|
By Lloyd Mackey
WELL KNOWN Old Testament scholar Peter Enns was in Victoria several weeks ago,
as a result of a continuing effort of several groups to encourage thoughtful
understanding of the Christian faith among students at the University of
Victoria (UVic).
Enns delivered a three-lecture series, with one of his sessions taking place on
the university campus, and two others at Emmanuel Baptist Church, across the
street from UVic. The campus session was hosted by the UVic Interfaith
Chaplaincy.
Enns, who holds a Harvard PhD, is author of Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament (Baker, 2005). The book created controversy within the evangelical theological
community – dealing, as it did, with the issue of how the historical context of the Bible
affects how evangelical and Reformed people understand scripture.
Enns welcomes what he calls the “diversity” of scripture, suggesting it demonstrates the Bible’s inerrancy, rather than disproving it – a view that strict adherents to inerrancy would view as being too close to a
more liberal approach to hermeneutics (biblical interpretation).
The controversy resulted in the 2008 decision of Westminster Theological
Seminary (WTS), a major evangelical Calvinist institution in the eastern United
States, to suspend Enns, who had taught there for 14 years and edited their
theological journal.
At the time of the separation, WTS President Peter Lillback noted that the book “has caught the attention of the world, so that we have scholars (and students)
that love this book, and [others] who have criticized it very deeply.”
Inviting Enns to Victoria was an outgrowth of a desire of Rob Fitterer, senior
minister at Emmanuel, to help Christian students who come to the university not
to give up on their faith “before they have their ‘big questions’ answered.”
Fitterer himself has a PhD from the University of British Columbia, and a
long-standing interest in making the best possible theological educational
resources available to Vancouver Island residents.
Four years ago, he became senior minister at Emmanuel. His perspective as pastor
of a university-area church has triggered a sharpening of focus for providing “faith and worldview support for Christians.”
Fitterer noted that “we send [our young people] ill-equipped into university,” adding that a pre-teen grasp of Veggie Tales is not sufficient.
“Students often don’t know where to turn for answers to theological and ethical questions,” he pointed out.
“For example, there is no 30-second answer to the problem of evil. Many students
lose religion because of their developmental stage – they haven’t learned patience. We don’t have so final an answer, but we know that Christianity does deal with these
questions,” Fitterer added.
Continue article >>
|
The pastoral side of him, he said, caused him – after reading and digesting Inspiration and Incarnation – to wonder if an Enns visit would be both feasible and appropriate.
Emmanuel seeded the project by agreeing to fund a number of the necessary
expenses.
Enns’ topics, during his Victoria visit, included:
• Seeing the New Testament as a Christian Talmud: toward understanding the nature
of Christian scripture;
• It was a Rough Century: challenges to conventional notions of the Bible, from
the 1900s until today; and
• An Incarnational Model of Scripture and Inerrancy: what do we really mean when
we say the Bible is both human and divine?
The final session, exploring the incarnational model, had a question-and-answer
format, and was part of Emmanuel’s continuing Sunday night Faith and Reality series, providing a “young adult venue for cultural engagement.”
Fitterer noted the Enns sessions went well enough that there are plans to have
one or two biblical scholars or theologians in Victoria each semester, coming
from Vancouver’s Regent College, Carey Centre – or from further afield.
Emmanuel is aided in its ability to provide this service because UVic’s Baptist chaplain, Angela Bedford-Wood, is a part of the church’s community.
The emerging congenial relations between the church, the university
administration, the Interfaith Chaplaincy and UVic’s Centre for Religion and Public Policy all add to the symbiosis.
December 2009
|
