Tag Archives: Seminary education

“The Workers are Few”

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It seems that we have heeded only too well James’s admonition that not many of us should become teachers (James 3:1). But not for the same reason! James finishes his warning with these words: “because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.” I doubt that the prevailing ignorance and lack of good teaching in the church today can be attributed to the fear of the Lord.

The Need

Many of you know what it is like to feel called to preach the gospel and teach the faith and to feel overwhelmed with the task. We feel something like what Jesus may have felt as he looked at the people:

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field” (Matthew 9:36-38).

It takes so long to bring a believer to maturity! Paul felt it:

My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you, how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I am perplexed about you (Galatians 4:19-20).

We want to train others so that our work can be multiplied, but sometimes our teaching does not seem to bear fruit. The writer of Hebrews expressed this frustration in these words:

We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil (Hebrews 5:11-14).

There is so much work that needs doing and there are so few who can do it. I am not speaking here about a shortage of seminary-trained, professional clergy. Indeed, we need more of those too! But I am thinking about a shortage of individuals willing to prepare themselves to be volunteer or part-time teachers, spiritual mentors, and leaders of God’s people.

The Call

If you are open to preparing yourself to teach, mentor, and lead others or you know of someone (man or woman) who is open to this, this essay is for you. Perhaps you cannot devote several years of your life to studying theology in a college, graduate school, or seminary. But that does not mean that you cannot embark on a course of self-education in theology. Today I want briefly to set forth the basic principles of theological education.

The Preparation

In Part Three of my recent four-part series “A Time for Orthodoxy” (September 15, 2024), I highlighted the three basic factors that must be brought to bear on any debate about what the church should believe and teach: scripture, tradition, and office. In one of the concluding paragraphs, I said this:

Scripture, tradition and office provide mutual support and together are often called “the three-legged stool.” All three of these authorities are necessary for preserving the identity and unity of the Church, the Christian college and other parachurch institutions. Church leaders would be completely powerless to make and enforce decisions if they could not appeal to Scripture as the prime authority to give divine sanction to their decisions. And if tradition has no recognized authority for the community, leaders cannot convincingly assert their interpretation of Scripture as the true one!

Because Scripture and tradition play such indispensable roles in the teaching function of the church, anyone who would teach, lead, and guide the church must know them well enough to apply them to whatever problems arise. Hence the study of Scripture and tradition are essential to the preparation of church teachers at whatever level.

Study Scripture

Above all, a teacher of God’s people must know the scriptures. You need to become familiar with the entire Old and New Testaments: narratives, law, history, poetry, prophecy, and gospel. This step though elementary is fundamental, for you cannot understand that with which you are not familiar. One can read the Bible on many levels and for many legitimate reasons. Most often people read it looking for encouraging examples of faith, morality tales or rules, or devotional thoughts. And these are legitimate reasons, but apart from the next step they do not produce understanding. To understand, we must also read the Bible for its cumulative image of the nature, character, and purposes of God and for its picture of the nature, condition, and duties of human beings to God.

Study Tradition

The Bible is the norm for all Christian doctrine. Sadly, however, some people misunderstand or twist the scriptures to fit their own private preferences. As I argued in the four-part series I mentioned above, the church’s widespread and long-term understanding of Scripture, which we call “tradition,” should carry more weight than the private musings of one individual. Hence your self-education in theology must include the study of church history. From the first to the twenty-first century, the church has faced many crises and challenges. It has produced many brilliant and spiritual individuals. It has filled whole libraries with profound studies of the faith. And anyone who would be a teacher of God’s people today must have some familiarity with the church of the past.

Two Proverbs

In carrying out the project I am envisioning we need to keep in mind the wisdom voiced in two contrary proverbs:

“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”

If you don’t keep in mind the limits of what you know you will become arrogant and reckless. Most heresy is created by mistaking a partial truth for the whole truth.

“Something is infinitely better than nothing.”

Because, having read the Bible and a few good books on the history of the church you are much less susceptible to being deceived by ignorant or unscrupulous teachers. And you can warn others away from false and unhealthy teaching.

Next Time: I hope to return to this theme for more detailed advice about the best way to educate yourself in theology.

Academia’s Double Standard, Or Orthodoxy for Me but Not for Thee (Seminarian Visits Theology Professor #5)

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Introduction

Today we listen in on the fifth conversation between a recent seminary graduate and one of his former professors. The previous conversation centered on clarifying the critical standard academia uses to test knowledge claims. Taking mathematics and logic as the ideal sciences, academia measures all other endeavors to secure knowledge by the ideal of clear, exhaustive, and absolute knowledge. In sciences other than mathematics, however, this ideal is unattainable and can be only approximated to one degree or another. Not only so, the level of success in approximating the ideal is always a matter of dispute. Because it is unattainable in fields other than pure mathematics, it is open to abuse and selective application. Our professor argues that the dominant academic approach to the Bible and Christian faith displays just this sort of abuse and endless debate.

Setting: The seminarian and the professor agree that friendly conversation is better when you are sharing food and drink or taking a walk together. Warm and sunny, today is a perfect day for a leisurely walk.

Seminarian: Thank you for suggesting that we walk as we talk today.

Professor: Like sharing a meal, walking together is an act of friendship conducive to honest conversation. Where did we leave our last conversation?

Seminarian: As I recall, we were going to examine the ways the academic method creates doubt about the Bible as a reliable source of knowledge of God.

Professor: Yes. I remember. Tell me, then, in the most succinct way you can how academia attempted to diminish your confidence in the Bible as a repository of divine revelation.

Seminarian: I can summarize it in four words. On hundreds of occasions, in scores of different ways, and to every belief I brought with me to seminary, academia repeated the same challenge: “How do you know?” How do you know the Bible is true? How do you know that every book, every sentence, and every word is inspired or God-breathed? How do you know the biblical writings are authentic, that is, written by authors to whom they are ascribed, composed at the times and in places they claim, and preserved uncorrupted? How do you know that the events they recount really happened? How do you know that the authors’ theological interpretations of the events they write about are true? How do you know that the Scribes and Rabbis that selected the Old Testament canon and the churches and bishops and councils that selected the New Testament canon did not make mistakes in the writings they included or excluded?

Professor: Asking “how do you know?” seems more like a rhetorical ploy than an academic argument. You don’t have to know anything about a subject or offer any alternative explanations for the data, to ask this question. Did they make any positive arguments? Do they attempt to demonstrate the Bible’s unreliability or provide an alternative history or theology?

Seminarian: Yes. They did. And they can succeed in creating plausible doubt at some points. In my experience, however, the “how-do-you-know” question is the only way to mount an effective challenge to faith in the Bible’s reliability as the authority for Christian teaching, because most of the Bible’s message is untestable by universally acknowledged criteria. The Bible is the only source of information we have for almost all the history it contains. You have to take it or leave it. True, there are some areas where the Bible’s statements may be tested. The simplest way to test the Bible’s reliability is to examine it for internal coherence or compatibility with external sources. If the Bible seems to assert two contradictory ideas or incompatible facts, this would be a mark against its reliability for those ideas and facts. If the Bible asserts ideas and facts that contradict or are incompatible with ideas and facts sourced from outside the Bible, one must assess which source to trust and to what degree. To take one obvious example, the first eleven chapters of Genesis, taken as history or science in the modern sense, seems to be incompatible with some aspects of modern cosmology, archeology, biology, and the modern understanding of the course of ancient history. And there are many other places where the Bible speaks of historical events, natural phenomena, and moral principles to which some people claim to have independent access.

Professor: Indeed, examples could be multiplied. Hardly a biblical stoned has been left unturned. Biblical scholars have been studying the Bible in this academic way for at least 250 years. Some hoped that academic study would confirm the truth of faith and others seemed to take delight in debunking it. Some were cautious and reserved and others prone to speculation and flights of fancy. They examined it from every angle imaginable and set it within every ideological schema that has been developed: Hegelian, Marxist, postmodern, feminist, and gay. I have read widely in this literature for 50 years, and as I asserted a few conversations back, for all their efforts not much of substance has changed. If you want to know what the ancient Jews believed about God, creation, and other faith topics you still have to read the text of the Old Testament printed in your Bible, which is for all practical purposes the same as that read by Jesus and Paul. If you want to know about the life and teachings of Jesus, you have to read the New Testament Gospels. If you want to know what Jesus’s original disciples and the earliest church believed about Jesus, you have to read Acts, Paul, John, and the rest of the New Testament documents. Don’t get me wrong, biblical scholars have been very helpful in providing insights into the biblical writings. But when scholars use the biblical texts plus their vivid imaginations to reconstruct a picture of Jesus or the early church that is radically different from that given in the New Testament texts, what are we to do? Trust modern scholars and their methods? Which scholars? What methods? Surely, it makes more sense to trust the original sources even if there is no independent way, acceptable to academia, to prove them true. No matter how many scholars you read, you will still have to make a choice to believe the biblical teaching or not.

