What should we believe when the new head of the PSNI thinks that the Bible is free of error? Is this wise, or even tactful of him?

What makes a Christian fundamentalist? This is an entirely serious question, to which I don't know the answer, but it's interesting in a Northern Irish context where the new head of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Matt Baggot, is an unashamed evangelical protestant who believes that the Bible is "the Bible is the inspired Word of God without error".

I know this because his office put out a press release saying what a devout Christian he is, which, in a Northern Irish context rather omits the interesting question. But it's easy enough to find that he is a member of the Christian Police Association, and that this is an evangelical protestant body, which holds that the Bible is not only without error, but "the only complete authority in all matters of faith and doctrine".

The CPA also demands belief in a literal virgin birth, a physical resurrection, penal substitutionary atonement, and "that it is only by God's grace and mercy that the sinful person is made right with Him through faith in Jesus Christ alone" which looks like straightforward Calvinist orthodoxy to me.

In my limited experience of Christian policemen, they tend not to be liberals, any more than Christian doctors do. The evidence of sin is too much in front of them, and so is the failure of human efforts to do much about it; if you're going to believe in a God at all in that job, he needs to be capable of miracles.

Calling the Bible "without error" does not, I think, commit anyone to rejecting modern science. After all, what matters there is to find the interpretation which fits the facts and then proclaim that it is without error. I suspect this formulation is deliberate from the following claim, the the bible is "the only complete authority in all matters of faith and doctrine". This doesn't of course mean (or say) that it is any sort of authority in matters of science; what it clearly repudiates is the authority of the Pope. That's all right. That's what Protestants do. But it does seem an odd thing for the head of a non-sectarian police service to boast of.

Perhaps this is a sign that Northern Ireland really has transcended its religious differences. Or perhaps a demonstration that the media don't understand religion. Which do you think is more likely?

