Peter Enns: "Dad, Snakes can't talk."

27:41Jon McLaughlin:And your book came along and offered me, kind of like said, hey, yeah, I saw that too. Here's one way that we can kind of think this through that gives you a way forward. I'm sure there are many books written on maybe just that one thing. I mean, there's no shortage of takes out there. Who is someone who maybe would have offered an alternate take on just that example, for example, that you think is, this is the best version of an opposing opinion here? You know what I mean? Someone who you really respect, but they would offer a different opinion. Well, I mean, that specific one, I'd have to probably think of who, but I know the kind of thing, I don't mean that to sound condescending, but I know the kind of approach that would be taken by more conservative people, and that would be first the assumption that there is no contradiction here, that somehow they're compatible.

28:50And here's how I can try to create a compatibleness, a compatibility between these passages. And I know I can't prove that that argument is true, but it's possibly true, right? And, you know, I call that the it's possible argument, right? Or it's not impossible argument. So here's how I put it together. And, you know, that goes for a lot of things. People use that argument. And it's possible Martians wrote this, I guess, you know, a lot of things are possible. But the question is, what's more likely and a much more likely scenario is to interpret this thing in Chronicles along the lines of how we interpret everything else in Chronicles, which is a later rewriting of the books of Samuel and Kings.

29:43And this author certainly had these books in front of him. He knew what he was doing, but living two, three centuries later on and is presenting things differently for his community, which is a more beleaguered community looking for like restoration, like has God forgotten us? You know, we were in exile, we came back, and it's still pretty crappy. We're still not in charge of our own land. Has God forgotten us? And so this writer is rewriting those older stories in such a way, I think, to give people hope. And so what he does is he cleans things up. He cleans up the reign of David and what he did.

30:25Bathsheba is not meant. She doesn't do anything bad. Everybody is pretty glowing in this book, especially the major characters, in ways that they're not in other parts of the Bible, like Samuel and Kings. And so I look at that and I say, well, that's why. I don't know what else to say from a historical point of view. this is what our Bible is. It's later authors looking at earlier things and saying it differently for their audience, for their community, which is in principle not much different from the four Gospels. Or the conquest of Canaan and Joshua versus Judges, they have a different take on it, or Leviticus.

31:07And it's just the word that's all in vogue nowadays is multivocality, which I I like that word. The Bible speaks with multiple voices on the very same topic. That's just one example. I mean, you can solve that example by, well, it's possible that you have to do that a thousand more times for different things in the Bible. Why do that? Why not just, you know, employ Occam's razor here and just take a step back and say, well, the Bible just contains different takes on things, which really sucks if you're an anerotist you know it does it's difficult you'll have that that moment like you had John or like I had in the bedroom staring out the window you'll have that but the problem isn't the data in the Bible the problem is the theory of what the Bible is that's been imposed onto it that the biblical data simply can't bear well it's But if the Bible's like this and we have no hope, slow down, cowboy.

32:12What do you mean you have no hope? Is your hope really in an inerrant Bible, or is your hope in the awareness of the presence of God in you and all around you at every moment? Maybe that should be the focus of our discussion here, and not that. But if the Bible's not true, how can it mean anything to us? How can it be authoritative? That's a really good point. It can't be authoritative. the way you think it is. But is it authoritative differently? Which, by the way, a lot of people have talked about it. These are not new ideas. Yeah.

32:47Jon McLaughlin:It'd be interesting to know, you know, to have someone do like a vast study, some kind of vast survey, and to know, you know, I sort of have my leanings and I've always had my questions and uh is that because of where I was born and my birth order I'm the third I'm the youngest I'm you know uh Dave is Dave is the oldest in his family you know and born in a different you know state and you've got somebody else born in a different time would just be interesting to know are we all just kind of leaning toward what we naturally lean toward. I mean, I came across your books and your sub stack and your accounts and your videos that you put up, and I'm drawn to them.

33:41Jon McLaughlin:There is a, partly because of the ideas, partly because of your delivery, all that kind of stuff, but there are other people out there saying different things in a different way that someone else might just be drawn to them, which is fine. it would just be interesting to know is there some kind of through line why why do i so clearly see this what what you're describing as a relief and as a like yes okay that makes that makes sense to me yeah but it's but it's so it's very triggering um and can have the opposite effect for a lot of other people well it probably would have been triggering to you at some point Probably so, yeah.

34:27Right. So, but I do think it has to do with human temperament. Some people are just wired differently. I think somebody told me once, one of my colleagues at Eastern said that statistically 10 % of the human population is incapable of true abstract thought. Like, well, what if? I mean, like, yeah, they're all in my life. I think I dated a couple of those girls in middle school. Yeah. And again, that's not a slam on people, but I've talked to people where they can't really track with things like, what if you look at it from a different perspective?

35:05Jon McLaughlin:Well, especially when it comes to the Bible. Right. Because many people have been... See, I think this is both temperament, but it's also something that's, I think, nurtured in people to... You know, I teach college students, and I see it all the time. And there are some who come from very conservative backgrounds, and they feel that they just need some things tweaked a little bit, and then they'll be fine. And they're great kids, right? They're wonderful people. But I can see where the energy comes from, and others haven't been raised that way. So I think a lot has to do with just our homes, the churches where we've gone to.

