August 21, 2025 • 62 mins
"I have no idea what I'm talking about and I don't mind that," admits theologian Pete Enns in this refreshingly honest conversation about faith beyond certainty. This realization brought him not panic or dread, but profound relief—a sentiment that has guided his work helping others navigate their spiritual journeys.
Pete shares how embracing uncertainty transformed his relationship with Christianity, moving from rigid certainty to authentic questioning. As an academic expert in biblical studies, his willingness to acknowledge mystery carries unique weight. We explore his books including "The Sin of Certainty" and "How the Bible Actually Works," which have provided language and permission for countless believers struggling with faith communities that demand unwavering certainty.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn as we examine Christianity's counterintuitive foundations. "How did this crazy story ever catch on?" Pete wonders about a religion centered on a crucified messiah—a symbol not just of death but profound shame in ancient culture. This absurdity becomes one of his most compelling reasons for remaining within the tradition, seeing in it something authentically transcendent rather than merely manufactured.
Pete reflects on finding healing communities where questions are welcomed rather than feared, describing how many people come to "lick their wounds" before continuing their spiritual journeys. He contrasts this approach with religious environments that demand intellectual conformity, arguing that authentic faith must honor experience alongside scripture and tradition.
Throughout our discussion, baseball metaphors (despite our conflicting team loyalties), quantum physics, and reflections on mysticism weave together into a compelling case for faith that "honors your head without living in it." Pete's upcoming project exploring "being Christian after Christianity" promises to further develop these themes of mystery, experience, and authenticity.
Whether you're questioning your faith, healing from religious trauma, or simply curious about approaching spirituality with intellectual honesty, this conversation offers refreshing perspectives on finding common ground across theological differences. Subscribe now and join our community seeking meaningful dialogue in divided times.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Does it feel like every part of your life is
divided, Every scenario, everyenvironment, your church, your
school, your work, your friends,left right, conservative,
liberal, religious, secular?
It seems you always have totake a side.
This is a conversation betweena progressive Christian and a
conservative atheist who happento be great friends.
(00:23):
Welcome to Living on CommonGround.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Do you think if we met today, we would still be
friends.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
I don't know, but we're friends now.
Speaker 5 (00:38):
A mom is no less a mom because they are with him,
man.
So what?
We won a few games and y'allfools think that's something.
Man, that ain't nothing, y'all.
And you know what else?
We ain't nothing either.
Yeah, we came together in camp,cool.
But then we're right back hereand the world tells us that they
(01:00):
don't want us to be together.
We fall apart like we ain't adamn bit of nothing, man.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
For this week's episode.
We had the opportunity to sitdown and visit with professor,
author and podcast host, peteEnns.
We discussed uncertaintycommunity and his work with the
Bible for normal people.
You can find out more aboutPete and support the work he's
doing on Substack by searchingOdds and Ends.
A link is provided in thisweek's episode description.
(01:32):
But now just sit back and relaxand we hope that you really
enjoy the conversation.
So, yeah, I'm Jeff and super,really excited to have you on
Pete.
We're just going to jump rightin, if that's all right.
Yeah, that's fine, Okay, perfect.
(01:52):
So I first came across whatyou're doing.
Oh, it's been a few years now.
I went out and I purchased thebook Sin of Certainty because I
was having some personal issueswith how sure everyone was and I
(02:21):
felt like it was leading to alot of problems within the
community that I was a part of.
But then when I read that, thenI was like, well, this is
brilliant.
And so then I went back and Ibought how the Bible Actually
Works.
And then the Bible tells me so.
Then I pre-ordered Curveball,which came out.
(02:44):
That was last year, wasn't it?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Uh, 23, february.
Okay, all right yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Time flies and I and I, I bought it and uh, and then
I read that you were a bigbaseball fan and I was like, oh,
I like Pete even more.
But then I came across the factthat you're a Yankee fan.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
I understand.
I understand that I have beendoing this.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
It's not for you.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
It's just because it was sitting there staring at me
and said please put me on.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Maybe they'll play better now.
I don't know what's happening.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah Well, cleveland is about to catch them.
Yeah, I know, yeah, so I'mpretty excited.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
The Yankees don't deserve to make the playoffs,
let alone the other worlds.
They just they're not goodenough and the Yankee fans are
hoping that all the darkunderbelly is exposed.
And there's a cleaning house ofmanagement, which hasn't
happened, and the generalmanager has been there for 30
years and boone, who I respect,but he's just not winning under
(03:47):
him.
He's been around for abouteight or nine now, so yeah, my
wife's from long island oh,really okay, yeah, so she's a
big mets fan yeah, but then yeah, but then living here in?
Speaker 2 (03:58):
we live in nashville oh yeah yeah and uh.
So it's this interesting thingthat happens where everyone from
new york, they justautomatically become friends
because, like, that's theiraffinity.
Yeah, and so some of ourclosest friends are Yankee fans,
which that, yeah, he's all thetime talking about how they need
(04:20):
to get rid of Boone.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Yeah, that's the general consensus, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah, well, anyway.
Anyway, this is not a uh, thisis not a baseball podcast I
can't.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
If we want it to be, it can't I.
I know well.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Well, we can talk about how we can find common
ground, as long as we don't talkabout the team specifically.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Yeah, yeah, it's one of the last uh vestiges of
tribalism, I would say.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
I know seriously In the.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
West.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
There's no question, and it's nothing like the
tribalism of British football,for example.
Yeah, it's still there.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
But a sublimation of the same instinct I would
imagine.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Yeah, I think it is.
I think it is.
Yeah, I agree, yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah, I think it is that I have been labeled.
We've talked a lot about labelsand things like that, but I've
been labeled as a progressiveChristian and I push back a
little bit against that.
I think it has a lot to do withwhere I live, and so that makes
(05:42):
it seem like I'm a lot moreprogressive than maybe I am.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
Yeah, push back as much as you want, jeff.
Yeah, and then?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
there's.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Lucas.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Lucas, who uh has been identified as a traditional
uh conservative.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
I'm fine with conservative.
I'm fine with conservativeatheist, conservative, atheist,
conservative atheist.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I'veargued.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I've argued that um, but he's from California, right?
Speaker 1 (06:06):
And I'm from Tennessee.
Well, there you go.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Well, yeah, so basically we're the same person,
but, uh, but, but we taught the.
The idea is how do we, how dowe bridge um differences, how
people that that would appear onpaper that they should not be
friends or would not be able toget along, how is it that we can
do that?
And then, so what we do is wetalk to different people, we
(06:30):
talk about different things, andone of the things I was
thinking about is somethingthat's helped me, and so I'd
like to hear you talk more aboutthis.
Is that, for me, what reallyhelped was the ability to fully
embrace the fact that I don'treally know was the ability to
fully embrace the fact that Idon't really know, and so, again
, it was that sin of certaintythat I was able to, and over the
(06:51):
time it already started to shed, but it wasn't until I read the
book that I was fully willingto let it go.
I felt like it was okay for meto not be certain anymore, and
so I was hoping that you'd talkmore about that.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Yeah Well, I mean, we have a similar experience, I
guess, because I remembervaguely it was, you know, the
Sin of Certainty came out in2014, I think, maybe 15.
And I've been on this sort ofpath since probably the late
(07:27):
2000s, like maybe 2007 or 8, oreven a little bit before that.
And the relief that came to me,not just I don't need to know
everything, I don't need to becertain, but the simple fact
that I just sit there and I sayI really have no idea what I'm
talking about and I don't mindthat.
(07:49):
I mean, see, the Bible, myfield is Bible, right, it's not
religion, it's Bible.
And Bible is a concrete thing,it's a historical phenomenon.
You can dig into it, you canmake certain conclusions, draw
certain conclusions or based onyour assumptions or whatever,
and that's that's a differentthing.
But I'm also a person of faithand there's much more going on
(08:14):
than simply the Bible, right,and how you read it.
It's what you think of God andwhat you think of faith and all
that sort of stuff.
And those are the things that Ijust I remember sitting in a
room once where I used to liveand I was just reading something
.
I don't know what it was.
It had nothing to do withanything, but I just sort of
(08:36):
stopped and just somethingwelled up from inside of me and
what I said to myself was I haveno idea what the cross is about
.
I know what's written there.
I also know the various thingsthat are written there.
I know the various opinionspeople have had, but I'm like I
don't even know how that works.
And what came over me was notpanic and dread, it was just oh
(09:02):
good, you're being honest, right.
And dread.
It was just oh good, you'rebeing honest, right.
And I think that's sometimes thebarrier that people feel that
they have to look a certain wayor put up a certain, you know,
just a presentation they give tothe world around them,
especially at church.
And I just I don't believe inany of that, because I think one
(09:25):
of my core values is trying toachieve authenticity.
I want to be real and and theydid so for what I think are very
good reasons in theirexperience no-transcript lines.
(10:33):
And then if you do that, well,then God's fine with you.
I said that's not God.
I don't know what, that is whatyou just described, but it's
not God.
So all those things take awaythat fear that many people have
and understand so, about justnot being certain, and to me
it's a necessary maturation forme, and I think it is for others
(10:56):
too.
I don't know, I don't reallyknow, but I trust, I explore, I
have faith.
And if you take hell off thepicture, a lot of things change
too with this picture.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
Pascal's wager, the wager being just for anybody who
doesn't know, the wager beingthat if God doesn't exist, or if
this isn't the right way, let'ssay if hell doesn't exist, then
it doesn't hurt anything to sayyou believe in Jesus and God
(11:43):
and do all the right things, butif it does exist, then that's a
real big risk to take.
And so the wager being go aheadand, and it's kind of a um, uh,
uh, game theory, um, decision,right, you, uh, you, you pick
the thing that has the leastamount of risk and the most
(12:07):
amount of reward, given thevariables that you understand,
blah, blah, blah, right.
And and I, I remember hitchensused to always say that, um,
when presented with thatquestion, you know what?
What do you think about thiswager?
And shouldn't you still justfall on the safe side?
Uh and I think harris has saidthis also, sam harris has said
(12:27):
this also that, um, that hewould hope that an all-powerful
god, when presented at the end,would care more about, uh, a
truth-telling soul than one thatkind of, in his words, uh uses
kind of a charlatan trick to uhslip in the back door Right, and
(12:50):
um, that's kind of what I'm I'mhearing you talk about here is
like that that the it's moreimportant to be honest
internally.
Uh, because, because, becauseyou're the one that you have to
live with at the end of the day,your own internal experience is
(13:11):
the one that you're going tohave to remain with.
So losing your soul to protecta potential reward at the end
doesn't seem like a greattrade-off well, yeah, and it's.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
And I think I agree with you, and you know, I think
you probably both have heard howmuch experience and intuition
are maligned in in certainchristian circles because, well,
that's sinful.
You know, you can't trust yourown intuitions and your own
experiences because they'resinful.
Just, you have to trust theBible.
(13:48):
That's usually what it comesdown to, and what, of course, is
often missed is the fact thatthe Bible is interpreted by
subjective human beings.
It's, in fact, a verysubjective text.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Right that it's your intuition that's guiding you to.
Whatever your interpretation isof the Bible.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
You cannot escape intuition and experience in,
let's say, adjudicating the lifeof faith.
You can't escape that.
And you know Richard Rohr, whoI like a lot.
He's got this wonderful littleanalogy about a tricycle and
it's got three wheels and onewheel is your experience, the
other wheel is scripture itselfand the other wheel is the
(14:28):
tradition that you're a part of.
And if you ask, let's say, anevangelical, what's the front
wheel?
And they say well, it's theBible.
And and um Ror says no, it'syour experience that it drives
everything.
And if a religion that has anincarnation element to it, if it
can't handle that, it's notworth much to me.
If it can't handle our humanitythat Christians believe God was
(14:53):
pleased enough to participatein and God's spirit dwells in to
say that your intuition meansnothing, that your intuition
means nothing.
