Theology in the Raw - S2: Second Bonus Q & A of 2023

Episode Date: February 22, 2023

Welcome to a sneak peek of the first Bonus Q&A episode, part of the Theology in the Raw premium subscription. Join now here: http://patreon.com/theologyintheraw 00:00 Introduction  1:20 Jackie Hill recently denounced the Enneagram as demonic in origin. Why do you think the broader Christian community has so casually embraced the Enneagram?  12:49 What does your personal quiet time/Bible study look like? How long, what plan, what time of day, your approach, how often, etc.?  19:06 Does 1 Corinthians 1 talking about divisions among the people apply to the concept of denominations? Is it biblical to have these splits within the church?  22:02 Do you have a theology on the dinosaurs creation and extinction? It's enough to make me doubt at times. Is there anything like that that makes you doubt?  27:32 If the new earth is a “return to Eden,” is a “second fall” possible? If not, what about free will? Can free will exist without sin?  32:58 Is the ESV is unfairly biased towards Women in Leadership? Beth Allison Bar’s book presented a case that the ESV is just RSV that doubles on gender language.  45:02 Does the Bible claim to be divinely inspired? Did Jesus say that? Why do Christians often equivocate “God’s Word” (in the biblical text) with the Bible itself?  48:05 How would you define “witchcraft”? It seems like it’s applied to things people just don’t like. What is and is not witchcraft (as mentioned in the Bible)?  50:56 I loved your recent podcast with Ernesto Duke. So where do you land ... Should Christians save for retirement? Is retirement even biblical?  58:46 Does 1 Cor 5 seems to encourage you not to eat with Brothers in Christ who live in sin. How do you Apply this to affirming Christians who are in a Gay marriage?  1:02:37 Recommended ways/books to talk with children about sex/sexuality to get in front of things they will be exposed to in their life?  1:04:34 What’s your take on the Andy Stanley kerfuffle?  108:53 How does a church that is non-affirming accept and love gay Christians even if they are actively involved in a same-sex relationship?

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. Today is a Q&A podcast where my Patreon supporters send in a bunch of questions and they actually vote on the questions to see which ones they want me to address. And so I have a whole list of questions I'm going to address on this podcast. What you're going to get is a sneak preview of the first few questions. If you want to listen to the rest of my responses to these questions, you can go to patreon.com forward slash the algebra, sign up to be a Patreon supporter and get access to the full length podcast episode of this Q&A podcast. So some of the questions we're going to wrestle with are my thoughts on Jackie Hill Perry's recent denouncement of the Enneagram as demonic.

What does my personal quiet time look like? Do the divisions in 1 Corinthians apply to the concept of denominations? Do I have a theology of dinosaurs? Quite frankly, I'm surprised it's taken this long for somebody to ask me about my theology of dinosaurs. Is the ESV translation biased against women in leadership? Did Jesus think the Bible was divinely inspired? Do I believe in saving for retirement? What's my take on Andy Stanley's kerfluffle? And does 1 Corinthians 5 say we should divide from affirming gay Christians? And there's several other with our first question. And it goes like this. Jackie O'Perry recently denounced the Enneagram as demonic in origin. Why do I think the broader Christian community has so casually embraced the Enneagram? Great question. I wasn't aware of this, actually. I followed Jackie pretty closely

on Instagram and her podcast, and I must have missed this one. So I went back and had to watch the five-minute video. And it's funny, one of those things, once I found out about Jackie and her take on the Enneagram, of course, now I hear it from everybody. Like, what do you think about Jackie O'Leary's Jackie? What do you think about Jackie's take? So I had to do a bit of research. First of all, I mean, as I mean, some of you know, I mean, I consider Jackie a friend. She's been on the podcast. She's spoken at my conferences, at my conference, singular, and been on webinars. And I just I value her voice so, so, so incredibly much. Absolutely love her books. And so, yeah, it's with that context that I looked into this. Because I would say I'm a, I'm a, I mean,

