I’ve got a very special guest for you this week. Professor Peter Enns, author of books that include The Sin of Certainty and How the Bible Actually Works (affiliate links), joins me for a discussion about the Bible, Christianity, love, trust, and the evolving nature of faith.

I grew up with a very fundamentalist understanding of the Bible, and can relate to so many of the things that Pete writes and talks about, including the fear of getting our facts wrong and offending God. As Pete points out, that’s a pretty limiting view of God—that God can’t tolerate our honest efforts to interpret the Bible as best we can in light of our experience.

Our discussion focuses on Christianity, but I think many of the issues apply across different religious traditions. I look forward to hearing your reactions. Topics we touched on included:

• The best that faith and Christianity can offer
• Moving beyond religion as a kind of “comfort blanket”
• Finding wholeness within oneself and connection to the world around us
• What led my guest toward an evolution and revolution in his spiritual understanding
• Some of the problematic ways people see God
• The common belief that God is vengeful and “out to get us”
• The diverse portraits of God in the Bible
• The difficulty in describing God with earthly concepts
• The imperative of holding our theology lightly
• Seeing changes in our faith as a normal, expected thing
• The Amish experience of Rumspringa
• Doubt as a sacred process that’s part of the life of faith
• Crises of faith among college students
• The ego-driven nature of much of religious certainty
• Some of the problems with Biblical literalism
• The diversity in the Bible and the Christian faith
• The things that are challenging about the first 11 chapters of the Bible
• The inadequacy of our views of God to align with reality
• The tradition in Judaism of debating with God
• The value and difficulty in living in the present
• The fundamental practice of accepting that God is present
• The difficulty in walking away from one’s faith community
• Trusting God as death to the ego
• “God moments” – heightened senses of the divine
• My leaving behind the belief that gay relationships were morally wrong
• Deciding to trust our experience and instinct even if we risk being wrong

Here are (affiliate) links to two of Pete’s excellent books which I read for this interview:

• The Sin of Certainty
• How the Bible Actually Works

For those interested in the intersection of faith and science, and evolution in particular, consider looking into Ilia Delio’s work, like her book The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution, and the Power of Love (affiliate link).

Photo from peteenns.com

Peter Enns, PhD, is the Abram S. Clemens professor of Biblical studies at Eastern University.

He completed an MDiv at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia and a PhD at Harvard in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. Pete taught for 15 years at Westminster, until the publication of his book Inspiration and Incarnation (affiliate link) led to strife with the institution and the eventual loss of his teaching position.

He was a senior fellow of Biblical studies with the BioLogos Foundation, a Christian organization that explores, promotes, and celebrates the integration of science and Christian faith—which is in line with some of the things we touched on in this conversation.

Pete has written several pieces for The Huffington Post’s religion section. He has three grown kids and lives with his wife near Philadelphia.

Find Pete online at his website, where you can support The Bible for Normal People podcast and become part of a supportive community.