See, what that really does isit reduces this is the great
irony it reduces the Christianfaith to essentially an
intellectual exercise that'sdetached from your experience
(15:13):
and your emotions or anything.
It's just very logical.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
I say it's ironic because the arguments that are
put forth for that are some ofthe most illogical things that
I've ever heard, and they getbacked up against.
Sorry to interrupt.
They get backed up at somepoint and then appeal to mystery
when they run into theroadblock.
I always think about this,where you want to participate in
this kind of enlightenmentlevel rational argument, because
(15:44):
of course that is what is thehighest ideal in our particular
culture, right?
Is this?
This?
Because we're an enlightenmentculture, so you want to
participate in that until youhit the roadblock.
And then there's an appeal tomystery, right, which I think
that you could probably just sitin from the beginning.
You could just appeal to thatmystery from the beginning words
(16:05):
out of my mouth, lucas oh sorryand I know.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
No, you didn't do anything wrong.
I'm just saying like we're onthe same wavelength here in that
respect, because I do thinkthat you know the curveball that
last book I wrote two years ago.
Um, I I explore the curveballsthat have happened in my life
that have led me basically tomystery.
And you know I have twochapters on quantum physics
(16:30):
which I don't understand.
You know a chapter on evolutionand anthropology which I don't
really understand either, notfrom a scientific point of view.
And my point is that you know,especially with the Einstein
Einstein revolution, that timeand gravity and space, it's all
like a fabric that gets bent bymass.
(16:51):
What the heck is that evenabout?
But that's what it is.
The bottom line is that theworld we live in and the cosmos
we inhabit is so steeped inmystery, whether it's the very
largest things we're looking ator the very smallest things
we're looking at, it's sosteeped in mystery, whether it's
the very largest things we'relooking at or the very smallest
things we're looking at, it's sosteeped in mystery.
How dare you not have a God whocan keep up with that?
(17:11):
That God is.
It's not him.
But we use metaphors to talkabout God.
Right, god is ultimate mystery,but I think mystery that can be
known, just like our creationis a mystery, but we can also
know it and perceive it oncertain levels.
So we're not getting all of theCreator, we're getting, maybe
(17:34):
you know, think of a circle.
We're getting like one degreeor two degrees of an arc, but
the rest of it is steeped inthings we simply don't
understand.
So who can really understand God?
And I know that's anathema tomany religious people, but for
me that's what keeps me going,the fact that I get to think
about these things and try tomake sense of it.
(17:55):
But the world doesn't hang inthe balance with my coming up
with the right answers, becausewe're dealing with something
that's beyond us.
And David Bentley Hart, who Ilike a lot, he's a I don't know
if you've read him, but he's aphilosopher, sort of polymath
kind of guy.
But he says all the greattraditions have understood this
(18:25):
Buddhism and anything else.
They've understood that God isat the end of the day.
What we call God is, at the endof the day, that which cannot
be expressed adequately by ourthinking and by our words, and I
think American Christianity'sforgotten that.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Yeah, it's been my experience that the more I
embrace the unknowing, theunknowable, the larger God
becomes, and the more convincedI am that there actually is
something, the more certain Iwas the actual.
Let's see how do I want tophrase that?
(18:59):
The more I relied on certainty,the less able I was to be
convinced that there actuallywas a God.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Hence the book's title the Sin of Certainty.
It can actually take you away,especially if people force it on
you.
You have to be certain, right.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Yeah, I agree.
And then I was able to, yeah,just, I don't know, like, for
example, I was at a couple weeksago I had the opportunity to be
on a panel at an atheistconvention here in Nashville in
(19:44):
attendance, came up to me andshe said I believe everything
you believe, which I thought wasinteresting, that an atheist
was telling me she believeseverything I believe, which I
clearly stated that I didbelieve in God, and she said but
the problem with your beliefsis that none of it is actually
supported by scripture, which Ialso thought was very funny to
me, but my response was simplyokay, okay, I didn't feel a need
(20:06):
to defend that.
I want to go back to somethingthat you said earlier, when we
first started that we had sortof a similar experience with
growing up in the church andthen kind of coming to this
place where you just couldn't,at least for me.
I don't want to put words inyour mouth, but for me I
couldn't um, all of the, all ofthe, the simple platitudes, the,
(20:31):
the answers that I was supposedto have memorized, they just
didn't sit well with me.
You talked about being um,consistent.
We've often talked about thisidea of having intellectual
honesty, um, um, but yeah, beinga person of consistency, um
matters to me, but.
But when you started I'm tryingto remember when I read it in
the book but when you startedcoming and dealing with this
(20:54):
kind of thing and what, what wasthe reaction that you got from
the community that you were apart of?
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Um, yeah, not good.
I mean, you know I don't wantto over-dramatize it, but I was
coming to some of these thoughtswhen I was teaching at
Westminster Seminary, which isoutside of Philadelphia.
It's gone through various wavesin its history, from 1929 of
(21:21):
being staunchly,unapologetically Calvinist to
more like willing to engage.
And when I was a student therewe were more willing to engage.
But as I became a professorthere, uh, the ground started
shifting underneath me and itbecame more of one of these, you
know, basically make Americagreat again, kind of mentalities
like let's get back to theoriginal and everything's going
to be fine.
(21:42):
Um, so, yeah, it in that senseit didn't go well, but some of
my real thinking started when Iwas sort of free of that and I
have just surrounded myself withpeople who value that and
understand that part of the lifeof faith.
(22:03):
And for me, part of that hasbeen moving to more liturgical
spaces.
Like I'm Episcopalian, I wasCalvinist for a while and we
attended a very nice I mean, ifyou guys know, the Nazarenes,
but a very, very nice Nazarenechurch in my area that
understood also things aboutspiritual journey and I sort of
(22:25):
explained myself to the pastorand he said you know, pete,
what's great is, sometimespeople come here, they just lick
their wounds for a few yearsand then they leave, and that's
fine.
We've done our job, and that'sbasically what I did.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
And then moved on.
That's the tradition that Igrew up in as well as Nazarene.
Yeah.
It wasn't specifically it was anoffshoot of the Nazarene church
, um called church of GodAnderson.
It's um out of the Wesleyanholiness movement, but it's uh,
it's a sister denomination ofNazarene.
And I grew up under my seniorpastor was, um, uh, Nazarene.
(22:58):
Like he, he grew up, he wasfrom the Nazarene tradition
specifically, um, you know, wentto point Loma and uh for his
seminary and all of that and um,but it and it was it.
What's interesting that, whenyou're talking about that and I
don't know where you were goingwith it and uh, all the way.
So I apologize aboutinterrupting, but, um, I just
think this, I think that'sinteresting, um, I would.
(23:19):
I think most people who, if Iwere to describe my upbringing
and the church that I grew up in, they would say, yes, you grew
up in an evangelical, maybe evenfundamentalist, not exactly a
fundamentalist, but like evendefinitely evangelical,
conservative, uh, christiancommunity and it's, that's true,
(23:40):
but it, it did always have thatto me.
I'm sure everyone's you know,everyone's experience in that
church would have been differentin some way, right, um, but to
me it did always feel like ithad what you were talking about,
where there was like a, youknow, it's fine, we know what we
believe here, but it's.
(24:01):
But it's fine If you have theseother questions.
We're not going to shut downthe questions you can.
You can talk about it.
Yeah, we're not threatened.
You're wrong, but that's okay.
No, no, you're not upset aboutit.
We're not upset about it, youknow?
Um, I shouldn't even say itlike that, like you're wrong,
that I I never got that.
I got definite teachings as Iwas growing up.
(24:24):
This is what believe, but Ireally didn't get the like.
Oh, we're really concernedabout this theological idea you
have.
You weren't judged by them Right, right, yeah, Anyway.
So I just think that'sinteresting and the lick your
wounds mentality.
I definitely saw people whosaid that about our church as
(24:49):
well.
Yeah, when they were hurt.
They came and they licked theirwounds and they said that they
were comforted and healedthrough that and then moved on.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
Yeah, and they don't think of that as a betrayal
Right, that's my experience,right, yeah, and they don't
think of that as a betrayal,right?
That's my experience, right, soyou know they, rather than
thinking of your little tinychurch, as essentially this is
it, why would you ever leave?
You know, why would you getsomething else?
And there was a story of by ohgosh, I forgot his name now he
(25:23):
wrote a great book on John ofthe Cross, stephen.
Oh gosh, he was a psychiatrist,anyway, he would do seminars on
.
No, it was somebody else.
Anyway, I forget all that.
But he, this guy, famous guydoing seminars in churches, and
asked to come to one mega churchand he was presented with this
problem and they said you knowwhat?
(25:44):
We have this church, but wefind people are leaving, and
they're leaving to go to thesemore liturgical churches and
some of this contemplative stuff.
So we want you to teach us howto do all that stuff so they'll
stay.
What's wrong with them justleaving?
(26:11):
You know what?
Why do they have to stay?
And that there's this um,there's this arrogance, really,
of thinking that, well, we're it.
You know, and it seems like you, lucas, didn't have that
experience in that, in that, uh,wesley and anderson, whatever
you call it, that's new to me.
I never heard of this um, and Ihad two and uh, and I think I
think that's a really healingthing and that's where I felt
free to do more.
(26:32):
I was doing more reading andexploring and talking with
people that led me to aliturgical environment where I
learned to the way I put it,honor my head without living in
it.
The way I put it, honor my headwithout living in it.
I'm an academic and I've beentaught that basically,
christianity is something youdebate about and argue over and
(26:55):
realizing I don't know anything.
Really, I know a lot but Idon't know anything.
At the same time, to be in aplace where the emphasis is not
on, say, 45-minute sermons,which are really lectures
they're theology lectures orsomething and to have you read
(27:15):
from a book and that's notstilted, that's participating in
a communion that transcendsyour time and place, and I sort
of like that.
And I like the 12 to 15 minutehomilies because they usually
get to the point pretty quickly,and the centering of Eucharist,
which is mystery, right, andthe mystery of Eucharist is the
(27:37):
center of the Episcopaltradition, and all that has been
well life-giving to me.
You know and I haven I'm, youknow, I haven't done anything
for more than a few years at atime before I get tired of it,
but I've been part of this sinceabout 2009 or 10.
And it's like, yeah, I stilllike it.
You know, it's like it's thatstupid.
(27:58):
It's something that I lookforward to and different things
hit me in different ways, butI'm not in a place where I'm
judged for being who I am.
But I actually value it for whoI am and I think people look
for that and yeah, I know theaccusation well, they're just
tickling, itching ears andgiving you what you want to say.
It's like, well, they're notdoing that, but they're
(28:20):
accepting me for who I am andthey believe that I have
integrity and I believe thatthey do.
And you know, and there arequestioners there anyway, you
know, we read the Nicene Creedevery Sunday and get them
talking about it in like anadult form Sunday school class
and they'll say I don't reallyget this part, I'm not sure I
believe that other part and I'llkeep saying it because it's
(28:42):
part of the tradition, but Iwant to talk about it and
they're not thrown outdisciplined or something like
that.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
I want to talk about it and they're not thrown out,
disciplined or something likethat.
You said that you found acommunity where you were
accepted.
Do?
Speaker 3 (29:04):
you still participate in community with those who
still hold on to certainty?
Yeah, I do.
I mean, teaching at a Christiancollege will help that too.
(29:26):
I'm dealing with younger peopleand also some of my colleagues,
and that's fine.
I mean, there's no argumentsand I'm careful about
remembering that my students areabout 45 years younger than I
am and they haven't thoughtabout it and that's fine.
But they pick up things.
You know, we talk about thingsand many find it liberating and
some find it a little bit scary,but nobody hates anybody, you
know, and so that's a good thing.
You know who were instrumentalin making my life a nightmare
(29:47):
the last couple of years that Iwas at Westminster Seminary, who
since then have, if I can justput it this way, they've seen
their complicity in somethingthat is just wrong and they've
asked for my forgiveness and Igladly gave it to them.
