Monday, June 25, 2007
The Curt Repurt - Episode 2
I know without a doubt God communicates through the written word, but the last place I expected to receive revelation was in the pages of The Oklahoman. Imagine my chagrin when the headline of the Religion Section of Saturday’s paper read “Thou Shalt Update Thy Blog.” I knew immediately the message had to be obeyed since it was in the King’s English.
Before addressing a theological issue, I suppose an update is in order. Since the inaugural Curt Repurt much has happened which delayed the expected second installment. First, I found myself overwhelmed with eighty sub par research papers to grade. (That is an exaggeration, I was overwhelmed with 80 research papers, but only 76 of them were sub par.) Furthermore, recognizing I could not complete grading before the deadline for final submissions, I asked the university administration about the proper procedure for recording grades late. This was a big mistake. Asking university officials for advice proved horribly detrimental. By following their protocol I received daily threats concerning the remaining follicles on my head from said administrators because not all of my grades were in. This resulted in a loss of significant man hours as I had to read each missive. Although, thankfully, our administration hires people who can read and write, which provided a pleasant change from the papers I was so diligently attempting to assess, the tension sent me into a tailspin of depression. (Actually, that’s a lie, but I’m not that concerned with ethics – see below. The tension actually sent me to large quantities of Dr. Pepper and chocolate, the latter of which was so generously provided by the students fearing that I would give them the grade they deserved, but I digress.) After tremendous frustration, colleagues informed me that one should ignore official procedure and turn in blanket “incompletes.” Doing so results in the administration naively believing you have dutifully turned in grades and allows you to spread the bad papers throughout the entire summer. Obviously, as a theologian, I recognize the ethical implications of this practice as well as the disconcerting similarity to how many approach their relationship with God. Thankfully, though, at OC we have relegated ethics to the Business Department.
Immediately following the end of the regular semester I began teaching undergraduate and graduate summer school courses at OC. The Preaching Seminar at the Austin Graduate School of Theology followed quickly on their heels. Speaking of heels, I once again trounced Glenn Pemberton in both wit and biblical interpretation – at least that’s what I hear (whenever I say it). Unfortunately this year the folks at Austin allowed Glenn to have the last word… so I left early.
Later that week my daughter graduated from high school which meant we had a house filled with family. That, of course, was GREAT! Something of this magnitude rarely happens. For some reason, both sides of our family usually choose to visit everybody else. For example, when my sister lived ten miles from the Atlantic Ocean and my brother one mile from the Pacific, we never got together in Oklahoma – the near perfect geographical center. Deborah (and Glenn) think this has something to do with me. I blame it on the cat.
I then spoke for free at a youth rally in Houston. (Yes, Glenn, I’m still offering my services gratis even after the university penalized my kids for being too smart.) Soon after that gig I taught a week long graduate course for ACU. That was an amazing experience! And now I am in Bartlesville doing a seminar on the Dead Sea Scrolls and surveying recent discoveries pertaining to the history of Christianity.
That brings us up to today. So, basically, I have spent way too much time in Texas and way too much money at Starbucks, especially in Whacko (a convenient stopping place for trips to the nether regions when traveling I-35 and a more than appropriate place for Chip’s alma mater). Thankfully, I averaged 54mpg on the trips, so the savings in gas helped defray the expense of java.
Now to the task at hand: My goal is to use the Curt Repurt to address theologically related issues that I consider pertinent or at least mildly amusing. Sometimes, as with today, I can integrate both.
While preparing for the Sermon Seminar it dawned on me that a lot of theological argumentation and even biblical interpretation today resembles the witch scene in Monty Python’s “The Search for the Holy Grail,” one of the greatest movies ever made. This vignette defies description and must simply be seen to appreciate. (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp_l5ntikaU) As a result, I originally suggested “Duck Theology” as an appropriate designation for this practice. Of course, in biblical studies we choose to exercise disciplines that sound much more dignified, so I seriously doubt general acceptance of this nomenclature (although the praxis remains widespread). Following historical precedent, I now suggest this method of interpretation be called Entengeschichte (i.e., Duck Criticism, or History of Ducks) and the field be designated as Anatological Hermeneutics. This, I believe, will make it, at least superficially, more credible. I truly believe, though, the entire enterprise should be considered Daffy. It is this approach which has produced conclusions such as 1) one cannot clap during worship and 2) sending one’s offspring to a Christian university basically condemns them to hell because all (or most) are cesspools of false teaching. Today I am concerned with the latter claim.
Entengeschichte requires the use of faulty premises. And although a large number of them are required in order to conclude our children are safer in the hands of pagans than Christians, I wish only to address one for now: No false teaching occurs at public institutions of higher learning.