35:43It's really hard to listen to preaching and teaching for 10, 15 years that says things like, those people that say X, Y, and Z, they are the mouthpiece of Satan. Literally, they say that. I mean, I've been called Satan so many times. I should just – I had a dollar for each time. I wouldn't have to work in it. Change your name when you do advertising. I probably would have to do that. And it's a shame that – and I sometimes respond on social media. I say things like, so what you're saying is you disagree with me. Why does this have to go all nuclear right away? It doesn't have to go there. And I know why they're saying it.

36:21It's not just coming out of nowhere. That's how they've been trained to think, that if you disagree on any one point, in fact, their entire system falls apart, and we can't have that, can we? And they don't do it out of intellectual arrogance. They do it out of, I think, an emotional need. And that's, again, that's not a slot either. We all have emotional needs, you know. And, you know, John, yours right now is like you just you want to understand. You don't want to seek truth. And you're looking for new paradigms, new models, new ways of thinking. But you had to get there, too. and I think those people, many of them can get to that point which is why I try not to force these things on people when they're not ready.

37:04It's different on social media, it's different in books but just in personal conversation students say to me, they're seniors and they say thanks for all your teaching, blah blah blah, I just can't get on board with evolution and I say then don't, then keep thinking about it there's no pressure for me, God's not up there twiddling his thumbs waiting for you to make up your mind, you might have to think through this a little bit. And you know, it's okay to not know and to think through it.

37:31Jon McLaughlin:Yeah. Isn't it? I hope it is. Well, and I do feel like, A, I don't think that you can write anything about the Bible or post anything about the Bible without somebody saying that you're being a heretic somewhere. Oh yeah. It's part and parcel with doing it. And I do feel like, I do wish that there was a little more, you know, I listened to the Bayma podcast over the years, has been a great podcast for me. This guy, Marty Solomon, he talks a lot about one theme that he talks about through all the episodes is the difference between our Western paradigm and sort of the more Eastern paradigm that the Bible was written in.

38:22Jon McLaughlin:And he talks about how debate was just in the water back in Jesus' day. You would talk about the scripture. Somebody would read the scripture, and then you would talk about it. You would debate it, and he talks about turning the gem. you would like if you have a gem in your hand like g-e-m and you turn it and you see the light this from this angle the light hits it this way and you can kind of talk about what you're observing there and then someone else turns it this way and then you talk about oh it's slightly different this way here's a different point of view and i can totally understand how someone would not like that when it comes to the Bible and with Scripture.

39:13Jon McLaughlin:And again, I'm someone who, I'm not even versed enough to really jump in the conversation, really, but when I have these questions, I have these observations from going through and after 40 years finally kind of reading the Bible, I'm like, well, I kind of wish this was a little more baked into our culture here, because I feel like it's not, and I feel like I can't really bring it up, and I can't be the only one feeling this way. Yeah, we don't have that culture of debate. And the biggest—it's not going to Harvard. It's having Jewish professors, which I could have had at other places too. But James Kugel and John Levinson were two of my professors.

40:00I had them for most of my classes, and I learned to see how Jews approach things differently without them even teaching it. I just saw it. And I was at a conference once where James Kugel was speaking and a conference of all Jewish scholars. There were very few Gentiles in there. I was one of them. And he gets done and some guy raises his hand and he says, hey, you don't know what you're talking about. It's blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Another guy stands up and says, you be quiet. He's right. He knows what he's talking about, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I felt like this is so embarrassing, right?

40:37So these guys walk out arm in arm. Afterwards, they've known each other for years. This is just how they do it. And I remember thinking, I was with a friend of mine, also Gentile and Christian, and saying, you know, this is just, we don't see this in the Christian world at all. And what they do is they say, oh, that was wonderful. And then they stab you in the back six months later because they don't want to confront you because they want to be nice or they're afraid of confrontation, but they still want to be right, and they don't value that debate, that tussle. That's how you learn, you know?

41:13That's really how you learn, and let's not forget we're talking about God, right? At the end of the day, that's the topic, and it's both a live thing and it's also a thought thing, but we let the thinking, I think, get in the way a lot where that's what it becomes all about that. And now just very briefly, Rachel Held Evans, who, you know, you may know that name, but she passed unbelievably six years ago, now over six years ago. And I knew her, you know, and she wrote this book about biblical womanhood, right, which was sort of hilarious and really good, but she dug into what the Bible says about women's activities, and a lot of this stuff comes from the Old Testament, but what happened is that she became friends with an older Jewish woman who was helping her understand the tradition a little bit, and she was over there, I think, for dinner once, and she was in the kitchen or something talking to the woman, and there were a number of men, Jewish men, sitting around a table arguing loudly about the interpretation of Torah.