Seminarian: If I am hearing you correctly you are saying that all attempts to go beyond faith in grasping the truth of the Bible—whether to confirm or deny it—are futile and unreasonable. Am I right?

Professor: Yes. The Bible’s truth value cannot be assessed with mathematical methods. It makes historical and theological claims, and the methods by which historical and theological claims can be assessed cannot produce “clear, exhaustive, and absolute” knowledge. Academics who nevertheless attempt to transform biblical faith into scientific knowledge will inevitably reduce that faith to a few meaningless historical facts and a short list of culturally acceptable moralisms. Their edited Bible turns out to be even less plausible than the uninterpreted text. Ironically, their failed efforts to rationalize faith actually renders a service to faith. For if the Christian faith could be refuted (or proved) by academic means, it seems that 250 years of scholarly work would be enough to accomplish this task. From an academic point of view, however, it is still inconclusive. And it always will be, for that is the nature of academia.

Seminarian: And that brings us back to the “How do you know?” argument!

Professor: Exactly! Because orthodox/biblical faith cannot be defeated by positive academic arguments, unbelieving academics often resort to the “How do you know?” argument! Because it contains an element of truth, it often ensnares unwary students. It is true that we do not know the truth of the orthodox/biblical faith in the same way and to the degree of certainty that we know that 2 + 2 = 4. So what? Skeptical academics argue or imply that we ought not to trust beliefs grounded in faith. This act, they say, is a failure of rational responsibility and a loss of courage. We ought rather to hold such beliefs in suspense until we can know their truth status one way or another, which implies that we should never embrace Christian faith wholeheartedly and apply it to every aspect of our lives. For we cannot know its truth clearly, exhaustively, and absolutely.

Seminarian: If academics applied this standard to every belief they cherish, they would never embrace wholeheartedly and live by any belief or principle…except perhaps mathematical or logical ones. And you won’t have much of a life if you determine to act guided only by those abstractions!

Professor: But as we all know, the dominant culture of academia does not apply this rigorous standard to every belief and value! Can you imagine the furor that would be created on most college campuses if a guest speaker or a professor were to turn the tables and apply these standards to modern academia’s sacred cows in the following ways? “How do you know that the world is divided into wicked oppressors and righteous oppressed people? Can you prove that all black and brown people are victims of systemic racism? Can you give demonstrable evidence that racism is immoral? How can you prove that socialism is morally superior to capitalism? How do you know that diversity is a moral and social good? How do you know that seeking equity (or even equality!) is morally superior to rewarding merit? How do you know that inclusion is right and exclusion is wrong? How do you know that LGBTQ+ rights are human rights? Indeed, how do you know there are such things as human rights? So, you don’t know? You can’t answer? Well then, you should to hold such beliefs in suspense until you can know their truth status one way or another. If you don’t know them clearly, exhaustively, and absolutely you should not risk living by them or imposing them on others!”

Seminarian: I suspect that such a person would be silenced and perhaps attacked by a mob, fired from their jobs, and even arrested by law enforcement.

Professor: Higher education, too, has its dogma, its orthodoxy. To question it is to blaspheme, and you don’t argue with blasphemy. You silence it and persecute the perpetrator.

Professor: I see that we have been walking for about an hour and its nearly lunch time. Next time, let’s address directly why holding tenaciously to the faith proclaimed in the Bible and attested and passed on to us by the church is a very reasonable thing to do.

Seminarian: I look forward to it!

Professor: See you next time.

Young Seminarian Visits With Old Theology Professor (Part Three: The Bible)

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Introduction

The last meeting (posted on December 19, 2023) ended with the professor’s summary of the conversation:

 “To doubt” and “to believe” are acts of situated individual subjects involving judgments, decisions, and moods. Every doubter is also a believer and every believer is also a doubter. The doubter possesses no inherent intellectual or moral superiority to the believer. I think this truth sheds light on your seminary struggles. You may have been beguiled by academia’s spurious claim that doubt is intellectually superior to belief and seduced by the offer of membership in a social class marked by its presumption to higher wisdom.

Setting: The young seminarian drops by the professor’s office without an appointment, hoping that the professor is in and available for a visit.

Seminarian: Hello professor. I remember that you have open office hours at this time on Wednesdays, and I was hoping to visit with you, if you have the time.

Professor: Good timing. A student just cancelled her appointment. Come in. Have a seat.

Seminarian: Thanks. I wanted to continue our conversation. Last time, you mentioned that we’d discuss the Bible next; that is, the contrast between the way the church treats the Bible and the way the modern academy treats it.

Professor: Oh yes, so I did. Since we last talked, I’ve been thinking a lot about the ways, overt and covert, modern academia subverts faith. As we saw in our last conversation, modern academia canonizes doubt and criticism as methods of weeding out superstitions and other unscientific beliefs. It rejects tradition, orthodoxy, and commitment as ways of knowing and living. This institutional stance in itself, apart from any particular criticism, places faith under a cloud of suspicion. Of course, we know that modern academia is deceptive and hypocritical. As we learned last time, the doubter is also a believer and critics of one belief must remain uncritical of opposing beliefs. The modern university cherishes its own traditions, orthodoxies, and commitments, but it calls them by other names: professionalism, science, scholarship, equity, diversity, critical thinking, research, inclusion, tenure, academic freedom, free speech, progress, fairness, and academic integrity. So, as we begin our reconstruction of faith, I suggest we refuse to be intimidated by modern academia’s claims to moral and intellectual superiority over faith and tradition.

Seminarian: The Bible?

Professor: Okay. We are nearly ready for the Bible. But I want to know that you see academia for what it truly is. Its two traditional activities are teaching and research. On the one hand, it is tasked with educating the coming generation. It introduces young people to the current state of discussion among scholars of the arts and sciences and it helps them develop the skills they need to become expert practitioners and researchers in their chosen fields of study. On the other hand, academia is a way of generating and testing beliefs, hypotheses, and theories by means of criticism and doubt. It protests that its purpose is not to pass on political, moral, and religious tradition of any kind. But we know that American universities are much quicker to criticize traditional morality, conservative politics, and the Christian religion than they are progressive morality, leftist politics, and exotic religion.

Seminarian: I get it. I should adopt a critical attitude toward the critical attitude practiced in modern academia.

Professor: Yes! As a way into the subject of the Bible, recall as best you can the view of the Bible and the Christian faith you brought with you to seminary.

Seminarian: I don’t recall that I was taught a “doctrine” of Scripture as a child. In my home and in church, the Bible was quoted, preached, and taught as the true moral, religious, and metaphysical worldview. It was our unquestioned framework for meaning, identity, and purpose. In its teachings about creation, fall, atonement and the world’s end, the meaning of history and the destiny of humanity were laid out before our eyes. Our greatest enemies are sin, death, and the devil, and these foes can be dealt with only through the power of Jesus Christ and the Spirit. The Old and New Testaments’ stories and heroic characters provided examples of courage and obedience. The law, the prophets and the Writings provided moral rules and wise principles by which to live. Jesus’s teaching, example, and above all, his sacrifice on the cross and resurrection from the dead were at the center of our worship and moral lives. Religious and moral disputes were settled by determining what the Scriptures teach. Whatever the Bible says is the truth of God.

Professor: At what point in your development were you taught an explicit “doctrine” of Scripture, and what was it?

Seminarian: I can’t remember a particular occasion, but in my teenage years I became aware that there were outsiders who did not believe. This seemed very strange to me. How could anyone not believe? It stands written in the Bible and has been held true for thousands of years. The voice of the prophets, Jesus and Paul ring out as authentic and powerful witnesses to the truth they experienced. Who would have the temerity to label them liars or fools? Around the same time, I began to notice that the church leaders taught a “doctrine” of Scripture, albeit a rudimentary one.

Professor: I am very interested in exactly what you remember about the doctrine of Scripture you learned at this stage in your life. Understanding this process is important because we need to discover what made you vulnerable to the critiques you faced later on. So, try to remember the view of Scripture you internalized in your late teen years.

