Bitter Sweet Choice: Peter Enns Resigns from WTS
Read about it here
Enns’ choice is bitter tasting because it reveals where WTS’ heart is at (reformed dogma) and Christianity, the Bible and people, are more than theories and ideologies birthed out of the experiences of dead white men.
It is also bitter because it is a big loss to the student body at WTS. Evangelical institutions need people like Enns to bring understanding and reconciling power between conservative and liberal Bible readers.
It is also a sweet tasting choice because where Enns is at in his spiritual maturity, he needs a place where he can grow even further and bare more fruit and in a monologic and authoritarian institution like WTS, he would be smothered and walking on egg shells which can stun a person’s spiritual development.
I am pleased however to read the following words from the administration at WTS.
“The administration wishes to acknowledge the valued role Prof. Enns has played in the life of the institution, and that his teaching and writings fall within the purview of Evangelical thought. The Seminary wishes Prof. Enns well in his future endeavors to serve the Lord.”
Prayers should be offered to our brother Enns as he and his family decides what is next.
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That statement is from the “administration,” not the faculty.
Jonathan Foster - July 23, 2008 at 11:50 pm
hey man, this is paul. i just started going to epiphany and just moved up here from richmond, va to go to WTS. i have had so many talks with so many people about this topic and have recently read incarnation and inspiration. i found the book amazing and caused me to worship Christ in a fuller sense, and i definitely resonate with your words in this post. i must add, though, that no one has questioned whether enns has been within “Evangelical” bounds. they were just questioning if he was within traditional reformed confessional bounds, and i heard there is still going to be a “heresy trial” of sorts to see if enns can still be considered a presbyterian at all. i’m scared at the fundamentalist direction the school may be headed, but i find rest in God’s Sovereign Providence and the knowledge that no institution is sacred and eternal in and of itself. thank you for this and sorry for my long comment.
Paul - July 24, 2008 at 12:52 am
I don’t think it is a case of fundamentalism at WTS but rather their placing a ’strict’ Confessionalism over and above Old Testament studies.
Richard - July 24, 2008 at 10:51 am
At the end of the day the question is simple: does OT studies necessitates being outside of Reformed Confessions (specifically Westminster Confessions?) At the end Dr. Enns says yes, but WTS says no.
I’m sure Dr. Enns will have no problem landing at another seminary that will often him more freedom of scholarship as the one provided by WTS.
ReformedSinner - July 24, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Just a note: This is from the administration; the vast majority of the teaching faculty did not find Enns’ views even to be outside conservative Reformed confessionalism, much less outside evangelical theology.
But congratulations to Enns on his newfound freedom.
unhappyalum - July 25, 2008 at 6:24 pm
I wonder where he will go next?
JNORM888
JNORM888 - July 26, 2008 at 7:42 pm
WTS is not beholden to any sort of “Reformed dogma” for the sake of mere tradition or convention. Even less does the school cherish the thoughts of dead white men (such as Calvin) *because* they are dead white men. There are many dead white heretics too!
Through the years of its existence, the school has upheld the Westminster Confession, and historic Reformed theology in general, because J. Gresham Machen and others firmly believed that the Confession was/is an accurate statement of Biblical doctrine. I am tired of hearing people set the Bible (or Christianity as a faith) against “Reformed confessionalism,” as if the Bible is necessarily at odds with the Westminster Confession. Having said that, I am a Baptist, so I obviously do not subscribe to certain parts of the Confession… BUT the men who wrote it were not committed to convention or tradition. They were committed to setting forth an accurate statement of Biblical doctrine and its implications. For WTS to require that its professors teach within the bounds of the Westminster Confession is not an act of “suffocation”– it is an act of consistency with what the school has always held to be true about the Bible and its doctrines.
Christopher Lake - July 29, 2008 at 1:22 am
If you can accept sinful dead white men as brothers, some which most likely were racist (Jonathan Edwards), then you can accept Peter Enns as a brother even if his honest scholarship has offended you.
cdero - July 29, 2008 at 12:33 pm
I hate to be the one to tell you, but your credibility to say something like “a monologic and authoritarian institution like WTS, he would be smothered” is completely compromised when it is lead by the phrase “he can grow even further and bare more fruit”. His fruit is actually bare, confessionally, which is why WTS had this conflict with him. My prayer is that he bears more fruit, and that folks who don’t know the difference shore up their foundations before they try to elegize what has has transpired here.
Frank Turk - August 9, 2008 at 8:18 am