Last week nearly 10,000 people invaded the French Quarter of New Orleans for a three-day conference. It wasn’t a convention of Mardi Gras mask-makers, a congregation of Bourbon Street miscreants, or an assembly of Hustler devotees. No, this was the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. This is a collective of the world’s religious scholars. SBL is the largest society of biblical scholars on the planet. The program of lectures and meetings is the size of a phone book for a mid-sized city. Too many choices! So many great biblical scholars were there: N. T. Wright, Jon Dominic Crossan, D. A. Carson, Bart Ehrman, Stanley Porter, Frederick Danker, Alan Culpepper, Craig Evans, Robert Stein, Joel Marcus, April Deconick, Elaine Pagels, John Kloppenborg, R. B. Hays, Peter Enns, Buist Fanning, Harold Attridge, Luke Timothy Johnson, Peter Davids, Craig Keener, Ben Witherington, Rikki Watts, Robert Gundry, Emanuel Tov, Walter Brueggemann, Eric Myers, Eugene Boring, J. K. Elliott—that’s just a small sampling of the names. Liberals and evangelicals, theists and atheists, those who are open and those who are hostile to the Christian faith—all were there.
Overall, the Society of Biblical Literature is comprised of professors who teach religion, humanities, biblical studies, history, ethics, English literature, and theology at virtually all the schools in the nation that offer such subjects. Not just the United States, but a multitude of other countries are represented (although because of the long distances and short conference, many scholars did not come). Private schools, public schools, elite schools, and unknown schools—all were represented. Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, Tübingen, Chicago, Duke, Dallas Seminary, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Fuller Seminary, Princeton, Yale, Biola, Claremont, Manchester, Durham, St Andrews, Westminster Seminary, Wheaton, Gordon-Conwell, Emory, TCU’s Brite Divinity School, SMU, University of Texas, Northwestern University, Rice, Brandeis, London School of Theology, Münster University, Notre Dame, community colleges, even unaccredited schools were represented.
As remarkable as it may sound, most biblical scholars are not Christians. I don’t know the exact numbers, but my guess is that between 60% and 80% of the members of SBL do not believe that Jesus’ death paid for our sins, or that he was bodily raised from the dead. The post-lecture discussions are often spirited, and occasionally get downright nasty.
The annual SBL conference is a place where young scholars can present their papers, meet senior scholars, and talk to publishers about book projects. Great opportunities are at SBL! Master’s students meet with professors whom they’d like to study with for their PhDs. They make appointments, go out for coffee, or just happen to bump into them at the conference.
Now, what I’ve said about SBL so far sounds like an exciting, positive event in which a good exchange of ideas occurs, and people grapple with what the Bible is all about. To a degree that is true, but a darker underbelly to the conference, never far from the surface, shows up often enough. It has to do with the posture of many liberal scholars toward evangelicals.
One of my interns, a very bright student who is preparing for doctoral studies, met with one scholar to discuss the possibility of studying under him for his doctorate. The scholar was cordial, friendly, and a fine Christian man. He encouraged James to pursue the doctorate at his non-confessional school in the UK. (We have found the UK schools to be far more open to evangelical students, since they are more concerned that a student make a plausible defense of his views than that he or she holds the party line.) Later, James met a world-class scholar of early Christian literature and engaged him in conversation. James demonstrated deep awareness of the professor’s field, asking intelligent questions and showing great interest in the subject. Then, the professor asked him where he was earning his master’s degree. “Dallas Seminary” was the response. The conversation immediately went south. The scholar no longer was interested in this young man. James was, to this professor, an evangelical and therefore a poorly educated Neanderthal, a narrow-minded bigot, an uncouth doctrinaire neophyte—or worse.
This was no isolated case. I’ve seen it happen time and time again. There is an assumption that students from an evangelical school—especially a dispensational school—only get a second-class education and are blissfully ignorant of the historical-critical issues of biblical scholarship. Many of the mainline liberal schools routinely reject applications to their doctoral programs from evangelical students who are more qualified than their liberal counterparts—solely because they’re evangelicals. And Dallas Seminary students especially have a tough time getting into primo institutes because of the stigma of coming from, yes, I’ll say it again—a dispensational school. One of my interns was earning his second master’s degree at a mainline school, even taking doctoral courses. He was head and shoulders above most of the doctoral students there. But when he applied for the PhD at the same school, he was rejected. His Dallas Seminary degree eliminated him.
The prejudice runs deep—almost as deep as the ignorance. Yes, Dallas Seminary is a dispensational school. But it’s not your father’s dispensational school. Progressive dispensationalism, engineered by Darrell Bock, Craig Blaising, et alii, about twenty-five years ago has tied a dispensational hermeneutic to a more nuanced appreciation of the biblical covenants. Gone are the days of seeing two New Covenants, of distinguishing the ‘kingdom of God’ from the ‘kingdom of heaven’ in Matthew, and of seeing eschatology as not-yet but not already. The differences between other hermeneutical systems and the dispensationalism of today are not nearly as great as they used to be. But much of liberal scholarship has simply not kept up. There is widespread ignorance about what dispensationalists believe along with what seems to be an unwillingness to find out.
Further, the great irony is that so many liberal scholars don’t even realize that Dallas Seminary not only has only one unit on dispensationalism, but it has never required its students to adhere to this system of interpretation. So much more could be said here; I would simply invite those who are interested in learning more to read Progressive Dispensationalism by Bock and Blaising.
