This is a hill I'm willing to die on. I am not going to pull my punches on this one; proceed with caution.
I was sweeping earlier and, despite all my best efforts to be mindful and live in my present experience, I was thinking about the struggles that I've faced as someone who is both an intellectual and trained theologian going on to doctoral work in New Testament, and a person of faith awaiting call as a pastor. There are two camps that have been particularly a thorn in my flesh - those who aren't "religious" and think that all I've done is waste my brain on "Jesusology" (which isn't a REAL academic discipline), and those who come out of fundamentalist/evangelical traditions and do not understand what academic theology is and assume that I must, of course, agree with them in their ultra-literal butchering of the scriptural witness.
Both camps need to be called out - the former simply for not grasping the fact that theology is, in fact, a rigorous academic discipline and not just "Jesus loves me" fluff, and the latter...oh dear. The calling out of my sisters and brothers in rather more conservative traditions must be for creating the sense in broader society that Christianity equals stupidity. The former attitude irks me; the latter infuriates me. I will try to keep it under control.
So, first - a word to those who do not think that theology is a legitimate academic field of study. How many ancient languages did you have to learn for your law degree? I had to learn two for my M.Div.; by the time I have my Ph.D., I'll have had to prove competency in both of those, plus two more languages of academic study. Neither ancient language uses our alphabet, by the way, and one of them isn't even Indo-European. Then, with those two languages, I am asked to be able to analyze, with deep knowledge of historical and social contexts contemporary to the writing of each of 66 separate documents (most of them anonymous or by multiple authors and editors), the entirety of the Bible. I also have to be conscious of how to read them in a way that encourages and inspires people's sense of faith - academic knowledge of them as historical objects or works of literature isn't enough.
Of course, to be able to do that, I need to be a well-trained writer and public speaker. I also need to have an incredible depth of grasp of the entire history of Western thought - a good grounding in philosophy, the sciences, history, and literature is essential. I very specifically have to be an expert in 2,000 years' worth of religious, spiritual, and theological reflection in the Christian tradition. I also cannot be ignorant of other religious and spiritual traditions, so while becoming an expert in Christian, and especially Lutheran, thought, I also have to be at least conversant in the theology and practice of other major world religions.
Did I mention that, in addition to these things, I also have to be an ethicist? And a teacher capable of providing instruction to everyone from cradle to grave? Oh, and I also function as a non-clinical counselor - gotta have a good grasp on psychology, both in terms of theory and counseling practice. The road to my degree could be paved ten times over the papers that have been written and the pages that have been read and, at the end of it, every person in ministry is a polymath capable of doing everything from discussing the relationship between process theology and the general theory of relativity down to fixing the church's toilets. You can take your MBA and shove it where the sun don't shine if you'd still like to argue that my degree isn't "really" a degree. Yes, it is a vocational degree - so is an M.D. or a J.D., and I don't see people lining around the block to discredit them.
That all said, I now have to address the body of folks who are, while a good lot of folks on the whole, are just the same responsible for me having to rant just to prove that, in fact, theology is an academic discipline. Fundamentalism has so infected the soul of U.S, American Christianity that, unfortunately, the average person outside the Church has no idea that not at all Christians aren't conservative evangelicals. It breaks my heart that my sisters and brothers in more conservative traditions have been so successful in dumbing our faith, and themselves, down to this point. Christianity GAVE BIRTH to the university, furthered the expanse of the arts in the West, supported so many different academic developments...and now has become a by-word for ignorance and deliberate denial of logic and reason in the name of supporting a literal reading of the Bible which the Bible itself, at no point, advocates or supports.
Yes, I said it - there is not one verse in the scriptures that says "the Bible is without error and should be taken literally." You can play the "all scripture is God-breathed" argument from the Pastoral Epistles, but the definition of inspiration used by fundamentalism is NOT one found in the scriptures, nor in Christianity until after the Reformation - the permutation of it most popular in this country didn't emerge until the 19th century. Check it if you don't believe me. Perhaps I speak too strongly, but belief that the Bible is 100% without error is heresy because it ascribes perfection, which is only held by God, to a product of human hands - even if they were inspired by God, people were involved. It cannot be perfect, and viewing it as such creates such an intellectual nightmare for anyone with a modicum of intelligence or sense that it has, and will continue, to destroy the Church's witness to anyone unwilling to check their brain at the church door.
I say all of this as someone who grew up with this. I grew up with people whose idea of a science curriculum was anti-scientific and rooted in the indoctrination of its students into knee-jerk, lock-step literal biblical creationism. Guess whose faith is smaller and weaker - the person who worships the Bible rather than God and cannot accept anything other than a literal 6 day creation account, or the person who reads the Bible and grasps the heart of its message of salvation by grace through faith in Christ and is still able to see the value in evolutionary theory?
I've been harsh, probably too much so...and for that I apologize. But I cannot keep my silence - the deliberate and willful ignorance which fundamentalist Christianity forces upon its adherents is despicable and contrary to the Gospel...and destructive to the ultimate health and well-being of God's faithful people and their call in this world. I just can't keep quiet in the face of that anymore.
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