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Can Peter Enns still be considered an orthodox protestant?

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Peter Enns was expelled from the Westminster Seminary due to this positions judged too liberal in his book *Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament* (2005). This article contains a comment of this affair, and provides "two reports authored by the conservative members of the Westminster faculty, in which they explain why Enns' views are in conflict with biblical and historic Christian teachings on the nature of Scripture." While Peter Enns views can still nonetheless be considered conservative (1 ), there is especially a passage where he expresses his views on Calvinism, which seem to me to be pretty compatible with the orthodox current of protestantism of which principle is to stick with the first reformers (Calvin, Luther) methods and thoughts. Here is the passage, from a long article on Calvinism published on Biologos: > In its best iterations, Calvinism is a “third way” that negotiates between the extremes of (1) a dismissal of Scripture as God’s word because of it obvious human dimension, and (2) a dismissal of the historical dimension of Scripture in an effort to protect its divine dimension. The first option is typically referred to as “liberalism” and the second as “fundamentalism.” That is a bit reductionistic as far as I am concerned, but those are the popularly accepted labels. > The Calvinist legacy, at least in principle, is well suited to avoid these extremes for one simple reason. It embraces the “incarnate” nature of Scripture, that it is God’s word but in human form. Scripture is a divine, inspired text, and also on every page bears the unmistakable, discernable, and wonderful stamp of the time and space bound human beings who by inspiration produced it. And this stamp is not to be observed theoretically nor as an unfortunate concession. Rather it is an affirmation that the human element of Scripture is worthy of the most careful and thoughtful reflection, with potentially important, theologically significant payoff. This is a distinctive and vital mark of the Calvinist legacy. From there, can Peter Enns still be considered an orthodox protestant?
Asked by Starckman (159 rep)
Dec 16, 2024, 12:15 PM
Last activity: Dec 16, 2024, 01:13 PM