Theology in the Raw - 705: #705 - A Conversation with Scot McKnight

Episode Date: November 5, 2018

On episode #705 of Theology in the Raw Preston has a conversation with Scot McKnight. Scot is an American New Testament scholar, historian of early Christianity, theologian, and author who has written widely on the historical Jesus, early Christianity and Christian living. You can follow Scot on Twitter. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. If you're anything like me, when you're listening to a podcast and at the beginning, when they usually advertise a bunch of stuff, I usually click that little 30 second forward button until it gets through all the advertisements. And then I just want to get to the content of the podcast. I don't know if you guys do that. Of course you do that. Don't do that for this episode, because I have a great, great deal I want to tell you about. There's a promotion that we're running for the month of November. The promotion is for our Small Group Leaders Kit. The Small Group Leaders Kit includes both Grace Truth 1.0 and Grace Truth 2.0, both the DVDs that go along with those small group studies, and also a leader's guide. All of this is included in the kit. Now, on our website, centerforfaith.com, we have a store link, and we're selling the product,

the small group leader's kit for $39.95. For the month of November, we are going to sell it for $20. For the month of November, 50% off of the Small Group Leaders Kit. If you enter in the promotional code RAW, W-A-R-A-W, that's RAW. So if you want to take advantage of this 50% limited time offer of the Small Group Leaders Kit for Grace Truth 1.0 and 2.0 that enter in the promotional code RAW, R-A-W, and you get 50% off. So the, I mean, this, uh, this study guide or this small group

learning experience engages questions about faith, sexuality, and gender. It talks about theology, talks about Bible passages. We look at Genesis. We look at Romans. We also look at relationships. We look at, uh, pushbacks to the traditional view of marriage. We looked at what it means to love LGBT people from the perspective of traditional view of sexuality and marriage. It's an A to Z resource to help churches, to help Christians, to help anybody who wants to engage this conversation on an in-depth yet clear and balanced way. So that's the small group leaders kit, Grace Truth 1.0, 2.0. All you'll need to do if you want to lead a small group in this conversation is have the other people in the group

to purchase just the book version of Grace Truth 1.0 and 2.0. So with the small group leaders kit, you're ready to go and you just need to get books for everybody else in the group. So again, enter the promotional code R-A-W and the website is centerforfaith.com. Go to our store link. That's the only place that you could buy this resource. And this offer will be, will end November 30th. Okay. So for my guest today, I have on the show, Scott McKnight, the Scott McKnight. Scott McKnight, if you don't know who he is, is a world renowned New Testament scholar. He's been a man of the academy. He's been a man of the church. He is passionate about understanding what the Bible says and going with the text leads. He's written,

he says it in the podcast. I think it's over like 70 books. And these are, some of these books are like full on like hundred, several hundred page commentaries on like James or the pastoral epistles. He's working on a book on the pastoral epistles. Anyway, Scott McKnight is an incredible voice. He's incredibly wise. He's down to earth. He's honest. He's authentic. Please welcome to Theology in the Raw, the Dr. Scott McKnight. Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. Super excited about this episode. I have on the other line Dr. Scott McKnight.

I've already introduced Scott, so we'll go ahead and jump in. Scott, are you in your basement? Because your room looks just like my room, and I'm in my basement. I'm definitely in my basement. That's right. I have a two-room library. Two-room library. Is this video or is this just audio?

This is video. This is video. I'll turn it. Then you can see the other room has books in it as well. Now, are these all the books that you've written or are these books? What's the number now? It's got to be in the 50s or over 50, right? How many books have you written?

Chris tends to keep track of this, and every now and then she'll say to me, I think you're just over, she said recently, just over 65. Just over, oh my gosh. And these are like real books. These aren't like 30-day devotionals that you can kind of write in two days. These are a lot of them. Commentaries that take several years to write and other pretty heavy books.

I know you've written some popular level books. Some of my smaller books have taken a year. Really? Okay. I don't have many. None of those really quick ones. I did write one for Ravi Zacharias one time. It was Jesus, and I think that took about three days. Okay. So if somebody is listening and saying, okay, I can't read 75 books,

I want to read one Scott McKnight book. I'm going to a desert island, and I can take one Scott McKnight book. I'm going to a desert island and I can take one Scott McKnight book. Do you have a recommendation? Would it be Jesus Creed? I mean, that's the one that I feel like... Well, it just depends what mood you catch me in.