Seminarian: I will try. But I am not sure I can remember exactly how I understood things at that stage. I may have to use categories I learned later to express what I remember.

Professor: Okay. Do the best you can.

Seminarian: As I said above, as a child I accepted the biblical portrayal as the true world. The voices within the Bible seemed as real to me as those of my parents and the preacher. I believed not because I compared and contrasted it with other ways of understanding but simply because I was taught it. That is to say, I believed the Bible because I trusted my parents and the church. At some point I began to notice church leaders speaking not simply about the contents of the Bible but about the Bible itself. We learned about the distinctions between the Old and New Testaments and the various types of literature within each division. We memorized the names of all 66 books within the Bible. We even sang songs about the B.I.B.L.E. I could not have put it into words at that point in my life, but I could not help but notice that the scriptures were use as the exclusive source and authority for teaching within the church. The Bible was the authority by which theological disputes were settled. Church teachers and preachers often referred to the Bible as “the inspired Word of God.” I took this to mean that the voice of Scripture was the voice of God. I don’t think I heard the word “inerrancy” until I entered college, but even before then I would have rejected instinctively the proposal that the Bible contained mistakes, lies, and myths. Accepting such a proposal would shatter my biblical worldview and thrust me into an uncertain, chaotic world without guidance.

Professor: I presume that in college or seminary you encountered a more sophisticated doctrine of Scripture?

Seminarian: Yes. I learned what many people pejoratively label a “fundamentalist” doctrine of Scripture. That is that the Bible as a whole and in every part, from Genesis to Revelation, down to every word, is “inspired” or “God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16). I took this to mean that God chose every word the human authors wrote and miraculously protected them from error. The words of Scripture are simultaneously the words of the human author and the Word of God. In terms of its use, this conviction reinforced the authority of the Bible for use in teaching and theological disputation. To quote the Bible was to quote God.

Professor: And you accepted this doctrine of Scripture?

Seminarian: Yes. But what I did not see at the time was that I accepted a doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture on the same basis that as a child I had accepted the reliability of the contents of Scripture; that is, that the church whom I trusted believed it and assured me that it is so. I did not ask at the time, “Can the doctrine of the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible be independently verified?” In my childhood, I could not have asked this question, because I accepted the word of those I trusted. To ask for their assurance to be independently verified would be to abandon the very basis on which I trusted Scripture. But by the time I entered seminary, I came to think that the absolute truth of the Bible could be (and needs to be) verified by reason. How this transition occurred I don’t know, but I think it had something to do with my conservative teachers’ efforts to demonstrate by rational arguments the complete truth of the Bible. In other words, my path to doubt was cleared by the friends of faith.

Professor: Humm. This seems like a good place to end for today. Let’s return next time to this ironic turn of events wherein efforts to make faith secure by rational argument ended up making it doubtful.

Seminarian: I look forward to disentangling the matter.

Professor: Goodbye.

Seminarian: Goodbye.

Young Seminarian Visits With His Old Theology Professor (Part Two)

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Introduction

For the full context of this post please read the first conversation posted December 05, 2023. In that meeting, the old professor addressed the question of why seminary training tends to weaken if not destroy the faith and piety that young people bring to the endeavor. In sum, the professor explains, seminaries participate in the ethos of modern academia, which sees as its main task critical examination of all inherited beliefs. Whether intended or not, this relentless questioning replaces the student’s initial certainty of faith with doubt. Many students enter seminary with the naïve belief that the indubitability of the faith is an essential sign of its truth. Hence some students take refutation of the faith’s status as absolute knowledge as disproof of its truth. Or, at least as a reason to refrain from embracing the faith wholeheartedly.

Setting: As our young seminarian approaches the old professor’s office, he notices that his office door is open. Their eyes meet.

Professor: Good to see you again! Come in.

Seminarian: Thank you, professor.

Professor: How have you been? Tell me what you are thinking.

Seminarian: In our last conversation you gave me much to consider. Some of which, I had never before thought about.

Professor: What was that?

Seminarian: That I may have unknowingly identified the believability of a belief with its indubitability; that if I can doubt it, I should not trust it. And in doing so, I may have mistaken the academic method of universal doubt and endless criticism for a livable philosophy. If you don’t mind, I’d like to pursue this issue today.

Professor: I was going to make the same suggestion. Examining this mistaken inference may go a long way to dealing with your concerns about the Bible and the credibility of the orthodox Christian faith.

Seminarian: I look forward to it.

Professor: Let’s begin by thinking about the terms you just used, “believability” and “indubitability.” In my experience, contemporary use of these concepts and their near relatives creates much confusion. I see three areas where we need strive for more clarity. (1) Note first that the words “believability” and “indubitability” diverts our attention away from the person who believes or doubts and focuses on the proposition in question. They speak as if believability and indubitability are properties inherent in the claims being made. I do not accept this attribution. Whereas a proposition’s truth or falsity is not dependent on the person believing or doubting, a proposition’s believability or indubitability is. For a claim may seem believable to one person but doubtful to another. Hence debates about the believability or indubitability of a proposition are a waste of time. It will be helpful here to recall that these terms are derived from the verbs “to believe” and “to doubt.” To believe and to doubt are acts of individual subjects. And one person may believe while another person doubts a claim. A proposition may indeed possess the property of truth or falsehood, but it cannot possess the property of believability or indubitability or doubtfulness, or any other like property. The assertion that a claim is believable means no more than this: “I assent to this claim and can see no reason why others would not do the same.” Likewise, the assertion that a claim is doubtful means no more than this: “I dissent from this claim and can see no reason why others would not do the same.”

Seminarian: This is helpful. It keeps our focus on the place where decisions between belief and disbelief must be made, that is, on the individual’s weighing of the evidence for and against the truth of a claim.

Professor: True. And I will return to examine the acts of belief and doubt in greater detail. But first, there is another area of confusion I want to address. (2) Faith and doubt (the acts of believing and doubting) are often seen as mutually exclusive. More precisely, they are seen as different kinds of actions; that is to say, faith acts and doubt refrains from acting. Faith assents and embraces a claim while doubt refrains from assenting and embracing. Belief moves, but doubt remains steadfast. According to this way of thinking, doubt is conservative and cautious but belief ventures into uncertain waters and risks error. Doubt rests secure until it is moved by evidence it judges compelling. The doubter claims the higher intellectual and moral ground and looks down his nose at the naïve believer.

Seminarian: As I look back on my first year in seminary, I now understand why I was so confused. Up to that point in my life I had thought of the act of faith as responsible and virtuous. Only people lacking true virtue embraced skepticism and doubt. They were clearly looking for a way to escape from the restrictions of morality and religious practice. But when I entered the academic world, these values were reversed. Doubt, skepticism, criticism and avoidance of commitment were viewed as responsible and virtuous. Belief and commitment were signs of fear, gullibility, and carelessness. I suppose I was gradually socialized into academia.

Professor: But it’s all based on a deception. For doubt is not the absence of belief. Doubters can refuse to be moved to belief by arguments for a particular claim only because they hold to other beliefs that exclude that claim. One may justify rejecting Paul’s testimony to the resurrection of Jesus based on their belief that miracles are impossible. A person who rejects the New Testament’s sexual ethics can do so only because they rely on other moral sources they trust more. Doubters can be just as gullible, fearful, and careless as believers! Everyone is simultaneously both a doubter and a believer. Hence debating the relative moral and intellectual superiority of doubt over belief or of belief over doubt is another complete waste of time.

Seminarian: I had never thought of that before! But it’s obviously true. Disbelief in one proposition is possible only because of belief in another opposing proposition. Academia’s critical method won’t work unless the criteria by which beliefs are measured are assumed true, at least provisionally. Criticism without criteria is an absurd idea.

Professor: Well said! Let’s move now to the third clarification. (3) As I said above, “to doubt” and “to believe” are acts of individual subjects situated in a particular time and place. The act of doubting or believing expresses a subjective state, a judgment, a decision, and a mood. (a) To say “I doubt” expresses the present mental state of the speaker. It communicates something like: “I do not find the evidence for your claim compelling.” It says nothing about the properties of the proposition in question or the evidence supporting it. (b) But clearly the subjective state of the doubter results from a judgment, which concludes something like, “The evidence for this claim is not sufficient to justify rational assent.” (c) Because neither expressing doubt nor affirming belief assert infallibility, treating either one as a basis for action involves a decision, a decision to move forward apart from complete clarity and certainty. (d) Many judgments and decisions are accompanied by certain moods: joy, triumph, glee, pride, etc. And these moods often indicate the operations of motives other than desire for truth and commitment to sober rationality.