I use the Enneagram very mildly, meaning like, you know, it comes up very casually in conversations. Oh, so what number are you? What's your way? And we kind of talk about it, get a feel for who, you know, how someone's wired or whatever. But like, I couldn't tell you a lot of much details at all about the Enneagram. I have found it to be a helpful tool to think through broad categories of personalities. That's about it. Some people are just, they're so into it. They think this is just the best thing ever. And other people hate it as demonic. And I guess maybe somewhere in between. I don't know if in between would be

the right phrase. But I have found it to be a helpful tool, kind of no more, no less. Jackie's post did make me think about how often do I refer to it? I would say I do kind of refer to it quite often. I feel like in conversations with people, it very quickly comes up what people's numbers are, what their wing is, all this stuff. So even though I haven't done a lot of research into it, it does come up quite a bit in my conversations now that I kind of self-reflect. So Jackie did a bunch of studies. She got away for a couple of days, did a ton of study on the Enneagram and concluded that it has just really suspicious, if not demonic origins. And her post is really compelling. And so I was kind of like, ah, shoot. All right. Well, maybe I need to rethink everything here. I did do some research into the Enneagram, not nearly as much as Jackie. Okay. So what you're going to hear from me, I would say, believe Jackie over me if there's any kind of

potential disagreement here. There has been, I guess, rumors about one of the, and again, I don't even know if he's like the creator, one of the founders, or just one of the early gurus of the Enneagram, but a guy named Oscar Echazo, I think is how you say his name. And there was rumors that he received the Enneagram from an angel or spirit named Metatron, which I thought was a transformer. But yeah, I don't know. It's a, I guess it's a pretty well known name for a spirit being. And so that's a little suspicious. I'm like, okay, well, this guy's kind of the main founders, gurus, architects of the Enneagram. And he says he got it from a demon. That'd be a little suspicious, I guess. But then I did a little research on this,

and he came out and said that this rumor was wrong. He denounced it. He said, I did not receive this knowledge from an angel or any other source, but from a careful study of the human psyche. I forget what he said. That's some letter he wrote in response to this. So, and again, I'm not claiming that that denouncement is even, you know, the best evidence. I'm just saying that the evidence for him receiving this from an angel, let's just say, let's just be super cautious and say, well, it's a little complicated and mixed maybe.

So I don't think from the little study I've done, we can simply say for sure that he claimed that it came from a demon. There's another psychologist named Naranjo, who was a student of Achazo, who said in a, I believe it was a 2010 interview, that he got the Enneagram from automatic writing. Automatic writing. He didn't really go into detail what that is. So I had to Google it. And according to Wiki, okay, it's Wiki. So it's Wiki. Wiki, Wiki. Don't use Wiki in your formal research. It's a great kind of quick tool to get a quick perspective on stuff. So anyway, Wiki says that automatic writing is some kind of like subconscious writing, which allows a person to produce written words without consciously

writing. Okay. So just kind of like, I don't know, in some kind of trance with a pen in your hand or something. And it's just kind of your hand just kind of goes for it. I guess, I don't know, in some kind of trance with a pen in her hand or something. And your hand just kind of goes for it, I guess. I don't know. Practitioners sometimes engage in automatic writing. They do so by holding a written instrument and allowing alleged spirits to manipulate the practitioner's hand. Okay, so that sounds a little suspicious. Now, Naranjo in the interview didn't go into detail about it. He just kind of mentioned automatic writing. And from what I've heard others say, automatic writing can kind of mean different things to different

people so it doesn't necessarily mean he's claiming he was in some kind of like demonic trance while he was writing out all this stuff about the enneagram also um apparently he's been teaching the enneagram for 40 years before he made that claim like it was kind of a shock when he said that like he's been teaching this for many years he He also, I mean, Naranjo has a doctorate. He studied at Harvard and Berkeley and he, you know, he actually studied personality types at like Harvard and Berkeley. So the guy has loads of psychological knowledge on personality types. So I don't know. So here's where, where whatever that claim is whatever automatic writing is he could also be when he's when he does write and talk about the enneagram drawing on loads

of psychological like maybe we can say legitimate psychological uh sources plus there's stuff in the enneagram a lot of stuff from from again cross cross-check everything I'm saying. I'm not the expert at all. From what I can tell, there's a lot of stuff in the Enneagram that does predate Naranjo in the first place. There's a pastor online that I found a lot of good information on, Tyler Zack. I don't know who he is. Seems like a great, super humble guy. He seems to be well-learned on the Enneagram. And I found some stuff that he was addressing the alleged demonic origins of the Enneagram. So I found that to be really helpful. So yeah, I treat the Enneagram kind of like other personality tests. I think they can be helpful tools. I think they can be overused as well. And I think I love Jackie's point at the end of her video about Christians using the Enneagram is kind of like a more

significant descriptor of their identity than their identity in Christ. Like when any kind of like personality test, you know, conflicts with the biblical worldview, I think that, yeah, that's problematic. Or when people use the Enneagram as like an excuse for unvirtuous behavior. I don't know if there's a number for shyness is it like a five or a that's a bad example i was gonna say like you know well i'm an enneagram five and so i don't really want to ask people questions i just want to kind of read some books or whatever that's probably a bad description of five i might even be a five and that doesn't really describe me too well but um or a nine okay know, nines are like peace peacemakers, right?

