Jerry Pattengale is a prolific and award-winning author and academic. A long-time executive and inaugural University Professor at Indiana Wesleyan University.
He was one of two founding scholars for the Museum of the Bible and in executive leadership until retiring last year.
He is associate publisher for Christian Scholar’s Review and on the boards for Yale’s Jonathan Edwards Center and Africa New Life (Rwanda), and the membership committee for the National Press Club. He holds distinguished appointments at Tyndale House Cambridge, the Sagamore Institute, Excelsia College (Australia), the Moody Center, and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
He’s the author of dozens of books.
A few of his recent books are...
The State of the Evangelical Mind
And
Is the Bible at Fault?: How the Bible Has Been Misused to Justify Evil, Suffering, and Bizarre Behavior
His most recent book, Inexplicable: How Christianity Spread to the Ends of the Earth, is now a TV series on TBN.
Just last month Jerry appeared before the United Nations where he spoke about protecting religious spaces.
And he is the president of the Religion News Foundation.
On a personal note, I showed up at Indiana Wesleyan as a freshman in 1998. I was an aspiring intellectual. Alright. Now it’d be a stretch to call me an intellectual today. But back then I was aspiring.
And I had World Civ to 1600 with this guy and he was the embodiment of the ideal professor in my mind. He was kinda like my Indiana Jones.
He was inspiring in the classroom, and I have so many stories and personal notes about Jerry outside the classroom.
What I appreciated about this interview:
The word “honing” comes up a lot. God hones us and we hone ourselves. God may bring us experiences to help us hone our gifts or our skills. We are also responsible for doing our own honing.
The discipline required to hone a gift or a skill.
We talked about the “Wedge” principle -- and the narrower your wedge the deeper you can go. I asked him about a line from a past interview, “At 40 you accept certain limitations for your life, and limitations are a gift.” (Rick Soto). Jerry thought this was true in the sense that as you limit yourself you are getting a more narrow wedge and you can do deeper.
I first met Jerry when he was about 40 and viewed him as very successful, but it was not until he was 37 that much started to come together.
Jerry is quotable:
“The dream needs to be stronger than the struggle.”
“Sometimes you need to fall off one cliff to climb another.”
He talked about how none of us really know what are real contribution is. We’re holding onto “tarnished trophies” that don’t matter.
Jerry talked about things that he’ll never do. Students of Jerry’s may remember his “Crossing the Jordan” lecture. Moses, would never cross the Jordan River. His understudy Joshua would.
I asked Jerry, “What’s your Jordan?” His answer was very interesting to me!
This is a great interview. Jerry is a full of wisdom.
Give it a listen and check out his author page on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Jerry-A.-Pattengale/e/B001JS08J0#