The Bible is the center of the Christian faith (and don’t assume you know what I mean by that)

Last updated on: September 14, 2013 at 9:35 am By Peter Enns

John Franke gave a lecture to the Eastern University community yesterday entitled “Progressive Evangelical Theology: Nature, Promise, and Prospects.” If you don’t know who Franke is, please email me the address of the rock you live under and I will make sure you get caught up. Briefly, Franke is the Executive Director and Professor of Missional Theology at Yellowstone Theological Institute in Bozeman, MT and former professor of theology at Biblical Theological Seminary (Hatfield, PA). He’s written several books including Beyond Foundationalism (with the... Read more

What does the Bible have to say about the crisis in Syria? (hint: nothing. absolutely nothing)

Last updated on: September 11, 2013 at 8:03 am By Peter Enns

I came across an article on USA Today’s website that disturbs me–imagine that, finding something disturbing on the internet. Go figure. Anyway, the article is “Some see biblical visions of doom in Syria trouble.” The article itself is fine, since some quotes urge caution about reading current events on the pages of the Bible. What’s disturbing is that such an article even needs to be written. Apparently the logic of it all goes something like this: Syria is mentioned in... Read more

A nuclear, apocalyptic, smackdown, world-ending book on biblical inerrancy is [not] coming soon

Last updated on: September 8, 2013 at 8:43 pm By Peter Enns

I’ve begun seeing some ads online and in catalogs on an upcoming book I contributed to, Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy, part of Zondervan’s Counterpoints genre (see my earlier announcement here). I’ve also seen some posts by eager beavers anticipating the end of the space-time universe within a day or two of it’s release date (November 2013). The five contributors (Al Mohler, Kevin Vanhoozer, Michael Bird, John Franke, and moi) have at this point only seen each other’s essay and written our responses, but there is nothing that I have seen that would indicate the sort of... Read more

God is Bigger than the Bible

Last updated on: September 5, 2013 at 7:58 am By Peter Enns

Last night I was reading Mark S. Smith’s The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel (because I felt like it, that’s why). He opens with a quotation from the 6th c. AD writer on Roman antiquity, Lydus. There has been and is much disagreement among theologians about the god honored among the Hebrews (De mensibus 4.53) Indeed. Smith, for the next 200 pages, looks at the “role of Yahweh within Israelite religion” vis-a-vis older Canaanite deities... Read more

Thinking about God Makes Me Just Want to Keep My Mouth Shut

Last updated on: August 31, 2013 at 10:45 pm By Peter Enns

Smart people tell us that the universe is about 14 billion years old and about 46 billion light years across. Light travels about 5.87 trillion miles a year (you heard me). Multiply that by 46 billion. My calculator broke. I came up with 2.70231100992E23. According to my extensive 10 second Google research, the numbers before the E are to be multiplied by 10 to the 23rd power. I think this is what God laughing at us looks like. It also... Read more

Honor Your Head, Don’t Live In It. (or, I Think I’m a Protestant)

Last updated on: August 30, 2013 at 5:12 am By Peter Enns

I think I am a Protestant. I’ve spent my entire Christian life, since childhood, as a Protestant, but I got tired of it. I tried being nothing for a while, but that didn’t work. I tried being anything else, too, but that didn’t work either. So, I think I am a Protestant. It seems to me that the root reason is that I have a personality defect. I like to live in my head. Protestants tend to focus on having... Read more

What happens when the pastor of a megachurch loses his faith?

Last updated on: August 29, 2013 at 7:15 am By Peter Enns

A book. That’s what happens. Specifically, a wonderful piece of fiction, Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim’s Tale. Author Ian Morgan Cron recounts the spiritual journey of pastor Chase Falson, whose career as a successful pastor crumbles to pieces when he loses his faith in God, the Bible, and evangelical Christianity. What happened? Life happened–slowly but surely, with a final straw being a tragic death in his congregation. After a blunt moment in the pulpit where he comes clean with his struggles, his... Read more

6 paths to finding God

Last updated on: August 28, 2013 at 7:44 am By Peter Enns

In chapter 2 of his book The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life, James Martin, SJ, lays out what he sees as six paths to God–by which he means 6 ways in which people seek God. He deals with this early on in the book because he does not assume everyone reading it believes in God–and since the book is about Ignatian spirituality, he wants to lay some groundwork. Each path, Martin tells us, has benefits... Read more

Would Jesus get hired to teach an Old Testament seminary course today?

Last updated on: August 27, 2013 at 8:43 am By Peter Enns

Jesus certainly had an interesting way of handling his Bible in debates with the religious leaders of his day. One of these is found in John 10:34-36. Jesus is in the temple and he is getting grilled by “the Jews”–John’s less than delicate way of referring to the religious elite who opposed Jesus, which obscures that Jesus was a Jew, too. Anyway, his opponents are challenging him to get stop being so coy and just tell them plainly whether he is the... Read more

You call that a history course? THIS is a history course. (13.7 billion years in 10 lessons)

Last updated on: August 24, 2013 at 7:42 am By Peter Enns

Just today I stumbled upon Big History Project, an online course geared toward high schoolers that–get this–takes students on a tour of 13.7 billion years of history in ten units. Bill Gates is providing ongoing support for the project, which at this point is accessible only to educators, but is being geared up for free public access in September. I watched the promo videos and I am so looking forward to watching this. The way they pull it off and keep the... Read more