Seminarian: I did not realize that believing and doubting were so complex. But I should have known this. Human beings are not calculating machines. Their judgments and decisions are conditioned by their multidimensional natures, widely different experiences, and diverse characters.

Professor: Let’s bring this line of reasoning to its point: “To doubt” and “to believe” are acts of situated individual subjects involving judgments, decisions, and moods. Every doubter is also a believer and every believer is also a doubter. The doubter possesses no inherent intellectual or moral superiority to the believer. I think this truth sheds light on your seminary struggles. You may have been beguiled by academia’s spurious claim that doubt is intellectually superior to belief and seduced by the offer of membership in a social class marked by its presumption to higher wisdom.

Seminarian: You may be correct. When I returned home after my first year, I’m ashamed to admit that I felt a bit smug when relating to the “unenlightened masses.”

Professor: I hope I’ve given you something to think about until our next meeting.

Seminarian: You have indeed! But I have many more questions.

Professor: We will take them up one by one. See you soon.

Seminarian: Goodbye.

Young Seminarian Visits Old Theology Professor

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Introduction

Previously, we listened as a confused young seminarian visited with a progressive bishop. Our troubled seminarian explained to the bishop that he had lost faith in the conservative Christianity of his childhood and inquired whether he might have a future in a progressive church. After three sessions, the young seminarian left just as confused as he had been beforehand, if not more. (To pick up on the story, see the posts of October 7 & 17 and November 4.) After his disappointing series of meetings with the progressive bishop, the young seminarian decides to meet with a professor of theology about whom he has heard some intriguing things. This old professor has a reputation for being orthodox in doctrine and morals but not combative or judgmental. Having taught theology for over 40 years and written many books, the old professor is well acquainted with the history of Christian theology from the first to the twenty-first century and with contemporary issues in theology. Above all, he is known for his honesty and moderation.

Setting: After having previously set up an appointment by phone, our confused young seminarian knocks on the old professor’s office door.

Professor: Come in.

Seminarian: Thank you, professor.

(The old professor closes the book he has been reading and moves from behind his desk.)

Professor: Have a seat. Would you like water or perhaps a coffee?

Seminarian: No, thank you.

Professor: What’s on your mind?

Seminarian: Where to start? I hope you will not be offended if I am brutally honest. I’ve lost faith in the conservative Christian faith I was taught in church. Driven by the obligation to be honest with God and myself, I examined doctrine after doctrine of my inherited faith and found them doubtful. I thought I should not continue to hold to a teaching about which I felt uncertain. I visited recently with a progressive bishop in hope that he could help me sort out what I believe and how I could continue in some form of Christianity. You can imagine, then, how shocked I was when I discovered that the progressive bishop admitted that he lies to his church every Sunday. He uses such traditional Christian language as incarnation, miracles, resurrection, salvation, Holy Spirit, atonement, etc., and allows his people to think that he means what the church has always meant by these terms. In fact, however, he believes none of it and justifies his dissimulation by saying he believes these things interpreted metaphorically. I found it all so disheartening. Can you help me?

Professor: I will try. But you need to be patient. To get a handle on the problem we need to move logically from the foundations to the issues with traditional Christianity that most trouble you. Our first goal is to find the most fundamental point at which your thinking departs from the logic of orthodoxy. You need to ask yourself, “Was that departure warranted?”

Seminarian: Okay. I don’t know for sure where that point is, but when I spoke with the progressive bishop, I said something like, “Well, I suppose it all started with the Bible. Before I entered seminary, I believed that everything the Bible says is true because it is the inspired word of God….”

Professor: We will get to the Bible, but first allow me to share some general observations about the transition from childhood faith to mature faith. As children of Christian parents grow up in the home and in the church, they accept what they receive from these sources as unquestionably true. And this is a good thing. Children need simplicity, certainty, and a clear identity; they do not have the maturity to cope with ambiguity and uncertainty. At some point, however, they must learn to deal with challenges to inherited faith and embrace it as their own. Ironically, those children of the church who decide to attend seminary to prepare for ministry face greater challenges to their faith than those who take another path. In seminary they are introduced to the academic study of the Bible and theology. Nothing is taken for granted. Every fact, doctrine, and practice that is taught in church as “what we believe” or “what the scriptures teach” is placed in doubt. In academia, every doctrinal claim must be backed up with persuasive evidence before its validity and truth can be admitted. And even in faith-affirming schools under the guidance of conservative teachers, students must read the works of atheist, deist, liberal, and progressive authors. Many beginning students find this experience shocking, disorienting, and horrifying. What they experienced in their lives up to that point as matters of prayer, reverence, worship and comfort they now hear dissected, debated, and doubted. Even blasphemed! Many students find that seminary study dilutes, cools, and sometimes shatters the faith they received from their parents and churches.

Seminarian: That’s my story exactly! I entered seminary with a sense of God’s presence and confidence in the truth of the Bible. By the time I left, God seemed distant and the Bible no longer seemed sacred. Why does seminary study have this effect on some students?

Professor: I have a theory about that. Would you like to hear it?

Seminarian: I’d love to hear it! Because it does not seem plausible to think that everything my parents and church taught me was wrong and that I needed to attend a seminary to discover this.

Professor: I do not believe that what your parents and church taught you was wrong. But I think you may have formed the impression that what you learned in church was not only right but self-evident, certain, and so obviously right that no right-thinking, good person could object. Now I am sure that neither your parents nor your church made such a bold claim, but perhaps you took this expectation with you to seminary.

Seminarian: I certainly did not expect to have my faith so thoroughly deconstructed!

Professor: Now for my theory. Academia does not understand the way faith works in real life. Modern academia is a laboratory, designed originally to examine critically every inherited belief and practice, looking for superstitions, fancies, and opinions masquerading as knowledge. It had rather reject a dozen true beliefs than risk being taken in by single false one. It prefers never-ending criticism to the slightest commitment. For above all, it does not wish to be fooled. It would prefer to be teleported naked to a White House gala dinner than to be exposed as naïve and gullible to its peers. The academic study of the Bible and theology follows the same pattern. It feels obligated to challenge traditional Christian beliefs from every angle: historical, logical, and metaphysical. Never has a belief system been so criticized by so many for so long with so little results. Rarely does this history yield a credible claim to have falsified an essential Christian teaching.

Seminarian: Then why do so many seminarians get confused by it?

Professor: Because they enter seminary thinking wrongly that their inherited faith is so obviously true and certain that no serious objections can be made against it! Implicit in this naïve faith is the notion that the unimpeachability and certainty (for me) of the Christian faith is part of the faith itself. That is to say, they accept the absurd idea that the faith can be falsified merely by showing that it could be false. As the student encounters a barrage of historical, logical and metaphysical objections to Christian faith, they lose their naïve confidence in the impregnability of the fortress of faith. Then comes their greatest mistake: they conclude that, because they are fallible and a cherished Christian belief could be false, they ought not remain unreservedly committed to the faith they were handed by the church. They unwittingly accept the enlightenment view that it is better to reject a dozen true beliefs than risk being taken in by single false one. What young seminarians overlook as they enter the world of academia is the nature of faith. The preaching of the gospel of Christ does not call us to gnosis, absolute knowledge and complete certainty, but to faith. If Christian beliefs were as self-evident as 2 + 2 = 4, it would not be called faith. The terms “self-evident faith” or “proven faith” are contradictions.

Seminarian: Wow! I’ve never encountered this perspective before. My head is spinning. I’d like to think about it for a few days before we continue.

Professor: Of course. You think about it and we’ll set a time to meet again.

Seminarian: Thank you. I will check in soon.

Professor: Goodbye.

Seminarian: Goodbye.

Seminarian Meets Progressive Bishop: Part Two

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Setting: Our confused seminarian returns for a follow-up meeting with the progressive bishop to explore further his professional prospects. The seminarian knocks gently on his mentor’s office door.

Bishop: Come in. Have a seat.

Seminarian: Thanks.

Bishop: How have you been this past week?

Seminarian: I’ve thought a lot about what you said previously. I focused especially on the implications of giving reason and experience authority equal to scripture in determining church teaching. If I understood you correctly, progressives hold that in some cases the conclusions of reason and experience should be preferred above those of scripture, right?

Bishop: Yes. That is correct. But keep in mind that by “the conclusions of reason and experience” progressives are not speaking of private preferences, snap judgments, and speculations. By “reason” we mean the considered conclusions of the scientific community, and by “experience” we mean the insights modern society has attained by listening to the voices of oppressed and marginalized communities.