42:23And Rachel said to this woman, she said, does it ever bother you? Does it ever get to be too much? And she said, are you kidding? Look at what they're doing. They're sitting around a table talking about Torah and debating it. I mean, this is a bit simplistic, but that's the Jewish way. And I think Christianity has lost that over the last few hundred years, where it becomes... Not to get nerdy here, but John Calvin, I respect him, but I also disagree with a lot of what he said. But he was one of the instrumental people who said, the Bible has one and only one meaning. And if you seek deeper allegorical meanings, that's satanic influence.

43:10You just threw 1 ,500 years of the church under the bus, because that's what they did. They saw different levels of meaning, and they weren't all hung up on what is the one interpretation of this passage. And if you know the Greek, and you know the Hebrew, and you look at the history, and you understand you know the meaning, and as history has gone on, it's much more complicated than that, because language is slippery. We don't really know history the way we think we do, and there's never this rock bottom that you hit where, like, now we have the foundation for the one true meaning of Scripture.

43:40It never works that way. It never will work that way. And, you know, coming to that realization is very, very freeing. And I tell my students, and I was speaking in churches and stuff, I said, we have to be—it would be good for us to be mindful of Judaism and the tradition of Judaism, which not only allows for but expects differences of opinion. But we can't. We have different denominations that pop up, and each one is right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

44:12Jon McLaughlin:Well, it seems like you're in a lot of your books, maybe up until your most recent book, Curveball. Correct me if I'm wrong on this. Curveball is more, that's where you get a little more personal, right? It's a little more memoirist. In all the other books, you're writing from more of an academic perspective, which I would imagine would require you to somewhat remove yourself from what you're writing. you're not offering anecdotes and opinions left and right. That's not necessarily what the books are. How do you, what does that process look like for you? How do you keep yourself sort of in check on the sideline?

44:59Jon McLaughlin:And then what was it like writing Curveball, where maybe that rule is gone and it's, you're all on it? Well, yeah, I appreciate the question. And the truth of the matter, though, is that all my books are me journaling. I just don't say it. I'm always trying to—I mean, when I wrote The Bible Tells Me So, it was years of things that I've wanted to put down in writing, and I finally did, and that felt cathartic to do so. So I think it's fair to say that I have the Bible tells me so, then followed by the sin of certainty, which I do have personal... I talk about my life and struggles and how you don't have to be certain.

45:41That's not the heart of the Christian life. It's trying to trust God. It's not knowing everything. Then how the Bible actually works. I sort of came back more to a Bible-themed book. and then with Curveball I really made a deliberate decision to say I'm really interested in big questions too I mean I love the Bible but ultimately that's not where the big questions are I think you know it's like what is the nature of reality you know what do we mean when we say God you know all those kinds of questions and those are the those are the things I think about more often than anything and a lot because of science and because of what we know about history and things like that so it was it was personal maybe just more overtly so than some of the other books yeah inspiration incarnation wasn't as personal that's that's slightly more academic but still hopefully readably academic, but that's the one I said, I have a thesis.

46:49This is how I think the Bible works. I want people to see what I think. Right. Yeah. But the other ones were just putting pieces together. Yeah. Really putting pieces together.

46:58Jon McLaughlin:Are those literal journals? Like, are you writing The Bible Tells Me So from, are you going? No. No, they're just journals are in my head more, but actually, you know, things like blogging and being on Substack, because I've been blogging since about 2000 um i don't know 10 or something nine or 10 eight eight nine or 10 well we don't blog anymore but you know it evolves to different social media right um but putting thoughts out there when i have something that i want to say then i say it and that stuff comes out of thinking that i'm doing and it also loops back into things that i'm writing so but it's not a literal i don't i don't journal that takes too much time i don't i'm i've got add or something i just i can't like oh i think i'll journal i have friends i journal for half an hour every morning are you kidding me yeah i do too where do you have time to doom scroll tiktok if you do that for hey i have purchased a lot of journals in my life yeah yeah and i think the first four pages are are all full and just so heartfelt so earnest and heartfelt yeah well that might be all you need to do write those four pages at that point you know just just make four page journals they should or just one page one page journals here you go feel like you accomplished something but i think sometimes we make those spiritual exercises into its own burden.

48:26I have to keep this up. I go through phases with stuff like that. Oh, man. Dave. Yeah. Hey. Yeah. Hey. Hey, just real quick. Okay. I'm not mad that when I wake up in my bedroom, you're here. But at some point, do you see an end to it? Can I not be excited about our friendship? Okay. No, that's fine. Jeez.

48:50Jon McLaughlin:When you say it that way, I feel like it. I've been waiting for two hours to ask you this. You know that feeling when you wake up at like 3 a.m. and your sheets are like a wetsuit? What? Look, I'm going to be honest with you, and she's not going to like this, but I've always blamed Danny. I blamed my mattress. I blamed global warming, John. All valid suspects. But you know what's funny? What? Turns out it was my bedding the whole time. That is funny. Enter Bowling Branch. I knew it. God, we're such best friends. You know, their summer sheets are 100 % organic. 100, John? Yeah, 100. Wow. Woven specifically for airflow, Dave.