Such a claim cannot be true. When I was a minister in Lubbock, Texas, a friend of mine related her experience in a Family Studies course at a large state university. The teacher, a retired preacher from another denomination, stated that biblically only women could commit adultery and that the Bible did not condemn premarital sex. My friend related that many of the four hundred students filed out expressing verbally their relief at discovering these truths. She, on the other hand, approached the instructor and asked on what basis he made these claims. He responded that he knew the Bible taught otherwise, but these students needed to feel better about themselves.
This year I have received a number of e-mails from students in state universities reacting to claims made in some of their courses. These included the following: The Dead Sea Scrolls prove the stories of the New Testament are false, Christianity borrowed all of its practices and beliefs from other religions (most notably Mithraism), and organized religion purposefully withholds critical data from believers to inhibit doubt or enlightenment.
Here is an excerpt from one message (I have only edited the text grammatically and syntactically):
“It seems that in all my Bible studies I was never told about the other side of what we (church of Christ) hold as truth, like the fact there are over 20 or 30 gospels, that there were 60 false Christs running around when Jesus was, and 1000 first century documents and letters about Jesus and his believers. Why is over 80% of the New Testament written by one guy, with others written by the guys with Paul? There were 12 apostles, Judas dies, they vote in Matthias, then Paul comes along making it 13, then nothing but Paul mixed with Peter, John, Matthew and Paul’s own followers. It just seems a little biased or one sided. Where are the other apostles? Did they write anything? You would think they would have a lot to say, with the whole upper room incident and day of Pentecost. I read about the Q gospel which Matthew and, I think, Luke used along with Mark’s gospel to write their own, and the (discredited??) Gospel of Thomas. Why didn’t they canonize the Gospel of the Hebrews, of which evidence supports early use? The “Church Fathers” wrote a bunch, but long after Jesus, the apostles, and even other religions, like Tertullian (late 2nd century) commenting on the many similarities between Mithraism and Christianity. We know that the Catholic religion kept the text from the common people for centuries, that kings have distorted it, which I know it seems to be fixed today, but how do we know what we know is the right way? Modern religion can’t even agree.
At first I felt a little betrayed by my professors at OC, but that’s long gone because I should have studied more on my own not taking things people say at face value, but reading it for myself. But it has started this roller coaster of uncertainties, random facts, half truths, obscure hypotheses, on Jesus the man, the savior, God.”
By the way, this student admittedly never took any of my courses during his short tenure at OC. Of the few “facts” he identifies, I address all of them in my courses, and most of them in “The Life of Christ,” the very first Bible class incoming freshmen at OC must take. All of these issues surfaced in a Humanities course at a public school. Additionally, the professor presented them in a way clearly designed to instill doubt in conservative Christian students. (The student himself admitted this. I am not reading something into the e-mail he sent.)
This week I had a conversation with a salesperson in my home. When he discovered my vocation, he eagerly explained what he had been taught at a premiere university in this state. He was proud not only to have learned that one cannot know anything with certainty from the Bible because it has gone through so many different versions, he went on to narrate how he was attempting to discourage his mother from putting so much faith in the teachings of a largely unknowable, and therefore useless, document.
Please recognize that I do not wish to create another left wing conspiracy theory. Not all professors of religion or the humanities at state schools actively antagonize faith. Many do, however, and some openly make that claim in class. I only mention this because the e-mails I have received this year are responses to such situations and, more importantly, this all goes to show that one of the major premises of Daffy Theologians is patently false.
My detractors will certainly respond, “That doesn’t alter the fact that Christian universities promulgate false teaching from which we must protect our children.” I’ll grant that premise, although it certainly is arguable. (Realize, however, that the same is true of much preaching and therefore, following the Anatological Hermeneutical method, we must conclude that we should keep our children from Christian assemblies.) Here is the primary difference: State colleges and universities do not provide the tools, resources, and environment required for critically assessing religious claims. Although some Christian schools also fail in that category, most don’t. At OC, my students are encouraged to distrust everything I say. (They really don’t need any encouragement in that regard.) Anything new I present engages them in further study of the Scriptures, including the literary, historical, social, cultural, and religious contexts of the Bible and even of themselves. All of this also takes place within a larger community of faith. The end product is usually a stronger more refined faith, not a destroyed one. This seldom occurs at other types of schools.
Studies show that about 50% of Christian students lose their faith in college. Research is currently under way to assess the exact impact on students connected to the Restoration Movement, but my experience, brief as it is, suggests that we lose our children at basically the same rate. Experience also indicates that a much, much smaller number of people lose their faith at Christian universities. If my observations, which currently remain scientifically unverified, are true, then the risk of losing one’s faith at a state school is astronomically high. Must we presume, then, this must be for some other reason than “false teaching”?
Now some might counter that they are aware of the risks of a public education. The real problem is that the “false teaching” at pagan universities is better than the “false teaching” at Christian ones. Hmmm. Clearly a more refined premise, but if it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck….