Re: In defense of Paul Seely

Wow -- amazing how a dumb typo on my part sparked all this! Paul, if you're
still listening, and others -- I've really enjoyed and appreciated Enns'
book, not only on how he handles some questions regarding Genesis 1-11, but
also how he handles other tough hermeneutical questions (like the NT's often
decidedly non-historical-grammatical exegesis of the OT). But Enns teaches
at Westminster, an institution with an "inerrancy" component in its statment
of faith. I've been trying to get Enns' email address to see how he puts
his accomodationism and the Westminster statement of faith together, but
it's not publicly listed and the seminary hasn't gotten back to me with it.
I did see an earlier Westminster Journal article by Enns in which he
addresses this to some extent.

Anyway, I realize for many here that "inerrancy" isn't an issue, but I'm
wondering how something like Enns' views can fit into an "evangelical"
framework, which usually implies some notion of "inerrancy." Some
definitions of "inerrancy" seem possibly plastic enough (such as Millard
Erickson's or maybe John Jefferson Davis'), but others certainly aren't.
This is a tough question for many of us evangelicals, because by culture and
local church commitment, most of us need to play within an "inerrancy"
framework. Personally, like John Stott, the term "inerrancy" makes me a bit
uncomfortable, and I wish the historical circumstances had played out
differently so that evangelicals could be comfortable with a more nuanced
theology of scripture while still maintaining our core committment to a high
view of scripture's integrity, authority and truthfulness. But I've got to
believe that folks at many of the evangelical seminaries and colleges have
wrestled with this same thing and have found ways to maintain integrity
while still defining themselves as part of their evangelical communities.

On 6/6/06, George L. Murphygmurphy@raex.com <gmurphy@raex.com> wrote:
>
> Christians are often unaware of the ways in which they violate the 2d
> Commandment (3d for some of you) about taking God's name in vain. It is, of
> course, wrong to use "God dammit" or "Jesus Christ! as mere expletives. But
> those are relatively minor offences in comparison with appealing to the Word
> of God in support of our own private notions (as Bob notes below), claiming
> that God is the head of our political party or (as some TV personalities
> have been known to do) using God's name to bully people into sending them
> money for their personal "ministries."
>
> Shalom,
>
> George
>
>
> > In insisting that the Bible contains modern scientific knowledge (e.g.,
> > spherical earth) or theories (e.g., expanding universe), the YECs wrench
>
> > passages out of their context and impose upon them meanings they clearly
> do
> > not have, and this in my view does a great disservice to the Bible.
> >
> > Bob Schneider
> >
> >
> >
>
Received on Tue Jun 6 15:29:22 2006