By Anne Semmes
Last Sunday, the Christ Church Greenwich Forum Zoom attendees were presented with the challenge of reimagining God by guest speaker Peter Enns, the Abram S. Clemens professor of Biblical Studies at Eastern University in St. Davids, Pennsylvania. Enns also hosts the podcast The Bible for Normal People. His most recent book is How the Bible Actually Works.
“The biblical writers portray God in different ways,” Enns began, “depending on their circumstances. Christians today must accept that same sacred responsibility of asking, ‘What is God like for us, here and now?’…The Bible forces us to face that question for ourselves…We’re going to look first at how the Old Testament writers themselves faced that question. What we’ll see is that they don’t always agree with each other.”
In this exercise, Enns told of a query he’s often asked, “There’s a lot of violence in the Bible, and its violence that God seems to be okay with, and another is the flood story…God has to press reset on all of creation and start over again which is basically what the flood story is about. Do we believe that violence is a part of the nature of God?”
“Does God divvy out weather as reward and punishment,” he continued. “You know, if you obey you’ll have the rains that come that make your crops grow but if not, there will be drought?”
Enns cited an example from a favorite book of his in the Old Testament, the book of Job with its “core” question, “whether God is transactional. If you obey you’ll get rewarded. If you disobey you get punished. That’s the question – is that what God is really like?”
Jumping to the New Testament he pointed to a similar dialogue going back and forth between the writers. “A very big issue in the New Testament is whether Gentiles who want to be followers of Jesus need to convert to Judaism first?… Circumcision and maintaining dietary laws were very important for Jews in Jesus’s day. But Paul’s preaching was Gentiles don’t have to do that. They can be part of the family of Abraham.”
“Paul had a hard sell,” said Enns. “Paul had to go around the Roman Empire preaching to Jews that a crucified Messiah is your King, and Gentiles are equal with you. I’m surprised this thing ever got off the ground, quite frankly.” Enns in his teaching was discerning that “what makes Christianity different and distinct from other religions is the very act of how God aligns himself with the crucifixion. In the first century crucifixion is a form of humiliation of bringing shame to the person who’s being crucified – they’re naked, they’re at eye level, they’re tortured…Because it’s in that that you see the glory of God revealed through this act.”
“That’s called a paradox.” Enns noted. “The Christian story is so rooted in this paradox. Maybe God is vulnerable. Maybe God puts God’s self into a place of aligning with humiliation rather than with honor. And to me that’s a very compelling idea…And if I could boil down the whole hour that we just spent that would be it. It’s a different perception of God, a different understanding of God because we’re humans, and we only understand from within our culture.”
Next Sunday, the Christ Church Greenwich Forum 11 a.m. Zoom is hosting Bishop Diocesan, The Rt. Rev. Ian Douglas who will ask the attendees what is on their hearts and minds. Fr more information, visit https://christchurchgreenwich.org/sunday-forum/