And we hang out and drink beerevery once in a while and it's
fun because we have a sharedhistory and we can talk about
(30:08):
those things.
Even though their views are notwhere mine are, they understand
where I'm coming from andthey're not fighting with me and
I'm not fighting with them it'sgreat sort of nice.
Yeah, it doesn't always happenthat way of course yeah, yeah,
no I, yeah, no, I get that.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
So a friend of ours who I introduced her to your
stuff and she listens now to theBible for Normal People pretty
religiously, pun intended.
She sent me one of yourepisodes this morning and asked
(30:47):
me to listen to it because sheknew that we were going to be
talking to you and it was theepisode where you talk about
it's from 2022, so I'm sure it'sfresh on your mind.
It's where you had done a blogand you asked people like, why
have they left faith?
And then you sort ofcategorized it into five
(31:09):
different-.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Five things right yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Right.
But then you talked about whyyou remained, and so I was
interested in that.
Like, why are you still aperson of faith?
Like, why haven't you just saidyou know what, I don't have to
actually believe anything, I'mokay with not being certain
about anything, right, which Ithink isn't that sort of
basically the again, lucas isour resident expert on this but
(31:34):
is that basically the atheistposition?
Is that I'm just not convinced.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Yeah, I mean yes and no.
I mean that's a good questionthe way you put it.
Yeah, I mean yes and no.
(32:11):
I mean that's a good question,the way you put it.
You know, I have atheistfriends as well, you know, and
we talk about things or peoplewho are, let's just say,
determinedly agnostic.
You know, and I've to get toyour point, I've called myself.
I'm an agnostic Christian, youknow, or maybe a Christian that
embraces mystery, you know, andso, and then the next question
usually is well, why stay in anyof it?
You know, and I think there Iprobably could unfold a bunch of
reasons for that that aremeaningful to me.
It might not be meaningful toanybody else, but part of it has
been my experience of thattradition, right, the.
You know what I would call God,moments that I've had, which
(32:34):
aren't very frequent, but I'vehad moments where I just felt
man, I just know God's there,and I don't even know what I
mean when I say God, but Ithat's.
You know.
Peter Holmes, a comedian, saysGod is the blanket we throw over
mystery to give it shape.
I don't know if you've heardthat expression, I love it, but
I think that's true and I sayGod with you know sort of
(32:54):
quotation marks, because I don'tknow what this being is or if
this is even a being.
Anyway, that's a whole otherquestion.
But so, yeah, I, I just I'mtrying.
I lost track of the questionhere, jeff, I'm sorry.
Oh, why believe in anything?
I think that's part of it is myexperience of God and also the
(33:16):
communities that I've been inthat have been healing
communities that are alsoworking sort of in that boat.
You know it's the boat ofChristianity, along with other
boats floating down the river.
You know, and that's sort ofwhere I am.
I think too of you know my lifeof studying Scripture and its
(33:39):
interpretation and what theChristian community has sort of
how it's not appropriate is thewrong word how it has creatively
handled scripture throughoutits history, is actually a very
encouraging thing to see,because the church has sort of
(34:02):
always known that like thisliteral meaning.
That like this literal meaning.
Yeah, it's a given, it has aliteral meaning, but that's not
what the interesting stuff is.
If you want to make thistradition connect, you have to
go beneath the surface and getvery creative with the
interpretation of the text andso sort of our modernist slavish
attention to the exact wordsand what they mean.
(34:25):
And they mean only one thingand they can't mean different
things to different people.
That's part of the modernistmindset which the evangelical
and fundamentalist churches havebought into wholesale, and
that's why it's hard to getalong with them sometimes and
that's also why they lose everydebate with modernists who
aren't Christians.
Because they just take thatthinking and make it more
(34:45):
consistent, I think.
Because they just take thatthinking and make it more
consistent, I think so you know,it's living in those
communities.
That has helped me as well.
And also, just, you know, I'veread the Bible many times, you
know, in the original languages,and I am struck sometimes by
(35:07):
how the biblical writerssometimes seem to transcend
their own moment in time and totalk about things.
I call these mystery passages,you know, passages that aren't.
They're not logical, they'renot arguments, but I mean
something.
Like you know, jesus' highpriestly prayer in the middle of
John's gospel, and it's likeyou know, jesus is about to be
(35:29):
crucified and he prays for thedisciples saying Father, I pray
that as you are in me and as Iam in you, that they be in each
other and they be with me, andall this kind of stuff.
That's mystical language, right?
You can't really put a head onthat.
You can't just control thatlanguage.
It's a very mystical language,I think, of Colossians, whoever
(35:55):
wrote Colossians.
But for the end of the firstchapter that the writer says in
his sufferings he is filling upwhat is lacking in the
sufferings of Christ.
I have no idea what that means.
I know it's very mystical.
You know you're participatingin the sufferings of Christ and
filling up what's lacking inthose sufferings by suffering
yourself.
And there are tons of thesethings in the Bible that some of
(36:19):
it's just weird, some of it'slike another king who blew it.
Do I have to keep reading 1 and2 Kings?
And Chronicles has a wholedifferent take on it.
What's going on here?
But even that to me, I'mwatching.
Later, pilgrims of faith inantiquity take those older
stories and rework them entirelybecause their circumstances
(36:40):
have changed, right?
What's the kind of traditionthat's behind all this?
Sign me up, you know, becauseit's our, I think it's our
sacred responsibility to thinkabout, to use the Christian
language.
You know, how would Jesus showup right here and right now?
And the answer to that is neverdiverse, internally
(37:17):
contradictory to the point whereauthors sometimes debate each
other in these texts isdemonstrating to us and this is
the theme of how the Bibleactually works that the Bible
may be more a book of wisdomthat we're supposed to use
wisely and appropriate wiselyand not just slavish like a rule
book.
And to me, those are just a fewthings that make me.
(37:41):
You know, yeah, I want to behere, you know, and I also
understand people who don't.
I'm just saying this is for me.
I'm not a good apologist, youknow, I wouldn also understand
people who don't.
I'm just saying this is for me.
I'm not a good apologist, youknow, I wouldn't go out and this
is why everyone should believeexactly as I do.
I don't like that, but that's,that's where I am.
And I've come across many, manypeople in my life who are like,
yeah, that's pretty much whereI am too.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Yeah, yeah.
In terms of apologists, I wasthinking about Philip Gulley.
I don't know if you're familiarwith Philip Gulley or not, but
in one of his books he talksabout the reason that he's a
person of faith is because he,just at the end of the day,
chooses to be.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
Yeah right.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
I just choose to be, and I've started taking that as
my mantra.
If someone asks me, I'm likebecause that's what I choose.
As you were talking, I wasthinking about a recent
conversation that we had withPeter.
I almost said Peter Enns, peterRollins.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
Yeah, sure, yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
And he was talking about this idea and I heard, as
you were talking, this came tomy mind.
He talked about this idea thatChristianity is the lived
practice and I'm messing this upa little bit but of lack, where
atheism is the intellectualembrace of lack and Christianity
(38:58):
is the lived experience of lack.
And so you were talking aboutthis idea of if it, of if, if
it's about experience.
There's like this mystical,this um, that I can't quite
understand.
But sign me up for that.
I think that's the way you putthat.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
So anyway, right, and that's that's not unheard of in
the history of the christiantradition either.
That's the thing.
People think that everyone wassort of fundamentalist from
moses on, but that's not thecase, and there have been
monastic movements that left thetyranny of the organized
religious machine, you know, andwent off in their own way to
contemplate god, and I thinkthat's why experience is the
(39:38):
heart of this.
You know, the whole point ofthe religious journey is to have
experiences of the, of thedivine, of the numinous.
This is what it's about toexperience some transcendence in
our lives.
And, like you said, jared, aco-host of the Bible, for Normal
(40:01):
People he says the same thingLike why are you a Christian?
He says I choose to be Well.
Why, well, I just choose to be.
He has all sorts of reasons,but it's like, you know, what
people are looking for is like Ineed the iron clad answers for
why this is the best religionand no others are good, and that
doesn't I just I can't givethat.
I can't give that.
(40:21):
I can talk about things, aboutthe Christian faith that that
attract me.
For example, I mean one thingabout, you know, the cross and
all that is here.
You have a religion that hasits roots in the first century
and the selling point was yourmessiah was crucified on a cross
(40:43):
.
Come follow us, you know itdoesn't?
it's so counterintuitive, andand I'm attracted to
counterintuitiveness because Ibelieve that all religious
faiths should be verycounterintuitive to how we think
and how we live.
And um, I forgot who it was, anew testament scholar, um gosh.
You know, I'm getting older.
I can't remember.
(41:04):
I'm glad I can remember my name, let alone other people's.
But somebody said you know, ifyou're going to set up a
religion in the first century,this is not how you do it.
You know you don't say you'reJewish Messiah, who's supposed
to, as Luke's gospel puts it inthe first two chapters, protect
you from your enemies and saveyou and deliver you from those
(41:27):
who mean you harm.
That's Zechariah's prophecyafter he got his voice back in
Luke.
That was not the only, but itwas a common Messianic
expectation among Jews.
And here you have one whomChristians claim to be, that
very Messiah who is crucified.
(41:48):
And so you have God in somesense participating in not just
a death but a humiliating death,which I think turns on its head
the whole honor-shame dynamicthat drives a lot of the God
talk in the Hebrew Bible.
You know, God gets offended, hegets almost embarrassed by the
Israelites.
(42:09):
You've shamed me.
I have to do something to getmy honor back and which, by the
way, is a great example of howwhat we're getting in the Bible
is people's understanding of God.
I think less than God you know,this is too contradictory anyway
, but you know so I think thosethings are, I think, less than
God, you know, because it's toocontradictory anyway, but you
know, so I think those thingsare to me.
(42:29):
They just make me stop and saythis is worth looking into a bit
more.
This isn't the fundamentalismthat we see on TV or in the
government.
This is a deep contemplativeand philosophical tradition that
knows its roots but alsounderstands that we live in a
(42:50):
different time and place and wehave to put these pieces
together somehow I think it'sreally interesting.
Speaker 4 (42:56):
I can talk about this forever the um, the.
Your point about the uh, theshameful execution, uh, of the
historical jesus, I think isreally important.
I think that gets missed a lotbecause in the tradition that I
grew up in they would haveunderstood.
We would have talked about howyou know yeah, isn't this
(43:18):
interesting?
How you know, the Judeans werewaiting for this warrior and
instead we got the lamb and thatwas the.
That was the the um point allalong and it was kind of and it
was presented and then the crosswas about being very um painful
and a terrible death yeah, anda sacrifice, right, it really
(43:41):
hurt and it and then, and thenthe whole passion, right, the
beatings, the thorns, the cross,it was all very painful and
that showed the sacrifice which.
I think, is that's fine and Ireally don't want to be
dismissive about this.
But it was almost presentedkind of like the same way that
(44:03):
we present, uh, the movie rudyright where it's.
It is the underdog story, right, it's the yes, it's the one we
weren't expecting, that theyweren't expecting, but we
understand now that it was.
That was part of the story allalong and I think the shame part
of it I didn't realize, realizethat this was one thing that I
(44:27):
feel like and you can argue withme on this, but the historian
Tom Holland has talked aboutwhich is that the crucifixion
was a slave's death and itwasn't just it's not just that
it was painful because it'sexposure and it's a long time to
die and all of this, but thatit was an acceptance.
(44:50):
Everyone knew if you're beingcrucified, that means that you
are the lowest of the low youare.
It is an acceptance by thesociety.
Nobody gets crucified exceptfor these terrible people.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
Really terrible Right .
Yeah, nobody gets crucified,except for these terrible people
.
Speaker 4 (45:07):
Really terrible, right?
Yeah, yeah, you could be amurderer.
You're not going to getcrucified.