49:26Jon McLaughlin:Ooh, okay, tell me more. Not that fake cooling technology that's just a marketing word on a polyester bag, you know? Right. Bunch of liars. Uh-huh. The cooling is structural, John. Structural. I don't even know if you know this. It's literally how the cotton is woven, which sounds like something a sleep scientist would say. And I'm not one. Right. But I respect that. I respect that, yeah. You know, 94 % of customers say that the sheets actually get softer with every wash. Oh, is that even possible, yeah. Mine get crunchier, actually. Oh, okay. So this was a needed upgrade. Agreed. Crunchy sheets are not the best, John.

49:59Not the best. They're not the smartest guy. No.

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50:50Jon McLaughlin:nearest king showroom today for sure well how do you deal with the burden of you know it's 2025 you have a tiktok of instagram a sub stack all that dave and i are you know we've been musicians for 20 plus years like we we always we talk a lot about just that irritating daily like i should post something i should which you know i with with us it's like we can i can always just sit at the piano and post me playing something on the piano that that that'll do it yeah on day three if you did that i think your followers would be like okay something about scripture please you know yeah right how do you deal with with the daily sort of grind they'd be breaking down the notes into like maybe his right hand if he's playing and he's spelling it out okay he's spelling something for us in Hebrew.

51:44Yeah, some people need things to do, I guess. That's true. I think that should be TikTok's slogan. Yeah. TikTok, some people need things to do. That's pretty much what it is. It is funny, though. I actually learned things from TikTok. There's smart people on there. It's fun to do that. But I guess, you know, how do I deal with maybe the pressure or the responsibility of having to put things out on a regular basis. Yeah. I do have somebody who helps me with social media, which is nice. I do create things, but then they can make something nicer out of it. I see. I don't mind recording a thought that I have for five minutes and giving it to somebody else and say, put this someplace.

52:26Yeah. That's not tedious for me because I talk all the time anyway. I might as well just talk into my phone. So, but yeah, I sometimes feel like, well, I haven't put anything fresh on Substack for a week. and then I feel guilty about not doing that. And I try not to feel guilty. I just, well, that's the way that it is. Otherwise, that becomes the master, and I don't want that to happen either, which is so easy with all this stuff. I mean, the only thing you get is don't give a crap anymore either. It's just like whatever. Leave it to the young kids to do their stuff out there. But when I have something to say, I've learned...

53:10to keep with me something to write on or have my phone where I can open up the notes app or something like that. Because some of my clearest thinking comes when I'm not sitting there thinking, what can I say on social media now? It's just something that's authentic. I've really been thinking about it. And then I speak it into my phone and then I flesh it out. Yeah, let's make this a little bit nicer. That whole process takes me 10 minutes. And then I put it on Substack as a note you know and and i like substack for that you know uh and and you don't get attacked quite as quickly as you do um on facebook although you do i i've got some people who who subscribe

53:52Jon McLaughlin:for the sole reason sure so how do you deal with all that that whole side i mean your substack today was interesting it was the gist of it was posting for let me see if i can i can sum this up you can correct me if I butcher it, posting more so that God can reveal to you how sinful you are when you post and people disagree with you and, you know, and then your reaction when you get so upset and he's like, no, that's the thing I want to work out of you. Right. Yeah. I would just say how much healing I need, not how sinful I am. I don't, I think that we could talk about that for two hours what sin is.

54:35Sin is not a helpful category for me in thinking about my life. I just, I know why I do some of the things that I do and it's nature and nurture and all that kind of stuff come together. But yeah. But yeah, I think, you know, I try to be very careful who I respond to and why. And I can tell when I get really angry that there's some shadow work that I probably need to do at that point, you know, and I'm aware of those things. And, but sometimes people are just nasty, but I just sense something that, what are they going through to even say something like this publicly? And I try to turn it around a little bit saying, yeah, I hear what you're saying, but I do see this a little bit differently.

55:15And sometimes I say, maybe this isn't a place for you to be here. And I mean that legitimately. Copy-paste, copy-paste, copy-paste. Exactly. Yeah, right. I mean, you got that right.

55:27Jon McLaughlin:I would imagine, I just don't think of social media as being a format for any kind of meaningful discourse. But would I be surprised? Have you seen examples where you're like, well, we actually kind of got someplace there? Every once in a while it happens depends on who. And I do say I've learned things from people who have commented on various social medias. It's not super, super often, but it's still on a fairly regular basis. I can't quantify it, but I think the way a lot of people use social media, and I'm one of those people, is that I'm actually trying to drive traffic someplace else. I mean, whether it's to a book that I've written or a longer format thing that I've done or to the Bible for normal people to come over and to look at the podcast and the classes that we have and things like that, where there's actually a virtual community of people, you know, and I sometimes suggest that to people.

56:32I say, you might actually benefit from this thing that's happening over there. And there aren't too many things like that out there, frankly, that, you know, just not that we're special. It's got to be an interesting thing to be a theologian in 2025 with social media being what it is you know it's like for so long you know people could write books and you know do their lectures and it sort of just lived in its own space and time and the critique of these things you know came in the appropriate ways for the times and now you had to like write a letter yeah yeah or send you know your child and a letter and a horse to the barn but then But, you know, it's just got to be interesting to do what you do now, because like you said, there's just immediate response.

