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Bible believer (also Bible-believer, Bible-believing Christian, Bible-believing Church) is a self-description by conservative (typically Protestant) Christians to differentiate their teachings from those who see extra-biblical tradition as more or equally authoritative. The Apostolic Church is an example of a Bible-believing organisation.

In normal usage, "Bible believer" means an individual or organisation that believes the Christian Bible is true in some significant way. However, this combination of words is given a unique meaning in fundamentalist Protestant circles, where it is equated with the belief that the Christian Bible "contains no theological contradictions, historical discrepancies, or other such "errors", otherwise known as biblical inerrancy. In addition, it appears that an individual or church must subscribe to the doctrine of sola scriptura in order to come within the fundamentalist definition of the term. It is frequently placed in inverted commas in neutral contexts or when used by those excluded by the narrower definition, to demonstrate that it is a claim rather than neutral description. Fundamentalist Protestant churches often assume the neutrality of the term as they rarely define it and seem to implicitly claim that the only possible way to truly "believe" in the Bible is to adopt the fundamentalist approach.

References

1. Hill, Craig C. (2002). In God's Time: The Bible and the Future, p. 12. Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN 0-8028-6090-7
2. See, for example, Biblebelievers.com
3. See, for example: Keating, Karl (1988). Catholicism and Fundamentalism: The Attack on "Romanism" by "Bible Christians". San Francisco: Ignatius Press. ISBN 0-89870-177-5
4. See, for example: Biblebelievers.com, Bible Believers Resource Page, Berean Bible Believer, Bible Believers Archaeology

Literature

• Ammerman, Nancy Tatom (1987). Bible Believers: Fundamentalists in the Modern World. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0-8135-1231-X
• Boone, Kathleen C. (2002). The Bible Tells Them So: The Discourse of Protestant Fundamentalism. New York: SUNY Press. ISBN 0-88706-894-4

See also

• Christian fundamentalism
• Bibliolatry

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