Personally, I would not like to be one his parishioners because I would not trust his preaching. Am I picking on him? I don’t think so because he emblazons his bad teaching on the internet and YouTube and seeks considerable publicity of his views. It is interesting that he has switch off comments on his YouTube channel because there were a load of comments when I previously looked. He has removed them. Perhaps he is one the reasons why there is tension in the Church of England, when he promotes his views.
His ‘ blog- entitled Reading the Bible Literally? Can be found here (Tuesday January 23, 2024) where he reproduced his sermon discussing Paul’s conversion as described in Acts9, 22 and 26
He asks “Why so many different versions of the same story?”, claims that the stories are not meant to be taken literally and have been embellished like the fisherman’s tale of the size of his catch. Consequently, Kennar now makes his own story up to replace that described in the bible. He describes the Damascus Road event as just a change of viewpoint in Paul rather that a direct intervention by Jesus and imagined the words “Saul, Saul why are you persecuting me?”. Kennar thinks Paul is a good story-teller and so embellishes the ‘tale’ and a few years later the story grows to a blinding light and Jesus' intervention i.e. not a truthful description of the actual event. So Paul lies and the bible lies? (but of course 'truth' in a historical sense many not be availabe for the likes of om Kennar)
Please read Kennar’s tale yourself. I think that he is mix of a man who seems not to believe in truth nor in spiritual intervention or miracles. Again, not convinced, I would not be one of his sheep.
NOTE: If you ask a number of people to describe an event or incident, they may each describe things differently. Or perhaps the same person may recall something differently the second time when asked by someone else. It’s not that anyone is trying to deceive, they can be telling the truth but are focusing on different aspects. So, for example the sun setting: one may describe poetically what they see, one may describe what they know of the physical and chemical changes they see to the orbit of the planets and the chemical affect on the brain and another just go WOW- the colours were fantastic. Each are telling the truth but not of course the absolute whole truth because only God can know that with all the complexities that He has made. I have no problem that the event described in Acts picks up the historical real truth of what happened. There is no conflict between the different descriptions. This is the common understanding of Bible-believing scholars. Paul describes his vision additionally in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, 2 Corinthians 12: 1-7 and also in Galatians. If you have a belief in the physical world only then Like Kennar's explanation, Paul's conversion could be sunstroke, mood disorder or even epilepsy.
You can find a link to a further article here
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