57:20There's, you know, there's not sort of the safety to do something, put it out, let it sort of be its own thing. You know, everybody has access to the creator of that thing now, you know, where they can really just kind of come at it. And I mean, that's always been the case, but not, you know, not as easily. Not as quickly. I mean, to email you directly. Yeah. You know, I've had my share of corrective emails in my life, you know. And but I think, you know, the democratization of knowledge, so to speak, is an interesting thing. And I don't I mean, people don't misunderstand me when I say something like I'm very glad that I went through school long before social media, because I don't know what I would have said online either.

58:04Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, a lot of young people who go to church and they hear some things and they feel that I'm now a theologian. I'm going to tell people exactly what they should be thinking. You know, the Theobro phenomenon. And also, you know, the hard left. It's the same thing as far as I'm concerned. The extremely voiced opinions that are non-negotiable. I mean, I'm afraid to weigh in on certain things online that I'd like to talk about. I'm not an idiot, you know, because people, you get one syllable out of place, and, you know, people will try to end you. Not that I'm terribly concerned about that, but it's just not worth it.

58:44Yeah. And, you know, the devaluing of education, you know, I don't need education. I've got the spirit. Oh, yeah. Well, I have the spirit, too, and I have an education. What are we going to do about this, you know? So I think it's the, can I say, dumbing down, I think, of certain things that I see online that are just poorly phrased and are driven not by an appreciation of the complexity of the Bible or of theology of church history or philosophy or anything. just very quick answers that are meant to soothe people into knowing that they're right. And that's the evangelical fundamentalist project.

59:33It really is. It's an intellectual project. Even if I think sometimes their ideas are a bit kooky, it's still an intellectual project to anchor the Christian faith in pure reason and evidence. And once you have that, then that's all you need. And that's not going to happen. And in fact, the more we know, the more, let's say, the facts of science or history or whatever, they don't always support things that people have believed. And that's the pressure of the modern period. And what many people say is that we might need to rethink some things. There's one theologian I read when I was writing Curveball, and I use this phrase in the book a few times, but he says what we need is a third millennium theology.

1:00:24The first millennium, nobody does that anymore. The second millennium, though, was marked by, you know, you could think of God as a watchmaker. You could think of God as creating order in the universe, and everything is ordered and as it should be, but the more we learn about the quantum realm. There's maybe chaos, there's indeterminacy, there is quantum entanglement, time is an illusion, space bends, time bends. What the heck are we doing? What is this all about? And so you need language to talk about God that doesn't say things like, God is up there looking down and God is ordering all things like the Westminster Confession of Faith says, everything is ordered by God the way it should be.

1:01:15And you start talking about how God has ordered, you know, that tsunami or the kidnapping of your child or the death of a young mother, you know, who's pregnant with one child and there's, you know, two there. It's just, it's, you know, there has to be another way to talk about God. And I think actually the creation is yelling at us to think differently. and um but but people are resistant we're living in this paradigm shift time i think and which might be which has been going on for a hundred years or so there's no end in sight as far as i'm concerned but um willingness to change how we even talk about god and faith and and jesus and um what it means to be human all those kinds of things you know the the ground has shifted and the church, as always, as per usual, is a few centuries behind.

1:02:09Jon McLaughlin:So you have three adult kids. Mm-hmm. What was it like, you know, as we've explained over the last, you know, 50 minutes, you are someone who acknowledges the complexities, the nuances, the mystery of our faith. what was that like raising three kids you know i've got i have two daughters dave has three kids anyone who is a believer in a in a parent or if you're not a believer and you have kids you got you have to decide how you're going to explain the world to your children you know so right i you know i have had to decide okay i've got i have what i grew up with some of the explanations that i got in sunday school i like this one i'm not sure about this one i'm definitely not going to say that one to my kid you know right it's tricky because as an adult you know you have maybe come to some conclusions that um that i'm like i don't know if i can convey that to my seven year old right now what was that what was that like if you can you know sum up you know raising three children in a couple in a few sentences yeah well it's pretty boring actually And one of my regrets, I was actually talking to one of my kids about this not long ago.

1:03:37One of my regrets is not being self-aware enough as they were young to create a culture in the house of questioning. Not that we squashed questions, but like I told you that story about my son. I was like, don't say that. God might hear you. I didn't say that. I wanted to say it. I actually told him, if you think snakes can't talk, why don't you tell God that? And that was sort of one of the few bright moments in my child rearing, I think. And I think I'm a better grandfather than I was a father in that respect, because I didn't have the space yet. Those things didn't really start happening to me, not in my 30s, but in my 40s.

