I received recently advance copies of three books that look pretty darn interesting. I intend to get to these books and review them here—as soon as I free up some time, which is to say, as soon as the Yankees win the World Series, or, should they lose, as soon as I am released from the hospital. In the meantime, here are the books with the publishers’ description: Jesus: A Theography, by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola (Thomas Nelson). Jesus says, “The... Read more
Recently, Brian McLaren posted a video “Toward the Other.” The video summarizes the main points of McLaren’s new book Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road?: Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World. I haven’t read the book yet, but I’ve watched the video, and McLaren, as always, gives us a lot to think about. Personally, I think he pretty much nails it, and I live in hope that I and many others can put into practice... Read more
Today’s post, “Following Jesus: The Road Untraveled,” is by Deborah B. Edgar, an MFT (that’s Marriage and Family Therapist) psychotherapist in private practice in Pasadena, CA. She is in hot pursuit of her PhD at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Depth Psychology and Hebrew Bible (which confirms my experience that people like me who work in Hebrew Bible need psychotherapy, but I suspect Deborah means something different). Her dissertation’s working title is “The Sacred Presence in the Healing of Trauma: The Courage to... Read more
A couple of weeks ago, noted evangelical Richard Cizik posted on “My Journey Toward the ‘New Evangelicalism.'” Cizik was vice-president for governmental relations at the National Association of Evangelicals–and by “was” I mean “is” in the past tense, as in “no longer is.” In 2008, Cizik was interviewed on NPR’s “Fresh Air” and said some things that his boss at NAE and some influential evangelicals did not like. In Cizik’s words: In a broad-ranging conversation about my work to educate my fellow evangelicals about the impacts... Read more
In July, Dan Haseltine of Jars of Clay, posted on his website his experience of being a Christian, a musician, and why he finds it hard–maybe more than just “hard”–to do that within the world of evangelicalism. The band’s in a studio trying to finish their latest record–music is down, lyrics are getting polished–and Haseltine has this nagging thought, and stop me if you’ve heard this one before: What he really wants to say probably won’t be accepted by the evangelical community because his faith... Read more
I recently posted some thoughts on reading Genesis like an adult. Ken Ham disagreed, and so posted a response, “Peter Enns Wants Children to Reject Genesis.” Ham’s well-known chosen method of settling differences with Christians seems to be: attack first and ask questions, well, never. This is especially true when in comes to reading the creation story in Genesis as a literal depiction of historical events. For Ham, the gospel hangs in the balance, and any disagreement with him is de facto... Read more
Recently David Williams posted an interesting piece on what Paul told the Galatians about the gospel. As alert readers of the New Testament know, Paul was not happy with the Galatians, no not one bit. It seems that they forgot what the gospel was, and so Paul goes all ballistic on them, saying things like “if you disagree with me, you are under God’s curse” and “why don’t you just go castrate yourself.” Yeah, that’s in the Bible (Galatians 5:12). Anyway,... Read more
Last week, I was interviewed at “Beyond the Box” on my book The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn’t Say about Human Origins. If you’re not familiar with Beyond the Box, over the last year these guys have interviewed the likes of Brian McLaren, Robin Parry (an evangelical universalist), and Sharon Baker (justice, atonement, and hell). Here, from their website, is a brief description of what Beyond the Box is about: Beyond the Box is the podcast... Read more
Before we get going here, let’s be clear on what I.am.saying. and what I.am.not.saying. This is not a cynical, “I’m above it all,” anti-political rant. I am not telling you both candidates are the same. I am not telling you not to vote. I am not telling you to stop arguing about politics and coming to strong convictions. Have at it. I am saying that if you get so worked up about it that you become really angry, or you actually... Read more
Over a hundred years ago, German-and-therefore-easily-dismissible-Old-Testament-scholar Hermann Gunkel (1862-1932), the dapper gentleman pictured to the left, wrote the following about Genesis: A child, indeed, unable to distinguish between reality and poetry, loses something when it is told that its dearest stories are “not true.” But the modern theologian should be further developed. The evangelical churches and their chosen representatives would do well not to dispute the fact that Genesis contains legends–as has been done too frequently–but to recognize that the knowledge of... Read more
Peter Enns
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