In this week’s podcast, Pete Enns and I talk about his latest book, How the Bible Actually Works. Check out his blog for lots of short posts that will give you a taste of his perspective, his writing style, and his sense of humor, as well as his view of the Bible.
I really appreciate the variety of ways that Pete Enns makes the point that going beyond the Bible is biblical, while being a biblicist, claiming that the Bible is all you need, is profoundly unbiblical. Here’s how Pete put it, in a recent guest post on the Internet Monk blog:
Simply put, seeing the need to move beyond biblical categories is biblical—and as such poses a wonderful model, even divine permission—shall I say “mandate”—to move beyond the Bible when the need arises and reason dictates.
Being a “biblical” Christian today means accepting that challenge: a theology that genuinely grows out of the Bible but that is not confined to the Bible.
And so I see the matter of Christian faith and evolution not as a “debate” but as a discussion, not defending familiar orthodoxies as if in a fortress but accepting the challenge of a journey of theological exploration and discovery.
There is now a series of blog posts on the Internet Monk blog focusing on Chaplain Mike’s review of a book that Enns is one of several authors of, The Bible and the Believer, which has already spanned multiple installments. They include a number of great quotes from Pete about a variety of topics related to the Bible and conservative Evangelical resistance to scholarship in the name of biblicism. For instance when he says, “Conflict will continue until engagement of critical thinking becomes part of the narrative rather than deemed as a threat to the tribe’s existence.” See also Karen Keen’s review of Enns’ book, The Bible Tells Me So, and her review of another book about biblicism.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In