1:04:26Second half of life stuff, right? But that's when I started seeing the cracks in the armor. And I'm glad I accepted that invitation, really. You know, Richard Rohr talks about the second half of life and how important that is. And you can do one of two ways. You can let go of those old certainties and be curious and venture forth. Or you can become a grumpy old man who just says, get off my grass all the time. Spirit grass. Yeah, exactly. Or any grass, you know, just, I mean, literally your lawn, right? but um i was thinking clean eastwood in that movie um el dorado i think was it that's anyway um looking at kids like this um but anyway yeah so um i think that i lost my train of thought because i i digress to talk about clint eastwood we got on clinty's world what you thought about clint eastwood you can't he's he's relevant he's relevant about for everything i think yeah you

1:05:21Jon McLaughlin:know it's true i know so um anyway so i've got i've got one more question that uh and then we we like to end with a speed round oh gosh okay we will talk a little bit about baseball so okay yay um yeah this is i hesitated to even put this in here because it's it's one of the it's one of those just giant questions that you're like what is god Dr. Pete. But one of the things that I always think about that I just can't understand, I guess one of my first questions for God, whenever I get into that afterlife, is why is faith so important? Why is this the setup? We have this sort of interesting sort of balance.

1:06:17Jon McLaughlin:I don't know if it's a balance. It's like as believers, faith is everything. And then when you read scripture, you know, Jesus says to Thomas, you know, you've seen and now you believe. Blessed are those who believe and they haven't seen, you know. And the older I get, I'm like, I get it. All those people who don't believe, I get it, you know. So faith is so important, yet—and I don't know if yet's the right word that I said right there. And at the same time, we always are looking for proof, which seems to be kind of going against faith. Maybe, like, if I imagine some finite bowl, and then, like, the more water you put in, the oil goes out.

1:07:04Jon McLaughlin:It's maybe not my best analogy, but, you know. You've got faith and you've got certainty. The more proof you have, the more certainty you have, and then you're losing some faith. But we're always looking for certainty. Anyway, this is just a window into my mind and what's happening back there. And what I want to ask God whenever I get there is, why is faith so important? Why is there mystery? Why is there a need for faith? Yeah. I think that's a great question. You know, I really do. And I guess we all have different ways of approaching that. I think for me, the older I get and the more I think about these things and actually live with these questions and thoughts because I ain't getting any younger.

1:07:56Jon McLaughlin:Well, you look fantastic. I think I might die one day, actually. I'm trying to find a way to get out of it, but it's not going to happen. AI is here. Yeah, exactly. We'll be fine. But, you know, I'd like to think that it's, for me, the word faith is sort of moving out of my vocabulary more. And words like awareness of presence is there. You know, sometimes when we think of faith, it's part of the God language we have is like, well, God's up there and out there someplace, makes cameo appearances. And, you know, what if God is the, you know, the uber personalized energy that infuses everything that exists from subatomic particles to the biggest things, you know?

1:08:47what if, as other theologians have said, and my evangelical friends go crazy when they hear this, but what if the universe itself is, in a manner of speaking, an incarnation of what is pure consciousness, pure existence? You know, I've gotten this language from others. David Bentley Hart, for example, is somebody I'd like to listen to. He's sort of a polymath. He knows way too much. I just try to figure out what he's saying half the time. But I like the idea of he knows way too much just as a comment about it. Yeah, right. He weighs too much. Well, he knows a lot. He does. He's very smart, and he knows theology and history and languages.

1:09:24He did a translation of the New Testament. Anyway, you know, I hear people say all the time, well, I need—there's no proof God exists, right? And like in the philosophical traditions of Christianity and Judaism and Islam and other faiths, they'd say, that's the stupidest question I've ever heard of in my entire life. God is not something that exists alongside other things for which you can have proof. That is a stab in the heart of intellectualized religions, like, for example, the evangelical movement in general and fundamentalism, and others too. So, you know, what if God is not a being that exists alongside other beings.

1:10:08What if God is being itself? And all things emanate from God somehow. And as one theologian put it, Karl Rahner, he said, what if Christ is a particularly concrete example of God instantiating himself or of God incarnating himself to do what he's always been doing, making himself known through material things, but now just in a very focused way, right? So that's not, you know, that's pantheism. That's not pantheism. Pantheism means all those things are God. I'm saying God is in everything, which makes me a panentheist, and I'm fine with that term. It's God is in and through everything, and, you know, he's not a being.

1:10:57He is that thing by which all things exist. God doesn't exist in the same way everything else exists. So all our language then becomes metaphorical. It becomes indeterminate. It becomes the best we can do. You guys know Pete Holmes, the comedian. One of his things, I think he got this from the road manager for ACDC, he says. But God is the blanket we throw on mystery to give its shape. And that's a profound thought. Yeah. He also said, why did I never hear that in church? Well, because we're too busy protecting a theological system. That's why, you know? And so I don't know where else to go with this stuff.

1:11:37And it frustrates me sometimes when people just, they can't get around the thought that asking for evidence that God exists. You know, what the theologians would say is like, you're breathing. You're conscious of consciousness. You know, there are trees. it's the fact that anything exists is itself an argument for God, or quote, proof of God. Not in a linear, logical sense, but...and I think, you know, getting back to the faith question, you can't get away from the fact that to say that God exists to ask that question is really not a good question. So you're driven to something else, which is trusting in that, you know, and trying to live into that.

