were making inerrancy a central doctrine, sometimes even a test of faith, shows how much the new scientific and historical views on the Bible were forcing all to shore up their most critical lines of defense.
It was the battle over inerrancy and more generally over how to interpret the Bible in the modern world that split American Protestantism into liberal and conservative wings. For example, Professor Charles A. Briggs of Union Theological Seminary in New York, in his inaugural address as President, attacked the concept of inerrancy, insisting that Christians should face the fact that the Bible contains many incidental errors that are not, however, central to its teachings. For this, Briggs was brought to trial in the Presbyterian church and suspended from the ministry. As a result, however, he and the seminary simply left the church and proceeded to become leaders in the movement toward liberal theology.
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