I tend to like my last book the most. But I would say King Jesus Gospel. That would be my second pick i think yeah okay yeah jesus creed is more for the christian life yeah okay well why don't we we've already kind of jumped in why don't you give a just a bit of background of who you are and what you do now um just for the few people out there that maybe don't know who scott mcnutt is well i'm a professor at Northern Seminary. I teach New Testament. This is my, I think my 35th year of being a professor. Wow.

I taught at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. I tell everybody that I replaced Wayne Grudem. Really? I did not know that. He was teaching New Testament, and he moved to Systematics, and I replaced Wayne Grudem, and it was a step up, I always tell people. Then I taught there 12 years, taught New Testament exegesis, doctoral students, etc. Then I moved to North Park University, and that's probably where people began to recognize me. I taught there 17 years and then I've been seven years at Northern Seminary

which is in Lyle near Wheaton. Is that an American Baptist seminary? What's the... Yeah, it's American Baptist Seminary. It has that affiliation in history. Right now, we don't have any American Baptist professors. Our president is a Southern Baptist, a moderate Southern Baptist.

And like I'm Anglican, David Fitch is Christian Missionary Alliance. Bob Price is Christian Reformed. Cherith is going to an Episcopalian church, but she's Assembly of God. Sam Hamstra is Christian Reformed. That's pretty eclectic.

Ingrid Farrow, our dean, well, Dennis Edwards is there now. He's Covenant. Ingrid Farrow, our dean and Old Testament professor, is assembly of God. So we're kind of charismatic. Liturgical-ish, yeah. Yeah, there's some liturgy there. I'm curious, and if you don't feel comfortable saying this publicly, that's fine.

But why the move? Because North Park, when I think of Scott McNa move? It was a, because North Park scene, yeah, you just, when I think of Scott McNaughton, I just think of North Park University. Was there just a better job, closer to home, anything that? No, it wasn't closer to home. It's the same amount of time commute. When I wrote Jesus Creed, Preston, I began to be invited to churches. I had been sort of an academic only type professor and less concerned with, let's say, ecclesial pastoral theology.

But I wanted to communicate to ordinary people the sort of things that we've learned in Jesus studies. So I wrote Jesus Creed and I got invited to churches all over the place, and then to pastor's conferences. And I began to shift my interests in talking and writing and whatever to pastors and churches. And then in a period of about two years, I was offered, or at least talked to from six different seminaries to see if I'd be interested in teaching there. And I told Chris, my wife, after each one of them,

I'm really interested in that, but I don't want to move to so-and-so place. Then Northern came my way Then Northern came my way, accidentally asking for a recommendation for someone to be an adjunct. And it was David Fitch. And I said to David, well, would you be interested in me full time? And he said, yes. He said, are you joking? I said, no. And two days later, I had an interview.

No way. And, I mean, I knew I was going to go if they were going to offer the job. So I wanted to teach seminary students. I wanted to teach pastors. Yeah. And so that's what it was about. I loved North Park, and I loved my colleagues there. I talked to Joel yesterday. So I miss those people.

And I often tell people I don't miss freshman males freshman males what why is that they're too immature there are too many that are too immature okay yeah i've never the time seniors they're fine okay okay i've never actually taught uh like i've had three teaching posts they've all been undergrads so i've always wondered what it would be like at a seminary level where you're you're you have kind of one foot in academia but one foot in in the church you're training people on the front lines of ministry so i have was it been a good move you enjoy this in in this season of life i love i, yeah, I really like, and they convinced me to start a couple programs, and these programs have been far more than I ever expected.

Can you talk about that? I forgot about that. I've only seen that from a distance. Can you explain? Because you're doing some really innovative stuff with education, aren't you? We have, like, I have a student right now in Maastricht, Netherlands.

Wow. And she attends our classes through the Northern Live option. And the students in the class can see her as well as you can see me. Wow. And if she starts talking or asks a question, she becomes the whole screen. starts talking or asks a question, she becomes the whole screen. Wow. And I have another student right now from Australia. And he's taking a class. I think he's at 8 in the morning, you know. Yeah.

