largely played out among Southern Baptists during the Conservative Resurgence in the latter part of the 20th Century—affects the way in which congregants today not only view the Bible but live according to biblical principles.