Eugene Peterson's New Message

Kevin Miller didn’t see Eugene Peterson’s support for same-sex marriage coming. Miller, pastor of the Anglican congregation Church of the Savior, has read Peterson’s 30 works, visited him at his congregation and home, interviewed him multiple times, and considers the creator of The Message Bible paraphrase a personal hero. But Miller, former editor at Leadership Journal, wasn’t expecting Peterson to tell writer Jonathan Merritt that he would be willing to marry a same-sex couple if asked. “Eugene has written so beautifully in his Spiritual Theology series about how we listen to the word,” said Miller. “He is a writer who engages Scripture at some of the deepest listening levels and he is prophetic in his gift and temperament as well as pastoral. To invoke the culture shift as though the culture shift has anything to say to us as a church, I was just like ‘Eugene, that’s not what you taught us to discern theses kind of issues!’” Miller joined assistant editor Morgan Lee and editorial director (and guest host) Ted Olsen to discuss the tension of learning from theologians after they’ve changed their convictions, the hallmarks of Peterson’s ministry, and what it means for the future of reading The Message.