1:12:26And that's faith. It's not knowing that God exists by these three or four arguments. It's living in such a way that God is actually real and present. And the more you do that, well, the more you see it, I guess. You know, I just wish I had started this in my 20s, not in my 40s or 50s, you know? Yeah. So faith is what it is. I mean, faith is a word that is also misunderstood. Faith doesn't mean understanding things. Faith is, I mean, in the sin of certainty, I talk about this a lot, that faith is really a trust word. And, you know, to have faith, the Greek doesn't have a term for have faith. It's faithing.

1:13:13You faith God, which means you trust God. You know, when Abraham is taken outside in a vision in Genesis 15, and God shows him the stars of the heaven and says, so shall your offspring be, and Abraham believed, and it was credited to him as righteousness. And that word believe is where we get amen from. And it's a trust word. It's not an intellectual assent word. It's like he trusted God at that moment, and God credited to him as righteousness. meaning you did right there, Averine. You did exactly what you're supposed to do. And of course, he's talking to God. But again, I think that's a story.

1:13:51But I think it's a story meant to point us to something much deeper. But I just think that's the way that it is. See, that's the third millennium theology, I think, that these other theologians have talked about that I'm interested in. I want to understand how to live, how to live and talk about this stuff in the place where I am. Yeah.

1:14:13Jon McLaughlin:All right. Well, we could keep going for hours and hours and hours. And you would just keep looking younger and younger and younger, but we have to come to an end. And more buff. And more buff. Totally, but surely more buff. I appreciate that. By the way, I just had my hip replaced about a month ago. So talk about it. Oh, my gosh. So I'm really buff now. You've been running on a treadmill this entire time, which the listener can't see. It's impressive. I mean, it's really remarkable. Yeah, I'm something. My breath control is really amazing. I agree. I am amazing, frankly. Okay, I'm going to kick us off here.

1:14:46And you know what? Watch me reference something you already said. So if you could enter the quantum realm. Yes. And you could bend time as you wanted it to. Here's your first question. If you could play on any Yankee team, which year would it be? Wow. Okay.

1:15:07Probably when I was younger. You know, so I'm going to say probably like the 76, 77, 77. Even they lost to the Reds. Reggie's 77 and 78, not 76. But they got swept by the Reds, the mighty Red machine. But I thought maybe if I'm there, they might win. Well, duh. That's why we asked the question. Yeah. Which year did you see that they needed you is really what we're asking. That's the subject. Right now, frankly. If you can pitch, they would use you right now. Yeah, pretty much, yeah. I think if I stand at 40 feet, I can probably get the ball over the plate. Just underarm it? Yeah, just whatever, which is better than I think what they're doing right now.

1:15:51All right.

1:15:53Jon McLaughlin:Speed round question number two. Who's your favorite Mets player?

1:16:00That's a tough one. Did you see what we did there? Yeah, that's fine. I can handle that. Who's your favorite enemy? Not really. I never hated the Mets. Okay. Partly it's from living in Philadelphia for about the last 30 years. They hate the Mets, so I can't hate the Mets because I hate the Phillies. Yes. It's complicated. It's the neighbor of my friend. Yeah, exactly right. But I think maybe Ed Cranepool, who played first base. I want to tell you why. Because I met him once. This is after college. I went to a trial camp that he ran. And I met him. And I talked to him a little bit. and he told me some nice things about my pitching.

1:16:41So I like him. But he's a big guy. He was sort of tall, a little hefty more than muscular. But that was a major league first.

1:16:53Jon McLaughlin:Here's the Yankees fan talking now. I know. He was a major league first baseman. I can't argue with that. But there are others of that early 70s, late 60s, early 70s era that I could pick on. Tommy Agee, Nolan Ryan. Yeah. you know I know nothing about baseball so Nolan Ryan is the first name I recognize John's going to agree with you no matter what you say okay good okay so here's a fun one we like to ask if you could have dinner with four people that are alive who would it be? oh for heaven's sake is it a speed round if you don't ask that question I know okay so I think I mean I'm going to show how just myopic my life is Bernie Williams whom John doesn't know.

1:17:38Of course. I'm just nodding along. I'd have Bernie Williams there. I would have... Okay, Phil Kagey. Oh! I grew up listening to him. Yeah, I love Phil Kagey. I still do. I mean, Phil Kagey's an amazing guitarist and a gentle soul and probably has never had a harsh word in his life. So that's two. Which just means he isn't online. Yeah. Yeah, right. Because he's too smart for that stuff. Now, he is a little, but he pushes his music online. But see, here's the thing. I'm sort of an introvert. I can't make small talk over dinner. So actually, the more people, the better. Yeah. So these people are alive, you're saying, right?

1:18:21Okay. No, or dead. Or dead? I mean, they would be alive at the dinner if you want them to be.

