Date of Award

4-2022

Document Type

Project Portfolio

Degree Name

Doctor of Ministry (DMin)

Department

Seminary

First Advisor

H. Colleen Butcher, DMin

Second Advisor

Aaron Friesen, PhD

Third Advisor

Leonard I. Sweet, PhD

Abstract

In 2016, Barna Group reported that “Among practicing Protestants, nine out of 10 in every age group say either that the Bible is the actual word of God (should be taken literally, word for word) or that it’s the inspired word of God without error.” This belief system causes Protestant Christians to ignore, gloss over, and explain away all the contradictions they discover in the Bible, rather than participate with the contradictions wholeheartedly. There is an opportunity to help Protestant Christians take part in more dialogue about contradictions, engage in more study of the Bible because of the contradictions, and to embrace the contradictions of scripture as springboards to grow in faith.

After researching and prototyping for two years, we produced a seven-part film series to inspire face-to-face conversations among Protestant Christians about Biblical contradictions. Once completed, we sent these films to seventy research participants.

We found that a significant portion of participants desired to study the Bible more because of our content, a drastic change in the way participants viewed contradictions affecting the value of scripture, and a notable increase in the number of participants willing to engage in dialogue about contradictions with their friends, families, and members of their church.

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