You could do a lot of terriblethings and not get crucified.
You'd have to be someone whowas, and to your point, it was
the humiliation of it.
And so, to your point, this isnot a way to start a religion,
(45:29):
because it's not an underdogstory.
It is taking someone who thesociety has not said you're a
sad sack that we're oppressing.
The society has said you arethe person we hate because you
are a bad and you're making thereligion out of that, and so I
(45:53):
think that's really interesting,and your point about flipping
on its head, that kind of honorsociety shame thing, is really
interesting.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
Yeah, I mean, that meant a lot to me once I sort of
stumbled on that, and this iswhy that meant a lot to me once
I sort of stumbled on that, andyou know this is why, you know,
mark's gospel has been called anapology for the cross.
Mark's gospel centers on andpeople who really know Mark have
told this to me but I'm notjust making this up, but how
Mark's gospel is saying no, no,no.
(46:23):
The crucifixion is not harmfulto the notion of Jesus as a
messiahship, it's actually thecore of it, right?
So that's very counterintuitive.
It's taking this thing that isanything but honoring and saying
what makes Jesus the son of Godor the Messiah is that act.
(46:43):
It's not the resurrection, it'sthe crucifixion that makes it
that, and that's an interestingtwist to things from a
historical point of view.
And then you have Paul in Romanswho says I'm not ashamed of the
gospel of Christ, it's thepower of God for salvation,
first for the Jew, then for theGentile.
And I don't know about you guys, I was always told when I was
(47:05):
younger well, that means youshould never be ashamed or
afraid to talk about Jesus onthe lunch line or something.
You need to say it.
But Paul's not afraid.
He's saying I'm not ashamed ofthe gospel.
Why would he be ashamed?
Because of how it started.
In a sense, he's got to sell topeople right, to Jews and to
(47:26):
Gentiles.
This Jewish guy who wascrucified is your Lord right?
I mean, that's got to be.
How did this ever catch on?
I sometimes think to myself,how did this crazy story ever
catch on?
And I think the linchpin thereis resurrection, faith.
(47:49):
I do think many people thinkthis without a notion of
resurrection, which I'm going tojust say is a mystery to me
also, along with atonement andincarnation, all that kind of
stuff.
I don't understand any of it.
But resurrection, I think, isthe reason why Christianity
(48:10):
continued.
People believed that and itsort of led it to flourish until
it got co-opted by Rome in thefourth century.
And the rest of it is history,right.
But yeah, so I think thecounterintuitive nature of it to
me is just a fascinating thingto think about and it moves me
actually to think about it.
(48:30):
It's just like this is not alogical system.
It became that In the NewTestament itself, david Bentley
Hart uses this language.
The New Testament is a Jewishapocalyptic text.
The end is coming, it's aroundthe corner.
Don't get married, paul says.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
You know, don't do it .
Speaker 3 (48:48):
It's just hang in there, right.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
That's very.
Speaker 4 (48:52):
Sorry, go ahead it didn't end there?
Speaker 2 (48:53):
No, it didn't end there, right yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
Because you know Jesus didn't come back Right and
so we got to settle in for thelong haul.
And in the meantime Jews arelike, no, we're not going to
(49:34):
believe this stuff.
It becomes a Gentile movementby the rebuilt because you know
God is going to return to histhrone and all this kind of
stuff and to turn that intobasically an afterlife journey
where it's all about.
That's what salvation reallybecame at that point.
It got sort of shifted to arealm that wasn't so Jewish, to
be quite blunt about it.
Speaker 4 (49:50):
Right, it became more Gentile, more philosophical, so
I find that fascinating, BartEhrman's entire argument that
Jesus the historical Jesus was aJewish apocalypticist right,
that that was his, that hismessage was, and this is his
(50:14):
argument, but that his messagewas you know, the end is coming.
Everything that is high will bebrought low, everything that is
low will be raised up.
You can tell who is evilbecause who's in power.
You can tell who's good becausewho are the oppressed, and then
they will be flipped.
(50:35):
And that's his argument.
And so I think that's veryinteresting.
And I remember also when I wasin college yes, I was a freshman
in college and I remember thefirst time anyone that I
respected said well, you know,all of the New Testament writers
, they all thought Jesus wascoming back in their lifetime.
Speaker 3 (50:58):
That was the point, and so you have to realize that
and when they didn't have toscramble in 1 Thessalonians.
Well, here's how it's going towork.
Speaker 4 (51:07):
Right Anyway, yeah, so yeah, yeah.
No, they believe that yeah.
And so it does put it in acompletely different light, I
think, because now we know,quote unquote, we know the rest
of the story, right?
Speaker 3 (51:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (51:23):
We know the cross.
You know you were saying whenyou were growing up, the I'm not
afraid or I'm not ashamed ofthe gospel thing was like.
For me it was it's important tonot be afraid of being like
considered a square, beingconsidered like a dork, right,
(51:50):
that's?
The threat is that you're goingto be ashamed of talking about
the fact that you're a Christianbecause people are going to
think you're nerdy or you're adork or whatever, right, and so
you get over that, whereas whatyou're talking about is like, no
, I'm not ashamed of it, becauseit's an execution chair, and
who would worship an electricchair as their symbol?
(52:11):
Right?
Speaker 3 (52:12):
But the cross is now in a place of honor, it shows up
in places of honor, and so it'svery difficult to understand
that when you're looking at that, you're looking at something,
something that should be asymbol of shame, you know, and
in terms of how they thought ofit at the time, and so that's,
yeah, that is interesting torecover, as others have put it
(52:34):
more eloquent than I, um torecover the offense of the cross
and not, and that in that sensethe cross becomes very central
and not sort of as an element toa legal process of a
transaction, but it becomes thedeep mystery of the Christian
(52:55):
faith, along with incarnation, Iwould say and one that we try
to live into and try tounderstand and try to embrace
and let it affect how we live.
And the offense of the cross canhelp jumpstart that, to really
come to terms with it.
And you know, as Paul sayselsewhere about you know, in the
cross Jesus is parading downthe streets, the powers that be
(53:20):
in a humiliating sort of parade,rather than the other way
around.
It's the whole flipping right,um, and, and the cross is almost
, it's god putting his moneywhere his mouth is.
You know, in a sense of talkabout flipping tables, talk
about flipping ideas and and um,uh, and expectations.
(53:41):
You know of what true religionlooks like, and I'm not on the
soapbox but when you turn thatinto a source of political power
over other people, you haven'tjust lost the plot, you've
buried it underground underlayers and layers of crap when I
(54:05):
came across your stuff, itprovided me language for what I
was experiencing.
Speaker 2 (54:11):
And then you talk.
You talk about losing the plothere.
It sort of helped me.
I don't know if I want to sayregain it, I don't know what I
want to say here, but it helpsme.
It helped me become a betterperson, maybe to be a person who
(54:32):
was more open to other peopleand other ideas, and it just
gave me a new perspective on notjust my faith but the faith of
everyone around me, or even thelack of faith of people around
me.
So I know what I got out ofreading and listening to your
podcast and all that kind ofstuff, but I do want to know why
do you do it?
Speaker 3 (54:52):
Do what?
Speaker 2 (54:53):
Why did you set out to write?
Like to begin to write and toshare these things and to do
your podcast.
Speaker 3 (54:58):
Oh well, here's a little secret.
You ready?
Yep, it's just me journalingout loud.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (55:07):
I process that way and I do, and not only that, but
I do also want to I hate thephrase hold space for, but
that's sort of what I'm tryingto say.
I'm trying to let people knowthere is a big space out there
of people who think like you doand you're not alone and there
(55:30):
is a community for you.
And that's one reason why wecreated the Bible for Normal
People intentionally to fostersome sense of community and to
present them with informationlike, well, here's another take
on this old thing.
And wow, that makes sense.
I didn't know you could thinkabout it that way.
And I said, well, you can, infact, most people do, frankly.
So you know, and, and thathelps people, and I and I think
(55:52):
that, um, you know there's,there's a pastoral dimension to
all this for me.
You know, I'm not a pastor.
I never will be ordained,although the tax breaks would be
great.
I actually have too muchrespect for the ordained
ministry to sort of talk aboutit flippantly.
But I'm sort of like a chaplainin a sense.
You know, when I talk to peopleor engage with them online or
(56:17):
answer emails, and I think Ifeel good about that role, you
know, and those are all reasonswhy I do it.
I'm trying to clear my ownthinking and, in doing that,
maybe help other people who areinterested in it, you know, and
not shove it down their throats.
Speaker 2 (56:38):
Well, it's been very helpful for me.
It's been very helpful for ourcommunity.
We've used several of yourBible studies the Bible for
Normal People for discussiongroups that we have.
Speaker 3 (56:51):
Oh, like the commentaries we have, yeah, like
.
Speaker 2 (56:54):
Bible for Normal People Romans yeah, we did
Revelation, and so the peoplethat you've started bringing in
and writing it has really helpedus create, like this whole
community where people like yousaid we've found that a growing
part of our group is people thatare just looking for a place to
(57:18):
lick their wounds and say it'sokay.
And so it's been very helpfulfor that.
Are there any new things thatyou're working on right now?
So it's been very helpful forthat.
Are there any new?
Speaker 3 (57:25):
things that you're working on right now.
I've been really active onSubstack.
I'm having fun on Substack, Ihave provocative notes and some
provocative posts, buteverybody's happy because it's a
self-selective group.
So I'm doing that sort of stuff.
I've begun thinking about Ihaven't started it yet, but it's
(57:49):
in my head and I've jotted downsome notes and I've talked to
some people about sort of on atheme of being Christian after
Christianity and what that lookslike and it's going to be.
I mean, if I write this, itwould be very much about that
sort of mystical turn.
(58:10):
And there's a famous quote youguys may know it by Karl Rahner,
the Catholic theologian.
He was part of Vatican II andback in the 60s he said pardon
the sexist language the futureChristian man will be mystic or
he will be none at all.
And what he means by mystic isbasically a person of experience
(58:33):
, right, where the faith is morelearned and lived than simply
lectured.
And he's responding to thingslike the Holocaust and things
like the explosion of scientificinformation and all sorts of
things like that, and sayingthat the Christian dogma I think
(59:01):
I can put it this stronglyChristian dogma does not
adequately address all thesethings and maybe we're finding
out that God is maybe beyond allthose kinds of petty
discussions and dogmaticarguments that we have and
instead, you know, to remainChristian means you need to get
in touch with your experience asa human being and then in a
(59:24):
sense, commune with God, um,rather than reducing it to a
system of thought, for example,which is again part of the
modern disease that really beganduring the reformation.
That's a bit simplistic, butthat's.
That's sort of the the um we'vebeen in that, I agree for a few
hundred years, you know, and soyeah that's what I think.
Speaker 2 (59:45):
Well, you write it and I'll read it.
Speaker 3 (59:47):
I'm gonna try to write it and you know, if I, if
I do, I I think I will.
Um, once I catch the fire.
I have to catch the fire andit's right now it's starting to
glow a little bit, but I've beenthinking about this for over a
year and I have to.
I have to wait for the rightmoment, but it's not going to be
long.
It's going to be um, I don'thave the book here.
(01:00:09):
Rowan williams has a couple ofnice short books on christianity
and stuff.
I wanted to be very readable,very small and not not technical
at all, but just, we got tothink differently about god.
We have to think differentlyabout faith we have, differently
about the bible and, frankly,just differently about what it
means for Christians to show upin the world around us, you know
, and that would meantranscending maybe some familiar
(01:00:37):
language that we have, but allthat language is born out of its
own cultural moments and wehave our own to deal with.
And so what's going to happen?
Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
Oh, I could talk in another hour about that, but
we're up against it and so Ithank you so much for joining us
.
I've been looking forward tothis for several weeks now and
it's been great Thanks.
Speaker 4 (01:00:59):
What's that?
Wait, what's the name of yoursub stack?
