A Quick Response to Pete Enns
Well: I’m not going to do that. Of the making of many reviews, there is no end; they can escalate, multiplying areas of disagreement and confusion, and wind up a colossal exercise in missing the point. They also take an enormous amount of time, which I don’t have. So instead, I’m just going to highlight a few tweets I sent out yesterday on the subject, which attempt to boil down the things Pete Enns and I disagree about into five areas, and which hopefully make things simpler for people who (a) aren’t on Twitter, or (b) like things nice and neat and tidy. Thus:
Grateful to Pete Enns for his engagement with my @CTmagazine review. To keep it brief, I’ll respond to his 5 key criticisms in 5 tweets.
1. On the Passover “contradiction”, see this roasting by @BrianGMattson (sorry for the pun).
2. On the number of gods: read p151 to find the confusion (& note the chapter title). On gods/idols, here’s CJH Wright.
3. On animal carcasses: do a study on “he shall bear his iniquity”, then read Lev 17:15-16, then read Enns, and see what you think.
4. On Jesus’ view of Scripture, & especially the violent texts, either read #Unbreakable, or the Jesus tea-strainer.
5. On scaremongering and damning by association with Rob Bell: it wasn’t my idea. Here’s the inside jacket.
On everything else, including those Rhetorical Strategies and so on, look out for the Mere Fidelity podcast (link to follow).
Hopefully that’s saved everyone a lot of time ...