To Believe The Bible Or Not?

I was recently with a group of my fellow clerics and the discussion turned to the lesson from Numbers 21:4-9 which is assigned for the Fourth Sunday in Lent.  As the lesson opens, the children of Israel are participating in their favorite outdoor sport- murmuring. 

Then the Lord sent poisonous serpants among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died.  The people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take the serpents from us."  So Moses prayed for the people.  And the Lord said to Moses, "Make a poisionous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live."  So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it on a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

The usual discussion ensued about whether or not God sends judgement upon people.  Recent tornadoes in our part of the world were discussed, along with health issues and a number of other possible candidates for divine judgement.  Most everyone agreed that usually we bring judgement upon ourselves thus saving God the trouble, but there was still that nagging question about when God comes after us for our rebellion.  I tend to be a bit more literal than many about such passages, but I am always very careful not to attribute every bad thing that happens to judgement.  Such theology seems to be mean spirited and generally gets out of control pretty quickly.

But the thing about the discussion which troubled me at the time, and even more as the day wore on, was the statement from one present, and the agreement of several others with it that this account from Numbers was just a Jewish "fairy tale."  I protested at the time, not because God needs my protection or defense, but because such an approach to the Bible is so common in Protestant Christianity.  So many in the Mainline Protestant academic community seem to discount so many parts of the Bible that do not fit their experience, expectations, or concept of who God is (or ought to be.)   Pity the parish whose priest or pastor does not believe the Bible to be an authentic eye-witness account of the works of God in history.  Ultimately, such an outlook as the one expressed that day leads to denial of major doctrines of the faith, often even to the denial of articles of the Creeds.  In short, if one denies the veracity of Scripture, departure from the faith received is often soon to follow.  From classroom to pulpit to pew, good or bad theology so often flows with significant results for good or ill.

All of this leads me back to the concept of God's judgement on his people when they rebel against him.  Could it be that the current malaise of mainline protestantism in the west is God's judgement because the denominations involved have failed to believe the Bible (or have re-interpreted it so significantly that its meaning is changed)?   We have lost scores, even hundreds of thousands of members in the last forty or fifty years in the Episcopal Church alone.  Many of our parishes and seminaries have closed or are threatened with closure.  Our "market share" of the American and European population has contracted dramatically.  Certainly parallel occurrance does not necessarily demonstrate causation or correlation, but I cannot help but wonder.