Is it just your name?
Speaker 3 (01:01:03):
It's called.
You can find it by my name.
Speaker 1 (01:01:05):
Odds and ends e-n-n-s very good, which very well done
.
Yeah, that's well done, clever.
That was my idea, so just mythoughts about stuff.
Speaker 3 (01:01:14):
But I have a weekly thing on wednesday that, um,
first one of the month is freeeveryone.
After that you have to have asubscription, like minimum five
dollars, which a lot of peoplegive.
Yeah, but the notes that I put,they're public to anybody and I
put out, sometimes two or threea day, at least a few a week.
Very good, cool.
Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
Thanks, All right guys Great to meet you, Pete.
Speaker 3 (01:01:37):
Yeah, yeah, see you Pleasure.
Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
Thank you for listening to Living on Common
Ground.
Please follow wherever youlisten to your podcasts and
share it with your friends.
You can also find a link to oursocial in the description.
The more people we have livingon common ground, the better the
world will be.
Does it feel like every part of your life is
divided, Every scenario, everyenvironment, your church, your
school, your work, your friends,left right, conservative,
liberal, religious, secular?
It seems you always have totake a side.
This is a conversation betweena progressive Christian and a
conservative atheist who happento be great friends.
(00:23):
Welcome to Living on CommonGround.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Do you think if we met today, we would still be
friends.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
I don't know, but we're friends now.
Speaker 5 (00:38):
A mom is no less a mom because they are with him,
man.
So what?
We won a few games and y'allfools think that's something.
Man, that ain't nothing, y'all.
And you know what else?
We ain't nothing either.
Yeah, we came together in camp,cool.
But then we're right back hereand the world tells us that they
(01:00):
don't want us to be together.
We fall apart like we ain't adamn bit of nothing, man.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
For this week's episode.
We had the opportunity to sitdown and visit with professor,
author and podcast host, peteEnns.
We discussed uncertaintycommunity and his work with the
Bible for normal people.
You can find out more aboutPete and support the work he's
doing on Substack by searchingOdds and Ends.
A link is provided in thisweek's episode description.
(01:32):
But now just sit back and relaxand we hope that you really
enjoy the conversation.
So, yeah, I'm Jeff and super,really excited to have you on
Pete.
We're just going to jump rightin, if that's all right.
Yeah, that's fine, Okay, perfect.
(01:52):
So I first came across whatyou're doing.
Oh, it's been a few years now.
I went out and I purchased thebook Sin of Certainty because I
was having some personal issueswith how sure everyone was and I
(02:21):
felt like it was leading to alot of problems within the
community that I was a part of.
But then when I read that, thenI was like, well, this is
brilliant.
And so then I went back and Ibought how the Bible Actually
Works.
And then the Bible tells me so.
Then I pre-ordered Curveball,which came out.
(02:44):
That was last year, wasn't it?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Uh, 23, february.
Okay, all right yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Time flies and I and I, I bought it and uh, and then
I read that you were a bigbaseball fan and I was like, oh,
I like Pete even more.
But then I came across the factthat you're a Yankee fan.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
I understand.
I understand that I have beendoing this.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
It's not for you.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
It's just because it was sitting there staring at me
and said please put me on.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Maybe they'll play better now.
I don't know what's happening.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah Well, cleveland is about to catch them.
Yeah, I know, yeah, so I'mpretty excited.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
The Yankees don't deserve to make the playoffs,
let alone the other worlds.
They just they're not goodenough and the Yankee fans are
hoping that all the darkunderbelly is exposed.
And there's a cleaning house ofmanagement, which hasn't
happened, and the generalmanager has been there for 30
years and boone, who I respect,but he's just not winning under
(03:47):
him.
He's been around for abouteight or nine now, so yeah, my
wife's from long island oh,really okay, yeah, so she's a
big mets fan yeah, but then yeah, but then living here in?
Speaker 2 (03:58):
we live in nashville oh yeah yeah and uh.
So it's this interesting thingthat happens where everyone from
new york, they justautomatically become friends
because, like, that's theiraffinity.
Yeah, and so some of ourclosest friends are Yankee fans,
which that, yeah, he's all thetime talking about how they need
(04:20):
to get rid of Boone.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Yeah, that's the general consensus, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah, well, anyway.
Anyway, this is not a uh, thisis not a baseball podcast I
can't.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
If we want it to be, it can't I.
I know well.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Well, we can talk about how we can find common
ground, as long as we don't talkabout the team specifically.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Yeah, yeah, it's one of the last uh vestiges of
tribalism, I would say.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
I know seriously In the.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
West.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
There's no question, and it's nothing like the
tribalism of British football,for example.
Yeah, it's still there.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
But a sublimation of the same instinct I would
imagine.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Yeah, I think it is.
I think it is.
Yeah, I agree, yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah, I think it is that I have been labeled.
We've talked a lot about labelsand things like that, but I've
been labeled as a progressiveChristian and I push back a
little bit against that.
I think it has a lot to do withwhere I live, and so that makes
(05:42):
it seem like I'm a lot moreprogressive than maybe I am.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
Yeah, push back as much as you want, jeff.
Yeah, and then?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
there's.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Lucas.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Lucas, who uh has been identified as a traditional
uh conservative.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
I'm fine with conservative.
I'm fine with conservativeatheist, conservative, atheist,
conservative atheist.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I'veargued.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I've argued that um, but he's from California, right?
Speaker 1 (06:06):
And I'm from Tennessee.
Well, there you go.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Well, yeah, so basically we're the same person,
but, uh, but, but we taught the.
The idea is how do we, how dowe bridge um differences, how
people that that would appear onpaper that they should not be
friends or would not be able toget along, how is it that we can
do that?
And then, so what we do is wetalk to different people, we
(06:30):
talk about different things, andone of the things I was
thinking about is somethingthat's helped me, and so I'd
like to hear you talk more aboutthis.
Is that, for me, what reallyhelped was the ability to fully
embrace the fact that I don'treally know was the ability to
fully embrace the fact that Idon't really know, and so, again
, it was that sin of certaintythat I was able to, and over the
(06:51):
time it already started to shed, but it wasn't until I read the
book that I was fully willingto let it go.
I felt like it was okay for meto not be certain anymore, and
so I was hoping that you'd talkmore about that.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Yeah Well, I mean, we have a similar experience, I
guess, because I remembervaguely it was, you know, the
Sin of Certainty came out in2014, I think, maybe 15.
And I've been on this sort ofpath since probably the late
(07:27):
2000s, like maybe 2007 or 8, oreven a little bit before that.
And the relief that came to me,not just I don't need to know
everything, I don't need to becertain, but the simple fact
that I just sit there and I sayI really have no idea what I'm
talking about and I don't mindthat.
(07:49):
I mean, see, the Bible, myfield is Bible, right, it's not
religion, it's Bible.
And Bible is a concrete thing,it's a historical phenomenon.
You can dig into it, you canmake certain conclusions, draw
certain conclusions or based onyour assumptions or whatever,
and that's that's a differentthing.
But I'm also a person of faithand there's much more going on
(08:14):
than simply the Bible, right,and how you read it.
It's what you think of God andwhat you think of faith and all
that sort of stuff.
And those are the things that Ijust I remember sitting in a
room once where I used to liveand I was just reading something
.
I don't know what it was.
It had nothing to do withanything, but I just sort of
(08:36):
stopped and just somethingwelled up from inside of me and
what I said to myself was I haveno idea what the cross is about
.
I know what's written there.
I also know the various thingsthat are written there.
I know the various opinionspeople have had, but I'm like I
don't even know how that works.
And what came over me was notpanic and dread, it was just oh
(09:02):
good, you're being honest, right.
And dread.
It was just oh good, you'rebeing honest, right.
And I think that's sometimes thebarrier that people feel that
they have to look a certain wayor put up a certain, you know,
just a presentation they give tothe world around them,
especially at church.
And I just I don't believe inany of that, because I think one
(09:25):
of my core values is trying toachieve authenticity.
I want to be real and and theydid so for what I think are very
good reasons in theirexperience no-transcript lines.
(10:33):
And then if you do that, well,then God's fine with you.
I said that's not God.
I don't know what, that is whatyou just described, but it's
not God.
So all those things take awaythat fear that many people have
and understand so, about justnot being certain, and to me
it's a necessary maturation forme, and I think it is for others
(10:56):
too.
I don't know, I don't reallyknow, but I trust, I explore, I
have faith.
And if you take hell off thepicture, a lot of things change
too with this picture.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
Pascal's wager, the wager being just for anybody who
doesn't know, the wager beingthat if God doesn't exist, or if
this isn't the right way, let'ssay if hell doesn't exist, then
it doesn't hurt anything to sayyou believe in Jesus and God
(11:43):
and do all the right things, butif it does exist, then that's a
real big risk to take.
And so the wager being go aheadand, and it's kind of a um, uh,
uh, game theory, um, decision,right, you, uh, you, you pick
the thing that has the leastamount of risk and the most
(12:07):
amount of reward, given thevariables that you understand,
blah, blah, blah, right.
And and I, I remember hitchensused to always say that, um,
when presented with thatquestion, you know what?
What do you think about thiswager?
And shouldn't you still justfall on the safe side?
Uh and I think harris has saidthis also, sam harris has said
(12:27):
this also that, um, that hewould hope that an all-powerful
god, when presented at the end,would care more about, uh, a
truth-telling soul than one thatkind of, in his words, uh uses
kind of a charlatan trick to uhslip in the back door Right, and
(12:50):
um, that's kind of what I'm I'mhearing you talk about here is
like that that the it's moreimportant to be honest
internally.
Uh, because, because, becauseyou're the one that you have to
live with at the end of the day,your own internal experience is
(13:11):
the one that you're going tohave to remain with.
So losing your soul to protecta potential reward at the end
doesn't seem like a greattrade-off well, yeah, and it's.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
And I think I agree with you, and you know, I think
you probably both have heard howmuch experience and intuition
are maligned in in certainchristian circles because, well,
that's sinful.
You know, you can't trust yourown intuitions and your own
experiences because they'resinful.
Just, you have to trust theBible.
(13:48):
That's usually what it comesdown to, and what, of course, is
often missed is the fact thatthe Bible is interpreted by
subjective human beings.
It's, in fact, a verysubjective text.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Right that it's your intuition that's guiding you to.
Whatever your interpretation isof the Bible.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
You cannot escape intuition and experience in,
let's say, adjudicating the lifeof faith.
You can't escape that.
And you know Richard Rohr, whoI like a lot.
He's got this wonderful littleanalogy about a tricycle and
it's got three wheels and onewheel is your experience, the
other wheel is scripture itselfand the other wheel is the
(14:28):
tradition that you're a part of.
And if you ask, let's say, anevangelical, what's the front
wheel?
And they say well, it's theBible.
And and um Ror says no, it'syour experience that it drives
everything.
And if a religion that has anincarnation element to it, if it
can't handle that, it's notworth much to me.
If it can't handle our humanitythat Christians believe God was
(14:53):
pleased enough to participatein and God's spirit dwells in to
say that your intuition meansnothing, that your intuition
means nothing.
See, what that really does isit reduces this is the great
irony it reduces the Christianfaith to essentially an
intellectual exercise that'sdetached from your experience
(15:13):
and your emotions or anything.
It's just very logical.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
I say it's ironic because the arguments that are
put forth for that are some ofthe most illogical things that
I've ever heard, and they getbacked up against.
Sorry to interrupt.
They get backed up at somepoint and then appeal to mystery
when they run into theroadblock.
I always think about this,where you want to participate in
this kind of enlightenmentlevel rational argument, because
(15:44):
of course that is what is thehighest ideal in our particular
culture, right?
Is this?
This?
Because we're an enlightenmentculture, so you want to
participate in that until youhit the roadblock.
And then there's an appeal tomystery, right, which I think
that you could probably just sitin from the beginning.
