Me: First of all, explain what you mean by the title. What\u00a0is the \u201cSin of Certainty\u201d?<\/em><\/p>\n Me:\u00a0Basically, it\u2019s about the\u00a0unfortunately common preoccupation with \u201cknowing what you believe\u201d\u00a0in order to feel that you\u00a0have \u201cstrong\u201d faith. When faith is seen as the flip side to\u00a0correct thinking about God, the Bible, etc., uncertainty about those things (which is inevitable) is then easily equated with \u201clack of faith,\u201d which circles back to the preoccupation with getting that certainty back. The \u201csin\u201d is that such preoccupation derails a deeper\u00a0process of spiritual formation and growth.<\/p>\n Me: Sounds like a bunch of hokey meely-mouthed stupid liberal clap-trap wolf-in-sheeps-clothing\u00a0heresy\u00a0to me.<\/em><\/p>\n Me: Yeah, well, who cares what you think.<\/p>\n Me:\u00a0And the next thing you\u2019re going to tell me is that you waste all of our time by\u00a0relaying some of your own\u00a0\u201cexperiences\u201d in the book.<\/em><\/p>\n Me: In fact, yes I do, but more here and there. It\u2019s not a memoir or anything, but the book has grown out of my own experiences and how I\u2019ve made sense of them.<\/p>\n Me: So the book\u2019s basically about you, you\u2019re favorite topic.<\/em><\/p>\n Me: Remember that time when you were little and mom got really mad because you were really mean and loud and nobody liked you? You\u2019re doing it again.<\/p>\n Me: Whatever. OK, so if you don\u2019t talk about yourself all of the time, what DO you talk about?<\/em><\/p>\n Me: A bunch of stuff. For example, I talk about where all this preoccupation with \u201cgetting it right\u201d came from for Christians today, especially evangelicals . . .<\/p>\n Me: Why don\u2019t you give it a rest already with the whole evangelical thing. It\u2019s like you\u2019re a voyeur or something. You think evangelicals are whacked. Fine. We get it. Move on.<\/em><\/p>\n Me: . . . and that preoccupation can be traced to the Protestant Reformation, where getting the Bible \u201cright\u201d became a major goal in ways it hadn\u2019t before.\u00a0That legacy has remained strong\u00a0and is a prime reason why evangelicals have had such a hard time handling things that seem to \u201cchallenge\u201d the Bible and shake their sense of certainty.<\/p>\n Me: You mean like evolution and historical\u00a0criticism, those other topics you keep ranting about?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Me: I rant because they\u00a0keep coming up generation after generation and that\u2019s a big shame, that faith needs to be guarded by an intellectual fortress of solitude. Me: Hey, that was nice. Is that line in the book?<\/em><\/p>\n Me: No. Just came to me now.<\/p>\n Me: Ok, well, anyway, that chapter sounds completely boring. Please tell me you didn\u2019t lead with it.<\/em><\/p>\n Me: No. It\u2019s chapter 2.<\/p>\n Me: Way to go, Hemingway.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Me: I really had to. I needed to lay out how we got into this mess before talking about a better way forward.<\/p>\n Me: Were you at least funny about it?<\/em><\/p>\n Me: Of course.<\/p>\n Me: Like how?<\/em><\/p>\n Me: For example, I call Charles Darwin \u201cChuck.\u201d<\/p>\n Me: Wow, that\u2019s really funny. Give me minute to compose myself.<\/em> . . . What else ya got?<\/em><\/p>\n Me: Next I spend some time showing how the Bible has all sorts of examples of true people of faith who didn\u2019t \u201cknow\u201d what they believed but kept moving anyway.<\/p>\n Me: You mean like lament psalms, Job, and Ecclesiastes<\/em>?<\/p>\n Me: You expected anything else? You know me. I love these books. These parts of the Old Testament are raw and honest about the deep unhinging struggles of faith that are a\u00a0normal<\/em>\u00a0part of the life of faith. These writers used to be \u201ccertain\u201d about what God was up to, even when the Bible \u201ctold\u201d them what God was up to, but then life happened and then\u00a0they aren\u2019t so sure. People like me\u2014and many other people I know\u2014gravitate to these books. Like those writers, we live in a place where faith doesn\u2019t always work out. In fact, it is these challenges to our faith\u2014our Uh-Oh moments\u2014that drive us toward a deeper faith rooted in trust rather than feeling like we have an intellectual handle on God and the universe.<\/p>\n Me: So it\u2019s a self-help book.<\/em><\/p>\n Me: I hate you.<\/p>\n Me: How does the book end? (Quickly, I hope.)<\/em><\/p>\n Me: I tie some themes together by being pretty honest about\u00a0experiences I and my family had\u00a0over the last 10 years\u2014professional and personal\u2014that were very hard and for that very reason<\/em>\u00a0wound up pushing me out of my false sense of being \u201ccertain\u201d and toward trusting God regardless of how certain or uncertain I happened to be. I think of those times now as God-moments.<\/p>\n Me: OK, well, we\u2019re running out of time. Thanks for stopping by.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Me: But I have a lot more to say.<\/p>\n Me: Maybe next time.<\/em><\/p>\n Me: You know where to find me.<\/p>\n [You can preorder\u00a0The Sin of Certainty\u00a0<\/em>here<\/strong><\/a>. If you\u2019d like to join my mailing list to receive approximately monthly updates, you can\u00a0sign up at the top of the main page. And if you don\u2019t want to sign up do it anyway.]<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/thebiblefornormalpeople.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/sin-of-certainty-200x300.png\")
Well, it\u2019s less than 2 months to go before the release of my next book\u00a0The Sin of Certainty: Why God Desires Our Trust More than Our\u00a0\u201cCorrect\u201d Beliefs<\/em>.<\/a> Whenever I get to this stage, I feel like I need a break to recharge\u2014but not before I took the time to sit down with myself for an interview. Frankly, I seemed somewhat distracted most of the time, but all in all I think I did a good job talking to myself and getting my point across.<\/p>\n![\"1432300635394\"](\"https:\/\/peteenns.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/1432300635394-300x200.jpg\")
<\/p>\n