Seminarian: Okay. Just wanted to be sure I hadn’t misunderstood.

Bishop: Good. What’s on your mind today?

Seminarian: I don’t remember when or how this happened. But recently I realized that I have become suspicious and even skeptical about the supernaturalism that permeates traditional Christianity and, if I’m honest, the Bible itself. Evangelicalism, Roman Catholicism, and Orthodoxy place divine interventions into the ordinary course of nature at the center of their message and practice: incarnation, resurrection, atonement, divine wrath, the devil, conversion as an individual spiritual rebirth, sacraments, a second coming of Jesus, and heaven and hell. But to many people of my generation, these ideas seem unreal, unknowable, and unnecessary—the stuff of myth and legend. In addition, they distract from the essential message of Christianity. As I understand him, Jesus focused on the love of God and love of neighbor, the kingdom of God, peace, and social justice. Why burden this beautiful moral message with demands to believe reports of supernatural acts and miraculous transformations?

Bishop: I hear you. And most progressives share your concerns. But you need to be careful. First, don’t exaggerate the problems caused by the supernatural elements in the Bible. Even if these “supernatural” ideas and stories of divine interventions are not literally true, they are part of the Christian story and cannot be removed without loss and offense. As metaphors and symbols, they communicate important beliefs about God and support Jesus’s teaching about love and justice. Apart from these symbols and such religious rituals as baptism, the Eucharist, the divine liturgy, and communal prayer, Christianity would be reduced to an ethical message without grounding or persuasive power. You don’t have to attack or ignore the biblical miracles. There are alternative ways to address your concerns.

Seminarian: Sorry to interrupt…. But something has been bothering me about what you said last week. And you just said it again. At the risk of offending you, it sounds like you are advocating deception. You seem to be advising that I should allow people in my church to keep believing stories that I know are not literally/historically true because I can draw useful lessons from them. Wouldn’t this be treating them as children?

Bishop: You did interrupt! I had anticipated your apprehension—it is a common one—and was just about to address it.

Seminarian: Sorry. It’s just that I keep hearing the voices of my conservative parents and my fundamentalist home church pastor in my head raising the charge of deceitfulness and elitist condescension.

Bishop: You must keep in mind the difference between the church and the academy. Seminaries, divinity schools, and university religious studies departments question tradition and explore alternative theories of theology and religion. That’s the reason they exist. In our academic studies we learn to doubt and think critically about traditional forms of Christianity and to subject them to testing by reason and experience. Studying Christian theology, the Bible and history academically (that is, critically) inevitably raises doubts about the supernaturalism of the Bible and traditional theology. The two attitudes (critical versus believing) are incompatible, for to believe biblical miracles we have to sacrifice reason, and to obey “revealed” moral laws we have to deny the authority of experience.

In contrast to the academy, church life is all about piety, worship, community, and practice. As a minister, you are not obligated to share your academic doubts and critical conclusions with the people. Church attendees can neither understand nor appreciate the rigorous academic study of Christianity. It’s not our task to disabuse them of all their naïve beliefs and literal interpretations of the Bible. We don’t have to tell them bluntly that the stories of Christmas, Easter and Pentecost are not literally true. We can draw good lessons from these and other miracle stories without either denying or affirming their historicity. Most people that attend progressive churches are happy not to hear traditionalist demands for obedience to “revealed” moral rules. They will be perfectly content to hear general platitudes about kindness, love, racial and environmental justice, acceptance of difference, and celebration of diversity. What matters is that we minister to our church by assuring them of God’s acceptance and presence in all circumstances and that we instruct them in the ways of love and justice.

Seminarian: I want to be sure I understand you. Since we know that the supernatural beliefs, taken in a literal sense, are not of the essence of Christianity, we need not feel a sense of urgency to correct our members who innocently hold them? Hence our silence on the literal/historical truth of the incarnation, resurrection, new birth, etc., does not count as deception and elitist condescension but a teaching strategy appropriate to a popular audience?

Bishop: You could put it that way. But I can’t follow up on this right now. I have a staff meeting in ten minutes, and I have to make sure the agenda is in order.

Seminarian: Next time…I do hope you will meet with me again. Next time, I’d like to discuss some of the “supernatural” themes of the Bible and traditional Christianity. I’d like to know how you understand them and deal with them in preaching and teaching.

Bishop: I’d be delighted!

Seminarian: Thank you! See you next week!

Bishop: See you then.

Confused Seminarian Meets Progressive Bishop: A Hot Mic Moment*

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Setting: A young, bright seminarian meets with the regional bishop of a progressive denomination to discuss his future.

Seminarian: Thank you so much for meeting with me on such short notice.

Bishop: You’re welcome. Have a seat. Would you like a drink?

Seminarian: Thanks. Water will be fine.

Bishop: What’s on your mind?

Seminarian: It’s a bit sensitive.

Bishop: Don’t worry. I make no judgments, and nothing you say will leave this office.

Seminarian: Okay. Here goes. From birth to adulthood, I attended an evangelical church. (Some would call it “fundamentalist”). In my late teen years, I felt a call to the ministry. I attended a small Christian college, and three months ago I graduated from an evangelical seminary. But things have not turned out the way I imagined, and I now find myself at a turning point in my life.

Bishop: Hummm. How so?

Seminarian: I’ve lost faith in the traditional theology taught in evangelical churches. Its moral teachings are out of date, it’s oblivious to social justice, and its politics leans to the far right. I don’t fit anymore. I feel like I’ve invested years of my life and accrued significant debt for nothing. I would still like to become a clergyman. I enjoy helping people, I am a good public speaker, and I have a passion for social justice. But given my doubts and unorthodox views, I am concerned that I might not fit into any church.

Bishop: Don’t despair just yet. How exactly have your views changed?

Seminarian: Well, I suppose it all started with the Bible. Before I entered seminary I believed that everything the Bible says is true because it is the inspired word of God. That is what my church taught me. But when I began to study the Bible closely in seminary, my faith in the perfection of the Bible began to waver. As the list of contradictions, historical errors, mythic elements, immoral commands and strange customs grew longer and longer, my faith in the perfection of the Bible grew weaker and finally collapsed. I still believe, however, that the Bible contains inspiring ideals and much good advice, despite its imperfections. Jesus’s teaching about God’s concern for the poor and oppressed, the kingdom of God, and our duty to love others still moves me greatly. But is there a place for me in the ministry?

Bishop: There is no need to feel alone on this journey. Many seminarians have traveled the same road, including me, and eventually find a home in a progressive church. Admittedly, even in progressive churches many people do not wish to hear the Bible criticized. But you don’t need to do that. As you say, the Bible contains many good lessons and principles. Just focus on these and ignore the rest. People won’t even guess that you have doubts about the Bible.

Seminarian: What a relief! It’s encouraging to know that there are denominations in which ministers don’t have to defend everything the Bible says. But there is more.

Bishop: Go on.

Seminarian: When I finally realized that the Bible isn’t infallible or even reliable in everything it teaches, I began approaching everything it says with a critical eye. I couldn’t help myself. It no longer made sense to accept what the Bible says simply because it says so, and that opened a Pandora’s Box of questions. My whole world was turned upside down. I still don’t know what to believe. I don’t want to toss out everything the Bible says. I suppose I am looking for a way to distinguish between beliefs that are worth keeping and those that must be left behind. Do you see what I mean?

Bishop: I think I do.

Seminarian: I’m listening.

Bishop: Have you ever heard of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral?

Seminarian: I remember the term. It originated in the Anglican/Methodist tradition and has something to do with the sources of theology, right?

Bishop: Correct. But apparently, its significance escaped you. The Wesleyan Quadrilateral observes that throughout church history four factors always worked together to produce the church’s doctrine: scripture, tradition, reason, and experience (Hence quadrilateral!). All Christian doctrines need to be grounded in the Bible, consistent with tradition, supported by reason, and confirmed in experience. Fundamentalists and evangelicals focus exclusively on the scripture. If a doctrine appears to be taught in the Bible, they say we must accept it even if it is not supported by tradition, reason, or experience.

Seminarian: Yes. That is what I was taught.

Bishop: Indeed! Evangelicals, then, departed from the mainstream flow of the church’s way of thinking through theological challenges. But progressive denominations take all four sources of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral seriously in their doctrinal deliberations.

Seminarian: How does that work?