You could just appeal to thatmystery from the beginning words
(16:05):
out of my mouth, lucas oh sorryand I know.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
No, you didn't do anything wrong.
I'm just saying like we're onthe same wavelength here in that
respect, because I do thinkthat you know the curveball that
last book I wrote two years ago.
Um, I I explore the curveballsthat have happened in my life
that have led me basically tomystery.
And you know I have twochapters on quantum physics
(16:30):
which I don't understand.
You know a chapter on evolutionand anthropology which I don't
really understand either, notfrom a scientific point of view.
And my point is that you know,especially with the Einstein
Einstein revolution, that timeand gravity and space, it's all
like a fabric that gets bent bymass.
(16:51):
What the heck is that evenabout?
But that's what it is.
The bottom line is that theworld we live in and the cosmos
we inhabit is so steeped inmystery, whether it's the very
largest things we're looking ator the very smallest things
we're looking at, it's sosteeped in mystery, whether it's
the very largest things we'relooking at or the very smallest
things we're looking at, it's sosteeped in mystery.
How dare you not have a God whocan keep up with that?
(17:11):
That God is.
It's not him.
But we use metaphors to talkabout God.
Right, god is ultimate mystery,but I think mystery that can be
known, just like our creationis a mystery, but we can also
know it and perceive it oncertain levels.
So we're not getting all of theCreator, we're getting, maybe
(17:34):
you know, think of a circle.
We're getting like one degreeor two degrees of an arc, but
the rest of it is steeped inthings we simply don't
understand.
So who can really understand God?
And I know that's anathema tomany religious people, but for
me that's what keeps me going,the fact that I get to think
about these things and try tomake sense of it.
(17:55):
But the world doesn't hang inthe balance with my coming up
with the right answers, becausewe're dealing with something
that's beyond us.
And David Bentley Hart, who Ilike a lot, he's a I don't know
if you've read him, but he's aphilosopher, sort of polymath
kind of guy.
But he says all the greattraditions have understood this
(18:25):
Buddhism and anything else.
They've understood that God isat the end of the day.
What we call God is, at the endof the day, that which cannot
be expressed adequately by ourthinking and by our words, and I
think American Christianity'sforgotten that.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Yeah, it's been my experience that the more I
embrace the unknowing, theunknowable, the larger God
becomes, and the more convincedI am that there actually is
something, the more certain Iwas the actual.
Let's see how do I want tophrase that?
(18:59):
The more I relied on certainty,the less able I was to be
convinced that there actuallywas a God.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Hence the book's title the Sin of Certainty.
It can actually take you away,especially if people force it on
you.
You have to be certain, right.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Yeah, I agree.
And then I was able to, yeah,just, I don't know, like, for
example, I was at a couple weeksago I had the opportunity to be
on a panel at an atheistconvention here in Nashville in
(19:44):
attendance, came up to me andshe said I believe everything
you believe, which I thought wasinteresting, that an atheist
was telling me she believeseverything I believe, which I
clearly stated that I didbelieve in God, and she said but
the problem with your beliefsis that none of it is actually
supported by scripture, which Ialso thought was very funny to
me, but my response was simplyokay, okay, I didn't feel a need
(20:06):
to defend that.
I want to go back to somethingthat you said earlier, when we
first started that we had sortof a similar experience with
growing up in the church andthen kind of coming to this
place where you just couldn't,at least for me.
I don't want to put words inyour mouth, but for me I
couldn't um, all of the, all ofthe, the simple platitudes, the,
(20:31):
the answers that I was supposedto have memorized, they just
didn't sit well with me.
You talked about being um,consistent.
We've often talked about thisidea of having intellectual
honesty, um, um, but yeah, beinga person of consistency, um
matters to me, but.
But when you started I'm tryingto remember when I read it in
the book but when you startedcoming and dealing with this
(20:54):
kind of thing and what, what wasthe reaction that you got from
the community that you were apart of?
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Um, yeah, not good.
I mean, you know I don't wantto over-dramatize it, but I was
coming to some of these thoughtswhen I was teaching at
Westminster Seminary, which isoutside of Philadelphia.
It's gone through various wavesin its history, from 1929 of
(21:21):
being staunchly,unapologetically Calvinist to
more like willing to engage.
And when I was a student therewe were more willing to engage.
But as I became a professorthere, uh, the ground started
shifting underneath me and itbecame more of one of these, you
know, basically make Americagreat again, kind of mentalities
like let's get back to theoriginal and everything's going
to be fine.
(21:42):
Um, so, yeah, it in that senseit didn't go well, but some of
my real thinking started when Iwas sort of free of that and I
have just surrounded myself withpeople who value that and
understand that part of the lifeof faith.
(22:03):
And for me, part of that hasbeen moving to more liturgical
spaces.
Like I'm Episcopalian, I wasCalvinist for a while and we
attended a very nice I mean, ifyou guys know, the Nazarenes,
but a very, very nice Nazarenechurch in my area that
understood also things aboutspiritual journey and I sort of
(22:25):
explained myself to the pastorand he said you know, pete,
what's great is, sometimespeople come here, they just lick
their wounds for a few yearsand then they leave, and that's
fine.
We've done our job, and that'sbasically what I did.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
And then moved on.
That's the tradition that Igrew up in as well as Nazarene.
Yeah.
It wasn't specifically it was anoffshoot of the Nazarene church
, um called church of GodAnderson.
It's um out of the Wesleyanholiness movement, but it's uh,
it's a sister denomination ofNazarene.
And I grew up under my seniorpastor was, um, uh, Nazarene.
(22:58):
Like he, he grew up, he wasfrom the Nazarene tradition
specifically, um, you know, wentto point Loma and uh for his
seminary and all of that and um,but it and it was it.
What's interesting that, whenyou're talking about that and I
don't know where you were goingwith it and uh, all the way.
So I apologize aboutinterrupting, but, um, I just
think this, I think that'sinteresting, um, I would.
(23:19):
I think most people who, if Iwere to describe my upbringing
and the church that I grew up in, they would say, yes, you grew
up in an evangelical, maybe evenfundamentalist, not exactly a
fundamentalist, but like evendefinitely evangelical,
conservative, uh, christiancommunity and it's, that's true,
(23:40):
but it, it did always have thatto me.
I'm sure everyone's you know,everyone's experience in that
church would have been differentin some way, right, um, but to
me it did always feel like ithad what you were talking about,
where there was like a, youknow, it's fine, we know what we
believe here, but it's.
(24:01):
But it's fine If you have theseother questions.
We're not going to shut downthe questions you can.
You can talk about it.
Yeah, we're not threatened.
You're wrong, but that's okay.
No, no, you're not upset aboutit.
We're not upset about it, youknow?
Um, I shouldn't even say itlike that, like you're wrong,
that I I never got that.
I got definite teachings as Iwas growing up.
(24:24):
This is what believe, but Ireally didn't get the like.
Oh, we're really concernedabout this theological idea you
have.
You weren't judged by them Right, right, yeah, Anyway.
So I just think that'sinteresting and the lick your
wounds mentality.
I definitely saw people whosaid that about our church as
(24:49):
well.
Yeah, when they were hurt.
They came and they licked theirwounds and they said that they
were comforted and healedthrough that and then moved on.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
Yeah, and they don't think of that as a betrayal
Right, that's my experience,right, yeah, and they don't
think of that as a betrayal,right?
That's my experience, right, soyou know they, rather than
thinking of your little tinychurch, as essentially this is
it, why would you ever leave?
You know, why would you getsomething else?
And there was a story of by ohgosh, I forgot his name now he
(25:23):
wrote a great book on John ofthe Cross, stephen.
Oh gosh, he was a psychiatrist,anyway, he would do seminars on
.
No, it was somebody else.
Anyway, I forget all that.
But he, this guy, famous guydoing seminars in churches, and
asked to come to one mega churchand he was presented with this
problem and they said you knowwhat?
(25:44):
We have this church, but wefind people are leaving, and
they're leaving to go to thesemore liturgical churches and
some of this contemplative stuff.
So we want you to teach us howto do all that stuff so they'll
stay.
What's wrong with them justleaving?
(26:11):
You know what?
Why do they have to stay?
And that there's this um,there's this arrogance, really,
of thinking that, well, we're it.
You know, and it seems like you, lucas, didn't have that
experience in that, in that, uh,wesley and anderson, whatever
you call it, that's new to me.
I never heard of this um, and Ihad two and uh, and I think I
think that's a really healingthing and that's where I felt
free to do more.
(26:32):
I was doing more reading andexploring and talking with
people that led me to aliturgical environment where I
learned to the way I put it,honor my head without living in
it.
The way I put it, honor my headwithout living in it.
I'm an academic and I've beentaught that basically,
christianity is something youdebate about and argue over and
(26:55):
realizing I don't know anything.
Really, I know a lot but Idon't know anything.
At the same time, to be in aplace where the emphasis is not
on, say, 45-minute sermons,which are really lectures
they're theology lectures orsomething and to have you read
(27:15):
from a book and that's notstilted, that's participating in
a communion that transcendsyour time and place, and I sort
of like that.
And I like the 12 to 15 minutehomilies because they usually
get to the point pretty quickly,and the centering of Eucharist,
which is mystery, right, andthe mystery of Eucharist is the
(27:37):
center of the Episcopaltradition, and all that has been
well life-giving to me.
You know and I haven I'm, youknow, I haven't done anything
for more than a few years at atime before I get tired of it,
but I've been part of this sinceabout 2009 or 10.
And it's like, yeah, I stilllike it.
You know, it's like it's thatstupid.
(27:58):
It's something that I lookforward to and different things
hit me in different ways, butI'm not in a place where I'm
judged for being who I am.
But I actually value it for whoI am and I think people look
for that and yeah, I know theaccusation well, they're just
tickling, itching ears andgiving you what you want to say.
It's like, well, they're notdoing that, but they're
(28:20):
accepting me for who I am andthey believe that I have
integrity and I believe thatthey do.
And you know, and there arequestioners there anyway, you
know, we read the Nicene Creedevery Sunday and get them
talking about it in like anadult form Sunday school class
and they'll say I don't reallyget this part, I'm not sure I
believe that other part and I'llkeep saying it because it's
(28:42):
part of the tradition, but Iwant to talk about it and
they're not thrown outdisciplined or something like
that.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
I want to talk about it and they're not thrown out,
disciplined or something likethat.
You said that you found acommunity where you were
accepted.
Do?
Speaker 3 (29:04):
you still participate in community with those who
still hold on to certainty?
Yeah, I do.
I mean, teaching at a Christiancollege will help that too.
(29:26):
I'm dealing with younger peopleand also some of my colleagues,
and that's fine.
I mean, there's no argumentsand I'm careful about
remembering that my students areabout 45 years younger than I
am and they haven't thoughtabout it and that's fine.
But they pick up things.
You know, we talk about thingsand many find it liberating and
some find it a little bit scary,but nobody hates anybody, you
know, and so that's a good thing.
You know who were instrumentalin making my life a nightmare
(29:47):
the last couple of years that Iwas at Westminster Seminary, who
since then have, if I can justput it this way, they've seen
their complicity in somethingthat is just wrong and they've
asked for my forgiveness and Igladly gave it to them.
And we hang out and drink beerevery once in a while and it's
fun because we have a sharedhistory and we can talk about
(30:08):
those things.
Even though their views are notwhere mine are, they understand
where I'm coming from andthey're not fighting with me and
I'm not fighting with them it'sgreat sort of nice.
Yeah, it doesn't always happenthat way of course yeah, yeah,
no I, yeah, no, I get that.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
So a friend of ours who I introduced her to your
stuff and she listens now to theBible for Normal People pretty
religiously, pun intended.
She sent me one of yourepisodes this morning and asked
(30:47):
me to listen to it because sheknew that we were going to be
talking to you and it was theepisode where you talk about
it's from 2022, so I'm sure it'sfresh on your mind.
