In chapter 8 (‘Cultivating a habit of trust’), Peter Enns bares his heart. We learn that in his forties, he went through a bad time. His daughter had developed an anxiety disorder so severe that she had to be sent away to a boarding school far from home. A seemingly co-incidental and almost trivial incident struck him as a ‘God-moment’ that helped him to see that we do not have to know and understand before we commit to God in faith.…
It is a well-known fact that prescriptions for antidepressants have double over the past ten years.
I’ve been reading a short article in the Daily Mail (June 30, 2017).
Various reasons have been put forward to explain this, and there’s probably truth in many of them: many women, for example, are struggling with the pressures of trying to raise a family, hold down a job, and look after ageing relatives.
Another factor may be that mental health conditions are more frequently recognised these days, and there is less of a stigma attached to seeking help.…
‘God Wants You Dead’, exclaims the title of chapter 7 of Peter Enns’ latest book.
Many of us, says Enns, feel doubt creeping up on us, and then start to feel guilty about it. So we fight it. And then, when we find that the doubt won’t go away, we end up living lives of ‘quiet and wretched desperation’.
But doubt is not the enemy of faith, but only the enemy of certainty. In fact, doubt is the friend of faith, because it takes us away from the security ‘knowing what we believe’ and towards trust. …
If we limit faith to correct thinking, we find ourselves unprepared and ill-equipped for what life throws at us. But faith-as-trust enables us to listen to our ‘uh-oh’ moments, and even to grow and mature in our walk with God.
What do we do, for example, with the God of the Bible, with his impatience (Gen 6-9) and violence (Deut 20:10-18; Rev 14:14-16)? How is this any better than today’s ideologically- and religiously-motivated violence?
What do we make of the world-view of the Bible, so completely different from what we now know from modern science? …
OK, so Peter Enns anticipated the objection I raised in response to chapters 3 and 4 of his book.
In chapter 5, he acknowledges that some people might think that some of the psalms, Ecclesiastes, and Job are exceptions to the rule. They express doubt, it might be argued, but the rest of the Bible promotes assurance.
Perhaps, responds Enns, but not assurance about what we believe, but whom we trust.
Enns pleads that he is not opposed to ‘knowing’, but, rather, he is opposed to ‘preoccupation with correct thinking’.…
The book of Ecclesiastes goes even further than the psalms in representing this point of view. Life – the life that God has given us – is a sick joke (Eccle 1:13-15). We run around in circles, and have nothing to show for it, for it all ends in the absurdity of death (Eccle 3:19-21). After twelve chapters of more-or-less unrelieved despair, the take-home message is this: trust God and keep his commandments anyway (Eccle 12:12f).…
In chapter 3 of his book, Peter Enns considers those parts of the Bible that give voice to doubt, rather than certainty.
He looks first at those psalms in which the writer complains that things have gone terribly wrong, and that God seems to have gone AWOL. They express, in other words, a crisis of faith. Psalm 88 is a notable example. Enns feels that he and others have been shielded from such expressions of doubt, and even made to feel guilty for having such feelings themselves.…
Chapter 2 – How We Got Into This Mess
In the second chapter of The Sin of Certainty, Peter Enns sketches what he thinks are the historical roots of the evangelical pro-occupation with right thinking.
He begins by observing that we do not become Christians by working things out rationally, and then coming to a decision, but by other means. This being the case, then the emphasis which many Christians place on ‘knowing what you believe’ is misplaced. …
Peter Enns stands in a rather long line of scholars, teachers and leaders (including James Barr, Dave Tomlinson, Brian Maclaren, Robert M. Price, Bart Ehrman, and Steve Chalke) who have, to a lesser or greater extent, turned their backs on the evangelical faith which once nurtured them. In some cases (Ehrman) it has finished up in agnosticism. In others (Price) in doubting whether the Jesus of the Bible even existed. In still others (Tomlinson, Maclaren, and Chalke) there remains a clear profession of Christian faith, while important theological and moral tenets have undergone drastic revision. …
The class was set a task to write a short paper on “Things I Am Most Thankful For.” One small boy put at the top of his list, “My glasses. They keep the boys from punching me and the girls from kissing me.”
‘As the Lord loves a cheerful giver, so likewise a cheerful thanksgiver.’ (John Boys)
‘The Christian is suspended between blessings received and blessings hoped for, so he should always give thanks.’ (M.R. Vincent)
Bible commentator Matthew Henry, after being robbed, wrote in his diary: ‘Let me be thankful.…