And Becky in Netherlands is at 5 o'clock at night or something like that. Yeah. So, and it's been, if you combine that with, they come for a week as an intensive, and you combine that with the Facebook page, which for these students, for each cohort, we have a Facebook page, they have become close friends. I would say the best class fellowship or connections that I've ever had in my entire career. Wow. By far. Really? Nothing like it. The only thing like it was teaching Greek in a six-week session at Trinity in the summers. Those people became friends.

What is it about the – it's just the, the, the dynamic of the class. I mean, people just given the technology and everything, they feel like they're truly there and part of the, part of the class. Yeah. I mean, for one thing, the one week intensive Preston, really we eat lunch together and the students, most of them eat dinner together. Wow. So they just live with one another for a week. Next year, two or three of my cohorts are renting a huge home near the seminary. They're going to all stay together. Oh, wow. Wow. And then then the Facebook allows them to have questions about syllabus. If they have questions for me, they just ask them. They just ask anything. They ask for prayer. They People know what's going on.

And then the class sessions, they just feel like they're with one another again. So you're active on the Facebook account? This isn't just for the students? Yes. You'll jump in? I'm on there, yeah. I see all the comments. Oh, that's fantastic. Wow.

Yeah. Do you know any other school that's doing something like this? I mean, this is kind of like a really advanced version of the hybrid, you know, because I think a lot of schools have been doing the hybrid. You know, you do online your coursework, and then you come in for an intensive for a day or a week or whatever. But the fact that they can be there live in the classroom, that's pretty unique.

It's called synchronous learning. Okay. And I really don't know who else is doing it, but I am virtually certain that we're not the only ones. Yeah, yeah. I know Denver Seminary is doing a lot of kind of satellite stuff. I think Denver is one I heard last week that they're doing this as well. Yeah. So going back to your transition, you gained this kind of renewed heart for the church, pastoral ministry.

Again, from my vantage point, from a distance, you seem to have a particular heart for the younger generation. Like when discussions come up about millennials fleeing the church or this or that, you seem to be very into that conversation. Would that be accurate, that you have a heart for the next generation? Yes, I faded. I have faded from that since I've been at Northern. That was a part of my North Park experience was to be a part of that younger generation talking. Okay.

And then I was involved with this with Dan Kimball in the regeneration project, but I'm not, that's just kind of a West Coast thing. Okay. And it got to be very different. And then I was involved with this with Dan Kimball in the regeneration project. But I'm not. That's just kind of a West Coast thing. Okay. And it's very difficult for me, because I teach on Mondays, to go to the West Coast on a weekend. Yeah, yeah. And I don't like to mess around with a possible cancellation of a flight and then not make it to class. the possible cancellation of a flight and then not make it to class.

Yeah. So I'm not as in tune to that, but I pay attention to some of the conversations. And if something new came up, I would probably read it. When you look at the next five or ten years of, let's just say, American evangelicalism, and I mean evangelicalism in the broadest sense of the term, are you hopeful, excited, worried, angry? Like, how do you, we live in such polarized times, and I think that the church is kind of riding that polarization in many ways. Like, are you, yeah, where do you see the evangelical church in five, 10 years? Are you, yeah, where do you see the evangelical church in five, ten years?

Well, there's so much diversity, and there's such a difference between Southern evangelicals and Northern and West Coast evangelicals. Yeah, ain't that right? Southern evangelicals and Southern Baptist churches, I think, are going to be more stable. I think are going to be more stable. But I think the North is, there's a pretty steady erosion of evangelical young generation not liking the way things are done. And I don't know if they're going to go liturgical, as many are, or if they're going to go mainline and whether that will be satisfactory or whether they'll become nuns. Because I think there's going to be erosion and slippage of numbers among Northern evangelicals. Not Catholic nuns, but N-O-N-E, right?

Like just not religious at all. Maybe some will become nuns. Religious nuns. Yeah. I think evangelicalism is in for some rough days until it can find some charismatic leaders that can draw them together. It's tribal right now. More than you've seen in the past 35 years of your involvement? I think evangelicalism was connected for several decades by Billy Graham and John Stott, J.I. Packer.