Bishop: Of course, progressives take the Bible seriously. It is the original source for the Christian story: Jesus’s life, teachings and fate, as well as the earliest church’s attempt to understand his significance. Without the Bible, we would have nothing distinctly Christian to say. However, as you have come to realize, the Bible is a human book and suffers from the limitations that afflict all human creations. It is influenced by the beliefs, moral norms, and superstitions of the culture within which it was written.

Seminarian: Let me guess…progressives use tradition, reason, and experience to compensate for the deficiencies and limitations of scripture.

Bishop: Exactly…but don’t get too far ahead of yourself. It’s not a simple process.

Seminarian: Sorry about that. Lead on. But if you don’t mind, give me the short version. I’m having dinner with a friend in an hour.

Bishop: Progressives value tradition, but only as an on-going process of discussion. We listen to past voices, but we do not treat traditional doctrine as definitive for all time. We consult tradition to benefit from the wisdom of the past, but as the living church of today we must read it critically and remain open to new insights inspired by the Spirit. And that is why reason and experience are so important. When we perceive that the Bible asserts something erroneous or unreasonable—usually in the areas of history or empirical science—we feel free to ignore its teaching or correct its mistakes. It would be wrong to ask people to believe the impossible, accept the erroneous, or embrace the improbable as conditions for becoming Christians.

Seminarian: Okay. But that doesn’t sound particularly progressive. Even the most orthodox theologians—Protestant and Roman Catholic—employed the criterion of “right reason” as a measure of true theology!

Bishop: That is correct. But our modern understanding of what reason demands differs greatly from that of medieval Catholics and Reformation era Protestants. Given the discoveries of modern science, today’s fundamentalists and evangelicals are much less enthusiastic about reason than their predecessors were. But that is a story for another time. Let’s move on to experience.

Seminarian: I will hold you to that.

Bishop: No doubt, progressive churches’ use of experience as a doctrinal criterion (or source) marks their most significant departure from traditional orthodoxy. Experience becomes very important in grappling with contemporary moral issues, specifically those dealing with class, sex, race, and gender. Progressive Christians have learned to read the Bible and tradition critically in view of the experiences of marginalized and oppressed people. The Bible and tradition picture gay, lesbian, and transgender people as degenerate and rebellious. They picture women as weak-willed temptresses. However, when one listens to the voices of LGBTQ+ and other marginalized people and enters their lived experience, our views change. We return, then, to the offensive biblical texts with a new, critical perspective. We become open to alternative interpretations or, if reinterpretation won’t solve the problem, we reject those texts as out of character with the main story of scripture, which is God’s gracious acceptance of everyone.

Seminarian: Wow! This has been enlightening! I am beginning to see a glimmer of hope. May I come back next week to explore other areas of concern?

Bishop: Of course. I will put you on my calendar.

Seminarian: Thank you so much! See you next week!

Bishop: Great! Don’t forget your jacket.

* Within the past two years I’ve written several essays on so-called “progressive Christianity.” I reviewed books by Roger Olson (July 15 & 19, 2022), Robert Gushee (November 7, 12, 21 &28, 2022), David Kaden (October 22 & 23, 2022) and, in a series of essays on progressive thought, attempted to articulate the foundational value that animates the progressive movement in secular culture and in the church (August 12, 2022). I am writing this series of conversations between a confused seminarian and a progressive bishop because I am amazed that relatively orthodox (or evangelical) Christians attend progressive churches and have no clue what their pastors really believe or what they are up to. So, I am giving you the inside story—a hot mic perspective—on progressive Christianity.

“A Wizard Ought to Know Better”

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Ordinarily, I do not take the time to respond to virtue-signaling public pronouncements from progressive universities and woke academic departments. But today I am making an exception. Below I quote verbatim and in full a statement made by the Dean of Yale Divinity School, Gregory E. Sterling on behalf of YDS. I feel compelled to reflect on the statement for three reasons: (1) I know Sterling and his work in biblical studies. And I was surprised to hear these views coming from him. (2) Many of my undergraduate students have, after graduating from the university where I teach, attended YDS and other elite seminaries and divinity schools. Some studied under Sterling himself at another university. YDS presents itself as a place with an institutional culture, in Sterling’s words, of “appropriately and adequately applying biblical principles and knowledge to critical issues of the day.” In other words, my Christian students get the impression that the YDS takes the Bible seriously as a religious and moral authority. (3) Whereas the Dean’s press release reads like a typical a virtue-signaling pronouncement about public policy, it also makes a theological argument that I find egregiously misleading. In paragraph four Sterling (an expert biblical scholar) says, “There is no biblical basis for the ban on abortion.” I will focus much of my analysis and criticism here.

There so much I’d like to say about this Statement. Every line is carefully crafted and every word artfully chosen with a certain audience in mind. But I must limit myself to some comments on a few rhetorical stratagems found in paragraphs 2-3 and deal briefly with the substantive argument in paragraph 4, where the Statement makes a foray into theology. I have numbered the paragraphs for easy reference and bolded significant words and phrases. The Sterling/YDS press release reads as follows:

Statement by Dean Sterling on today’s Supreme Court decision

06/24/2022

Yale Divinity School Dean made the following statement today.

1. Today the Supreme Court overturned five decades of federal protection for abortion that sprang from the Roe v. Wade decision. The Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision returns the issue to states, which undoubtedly will come to reflect the political divide of our country.

2. The decision culminates a decades-long effort by those who identify as pro-life. But is this decision pro-life or pro a particular ideology? Will those who lobbied for it now lobby for expanded medical support for the women who carry babies to term? Will they lobby for benefits for the unwanted children who are born? Will they lobby for the support of poor people who will not be able to care for additional children? To be pro-life means far more than to oppose abortion.

3. There are millions of American women who feel violated by today’s decision. They understand that this is not only a decision about abortion, but about women’s rights. The decision is a step backward for human rights. Does it portend the reversal of other rights—as some have already suggested? Is the elimination or suppression of individual freedoms pro-life?

4. The pro-life stance is often linked to Christianity and there are many people who are genuine in their faith who will support the Supreme Court’s decision, including members of the YDS community. It is, however, a more complex issue than some acknowledge. There is no biblical basis for the ban on abortion. The only text that deals directly with a fetus is Exodus 21:22–25, and it makes a distinction between the penalty levied on someone who causes a pregnant woman to miscarry versus an injury to the woman herself. The former results in a fine; the latter in the lex talionis (an eye for an eye etc.). In other words, it distinguishes between a fetus and a human being. Simplistic appeals to the biblical traditions are just that, simplistic. Christianity is supportive of human life, but we must work through our traditions with care. It is not at all clear that today’s decision reflects a text like Exodus 21:22–25.

5. This decision will not heal our country. It will only exacerbate the divide that already exists. May we find ways to promote life, not political agendas. May we find ways to discuss our differences, not build higher walls.

Highfield’s Comments

Paragraph #2

In paragraph #2, the Statement speaks of those who “identify as pro-life.” Clearly, by referring to the opponents of abortion in this way the Statement insinuates that they are not really and truly advocates of God-created human life in its fullness. Then follows a series of four rhetorical questions that place in doubt the sincerity of pro-life advocates. The paragraph concludes with this assertion: “To be pro-life means far more than to oppose abortion.” Perhaps it does…but why imply that pro-life advocates do not know this and do not care for children unless they are still in the womb? What is the point of the argument in this paragraph? Is it supposed to justify abortion?

No. It seems to have another purpose. Its effect is to subvert the pro-life movement’s claim to possess the moral high ground. The first rhetorical question in the paragraph makes this clear: “But is this decision pro-life or pro a particular ideology?” This question insinuates that pro-life justices and their supporters may have cynically adopted pro-life rhetoric to advance a hidden agenda of a less noble pedigree. The use of the word “ideology” is revealing. This highly loaded term seems here to mean a system of ideals with the appearance of reasonableness and moral rectitude but in reality a sanctimonious sham concocted to cover selfish and irrational interests. Additionally, the author by accusing others of nurturing a sinister ideology implicitly claims to be innocent of the same sin (Matt 7:3).

Paragraph #3

Paragraph #3 deals with the subjects of “rights” and “freedoms.” According to Sterling, the decision by the Supreme Court of the United States to return the issue of abortion to the legislative process is “a step backward for human rights.” Two things strike me about this claim. (1) When someone uses the phrase “a step backward” we ought to perk up our ears. Progressives think they know which direction history is supposed to move and in what moral progress consists—toward greater and greater liberation from all limits on pursuing individual happiness. As stated here it is simply question begging, virtue signaling, and preaching to the choir.

