Studying Theology

[Jason]

define ask.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

define ask.

Define "deficit in literacy".

[klr]

In Finland studying theology has been popular partly because government positions (civil servant jobs) used to almost all require a Master's degree, but other than for medical doctors, engineers and a few others, what the MA or M.Sc was in was not that important. And theology was the least work (both time and brain-bullying wise) per study credit. Our national league of student unions actually had statistics on this - they were pretty appalling regarding how much the work required for one study credit varied from one discipline to another.

That variation still exists.

Thankfully, our own institution has no degree on theology ... we leave that to one of the other Irish universities (Maynooth) that used to specialise as a priest factory.

[Jason]

define ask.

Define "deficit in literacy".

Define literacy.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

define ask.

Define "deficit in literacy".

Define literacy.

Define define.

[JimC]

I don't see a problem. Philosophy students study logical fallacies and psychologists study delusions of grandeur, dementia and related stuff all the time. As for me, I study grammatical errors in order to be a better Engrish teechir.

However, I doubt that the majority of theological colleges invite a sceptical approach...

They want well-trained practioners of woo...

[Svartalf]

Of course, it's like trekkies and potterologists... you have to suspend disbelief if you want to study the internal systems of those fantasy universes.

[Robert_S]

Dan Dennett gives a long and interesting talk on the subject.

[apophenia]

I don't see a problem. Philosophy students study logical fallacies and psychologists study delusions of grandeur, dementia and related stuff all the time. As for me, I study grammatical errors in order to be a better Engrish teechir.

However, I doubt that the majority of theological colleges invite a sceptical approach...

They want well-trained practioners of woo...

Well, on the one hand, there is the 99% who sleep-walk through classes on higher and lower criticism, passing tests all the way, and emerge out the other end as if a very selective lobotomy was performed on them at graduation, whereupon they go to their pastoral duties and assignments, acting for all the world like the problems with the text and their religion don't exist when they must know they do -- they were tested on it. That 99% goes out into the larger world, telling all the same lies, ignoring all the same questions, and teaching their flocks in the same fucked up way they've always done.

Then there's the rare theologian like Bart Ehrman, who has made immeasurable contributions to the public's understanding of higher and lower criticism. And the likes of John M. Allegro, dead sea scrolls scholar, who violated the boundaries of his profession to offer new ways of looking at the phenomenon of Jesus. Or former Bishop 'Jack' Spong, who doesn't quite achieve escape velocity and escape the gravity of his faith, but whose work has gone a long way toward both reconciling secularism with religion, and acknowledging the worn out clothes on Jesus that need discarding. And even my Unitarian Universalist pastor who taught me things about my Taoist traditions I wouldn't have learned otherwise.

I don't mean to be crass. Well, maybe a little. But we engage in a bit of discarding a perfectly legitimate field on account of the people who specialize in it, and the faults and inadequacies of what those people do with it. It isn't Father Brown, Bruce Metzger's or Ehrman's text on the New Testament that is making Doctors of Theology into Doctors of Stupidity and Doctors of Shucking-The-Masses. It's the people.

And here comes the crass part, is a degree in !8th Century French Literature, Latin, Ancient Near East studies or what have you, are they REALLY any better justified? If we struck every field that some wog thought was of no value to anyone from our colleges and Universities, there would be only two fields left, engineering, and football.

Is this really the type of "I'm gonna stigmatize what you do" because of either what the people who study it do, or by some other equally arbitrary criterion, is this the type of "eye for an eye" approach we want ? If we allowed the same in reverse, we can kiss teaching evolution in K12 goodbye. Do we really want to stoop to their level just because we hate them so much? (speculatin' here -- if the glass slipper do not fit, it do not fit)

[JimC]

I certainly agree that there can be worthwhile scholarship there, in the examples that you quoted and others. However, I stand by the opinion that most theological colleges are there to mass produce practioners of woo, the 99% that you mentioned.

I think there is a key difference to other esoteric and slightly bizarre fields of study; they are not being studied for the purpose of maintaining a given belief system. The question of whether such studies are worthwhile may have an economic component, but they earn their place in academia by the rigour of their scholarship, not their ability to peddle a given brand of opiate to a given section of the masses

[Gawdzilla Sama]