They were all lumped together as evangelical voices. There are no charismatic voices bringing evangelicals together. At one time, I thought the only possibility was Christianity today, but I think they flopped and moved in the direction of pretty much only the Reformed. Okay. Southern Baptist types, John Piper. I just don't see them as broad as they could be. But Tim Keller, would he compare to,

he seems to kind of be a unifying voice, relatively speaking? Yes, except that Keller,ller you see is connected to the gospel coalition yeah complementarianism yeah so he he has great respect i mean i love tim keller and i think he has you know he has the potential but he's aligned himself with with one of the tribes yeah uh he's appreciated eugene peterson you see was a voice that crossed the tribes he was just so anti-celebrity or platform that he would just pastor his 300 person church like he should be doing and i think uh resisted right he's not into the movement stuff. No. I like him for that. But so to me, evangelicalism right now does not have that unifying voice.

And I don't know if they can find it. I don't know if it'll be found. Somebody's going to have to arise who can say to the Gospel Coalition, you people are fine, but you're not the only ones. And who can say to the assemblies of God people, you're fine, the vineyard people, but you're not the only ones. And to say to the moderate progressive type evangelicals, you're fine, but you're not the only ones.

Let's be together. And command that kind of allegiance to one another, a common story rather than a tribal story. Where did that strong tribalism come from? Has it ridden the kind of political tribalism that certainly has become more polarized? Or has it just been we haven't had a Billy Graham-type unifying leader? Is it the internet, social media? I don't think i have an answer to it i

would say the dying out of stott and graham or the loss of voice of graham but in the process people like john piper arose with very strong voices but they were not unifying voices. Piper is not a unifier. He is a charismatic, powerful theological thinker, a preacher, a writer, but he's strong on edges. And so, therefore, I mean, he's going to be as critical of anyone who differs from him. John Stott and Billy Graham, if they were critical, they kept it to themselves or in private rooms. But in public, they wanted a platform that showed unity at a higher level than theological orientation.

Yeah. orientation. So I think the dying out of that group of leaders and the tribalistic strength of the next group of people, you know, Mark Driscoll, Matt Chandler, those have not been unifying voices. I think they believe they're unifying, but they're not appreciated by other groups as much as you would think. So we're in a tribal period right now. That's what it is. That's interesting because I very much sense that. I just didn't know if this was like some unique thing or if this is what it always is, you know. Because, I mean, you know, 20 years ago I wasn't really paying attention to much.

I mean, I know the period. I'm not idealistic. Carl Henry was one of those unifying voices. But he was conservative, and he was very much a political Republican, but he didn't spend his time dividing people over that issue. He seemed to be able to get along and listen to Jim Wallace. Jim Wallace was always fighting those people. But those are the end of an era, and our era right now is more tribal.

And I'm hoping that the strength of the voices will eventually give way to a more common vision. You mentioned just a few minutes ago, complementarianism, how some of these tribes are part of their tribal identity is complementarian. Now, I know you're not complementarian. I'm going to assume, growing up as an evangelical, you went to Cornerstone University. At some point, you were a complementarian, right? I mean, there was some shift in your thinking on that.

Can you unpack that for us? Well, you need to read Blue Parakeet. I haven't read it. I know. I'm scared I'll be convinced. Well, a couple of things happened. One was encountering significant female leaders, having female students at Trinity early in my career whom I was convinced were gifted to teach. doing a PhD of having read Morna Hooker's, a couple of her articles that were, I just, they were stunningly brilliant on using the wrong tool,

such a common sense and clarity. And I was riding my bicycle in Cambridge and I pulled up at a stop sign and next to me was professor Hooker on her bicycle. And I just kind of said, hello, Professor Hooker. You know, I've appreciated your writings. And as I sat there, I thought to myself, oh, my goodness, I've learned so much from her. Any idea that women can't be teachers is just not true in my case. And that was at that point that I began to change my view, just on that bicycle ride, just realizing how much I had learned from her,

how she had influenced me, and that to me, writing a journal article and writing a commentary and writing a book and preaching a sermon are all a piece of instruction. So when I came back and started to teach at Trinity, I was an advocate for women in ministry. But I've often told this story. I kept my mouth shut at Trinity because I was concerned with other things, like redaction criticism and writing the things I was being asked to write about and the interests I had at that time in the Gospel of Matthew. So I stayed out of the battle that was largely warred between Walt Liefeld, Ruth Tucker, Wayne Grudem, and Doug Moo. That was going on, and it was not vitriolic. It was a fairly peaceful... Wayne is not really capable of turning that much into peace, but he can be pretty – he's a nice guy.