They don't like conflict. Well, sometimes, um, righteous behavior might take you to places of conflict. So you can't say, Oh no, no, I'm a, I'm a nine. I don't do that. Well, no, you're a Christian first. So yes, there might be times to do that, you know, if it's the right thing to do. So, um, yeah. So when in any kind of personality tests takes precedent over your Christian identity and what that identity calls you to, I think that's problematic. Yeah, to me, that was, for me, the most helpful point that Jackie raised, which I 100% agree with. I don't see the Enneagram personally as way better than other personality types. I've gone through the DISC profile, D-I-S-C, which I found helpful. I did Strength Finders, which is really thorough.

Enneagram is kind of a quick and easy reference point for me. But I don't know. I haven't been convinced that Enneagram is like way better than all the others or different or spiritual in origin in a good way or necessarily in a bad way. So Jackie has caused me to think about it. And I think we're due to have a conversation to kind of talk through a little more because I do have some questions about that. But I found the origins of the Enneagram a bit complicated for me to simply toss it out just yet.

simply toss it out just yet. And also, I mean, I'm not always convinced that even the origins of something determines whether the thing we're talking about is necessarily wrong, bad, or unhelpful. I mean, we have like the origins of a lot of the Proverbs are in just ancient Near East wisdom as a whole. Of course, it's divinely inspired, but it's also drawing on ancient wisdom. There's a lot of parallels, for instance, between ancient Egyptian wisdom literature, wisdom texts and Egyptian proverbs and the Book of Proverbs.

I went through this a lot when I was in seminary when we would kind of evaluate the legitimacy of other scholars and their commentaries or their books based on where they went to seminary or where they studied. I'd be like, well, that person did go to Fuller, so they're going to be. I'm like, well, maybe. But shouldn't we judge the legitimacy of what somebody is saying and producing and doing based on the content of what they're doing and saying and producing, not simply where they went to school 40 years ago or whatever? People do that to me. They look at my checkered educational

history and might say, wow, you must be. I'm like, well, judge me based on what I'm actually saying and believing, not the origins of my educational experience. So I don't always, and this comes up with like CRT, right? To take a really quick turn. People say, well, the origins are Marxist and this is, you know, and like, okay, maybe that there can be some help. And that may be helpful to look at the origins. But at the end of the day, I just simply denounce something based on the origins. I think we need to also look at the content of what we're denouncing and see if that is actually unhelpful or bad or shouldn't be listened to. Okay, next question. What does my personal quiet time or Bible study look like? How long? What plan? What time of the day?

Your approach? How often? Et cetera. Great question. I would say if I look back over my last 10 years, maybe, how far back do you want to go? It's been different in different seasons. back do you want to go? It's been different in different seasons. When I was doing my... Okay, here's gonna be my hardcore days. Back when I was doing my PhD, I think I'd get up at like four in the morning, maybe four thirty. I think I was sitting around for... Well,

maybe four o'clock. And part of it is because we had tiny little kids at home. The sun in the wintertime went down at like 3.30 in Scotland. And my wife was like, is there any way you can get home where there's a little bit of daylight left and hang out with the kids, play with them outside, whatever, before the sun goes down? So I said, well, if I just alter my schedule, then yeah, I need to get in. I think I was trying to do like 10 hours a day of research, 10, 12 hours a day of research. And so I would get up at like 3.30 or 4. And I would spend like 45 minutes to an hour. And back then, I would read a chunk of the Old Testament in Hebrew, a chunk of the New Testament in Greek. Just because it was such a,

the original languages are so fresh in my mind. And to me, that was like, I don't know, it's an invigorating way to start the day by digging into kind of like really specific nuances in the text. I have tried various Bible reading plans where I'm doing like three chapters a day. And typically I try to do that in the morning. I don't think I've ever finished a one year Bible plan. I've gotten like halfway through the year and then stuff happens. You fall behind, you get discouraged. And next thing you know, you're like 16 chapters of Leviticus to read before tomorrow morning. And it's your kid's birthday. And you're like, sorry, I got to stay up late tonight to read Leviticus because I have to get that, you know, and I just found, I don't know, I just, for me personally, because maybe it's because of my life or my late, maybe it's just, I'm just an idiot. I don't know. I just always find myself, you know, a couple of days of