1:18:26Jon McLaughlin:Okay, that's good. They would just be in a casket or something. So I think if we could get over the language barrier, maybe Paul, you know, and his accent is deep. I know. Well, actually, the thing is that I should be careful because the thing is, I am a huge Beatles fan. They're my favorite group ever. And the more I listen to their music, the more I realize there's stuff going on there that's not like just they use weird chords. like that's not an A minor I think I mean if you want to fill the rest of your day you reach the right guy Dave Barnes is an expert I would love to talk with you at some future time about that I play a little guitar and I mean a little guitar not a lot but I wanted to be a Beatle when actually no I have what you got there it's wooden D18 is a Morton Oh, nice.

1:19:27Yeah. I bought that for my 64th birthday because I've always wanted one. It's my Beatles birthday, I tell people. I'm 64. Anyway, but I would actually love to have – and Paul McCartney and Phil Kagey was a huge fan of Paul McCartney too. So let's take Paul the Apostle out of this for a minute. So I'm going to put Paul McCartney in. And if we're talking about Beatles, I'd love to talk with George Harrison too. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I'd say maybe those four. I don't know what we all have in common. That is an interesting group there. To have those two of the Beatles, that's an interesting little...

1:20:02Yeah. All right.

1:20:04Jon McLaughlin:What's your favorite or most meaningful Bible story? There are more of these questions you're asking me? Yeah, I think it goes for about an hour and a half. Okay.

1:20:17The one that has come to mind is the parable of the lost son. because the son comes back in a half-assed fashion, if I might say. He's not truly repentant. He's like, I'm hungry. I know. I'll go home and I'll say blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that line, and when he was still far off, the father came running. Okay, that's a religion I can wrap my head around and say, I want this. It's not like doing what I would do if my kid did this, I'd be like, looking away, like, oh, hi, how are you? Oh, I didn't even notice you were gone, you know, kind of thing like that, which I have done with my kids, by the way, right?

1:21:02That's why they hate me. But, you know, I love that picture of divine love, and it's not, A.J. Levine and others rightly remind us, it's not a story of anybody being converted to Christianity. It's a Jewish story of God accepting...God accepts you. God wants you to be a part of it. You've messed up, you've lost your way, but God wants the family to stay together. And in Christianity, that's just expanded, you know? But it's not like nobody's being converted in that story, but it's you're actually inside and being reminded of how precious you are, even though you've just completely screwed up. Okay.

1:21:47And then finally, if you wrote a book about being a dad, what would it be called?

1:21:54I wish I could do it again. Wow. Yeah. I mean, I said, I'm actually, you know, I was very attentive to my children, you know, uh, that, this, that sounds worse than I meant to be, but I wish I were, I would call it being present. And again, the older I get, the more I understand my own psyche. And I have ADD. And I didn't know that until fairly recently. But when I told friends of mine, I said, I think I have ADD. They're like, do you think? You've got 20 tabs open in your head at every moment. And so there were moments in my children's lives when they were young, when things were right in front of me, but my head was scattered in five different places.

1:22:39And I just wish that weren't the case, you know, and, and I honestly, I mourn that, you know, I don't beat myself up over it. I just want to mourn that appropriately. And, you know, for the record, I have a wonderful relationship with all three of my children. Are they close to you physically? Where are they? My son is about 15, 20 miles away. My one daughter is about three miles away. And my daughter, who has two children, she is about an hour and a half away. Oh, that's not bad. Well, I'm going to visit her this weekend. Oh, that's great. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, I love them more than anything.

1:23:17But I think most parents look back, and people say, I don't regret anything. I said, you are not paying attention.

1:23:25Jon McLaughlin:Yeah. People haven't told you anything yet. So I do have those regrets, and I own them. Yeah. You know, and I just wish I had been more present at times. But, you know, in my defense, some of that stuff at Westminster was going on right at the same time. And I was really in fight or flight mode. Yeah. You know, and it was sort of difficult sometimes. That's a hard way to live, much less parent. It is. Yeah. And then you throw in, you know, your own family of origin, which, of course, screws everybody up. Yeah, right. You guys know the joke that if you've had parents, you need therapy, right? That's true.

1:24:05It's true. Because our parents, whatever they're trying to do, we're getting all the crap downloaded because that's what we see as our kids, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So all that stuff, that's part of life, you know? And that's why, I mean, not, you know, we have to stop this thing, but that's why, you know, when I think of, like, sin, it's like sin does not begin to describe the dynamic that I'm getting at, you know? And that's why Thomas Keating, who's a Roman Catholic, a former, he's dead now, but contemplative kind of writer, he talks about God as the divine therapist. And people say, oh, that's like wishy-washy woke stuff.

1:24:36I say, have you been in therapy ever? Do you know what happens to you in therapy? Your soul gets exposed and you see all the crap. And that's something that God is interested in, you know, and that kind of, I believe that, and that kind of healing. But to do that, you have to be honest and authentic and actually be looking for it, which is hard sometimes well

1:24:59Jon McLaughlin:Dr. Peter Enns thank you so much for coming on Deadville are you guys going to send me that check we talked about a little complicated Venmo me I don't know if Venmo can handle that much but that's okay just call me later it's 9-1-1-2-7-9-7 we'll get that to you as soon as we can yeah thanks for coming on thank you sir Great time, guys. Thanks for having me. See ya.

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