Wayne and I used to ride schools together, and so I've always gotten along with Wayne. But he's pretty hard-headed on that view. So he was pretty strong on that, and he was very critical of Gilbert Bill Zekian. So as I continued to teach at Trinity, I became more that way. But when I went to North Park, I became much more vocal about it. And I didn't write about it until I wrote in Blue Paracast. Oh, is that your first written kind of presentation? Okay. About women in ministry, yeah. So I mean, I completely resonate with the, and just so – I mean, I've said this publicly on my podcast. I was raised staunchly like patriarchal complementarian.

I mean, I was groomed in MacArthur circles and yet have increasingly moved away from that position to the point to where now I'm just – it's up in the air for me. It's up in the air for me. I haven't had space in my life to sit down and spend several months in 1 Timothy 2 and look at Phoebe. This is what happened to me. I taught a course on women in ministry and in the Bible. Women in the Bible and ministry. It was almost all female students. I went through every woman or the major women in the Bible, you know, the Old Testament, Miriam, Huldah, Deborah, et cetera, Mary, et cetera. So I remember coming to a conclusion

as I was working through these texts in a really fresh way. I was asking my students to answer this question. What did women do? You know, at that time it was WJWD. You know, what did, what was it? WWJD. What did Jesus, what W? WWD. So I was doing WDWD. What did women do? And I and I would ask the students, do women do these things in your church? So I was I was asking that question back when I was teaching the course to think carefully about what women did in the pages of the Bible.

And if we want to be biblical, we have to let women do those things. So, and by the time I was done teaching those courses, I taught about five times. I was, I was ready to write about it. What about, yeah, 12 male apostles and first Timothy two and other passages. Are those difficulties for you? Are they just kind of like, Timothy 2 and other passages, are those difficulties for you? Are they just kind of like, you know, do you see the overwhelming evidence for egalitarian, the position to just be more superior, but there is some evidence for a complementarian? Or how do you wrestle with the complementarian? I mean, it was a patriarchal society.

I think the terms complementarian, I think that term was stolen from people who are now egalitarians. Gordon Fee and his crew were using that term, and Wayne Grudem did not want to say his view was patriarchal or hierarchical. So they used the word complementarian, and they had a bigger platform, and so they kind of grabbed the term. Yeah, Gordon Fee, there's a whole story about this. Gordon Fee was using the word complementarian for what is now called egalitarianism. In other words, there's difference between male and female, but they're designed by God to complement one another, equal in giftings, depending on what the Spirit does.

So I don't like the terms complementarian or egalitarian. I often tell people I don't want to be called egalitarian. I'm a mutualist, which is the original meaning of the term complementarian. The word complementarian today means hierarchicalist and patriarchal. I mean, Russ Moore has admitted this. That's what the word means. The focus is not on how the genders complement one another, but on who's in charge. That's the only question asked by the complementarians.

So a good friend of mine who's on my board of my ministry. He's a pastor, been a pastor for 40 years. Huge advocate for women in leadership. And his phrase he uses is non-hierarchical complementarian. That's the original book by Pierce and Grothuis. It was called Complementarianism Without Hierarchy. Yeah, I remember that. That was the Gordon Fee book. That was the original writing of that group.

Yeah. And I'm not sure the relationship to biblical manhood and womanhood, but that original book may have been a response to Pierce and Grothuis, or it may have been the other way. Yeah. It doesn't matter to me. What do you think, and we can move on to something else. But if somebody like myself wanted to read, what's the best single presentation of each side of this conversation?

Do you have a clear kind of go-to book on each side? I mean, I don't think that there is a clear presentation on the other side. I mean, do you think Moo or Schreiner? I think the best little book on this topic is by R.T. France called Women in Ministry. Really? Okay. It can be satisfactory for you in some ways because it is so, it's small. It doesn't get into all the fullness of the exegesis. But if there's one book that, you know, that would be more for you would be this the book by Ronald Pierce and Rebecca Grutheis. Okay. That one. I don't have it right here. It's in another room. I think that's,

that's the best book on the topic. From the other side, after Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, that big blue volume, I've never spent my time just trying to map the other side. I think I understand it. And if you read any study of 1 Timothy 2, the other side's views are always present so i mean you i think you can get pretty good access to it and so i tried to make a smaller version of this argument in the last third of the blue parakeet it's about women in ministry yeah okay maybe that would be the maybe that would be the one that people would go to check out well of course i want them to buy it whether they read it or not but But I think the R.T. Franz book is quite special.

