Hi, my name’s Jason.
I grew up in conservative, (very) white, middle-class, suburban Evangelical churches, youth and college ministries, etc., so to an extent, what I’m about to say might skew a little in that direction, but I think it’s hardly limited to any one group.
I’ve seen students sent off to college prepared to tell their biology professors how the earth was really created or confident that postmodernism is an evil and dangerous threat to Christianity without any real understanding of what postmodernism (much less modernism) is.
It’s as if their professors are idiots, as if the many years of rigorous study and new research it takes to obtain an advanced degree ultimately mean nothing. On the contrary, too often these students not only lack well-informed answers but may not even know the real questions to be answered.
But perhaps we need not be so scared, perhaps accepting other sources of knowledge isn’t necessarily inviting the danger we think it is. We often mistake our own interpretations of the Bible for the Bible itself. When someone says something that contradicts our interpretations, we feel as though it contradicts the Bible and must be wrong and combatted, but really, it may only be that our understanding of God and the world is flawed and incomplete. It is, after all.
The way that many of us deal with extra-biblical sources of knowledge right now is dangerous, both to our own faith and to the faith we show the world around us.
St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD), one of Christianity’s most influential theologians wrote:
I like to think about all of this in a different way, though. (Not that I’m free of doubts and insecurities.) New information means new possibilities. The universe is full wonder and awe and meant to be explored. Each new discovery is a new opportunity to learn something about God, even if doesn’t seem that way at face value.
After all, all truth is God’s truth. “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.” (Psalm 24:1)
It’s a theology of possibilities, rather than one of defensiveness.
Welcome to my blog.
I’m a PhD candidate in ethnomusicology (kind of like the
anthropology of music) focusing on music in the Indian Himalayas. Studying human cultures – not just music, but
also things like anthropology, post-colonial studies, history, and social
theory – has given me a lot of unique (or at least pretty unusual) perspectives
on my faith. I’d like to share some of
those on this blog.
Christians have a complicated relationship with academic
scholarship.
I grew up in conservative, (very) white, middle-class, suburban Evangelical churches, youth and college ministries, etc., so to an extent, what I’m about to say might skew a little in that direction, but I think it’s hardly limited to any one group.
Many Christians seem to think that because they have read
the Bible or inherited a theological tradition, they have all the answers, or
the important ones anyway. One of the
results of this is the implicit assumption that their theological
understandings have little, if anything, relevant to gain from other sources of
knowledge.
I’ve seen students sent off to college prepared to tell their biology professors how the earth was really created or confident that postmodernism is an evil and dangerous threat to Christianity without any real understanding of what postmodernism (much less modernism) is.
It’s as if their professors are idiots, as if the many years of rigorous study and new research it takes to obtain an advanced degree ultimately mean nothing. On the contrary, too often these students not only lack well-informed answers but may not even know the real questions to be answered.
Sometimes, however – more often than we would like to admit
– our biblical arrogance is a mask.
Behind it we’re often scared and insecure. What if our faith is disproven, some of the
things most precious to us ripped away, and we are left broken, alone, and
without comfort?
But perhaps we need not be so scared, perhaps accepting other sources of knowledge isn’t necessarily inviting the danger we think it is. We often mistake our own interpretations of the Bible for the Bible itself. When someone says something that contradicts our interpretations, we feel as though it contradicts the Bible and must be wrong and combatted, but really, it may only be that our understanding of God and the world is flawed and incomplete. It is, after all.
The way that many of us deal with extra-biblical sources of knowledge right now is dangerous, both to our own faith and to the faith we show the world around us.
St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD), one of Christianity’s most influential theologians wrote:
Usually, even a non-Christian knows
something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world,
about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative
positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of
the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so
forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and
experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear
a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense
on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing
situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it
to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but
that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held
such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the
writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they
find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear
him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to
believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the
hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages
are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from
experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy
Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are
caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by
those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to
defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to
call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages
which they think support their position, although they understand neither what
they say nor the things about which they make assertion.
Our arrogance and insecurities are nothing new.
I like to think about all of this in a different way, though. (Not that I’m free of doubts and insecurities.) New information means new possibilities. The universe is full wonder and awe and meant to be explored. Each new discovery is a new opportunity to learn something about God, even if doesn’t seem that way at face value.
After all, all truth is God’s truth. “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.” (Psalm 24:1)
Psalm 19 says:
The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night
after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the
earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
When we learn something revolutionary, it provides an
extraordinary opportunity for theological reflection, refinement, and
exploration. If fact or idea X is true,
what are all the things it could possibly mean for our understanding of God,
the universe, and ourselves? Might it
help us to understand these things better?
It’s a theology of possibilities, rather than one of defensiveness.
On this blog, I want to share some of the things from my
academic studies that have given me opportunities for reflection and
exploration, insights from disciplines outside of ostensibly non-theological
disciplines that have ultimately given me a more sophisticated understanding of
my own faith.
I hope you’ll keep reading.