(2) It implies that the right to abort a child is a human right. Why a human right? What is a human right anyway? A human right is a right inherent in being a human being. Before the modern era such a right was called a “natural” right—as opposed to a legislated or constitutional right. But modern progressives don’t believe in natural rights because they don’t believe in natural law, which is the only reasonable foundation for natural rights. And of course the ideas of natural rights and natural law imply a moral lawgiver and Creator of nature. Such ideas are anathema to progressives. Ignoring the question of the grounding of human rights, Sterling classifies the right to abortion as a right given with our humanity. As a human right it is unalienable by the legislative process and, therefore, ought not to be returned to the legislative arena.

The irony here is that the most basic human right conceivable is the right to life. No other right can take precedence over this one because if you are not alive you have access to no other goods. Is a preborn human baby a human being? If so, he or she possesses all the rights inherent in being human. In contrast, the freedom for a woman to abort her unborn child cannot be a basic human right because not all humans can make use of this right. If it is a right, it must be derived from other more basic rights, natural or legislated. Hence the Statement’s appeal to human rights turns out to support a position opposite to the one it intended to defend. If human rights exist at all—a presupposition necessary for the efficacy of Sterling’s argument—preborn human beings most certainly possess them. For the concept of human rights makes no sense at all unless they are acquired by nature and not by law. And the human right to life trumps every other right.

In a point of clarification, this document uses the term “human being” in two different senses. When the Statement speaks of the human rights of women, being human is an ontological or natural status. Only in this way are these rights exempt from legislative reversal. However when Sterling speaks of preborn babies, he determines the humanity of a being according to its legal status. In this move he shifts from appealing to human rights to appealing to legislated rights. However the argument that restricting abortion violates human rights will not work unless being human is an ontological status. And if being human is an ontological or natural status, preborn human beings also possess human rights. The modern legal distinction between being a fetus and being a human being is a legal fiction, false in truth but useful in law. By definition, however, all human rights are possessed by all human beings.

The paragraph ends with this question: “Is the elimination or suppression of individual freedoms pro-life?” The expected answer to this rhetorical question is “No.” But the question is ambiguous in the extreme. Is any and every imaginable freedom under consideration? Or are only certain freedoms meant? In any case, the implicit argument in the question is viciously circular. For it assumes that the “freedom” being suppressed is a legitimate freedom or right—human or legislated. But that is precisely the question being debated with respect to abortion. Additionally, the meaning of “pro-life” in this question is being distorted to mean something like “pro-happiness.” Though it may not promote happiness in the short run, lawfully suppressing the action of destroying innocent life is clearly defending life. The rhetorical question in its present ambiguous form implies that any restriction on “individual freedom” is anti-life. This assertion is manifestly false.

Paragraph #4

Paragraph #4 seeks to delegitimize appeals to the Bible and Christian ethics in the debate over the legal status of abortion. Sterling does not venture to construct a case for the Bible’s support or condemnation of abortion. His objective is wholly negative, that is, to create doubt about the Bible’s usefulness in the pro-life argument.  It is important to emphasize that Sterling does not directly address the ethical and moral question about abortion. He carefully limits himself to the legal/political dimension.

Paragraph #4 begins with the assertion, “The pro-life stance is often linked to Christianity.” Sterling speaks here as if the “linking” between Christian ethics and the question of abortion is something artificial, an arbitrary connection that one makes for reasons not inherent in Christianity or in the desire to protect preborn human lives. Clearly, Sterling wishes to weaken or break that “linkage.” Why? Two possible reasons come to mind. (1) Many people wish to support abortion but do not wish to renounce Christianity completely. Breaking the link would make this position possible. I assume Sterling also falls into this category. (2)  The Bible and Christianity are still respected in our culture by many people who do not practice Christianity and don’t know the Bible or Christian doctrine very well. If Sterling can delink the Bible and abortion he can deprive the opponents of abortion of a potent weapon in the debate.

The notion that the Bible has nothing to say about the morality of taking the lives of preborn human beings when it otherwise takes an interest in every dimension of life—sex, marriage, divorce, drunkenness, greed, anger, and so on—is completely absurd on the face of it. How could someone who knows the Bible as well as the Dean of YDS maintain such an implausible thesis? Perhaps an extra-biblical ideology is at work?

The most controversial assertion in the YDS statement is the following: “There is no biblical basis for the ban on abortion.” This claim asserts bluntly the “delinking” of Christianity and the question of abortion. The first thing to notice is that this declaration is not an ethical claim—not directly anyway—but a legal/political claim. When Sterling says that the Bible does not support a “ban” on abortion, it seems that he is speaking of a legislated, secular law and not of a moral obligation. In other words this sentence asserts that the Bible (and Christian ethics based on the Bible) does not demand that abortion be made illegal and punishable. In this assertion delinking the Bible with abortion bans, Sterling does not explicitly offer an opinion on the moral status of abortion.

Almost everyone in our society recognizes that it is impractical for legislators to make illegal every act they believe to be immoral. The assertion that the Bible does not support a ban on abortion is wholly negative, designed to defeat or make doubtful pro-life arguments from the Bible. As worded, Sterling’s delinking statement leaves open the possibility that Sterling considers abortion to be an immoral act that must nevertheless be permitted legally for practical reasons. But he makes another statement later in the paragraph that seems to imply that abortion is permitted morally.

As one piece of evidence for the Bible’s lack of support for the pro-life argument, Sterling reflects briefly on Exodus 21:22-25, which is the only place in the Bible that deals with anything like abortion:

22 “When men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no harm follows, the one who hurt her shall be fined, according as the woman’s husband shall lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. 23 If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe” (RSV).

This text prescribes the penalty for injuring a pregnant woman in such a way as to cause her to have a miscarriage. The penalty for causing the loss of the baby is a fine, not the death penalty as would be required in the murder of a person already born. In commenting on this text, Sterling asserts that this text “distinguishes between a fetus and a human being.” With this interpretation, Sterling goes beyond his prior negative claim that the Bible does not support an abortion ban. His comment seems to imply that the text’s distinction between a fetus and a human being even supports the moral permissibility of abortion. But, as I will show, Sterling’s interpretation is questionable.

Old Testament ethical texts are set in the social world of the Ancient Near East and are notoriously difficult to understand. We are constantly tempted to judge OT ethics by modern progressive standards. I don’t have the space or expertise to engage at the level required for a full discussion. But even the casual reader can see that the text won’t support Sterling’s disengagement (or support) theory.

(1) This text is set in an extensive section of case law concerning personal injuries of different types (Ex 21:12-27). The section prescribes different penalties depending on the nature of the injury and the intentions of the guilty party. Interestingly, different penalties are imposed for the same injury depending on the social position of the injured party. Consider the case of the master and his slaves (Ex 21:20-21, RSV):

20 “When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. 21 But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be punished; for the slave is his money.

Like these ancient laws, modern jurisprudence of personal injury also takes into account the severity of the injury and the intentions of the perpetrator in determining the penalty. But unlike ancient near eastern law, modern jurisprudence does not (in theory anyway) take into account the social status of the victim in determining guilt or penalty. Here is my point: in this section on personal injury—which includes the text dealing with the penalty for causing a miscarriage—possessing a different social status, though meriting a different standing before the law, does not deprive one of human status. Neither the slave nor the pre-born child—what Sterling calls the “fetus”—receive justice from the law equal to that given to a free adult person. But inequality before the law does not in the Old Testament imply that the slave or the pre-born child are understood to be something other than human. The Bible does not draw this inference—Sterling is wrong here. He reads a modern legal invention back into the Bible.

(2) The text in Exodus 21:22-25 does not deal with an intentional act of causing the death of a baby. It is an accident consequent on a fight among others. The woman is a bystander injured by the disputants. The miscarriage is not caused by the woman or with her consent. Hence we do not know what penalty would have been imposed for an intentional act by the mother or by someone else that results in the preborn baby’s death. There are no laws in the Bible covering intentional abortion. Ancient Jews and Christians held new life to be so precious that an intentional act causing a miscarriage was unthinkable.

(3) In this text (Exodus 21:22-25) the unborn child is treated as valuable. That is clear, and causing a miscarriage even unintentionally through negligence is punishable. Sterling’s conclusion from this text that the child is a “fetus and not a human being” does not follow and, more egregiously, as I pointed out above, this assertion reads a modern legal distinction back into the Bible, a cold and dehumanizing one at that.

