Why We Crave Binary Certainty

We had Pete Enns back on the stream to dive deeper into questions from his "God of Justice" lecture, and man, did we get into some rich territory. Pete walked us through the fascinating tension between Deuteronomy 17's positive view of kingship versus First Samuel 8's harsh warnings - showing how the Bible itself contains multiple voices wrestling with power and justice rather than giving us simple answers. We explored why some Christians see social justice as heresy (spoiler: it's rooted in centuries of individualistic gospel interpretation), how the biblical texts often reflect hindsight commentary on failed systems rather than predictive prophecy, and why our modern drive for binary, black-and-white answers actually misses the beautiful complexity that makes scripture so relevant to our messy human experience. Tim and I got into the weeds on deconstruction, the liberating terror of discovering the Bible isn't a rulebook dropped from heaven, and how we might learn to negotiate with ancient texts the way Jesus did - amplifying calls to justice while cutting out the boundary-drawing exclusivity. Plus Pete dropped some wisdom on everything from MAGA theology to why every generation has to figure out what it means to "take up your cross" in their own time and place.

You can WATCH the conversation on YouTube

Peter Enns (Ph.D., Harvard University) is Abram S. Clemens professor of biblical studies at Eastern University in St. Davids, Pennsylvania. He has written numerous books, including The Bible Tells Me So, The Sin of Certainty, and How the Bible Actually Works.

Previous Episodes with Pete

• We Promised Above-Average Answers and We’re Sticking to It!
• The Future of Religion
• Force Ghosts, a ‘Biblical’ Jesus, & Pre-Human Religion
• God, Jesus, & Whatever: Pete Enns & Tripp answer questions
• God-Pod Party
• Pete Enns & Tony Jones Love Baseball
• Adaptive Christianity & the God of the Bible
• Don’t Sin. Doubt.
• For The Bible Tells Me So

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This transformative online class brings together distinguished scholars from biblical studies, theology, history, and faith leadership to offer exactly what our moment demands: the rich, textured wisdom of multiple academic disciplines speaking into our contemporary quest for justice. Guests this year include John Dominic Crossan, Kelly Brown Douglas, Philip Clayton, Stacey Floyd-Thomas, Jeffery Pugh, Juan Floyd-Thomas, Andy Root, Grace Ji-Sun Kim, Noreen Herzfeld, Reggie Williams, Casper ter Kuile, and more! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Get info and tickets here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

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