It's where you had done a blogand you asked people like, why
have they left faith?
And then you sort ofcategorized it into five
(31:09):
different-.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Five things right yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Right.
But then you talked about whyyou remained, and so I was
interested in that.
Like, why are you still aperson of faith?
Like, why haven't you just saidyou know what, I don't have to
actually believe anything, I'mokay with not being certain
about anything, right, which Ithink isn't that sort of
basically the again, lucas isour resident expert on this but
(31:34):
is that basically the atheistposition?
Is that I'm just not convinced.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Yeah, I mean yes and no.
I mean that's a good questionthe way you put it.
Yeah, I mean yes and no.
(32:11):
I mean that's a good question,the way you put it.
You know, I have atheistfriends as well, you know, and
we talk about things or peoplewho are, let's just say,
determinedly agnostic.
You know, and I've to get toyour point, I've called myself.
I'm an agnostic Christian, youknow, or maybe a Christian that
embraces mystery, you know, andso, and then the next question
usually is well, why stay in anyof it?
You know, and I think there Iprobably could unfold a bunch of
reasons for that that aremeaningful to me.
It might not be meaningful toanybody else, but part of it has
been my experience of thattradition, right, the.
You know what I would call God,moments that I've had, which
(32:34):
aren't very frequent, but I'vehad moments where I just felt
man, I just know God's there,and I don't even know what I
mean when I say God, but Ithat's.
You know.
Peter Holmes, a comedian, saysGod is the blanket we throw over
mystery to give it shape.
I don't know if you've heardthat expression, I love it, but
I think that's true and I sayGod with you know sort of
(32:54):
quotation marks, because I don'tknow what this being is or if
this is even a being.
Anyway, that's a whole otherquestion.
But so, yeah, I, I just I'mtrying.
I lost track of the questionhere, jeff, I'm sorry.
Oh, why believe in anything?
I think that's part of it is myexperience of God and also the
(33:16):
communities that I've been inthat have been healing
communities that are alsoworking sort of in that boat.
You know it's the boat ofChristianity, along with other
boats floating down the river.
You know, and that's sort ofwhere I am.
I think too of you know my lifeof studying Scripture and its
(33:39):
interpretation and what theChristian community has sort of
how it's not appropriate is thewrong word how it has creatively
handled scripture throughoutits history, is actually a very
encouraging thing to see,because the church has sort of
(34:02):
always known that like thisliteral meaning.
That like this literal meaning.
Yeah, it's a given, it has aliteral meaning, but that's not
what the interesting stuff is.
If you want to make thistradition connect, you have to
go beneath the surface and getvery creative with the
interpretation of the text andso sort of our modernist slavish
attention to the exact wordsand what they mean.
(34:25):
And they mean only one thingand they can't mean different
things to different people.
That's part of the modernistmindset which the evangelical
and fundamentalist churches havebought into wholesale, and
that's why it's hard to getalong with them sometimes and
that's also why they lose everydebate with modernists who
aren't Christians.
Because they just take thatthinking and make it more
(34:45):
consistent, I think.
Because they just take thatthinking and make it more
consistent, I think so you know,it's living in those
communities.
That has helped me as well.
And also, just, you know, I'veread the Bible many times, you
know, in the original languages,and I am struck sometimes by
(35:07):
how the biblical writerssometimes seem to transcend
their own moment in time and totalk about things.
I call these mystery passages,you know, passages that aren't.
They're not logical, they'renot arguments, but I mean
something.
Like you know, jesus' highpriestly prayer in the middle of
John's gospel, and it's likeyou know, jesus is about to be
(35:29):
crucified and he prays for thedisciples saying Father, I pray
that as you are in me and as Iam in you, that they be in each
other and they be with me, andall this kind of stuff.
That's mystical language, right?
You can't really put a head onthat.
You can't just control thatlanguage.
It's a very mystical language,I think, of Colossians, whoever
(35:55):
wrote Colossians.
But for the end of the firstchapter that the writer says in
his sufferings he is filling upwhat is lacking in the
sufferings of Christ.
I have no idea what that means.
I know it's very mystical.
You know you're participatingin the sufferings of Christ and
filling up what's lacking inthose sufferings by suffering
yourself.
And there are tons of thesethings in the Bible that some of
(36:19):
it's just weird, some of it'slike another king who blew it.
Do I have to keep reading 1 and2 Kings?
And Chronicles has a wholedifferent take on it.
What's going on here?
But even that to me, I'mwatching.
Later, pilgrims of faith inantiquity take those older
stories and rework them entirelybecause their circumstances
(36:40):
have changed, right?
What's the kind of traditionthat's behind all this?
Sign me up, you know, becauseit's our, I think it's our
sacred responsibility to thinkabout, to use the Christian
language.
You know, how would Jesus showup right here and right now?
And the answer to that is neverdiverse, internally
(37:17):
contradictory to the point whereauthors sometimes debate each
other in these texts isdemonstrating to us and this is
the theme of how the Bibleactually works that the Bible
may be more a book of wisdomthat we're supposed to use
wisely and appropriate wiselyand not just slavish like a rule
book.
And to me, those are just a fewthings that make me.
(37:41):
You know, yeah, I want to behere, you know, and I also
understand people who don't.
I'm just saying this is for me.
I'm not a good apologist, youknow, I wouldn also understand
people who don't.
I'm just saying this is for me.
I'm not a good apologist, youknow, I wouldn't go out and this
is why everyone should believeexactly as I do.
I don't like that, but that's,that's where I am.
And I've come across many, manypeople in my life who are like,
yeah, that's pretty much whereI am too.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Yeah, yeah.
In terms of apologists, I wasthinking about Philip Gulley.
I don't know if you're familiarwith Philip Gulley or not, but
in one of his books he talksabout the reason that he's a
person of faith is because he,just at the end of the day,
chooses to be.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
Yeah right.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
I just choose to be, and I've started taking that as
my mantra.
If someone asks me, I'm likebecause that's what I choose.
As you were talking, I wasthinking about a recent
conversation that we had withPeter.
I almost said Peter Enns, peterRollins.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
Yeah, sure, yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
And he was talking about this idea and I heard, as
you were talking, this came tomy mind.
He talked about this idea thatChristianity is the lived
practice and I'm messing this upa little bit but of lack, where
atheism is the intellectualembrace of lack and Christianity
(38:58):
is the lived experience of lack.
And so you were talking aboutthis idea of if it, of if, if
it's about experience.
There's like this mystical,this um, that I can't quite
understand.
But sign me up for that.
I think that's the way you putthat.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
So anyway, right, and that's that's not unheard of in
the history of the christiantradition either.
That's the thing.
People think that everyone wassort of fundamentalist from
moses on, but that's not thecase, and there have been
monastic movements that left thetyranny of the organized
religious machine, you know, andwent off in their own way to
contemplate god, and I thinkthat's why experience is the
(39:38):
heart of this.
You know, the whole point ofthe religious journey is to have
experiences of the, of thedivine, of the numinous.
This is what it's about toexperience some transcendence in
our lives.
And, like you said, jared, aco-host of the Bible, for Normal
(40:01):
People he says the same thingLike why are you a Christian?
He says I choose to be Well.
Why, well, I just choose to be.
He has all sorts of reasons,but it's like, you know, what
people are looking for is like Ineed the iron clad answers for
why this is the best religionand no others are good, and that
doesn't I just I can't givethat.
I can't give that.
(40:21):
I can talk about things, aboutthe Christian faith that that
attract me.
For example, I mean one thingabout, you know, the cross and
all that is here.
You have a religion that hasits roots in the first century
and the selling point was yourmessiah was crucified on a cross
(40:43):
.
Come follow us, you know itdoesn't?
it's so counterintuitive, andand I'm attracted to
counterintuitiveness because Ibelieve that all religious
faiths should be verycounterintuitive to how we think
and how we live.
And um, I forgot who it was, anew testament scholar, um gosh.
You know, I'm getting older.
I can't remember.
(41:04):
I'm glad I can remember my name, let alone other people's.
But somebody said you know, ifyou're going to set up a
religion in the first century,this is not how you do it.
You know you don't say you'reJewish Messiah, who's supposed
to, as Luke's gospel puts it inthe first two chapters, protect
you from your enemies and saveyou and deliver you from those
(41:27):
who mean you harm.
That's Zechariah's prophecyafter he got his voice back in
Luke.
That was not the only, but itwas a common Messianic
expectation among Jews.
And here you have one whomChristians claim to be, that
very Messiah who is crucified.
(41:48):
And so you have God in somesense participating in not just
a death but a humiliating death,which I think turns on its head
the whole honor-shame dynamicthat drives a lot of the God
talk in the Hebrew Bible.
You know, God gets offended, hegets almost embarrassed by the
Israelites.
(42:09):
You've shamed me.
I have to do something to getmy honor back and which, by the
way, is a great example of howwhat we're getting in the Bible
is people's understanding of God.
I think less than God you know,this is too contradictory anyway
, but you know so I think thosethings are, I think, less than
God, you know, because it's toocontradictory anyway, but you
know, so I think those thingsare to me.
(42:29):
They just make me stop and saythis is worth looking into a bit
more.
This isn't the fundamentalismthat we see on TV or in the
government.
This is a deep contemplativeand philosophical tradition that
knows its roots but alsounderstands that we live in a
(42:50):
different time and place and wehave to put these pieces
together somehow I think it'sreally interesting.
Speaker 4 (42:56):
I can talk about this forever the um, the.
Your point about the uh, theshameful execution, uh, of the
historical jesus, I think isreally important.
I think that gets missed a lotbecause in the tradition that I
grew up in they would haveunderstood.
We would have talked about howyou know yeah, isn't this
(43:18):
interesting?
How you know, the Judeans werewaiting for this warrior and
instead we got the lamb and thatwas the.
That was the the um point allalong and it was kind of and it
was presented and then the crosswas about being very um painful
and a terrible death yeah, anda sacrifice, right, it really
(43:41):
hurt and it and then, and thenthe whole passion, right, the
beatings, the thorns, the cross,it was all very painful and
that showed the sacrifice which.
I think, is that's fine and Ireally don't want to be
dismissive about this.
But it was almost presentedkind of like the same way that
(44:03):
we present, uh, the movie rudyright where it's.
It is the underdog story, right, it's the yes, it's the one we
weren't expecting, that theyweren't expecting, but we
understand now that it was.
That was part of the story allalong and I think the shame part
of it I didn't realize, realizethat this was one thing that I
(44:27):
feel like and you can argue withme on this, but the historian
Tom Holland has talked aboutwhich is that the crucifixion
was a slave's death and itwasn't just it's not just that
it was painful because it'sexposure and it's a long time to
die and all of this, but thatit was an acceptance.
(44:50):
Everyone knew if you're beingcrucified, that means that you
are the lowest of the low youare.
It is an acceptance by thesociety.
Nobody gets crucified exceptfor these terrible people.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
Really terrible Right .
Yeah, nobody gets crucified,except for these terrible people
.
Speaker 4 (45:07):
Really terrible, right?
Yeah, yeah, you could be amurderer.
You're not going to getcrucified.
You could do a lot of terriblethings and not get crucified.
You'd have to be someone whowas, and to your point, it was
the humiliation of it.
And so, to your point, this isnot a way to start a religion,
(45:29):
because it's not an underdogstory.
It is taking someone who thesociety has not said you're a
sad sack that we're oppressing.
The society has said you arethe person we hate because you
are a bad and you're making thereligion out of that, and so I
(45:53):
think that's really interesting,and your point about flipping
on its head, that kind of honorsociety shame thing, is really
interesting.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
Yeah, I mean, that meant a lot to me once I sort of
stumbled on that, and this iswhy that meant a lot to me once
I sort of stumbled on that, andyou know this is why, you know,
mark's gospel has been called anapology for the cross.