Christianity and the Morality of Abortion

Let’s leave aside the legal question and concentrate on the moral question. In supporting his argument that “There is no biblical basis for the ban on abortion” Sterling employs an interpretative strategy that every beginning graduate student in theological studies learns to avoid. It cannot be that the dean of an elite divinity school, himself an expert in biblical studies, doesn’t know better. But I doubt his audience will call him out for it because most of them agree with his conclusion and the rest are afraid to object. It’s the kind of legalistic reasoning that Jesus criticized the Pharisees for employing to escape their obligation to honor their fathers and mothers (Mark 7:10-12).

Because the Bible does not specify in so many words every particular act, method, place, and time we are forbidden to do something, these interpreters conclude we are free do as we please with this silence. Instead of seeking God’s will in all sincerity and giving their all to be faithful to Christ in every situation legalists seek to justify as biblically permissible pursuing their own desires by sophistry and legal nitpicking. Elite biblical scholars know better, and I have found that when they begin to talk this way to the public—instead of in their scholarly accent—they are disingenuously using the proof text method of “ignorant” people against them.

Christianity’s ethical demands cannot be reduced to a list of commands and cases. The law and the prophets, Jesus and his apostles, teach us what sort of person to become. We are told that we do not possess the right to life and death over other human beings. We are to love our neighbors as ourselves. We are told that our bodies are not our own. The body is for the Lord’s service (1 Cor 6:19-20). People who know and love Jesus, who have listened to his teaching, who have practiced his ways, and who have been transformed into his image don’t have to ask whether or not they should welcome their human child into the world or kill it before it sees the light of day. They know the answer. They are not looking for an escape clause.

Conclusion

In the second movie of the Lord of the Rings series “The Two Towers,” when Tree Beard the leader of the Ents saw the devastation Saruman Lord of Isengard had visited on Fangorn Forest, he exclaimed angrily, “A Wizard ought to know better!” When I look at the statement from YDS I think to myself, “A dean of a divinity school ought to know better.”

Yale Divinity School Dean Publishes Troubling Statement on Abortion

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Below I quote word for word and in full a public statement by Gregory E. Sterling, Dean of Yale Divinity School decrying the United States Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade. “ I do not discuss purely political and legal matters on this blog. However this statement ventures into theology and morality, which are subjects I care about deeply and transcend political divides.  Near the end of the Statement, Sterling makes two assertions that I find troubling:

“There is no biblical basis for the ban on abortion.”

And…

The Bible “distinguishes between a fetus and a human being.”

Today I will post the Yale statement for you to read and ponder. In a day or two I will post my reply. I’ve inserted a hyperlink (if it works!) that will take you to the original statement posted on the Divinity School webpage.

The Statement reads as follows:

Statement by Dean Sterling on today’s Supreme Court decision

06/24/2022

Yale Divinity School Dean made the following statement today.

Today the Supreme Court overturned five decades of federal protection for abortion that sprang from the Roe v. Wade decision. The Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision returns the issue to states, which undoubtedly will come to reflect the political divide of our country.

The decision culminates a decades-long effort by those who identify as pro-life. But is this decision pro-life or pro a particular ideology? Will those who lobbied for it now lobby for expanded medical support for the women who carry babies to term? Will they lobby for benefits for the unwanted children who are born? Will they lobby for the support of poor people who will not be able to care for additional children? To be pro-life means far more than to oppose abortion.

There are millions of American women who feel violated by today’s decision. They understand that this is not only a decision about abortion, but about women’s rights. The decision is a step backward for human rights. Does it portend the reversal of other rights—as some have already suggested? Is the elimination or suppression of individual freedoms pro-life?

The pro-life stance is often linked to Christianity and there are many people who are genuine in their faith who will support the Supreme Court’s decision, including members of the YDS community. It is, however, a more complex issue than some acknowledge. There is no biblical basis for the ban on abortion. The only text that deals directly with a fetus is Exodus 21:22–25, and it makes a distinction between the penalty levied on someone who causes a pregnant woman to miscarry versus an injury to the woman herself. The former results in a fine; the latter in the lex talionis (an eye for an eye etc.). In other words, it distinguishes between a fetus and a human being. Simplistic appeals to the biblical traditions are just that, simplistic. Christianity is supportive of human life, but we must work through our traditions with care. It is not at all clear that today’s decision reflects a text like Exodus 21:22–25.

This decision will not heal our country. It will only exacerbate the divide that already exists. May we find ways to promote life, not political agendas. May we find ways to discuss our differences, not build higher walls.

End of YDS statement.

Next Time: Please read my detailed analysis and critique of the YDS statement to be posted soon.

After Whiteness by Willie Jennings—A Non-Review Review

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I hate to break promises! Well, perhaps, I’m not breaking my promise. I’m just not able to fulfill it to the degree I had hoped. In the previous post “Race, Gender, and Identity…Oh My,” I promised to reflect next on Willie Jennings, After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging (Eerdmans, 2020). I re-read the book this morning—It’s only 115 pages long—and I came away a second time with that I-don’t-get-it feeling. In part, it’s that perplexity I want to explore in this essay.

At present, Jennings is an associate professor of theology and Africana studies at Yale University. He also taught at Duke University Divinity School and served as an associate dean while at Duke. His latest book focuses on theological education at seminaries and divinity schools. As someone who has written several books and hundreds of essays, I understand an author’s and a publisher’s desire to select a title that is both descriptive and provocative. Authors want to be read and publishers want to make money. “After Whiteness” is provocative.

Jennings lets us know in the Preface that “whiteness” is not completely synonymous with being white. For Jennings, whiteness is an ideal image of a fully developed human being constructed by Europeans over centuries. This ideal is embodied in the individual white male who has mastered himself and others (especially white females and all non-white people) through scientific reason and technology. He is self-sufficient, analytical, heterosexual, and individualistic, and he objectivizes everything and everyone. According to Jennings, this ideal human being serves as a mold into which Western education—specifically Western theological education—attempts to squeeze everyone. Switching metaphors, the theological school is Procrustean bed in which those who do not naturally fit—women and people of color—are trimmed and shaped according to the ideal pattern. Note the violence in the language. Those for whom whiteness is simply the truth view this educational process as civilizing, uplifting, and empowering.

When I say of Jennings’s book “I don’t get it,” I do not mean that I disagree with him. In fact, I’ve long resisted the ideal he describes as “whiteness,” and I think theological education is long overdue for a radical reformation. I hope to voice my critique of the state of theological education in future essays. What I mean by “I don’t get it” is that Jennings presents his critique and offers his vision as a series of extended metaphors and vignettes. They convey a mood and articulate feelings, but I don’t see a clear vision of the new community of belonging of which Jennings dreams. The book’s subtitle indicates that Jennings’s alternative to whiteness is belonging. From what I read in the book, this community of belonging will be founded on a decision for mutual acceptance of everyone’s identity, their experience, and their stories. What I don’t get is how this book, with its metaphors and stories, offers a critique of “whiteness” (as defined by Jennings) that meets whiteness on its own turf and demonstrates its theological and ethical weaknesses. Perhaps my assessment on this score says as much about me as it does about Jennings. After all, to meet whiteness on its own turf and use its own weapons against it would be to grant it a kind of legitimacy.

I wondered briefly why Jennings used the term “whiteness” in his title only to explain in the Preface that he did not mean “white people.” It’s an eye-catching title, to be sure, and publishers love that sort of thing. But is there more to it? To use the term “whiteness” to describe the Western rational and scientific approach to education, whatever the term’s descriptive truth, seems to me akin to Ibram Kendi’s use of the terms “racism” and “racist” to designate those who decline to support his political policies. That is to say, it tars those who support traditional Western theological education with a term loaded with negative moral implications. Those who support traditional Western theological education, consciously or unconsciously, support whiteness. And surely no one who supports whiteness, with its oblique connection to white supremacy and white privilege, can be a good person.

What I longed to hear but did not was a critique of “whiteness” from a deeply Christian perspective, a stance of profound humility, repentance, faith, hope, and love rooted in the crucified and risen Jesus, empowered by the life-giving Holy Spirit, and directed to the God who is and shall be all in all. I did not see a vision of unity vivid enough, power enough, or profound enough to create Jennings’s desired community of belonging…a vision in which “there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28). For sure, the unity spoken of by Paul is not that of universal conformity to the ideal of the white male, self-sufficient, isolated, and masterful. Nor is it a unity created by everyone agreeing to accept everyone’s natural and self-chosen identity. It is the unity forged between Jesus Christ and everyone who by giving themselves to Christ are given a new identity as images of Christ who is the Image of God.