falling behind next thing you know, I'm like, oh my gosh, I, you know, if I, if I try to blow through this and make it up, then we're really doing what I should be doing. So I have never stuck with a one year Bible plan. Um, I would say right now, here's my ideal. So you might be hearing, I'm not consistent. That's the big answer to your question. I'm not consistent. On a good day, I'm up at 6 or 6.30 with an alarm. I'm not a morning person. If I don't set an alarm, I'll wake up at 8, 8.30. It's hard for me to get out of bed. So if I want to get up early, 6, 6.30, right now, I typically read some Bible and then some other book. Not necessarily for... Well, sometimes it's connected to my research, but I'm not researching with my computer open. I'm just reading. I reading, I'm trying to reflect. Sometimes I'll, you know, if it's a theology book, I'll be kind of going

back to passages that the book is looking at. Like right now, I'm digging into the book of Revelation, kind of political readings of Revelation. So I might go back to certain passages. Like I spent the last few days in Revelation 12 to 14. So kind of reading the text and then maybe going to a commentary type book and then, you know, seeing what they say about the passage and going back and looking at the text. So I don't have any kind of like, make sure I get through this chapter today. It's just kind of like, I don't know, spend some time in the text informally. And then I'll spend on a good day, again, on a good day, sometime in prayer. Sometimes I look at the time. Oh my gosh,

I have to get to work and I don't pray, which is bad. I should prioritize prayer because the Bible study part comes easier than the prayer part. So gosh, I'm counseling myself here, my own therapist. I should probably start with prayer because that's the one that's going to go that I'm not going to get to. Yeah. If all of a sudden I feel like I need to get to work really quickly or whatever. So I did some, a fellow PhD student when I was, when I was doing my PhD a couple of decades ago, you know, I was kind of frantically like, oh, how can I make sure I'm having my devotional time in like on top of my PhD studies? And he was like, what do you mean by that? I'm like, you know,

like I want to read the Bible, you know, for spiritual nourishment, not just for research. And he's like, well, you're a Christian, your research times in the Bible should also be devotional and your devotional time should also be thoughtful. So he kind of pushed back or not pushed back. He was just kind of like expanded my mind to realize that like, you know, it's probably more helpful just whenever you open the text, whenever you're thinking about the text to be both thoughtful and devotional. Like, cause I've tried the whole like, you know, reading books that are just kind of fluffy. They're just kind of airy. They're kind of just not really scholarly, you know,

and I just have a hard time with that kind of like, quote unquote, traditional devotional literature. I just, I can't shut my mind off when I'm thinking about the Bible and I don't think I should, you know? So at the same time, when I, when my mind is cranking on all three cylinders or however many I got up there, like I also need to be not just reading the Bible for an academic pursuit. Ultimately, anytime I open the text, whether I'm doing Greek and Hebrew word studies or reading whatever, my ultimate goal is to be formed in the likeness of Christ, whether through deep study or quote unquote devotional study. So I've learned to try to merge the two. merge the two. And because my life is oriented around studying the Bible, I try to have my devotional hat on at least a window up in the back of my mind, my devotional window up, you know, to use a computer analogy. I try to always have that up, always be thinking, how is this forming me into the likeness of Christ? Okay, next question. Does 1 Corinthians 1, talking about divisions

among the people, apply to the concept of denominations? Is it biblical to have these splits within the church? I don't think 1 Corinthians 1 could be directly mapped upon modern day denominations. I mean, it's talking about disunity within local house churches in Corinth. And they were dividing largely around various factions forming around certain leaders, and there was a lot of pride involved. And there's more socioeconomic stuff going on there as well. Yeah, I think that some of the division around leaders had to do with this kind of patron-client system where they were kind of treating these various leaders as patrons and they were kind of forming clients around them. And it gets a little complicated there. But all that to say, I think there's some unique stuff going on in 1 Corinthians 1, or really it's 1 Corinthians 1-4 as a whole,

talks about these divisions. I think the modern concept of denominations can't be found directly in the text of scripture. Like I don't think, yeah, I don't think what we now call denominations, these organizations of many, many, many, many individual churches coming together around certain points of doctrine and practice. I don't think 1 Corinthians 1 would say. Hey friends, I hope you enjoyed this portion of the Patreon-only Q&A podcast. If you'd like to listen to the full-length episode and receive other bonus content like monthly podcasts, opportunities to ask questions, access to first drafts of my research and monthly Zoom chats and more, then please head over to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw to join Theology

in the Raw's Patreon community. That's patreon.com forward slash Theology in the Raw. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.