Okay, okay. Yeah, I just haven't had – I've had enough controversy on my plate over the last several years and haven't had the time or necessarily the – well, I've had the interest, but just not the time to really lay out. And, you know, you look at a commentary, a good thorough commentary on 1 Timothy 2, and the bibliography there is so overwhelming. And I'm the type of guy, I want to exhaust everything that's out there. I want to wade through it all.

And it's just daunting because there's so much literature on it, you know. And I'm writing a commentary on the pastorals right now. Oh, yeah. I'm still happy because I'm in chapter one. I don't have to do that stuff. Oh, man. What are some theological areas where you've shifted on, where you thought you had it all figured out, you had it nailed down,

and then through further study, you're like, man, I've changed my view on this. Well, my views tend to shift rather than suddenly break and snap and change. I don't have, you know, like historical type questions. I drifted into gospel criticism and found myself with conclusions from reading and studying, underlining the gospels, Pentateuchal criticism, say authorship of Daniel, those sorts of things I drifted into by just paying attention to conversations over time. Some issues, like women in ministry, I wanted to put things together, but I was still quite open to changing and shifting. I told you I didn't want to talk about the same sex issue, but I did this three different times in my career where I went through all the evidence again. And after the last time, I decided I'm not going to do this again.

I'm done with this conversation. But I would say that those are the – I mean, I haven't changed my view on same-sex issues. Like, yeah. same-sex issues um like yeah i mean i i would say over time my mind drifts or shifts lightly rather than sudden sudden changes yeah yeah as it should i think i'm orthodox i okay here's one infant baptism yeah i became convinced in seminary that that we ought to quit fighting about this I'm orthodox. Okay, here's one. Infant baptism. Yeah. I became convinced in seminary that we ought to quit fighting about this, that there are too many Christians who baptize babies.

But I read a book by Jeffrey Bromley, Covenants of Promise, I think it was called. And it just didn't convince me. I wanted more Bible. He was using more history, church history. But it was the practice of so many people I respected, Tim Keller, J.I. Packer, all the Reformed, Calvin, Luther, Wesley, they all baptized infants, you know. So I was shifting to where this is okay. Let's just not fight about it. But it was in teaching Colossians all the years and that passage where baptism is connected to circumcision. But it was a piece of logic that I said, it's it for me.

I'm done. I've changed my mind. And it was. Abraham was circumcised, and then he was circumcised in a sense as a result of a profession of faith. I think we can say that about Abraham. Then he circumcised everybody in his family. Baptism in the first century, the first converts, all would have been baptized as adults. So when people say to me, are there any infants baptized in the New Testament? I say, that's like asking if there were any infants circumcised between Abraham's faith and the birth of his sons, you know?

No. It's unfair. But I do think the household baptism is that way. But it was that passage, and then the recognition. You see this in Larry Hurtado's book, Destroyer of the Gods. People in the first century did not choose their religion. It was, you were incorporated into the faith of your father, or your religious cultic practices of your family. And I think that this question has to be approached. How would first century Jewish believers and Gentile believers have incorporated their

children into the faith that they had? That's the question to ask. And you would have said they would have baptized them. There would have been some ritual. And Paul pretty much acknowledges that, doesn't he? First Corinthians 7. How else could your children be sanctified, made holy? And household baptism, you know, Eurimius made the great case that you would never have used that term if all you were talking about were the adults. Right. So household will always include everybody in the household,

and in many of them, you can't have eight household baptisms in the New Testament without some infants being involved. Interesting. So you're an Anglican teaching at a Baptist seminary. Advocating for infant baptism. Before me was Robert Weber. Was there anyone more advocating of Anglicanism than Robert Weber?

He taught at Northern. No, wait. You haven't always been Anglican, right? Is this a recent conversion? For me? Eight years ago. Okay. What were you before?