Mark's gospel centers on andpeople who really know Mark have
told this to me but I'm notjust making this up, but how
Mark's gospel is saying no, no,no.
(46:23):
The crucifixion is not harmfulto the notion of Jesus as a
messiahship, it's actually thecore of it, right?
So that's very counterintuitive.
It's taking this thing that isanything but honoring and saying
what makes Jesus the son of Godor the Messiah is that act.
(46:43):
It's not the resurrection, it'sthe crucifixion that makes it
that, and that's an interestingtwist to things from a
historical point of view.
And then you have Paul in Romanswho says I'm not ashamed of the
gospel of Christ, it's thepower of God for salvation,
first for the Jew, then for theGentile.
And I don't know about you guys, I was always told when I was
(47:05):
younger well, that means youshould never be ashamed or
afraid to talk about Jesus onthe lunch line or something.
You need to say it.
But Paul's not afraid.
He's saying I'm not ashamed ofthe gospel.
Why would he be ashamed?
Because of how it started.
In a sense, he's got to sell topeople right, to Jews and to
(47:26):
Gentiles.
This Jewish guy who wascrucified is your Lord right?
I mean, that's got to be.
How did this ever catch on?
I sometimes think to myself,how did this crazy story ever
catch on?
And I think the linchpin thereis resurrection, faith.
(47:49):
I do think many people thinkthis without a notion of
resurrection, which I'm going tojust say is a mystery to me
also, along with atonement andincarnation, all that kind of
stuff.
I don't understand any of it.
But resurrection, I think, isthe reason why Christianity
(48:10):
continued.
People believed that and itsort of led it to flourish until
it got co-opted by Rome in thefourth century.
And the rest of it is history,right.
But yeah, so I think thecounterintuitive nature of it to
me is just a fascinating thingto think about and it moves me
actually to think about it.
(48:30):
It's just like this is not alogical system.
It became that In the NewTestament itself, david Bentley
Hart uses this language.
The New Testament is a Jewishapocalyptic text.
The end is coming, it's aroundthe corner.
Don't get married, paul says.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
You know, don't do it .
Speaker 3 (48:48):
It's just hang in there, right.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
That's very.
Speaker 4 (48:52):
Sorry, go ahead it didn't end there?
Speaker 2 (48:53):
No, it didn't end there, right yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
Because you know Jesus didn't come back Right and
so we got to settle in for thelong haul.
And in the meantime Jews arelike, no, we're not going to
(49:34):
believe this stuff.
It becomes a Gentile movementby the rebuilt because you know
God is going to return to histhrone and all this kind of
stuff and to turn that intobasically an afterlife journey
where it's all about.
That's what salvation reallybecame at that point.
It got sort of shifted to arealm that wasn't so Jewish, to
be quite blunt about it.
Speaker 4 (49:50):
Right, it became more Gentile, more philosophical, so
I find that fascinating, BartEhrman's entire argument that
Jesus the historical Jesus was aJewish apocalypticist right,
that that was his, that hismessage was, and this is his
(50:14):
argument, but that his messagewas you know, the end is coming.
Everything that is high will bebrought low, everything that is
low will be raised up.
You can tell who is evilbecause who's in power.
You can tell who's good becausewho are the oppressed, and then
they will be flipped.
(50:35):
And that's his argument.
And so I think that's veryinteresting.
And I remember also when I wasin college yes, I was a freshman
in college and I remember thefirst time anyone that I
respected said well, you know,all of the New Testament writers
, they all thought Jesus wascoming back in their lifetime.
Speaker 3 (50:58):
That was the point, and so you have to realize that
and when they didn't have toscramble in 1 Thessalonians.
Well, here's how it's going towork.
Speaker 4 (51:07):
Right Anyway, yeah, so yeah, yeah.
No, they believe that yeah.
And so it does put it in acompletely different light, I
think, because now we know,quote unquote, we know the rest
of the story, right?
Speaker 3 (51:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (51:23):
We know the cross.
You know you were saying whenyou were growing up, the I'm not
afraid or I'm not ashamed ofthe gospel thing was like.
For me it was it's important tonot be afraid of being like
considered a square, beingconsidered like a dork, right,
(51:50):
that's?
The threat is that you're goingto be ashamed of talking about
the fact that you're a Christianbecause people are going to
think you're nerdy or you're adork or whatever, right, and so
you get over that, whereas whatyou're talking about is like, no
, I'm not ashamed of it, becauseit's an execution chair, and
who would worship an electricchair as their symbol?
(52:11):
Right?
Speaker 3 (52:12):
But the cross is now in a place of honor, it shows up
in places of honor, and so it'svery difficult to understand
that when you're looking at that, you're looking at something,
something that should be asymbol of shame, you know, and
in terms of how they thought ofit at the time, and so that's,
yeah, that is interesting torecover, as others have put it
(52:34):
more eloquent than I, um torecover the offense of the cross
and not, and that in that sensethe cross becomes very central
and not sort of as an element toa legal process of a
transaction, but it becomes thedeep mystery of the Christian
(52:55):
faith, along with incarnation, Iwould say and one that we try
to live into and try tounderstand and try to embrace
and let it affect how we live.
And the offense of the cross canhelp jumpstart that, to really
come to terms with it.
And you know, as Paul sayselsewhere about you know, in the
cross Jesus is parading downthe streets, the powers that be
(53:20):
in a humiliating sort of parade,rather than the other way
around.
It's the whole flipping right,um, and, and the cross is almost
, it's god putting his moneywhere his mouth is.
You know, in a sense of talkabout flipping tables, talk
about flipping ideas and and um,uh, and expectations.
(53:41):
You know of what true religionlooks like, and I'm not on the
soapbox but when you turn thatinto a source of political power
over other people, you haven'tjust lost the plot, you've
buried it underground underlayers and layers of crap when I
(54:05):
came across your stuff, itprovided me language for what I
was experiencing.
Speaker 2 (54:11):
And then you talk.
You talk about losing the plothere.
It sort of helped me.
I don't know if I want to sayregain it, I don't know what I
want to say here, but it helpsme.
It helped me become a betterperson, maybe to be a person who
(54:32):
was more open to other peopleand other ideas, and it just
gave me a new perspective on notjust my faith but the faith of
everyone around me, or even thelack of faith of people around
me.
So I know what I got out ofreading and listening to your
podcast and all that kind ofstuff, but I do want to know why
do you do it?
Speaker 3 (54:52):
Do what?
Speaker 2 (54:53):
Why did you set out to write?
Like to begin to write and toshare these things and to do
your podcast.
Speaker 3 (54:58):
Oh well, here's a little secret.
You ready?
Yep, it's just me journalingout loud.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (55:07):
I process that way and I do, and not only that, but
I do also want to I hate thephrase hold space for, but
that's sort of what I'm tryingto say.
I'm trying to let people knowthere is a big space out there
of people who think like you doand you're not alone and there
(55:30):
is a community for you.
And that's one reason why wecreated the Bible for Normal
People intentionally to fostersome sense of community and to
present them with informationlike, well, here's another take
on this old thing.
And wow, that makes sense.
I didn't know you could thinkabout it that way.
And I said, well, you can, infact, most people do, frankly.
So you know, and, and thathelps people, and I and I think
(55:52):
that, um, you know there's,there's a pastoral dimension to
all this for me.
You know, I'm not a pastor.
I never will be ordained,although the tax breaks would be
great.
I actually have too muchrespect for the ordained
ministry to sort of talk aboutit flippantly.
But I'm sort of like a chaplainin a sense.
You know, when I talk to peopleor engage with them online or
(56:17):
answer emails, and I think Ifeel good about that role, you
know, and those are all reasonswhy I do it.
I'm trying to clear my ownthinking and, in doing that,
maybe help other people who areinterested in it, you know, and
not shove it down their throats.
Speaker 2 (56:38):
Well, it's been very helpful for me.
It's been very helpful for ourcommunity.
We've used several of yourBible studies the Bible for
Normal People for discussiongroups that we have.
Speaker 3 (56:51):
Oh, like the commentaries we have, yeah, like
.
Speaker 2 (56:54):
Bible for Normal People Romans yeah, we did
Revelation, and so the peoplethat you've started bringing in
and writing it has really helpedus create, like this whole
community where people like yousaid we've found that a growing
part of our group is people thatare just looking for a place to
(57:18):
lick their wounds and say it'sokay.
And so it's been very helpfulfor that.
Are there any new things thatyou're working on right now?
So it's been very helpful forthat.
Are there any new?
Speaker 3 (57:25):
things that you're working on right now.
I've been really active onSubstack.
I'm having fun on Substack, Ihave provocative notes and some
provocative posts, buteverybody's happy because it's a
self-selective group.
So I'm doing that sort of stuff.
I've begun thinking about Ihaven't started it yet, but it's
(57:49):
in my head and I've jotted downsome notes and I've talked to
some people about sort of on atheme of being Christian after
Christianity and what that lookslike and it's going to be.
I mean, if I write this, itwould be very much about that
sort of mystical turn.
(58:10):
And there's a famous quote youguys may know it by Karl Rahner,
the Catholic theologian.
He was part of Vatican II andback in the 60s he said pardon
the sexist language the futureChristian man will be mystic or
he will be none at all.
And what he means by mystic isbasically a person of experience
(58:33):
, right, where the faith is morelearned and lived than simply
lectured.
And he's responding to thingslike the Holocaust and things
like the explosion of scientificinformation and all sorts of
things like that, and sayingthat the Christian dogma I think
(59:01):
I can put it this stronglyChristian dogma does not
adequately address all thesethings and maybe we're finding
out that God is maybe beyond allthose kinds of petty
discussions and dogmaticarguments that we have and
instead, you know, to remainChristian means you need to get
in touch with your experience asa human being and then in a
(59:24):
sense, commune with God, um,rather than reducing it to a
system of thought, for example,which is again part of the
modern disease that really beganduring the reformation.
That's a bit simplistic, butthat's.
That's sort of the the um we'vebeen in that, I agree for a few
hundred years, you know, and soyeah that's what I think.
Speaker 2 (59:45):
Well, you write it and I'll read it.
Speaker 3 (59:47):
I'm gonna try to write it and you know, if I, if
I do, I I think I will.
Um, once I catch the fire.
I have to catch the fire andit's right now it's starting to
glow a little bit, but I've beenthinking about this for over a
year and I have to.
I have to wait for the rightmoment, but it's not going to be
long.
It's going to be um, I don'thave the book here.
(01:00:09):
Rowan williams has a couple ofnice short books on christianity
and stuff.
I wanted to be very readable,very small and not not technical
at all, but just, we got tothink differently about god.
We have to think differentlyabout faith we have, differently
about the bible and, frankly,just differently about what it
means for Christians to show upin the world around us, you know
, and that would meantranscending maybe some familiar
(01:00:37):
language that we have, but allthat language is born out of its
own cultural moments and wehave our own to deal with.
And so what's going to happen?
Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
Oh, I could talk in another hour about that, but
we're up against it and so Ithank you so much for joining us
.
I've been looking forward tothis for several weeks now and
it's been great Thanks.
Speaker 4 (01:00:59):
What's that?
Wait, what's the name of yoursub stack?
Is it just your name?
Speaker 3 (01:01:03):
It's called.
You can find it by my name.
Speaker 1 (01:01:05):
Odds and ends e-n-n-s very good, which very well done
.
Yeah, that's well done, clever.
That was my idea, so just mythoughts about stuff.
Speaker 3 (01:01:14):
But I have a weekly thing on wednesday that, um,
first one of the month is freeeveryone.
After that you have to have asubscription, like minimum five
dollars, which a lot of peoplegive.
Yeah, but the notes that I put,they're public to anybody and I
put out, sometimes two or threea day, at least a few a week.
Very good, cool.
Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
Thanks, All right guys Great to meet you, Pete.
Speaker 3 (01:01:37):
Yeah, yeah, see you Pleasure.
Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
Thank you for listening to Living on Common
Ground.
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