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Author-Theologian Peter Enns to Speak on Faith and Uncertainty

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By Anne W. Semmes
Sentinel Features Reporter

Peter Enns
Peter Enns

Peter Enns, author and Abram S. Clemens Professor of Biblical Studies at Eastern University in Pennsylvania, is coming to Greenwich next week to address a journey of faith he set out on eight years ago, when he left a comfortable teaching position at the Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He has captured the story of that journey in his new book, “The Sin of Certainty,” to be discussed on May 14 at Christ Church Greenwich as guest speaker for the ongoing Courage & Faith series.

“I was forced onto this journey that ultimately was for good,” he says. “But while you’re in it, you have to resurrect your courage.”

Enns’ 2005 book, “Inspiration and Incarnation,” which challenged conservative methods of Biblical interpretation, led to his forced resignation from the Seminary in 2008. He’s written seven books in those years, but it is “The Sin of Certainty: Why God Desires Our Trust More Than Our ‘Correct’ Beliefs,” that addresses “the effect of those events, when I left in 2008,” he says. “I’ve been writing this book most of my life, of how I see the nature of faith and God.”

Enns, whose studies include behavioral science and Near Eastern languages and civilizations, describes himself as “wired as an explorer.” But he had not questioned his faith in his 14 years of teaching at the Seminary. “In those years at Westminster, I had tension I wasn’t aware of,” he says. With that leaving, he left behind “those old certainties.”

“I had never openly explored my thinking about God, because I was taught that questioning too much was not safe Christian conduct—it would make God very disappointed in me, indeed, and quite angry,” he writes of his “forced spiritual relocation.”

The book traces his letting go of the need for certainty, as he writes: “Trust is not marked by unflappable dogmatic certainty, but by embracing as a normal part of faith the steady line of mysteries and uncertainties that parade before our lives and seeing them as opportunities to trust more deeply.”

Enns has found his study of the Bible “very eye opening.” “My own scholarly work alerted me to the naïveté of my faith. Is it this perfect book, or does it have its own questions embedded in it? The authors don’t agree with each other all the time.

“For people of faith today, the study of the Old Testament is a long haul. The struggling, doubting part of faith is there in the Old Testament. When is God going to help us? Why hasn’t he helped us? There are the songs of lament. We don’t see this in the New Testament. In the New Testament, it’s the triumph and the climax of the story and expectation of the end, the return of Jesus.

“We need to be more accepting of doubt as a reality of Christian faith as a normal part of the life of faith,” says Enns. He cites the importance for a church “to have a culture that gives space to that process of faith.”

“Doubting is not comfortable,” he says. “Give me the answers please—that’s the paradox of faith.” Enns would “rather be on a journey than being in a fortress, where everything is locked up. Journeys are not always comfortable. You don’t know what’s around the bend, what the weather will be.”

The Courage & Faith presentation of Peter Enns and his talk and book signing of “The Sin of Certainty” will take place in the Christ Church Greenwich Chapel on Saturday, May 14 at 7 p.m., and is free to the public. For more information, visit: christchurchgreenwich.org, or email info@courageandfaith.org.

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