I thought you were a Mennonite, or is that just an ideology? Well, I'm still Anabaptist. I think you can be an Anabaptist. Okay. But I've never been a Mennonite. We were at Willow Creek for quite a while. Oh, right. Yeah.

Can you get into that at all, or is that all hush-hush? It's not hush-hush. It's so public. I've been quoted in the New York Times about this issue. It's a really sad story of a lot of things that were going on behind the scenes of an authoritarian nature and it was heavy hitting power mongering and

it you know there are enough stories of women about Bill Hybels that the likelihood that they're not true is to me less than zero percent wow I mean that's pretty low. So it's just sad. I mean, this was going on for a long time. And I don't think very many people knew. And I think the people who spoke up got their legs cut out from under them or laid off. Yeah. What do you want to add?

Has the church recovered? I mean, how's it doing now? What's the future look like for Willow? I haven't followed it since it's... It can't recover. Yeah. That's not what happens in these situations. The Willow Creek's attendance is significantly down.

Their money is significantly down. And their only chance of ever becoming Willow again would be if they could get a really charismatic speaker for every weekend who could start drawing people. This was how it was built on the draw of Bill Hybels and then John Ortberg and Lee Strobel. They got to get people of that magnitude who are on staff at Willow and who can help reshape the vision. And it's, I think the chances right now are pretty slim. How is Bill? Is he repentant? Is he, does he think he was misunderstood, misrepresented?

Has he admitted all these things or what's that? I haven't talked to Bill and everybody that I know has said that he vitriolically defends himself and that the women are liars. Really? Wow. Okay. So, no, he hasn't repented because he doesn't think there's – He doesn't think he did anything wrong. Wow. That's what I'm hearing. I don't know. I haven't talked to him.

That's what – yeah, I mean, I know a few people on somewhat of the – have a deep history with Willow, and that's pretty much the same perspective they've shared. Well, the place is empty on weekends. Really? I mean, empty for Willow. What are they using? They run, what, like 20,000 typically on a Sunday?

Well, they have all these campuses. Yeah. I'm pretty sure that at one time, the average attendance at Willow Creek South Barrington was somewhere between 15 and 18,000. Then they split campuses. So they lost some people, but I think it was averaging 14 or 15, maybe it was 13 and now they're down to about 7 000 yeah okay wow it's uh it's it's sad uh i willow is filled was filled with good people doing good work in god's work in god's vineyard And a lot of them are still there.

And I hope they do well. Let's transition. We just have a few more minutes left. So I shot out a tweet. And it was a few weeks ago. And it said, we had a delay in our recording. But I said, I'm about to record a podcast with Scott McKnight. What do you want me to ask him?

So let me just scroll through some of these here. The first one comes from Dr. Derwin Gray. And Derwin Gray wants to know if Derwin Gray was your favorite student. For those who don't know, Derwin is a mutual friend and was a doctoral student under you, right? Yeah, Derwin is my favorite former Carolina Cougar football thing. Because you've had so many. Good, good. What factors drew you to Anglicanism and or Christocentric nonviolence? What is the role of an Anglican priest within

the priesthood of all believers? There's a few more questions here, but we'll just, if you want to pick one of those. No, that's a lot. The Book of Common Prayer, the centrality of Eucharist, the potency of lectionary determining what you preach on rather than pet themes, and the, I would just say, the wonderful fellowship of the church that we found here in our area, Church of the Redeemer, led by Jay Greener, Amanda Holm Rosengren, and Stephanie Booth. So those drew me. Okay.

On pacifism. I shifted on pacifism as a seminary student. I shifted on pacifism as a seminary student. I think I was a seminary student when I read Peter Craigie's book on the problem of war in the Old Testament. Now, I don't know if I was a seminary professor or a student. It doesn't matter. I read it when it first came out. And the odd thing is I became convinced that Peter Craigie was a Mennonite.

But I only found out, and I've written about this. I mean, I've used the Mennonite Peter Craigie. I found out later he was an Anglican. Maybe he's a Methodist. I'm not sure. But he wasn't a Mennonite. And I was really, if there's any problem in the Bible that tortured me, it was the, the wars. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And I just,

I just read some in numbers the other day. I went, Oh boy. So I studied that and I became very interested in that question. Then I started reading Ron Sider and I became a pacifist in the late sevents, and I've maintained that view ever since. Wow, good for you, yeah. We can move on. We've got a bunch here. Your view of hell. What's your view on hell?

This is weird. For some reason, because I've written about it several times, people don't believe what i'm saying i'm i don't believe that people who are annihilationists or conditional immortalists or whatever believe in conditional immortality i don't think that's off the map so people seem to think that that's what i really believe. I have a traditional view, but I'm soft on it because I don't think it's as clear in the Bible as people like me.

Oh, so you don't identify as an annihilationist. You say it's a legitimate kind of option. Oh, wow. It's legitimate, yeah. And I think you wrote me a letter and invited me to write an essay on the annihilationist view. Yeah, I know, I did. Yeah, we wanted you.

Yeah, I have been wrestling with that for several years. And as of last spring, became convinced as much as I need to be to say I'm an annihilationist. I think the biblical evidence in favor is, from my vantage point, very overwhelming. I use with my D-min students, we do a day on this topic. And we read all the Jewish texts that are cited by Edwin Fudge in his book, which is the most complete thing. What is very clear is that Judaism at the time of Jesus had both views. So anybody who thinks it was all one view just is wrong. And so the evidence of destruction that John Stott and all those people argue for is not as tight as a lot of people think.

Yeah. Okay. We will suspend drilling down deeper into that and move on to another question here. What's on his music and podcast playlist? And then he has another question. So do you listen to podcasts? If so, which ones? And then what's your favorite music? Okay. I have never listened to a podcast in my life.

Oh, really? I'm not offended. Not offended. I don't listen to a podcast in my life. Oh, really? I'm not offended. Not offended. I don't listen to mine either. And our pastor's sermons are on, and I asked him Sunday, I said, if I wanted to listen to it, what would I have to do? So I've never so much as tried. Okay.

On music, I listen to whatever on my, I have, is it called iTunes? I have an account with some songs. Yeah. I listen to John Michael Talbot, Robin Mark, some worship songs, and that's the only ones. And I listen to Glen Campbell, Rhinestone Cowboy, and Wichita Lineman. Because they're there, and I listen to them. Yeah, why not? I love the Beatles and the Beach Boys. That to me is great music. Okay, you're showing your age. All right, one more. Who are great women theologians and Bible teachers I could read or listen to

so that I'm not just hearing through a male lens. So some top female teachers and theologians. Well, I would say read the sermons of Barbara Brown Taylor and Fleming Rutledge. They're great sermons. Ellen Davis. I think she's at Duke. Yeah.

There's three people who have collected sermons and they are worth reading. I don't know if they have public sermons. I've looked at Fleming Rutledge and Barbara Brown Taylor on YouTube to see what their voice is like. Theologians, Morna Hooker, I think everybody should read as much Morna Hooker as they can. Everything she's written, I think people should read. Lynn Koek, my friend at Denver Seminary, I think people should read. But there is an increasing number of women voices in evangelicalism, like Sandy Richter at Westmont and Miriam Kamal.

I can't pronounce her last name now. Oh, yeah. At Regent, there's just so many good ones. Cherith V. Nordling, my colleague. There's so many good ones that it's completely changed. Sandy Richter has, in my my mind the best kind of undergrad or even seminary level like survey of the old testament i know it's a great book and we were i was gonna propose that as our textbook at north park when i left when i knew i was leaving i said

okay yeah i'm not gonna work on this anymore so the epic of Eden. It's got great graphs. It combines theology and the sociological background, culture, history, and it's so clear. It's so good. Well, good. Scott, thanks so much for being on the show. I really appreciate it. Thanks for giving us your time. We've got a lot more questions I didn't get to, but

I really appreciate it. I would never be caught dead wearing a Boston Red Sox hat. I'm a true Cub fan. But I do like that Red Sox hat. Yeah. There's a whole history behind that. Yeah, for those who can't see, I'm wearing a Boston Red Sox hat,

and I'm actually a Dodger fan, and it's two days after the World Series just ended. So I'm a confused soul. But, yeah. You see, Pete Enns had a Facebook update last night. fan and it's two days after the world series just ended so i'm a confused soul but yeah you see that's pete n's had a facebook update last night okay folks he said it's been 12 hours the red sox have won would you please get over it good for him good for him scott thanks so much appreciate it Scott, thanks so much for being on the show. Appreciate it.