I can speak to issues in New Testament studies at Dallas Seminary, which I know best. Our NT faculty have degrees from Oxford, Cambridge, Aberdeen, Sheffield, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Dallas Seminary, and Glasgow. We teach a historical-critical method of interpretation, tempered by our presuppositions that the universe is not a closed-system but one in which God has been active. Our students are trained extensively in exegesis of the New and Old Testament, are conversant with the secondary literature, and are able to interact with various viewpoints. Something like 80% of our doctoral dissertations are now getting published—and in prestigious, world-class series no less. (The same, by the way, is true of our master’s students who earn their doctorates elsewhere.) When Harold Hoehner was alive, there were three members in the department who were members of the prestigious Society of New Testament Studies. Now, down to two, we are anticipating several others getting voted in, in due time.
What irritates me is that so many so-called liberal scholars have already predetermined that DTS students get an unacceptable education. They are closed-minded themselves, thinking they know what is taught at the seminary. A genuine liberal used to be someone who was open to all the evidence and examined all the plausible viewpoints. Now, “liberal” has become a hollow term, invested only with the relic of yesteryear’s justifiably proud designation. Today, all too often, “liberal” means no more than left-wing fundamentalist, for the prejudices that guide a liberal’s viewpoints are not to be tampered with, not to be challenged. Doors have been shut in the students’ faces, opportunities denied. Spending $100 on an application is too frequently a waste of time and money, since applications coming from DTS students are routinely chucked into the round file.
If we’re to judge liberal vs. conservative by one’s method, then the new liberal is the evangelical and neo-evangelical who is willing to engage the evidence, examine all sides, and wrestle with the primary data through the various prisms of secondary literature. He’s open. I tell my students every year, “I will respect you far more if you pursue truth and change your views than if you protect your presuppositions and don’t.” And they know my mantra, “Go where the evidence leads.” Sadly, some of the most brilliant scholars in biblical studies have become radically intolerant of conservatives. When conservative professors have that same attitude, they’re usually afraid of having their ideas challenged because they’re insecure in their beliefs. And they’re labeled as fundamentalists. When many “liberal” scholars are just as intolerant, what should we call them?
583 replies to "Frustrations from the Front: The Myth of Theological Liberalism"
John, I do agree to a degree,
However….how “free” do you make it. I mean what assumptions can you expect to be brought to the table of a institutions that teaches Christian education? Is there a certain theory on truth, propositions, and ontology that you can expect? If so, then is it truly “free.”
Your requirement to “pursue truth” is philosophically loaded, is it not?
Then there are Christian presumptions at a Christian school. Even Duke and Harvard claim to be preparing students for ministry and talk about God’s “calling.” That is loaded with quite a bit.
In the end, it simply depends on what the particular school is attempting to accomplish and produce. There is not one way to “do” education, even for a “Christian” school producing ministers of the Gospel.
I don’t fault DTS or Trinity or Reformed Theological Seminary for narrowing the options in their respective fashion. Well, I don’t fault them for narrowing SOME of the options.
What I am saying is that there can always be a cry that the institution is not “free” or, in a proper sense, “liberal” enough and therefore disqualified.
In the end, I think that methodology is the most important prerequisite. The way people go about their inquiry must be justified and shaped first. I think I can safely say that all institutions can encourage such even if their curriculum cannot sustain their broader philosophical aspirations.
Sadly, I have seen many Evangelicals think exactly the same thoughts about Dallas Seminary.
C Michael —
No what I’m doing is saying that it is not a requirement of liberalism to keep settled issues open. The original assertion was that it was illiberal to simply treat an issue as resolved.
If so, when were such demonstratably certian conclusions reached and by whom? Was it the German scholarship of the 19th century that finalized it, or did it conclude at the time of Bultman or maybe that of Pagels? Which quest for the historic Jesus drew such definitive lines and why wasn’t Bock, Wallace, Wright, Baucham, Evans, and Blomberg told?
As for what was the defining moment in liberal scholarship about the origins of Jesus; I’d say 1905 Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung (The Quest of the Historical Jesus, Albert Schweitzer) that Christianity evolved with little or no input from whatever events did or didn’t happen in Palestine in the 30’s. These events if they left traces left far fainter ones than the earlier and later events that shaped Christianity. That after over 100 years (at the time) of applying the historical critical methods and examining the evidence there simply was not enough evidence to reconstruct or know much of the historical Jesus. “Jesus taught X” is shorthand for “Writer A presents idea B coming from his Jesus character”.
I certainly don’t believe that something like the 2nd century authorship of Timothy is resolved in the same way 2+2=4 is. But I certainly also don’t think this is a wide open question, Eusebius’ historical presentation is thoroughly discredited.
And people like Bock have been told. My critique of the problem of DTS started by examining Bock’s books on precisely this question and commenting how thoroughly he ducked the scholarship. I noticed you skipped that point so let me repeat. Is there any form of scholarship in which deliberately misrepresenting opposing views is acceptable?
However, I must back off on this some as I don’t know you and therefore don’t know if you comment qualify to demonstrate what is being said. Hope that makes sense.
I’ve haven’t been an academic in a decade. When I was one I was confronted with students with inappropriate backgrounds, analogous to the situation Wallace describes, but not in any way directly linked. Students with questionable backgrounds were looked at more closely. A student with a BS/MS in engineering rather than say a physics or mathematics BA/BS would need to be checked carefully before being admitted to a doctorate program in applied math, and thoroughly interviewed before being admitted to a doctorate program in pure math. Even though an engineering student might have as many math classes as a physics student, that might not be the right ones, or taught the right way and he (as well as his professors) probably weren’t…
Wow, what a great thread! I see that at times some of our friends are drifting from the subject. Francis Schaeffer put it best when he said that we must be aware of the presuppositions of the those in Liberal and Conservative scholarship. Some call it a “worldview” but that may be to broad. For those who have had the historical-critical view thrust in their faces (like myself), we’ve had to step back and find where this view originates. Let’s face it, most Evangelicals “automatically” accept the supernatural and do not question the basic teachings they receive from their schools and institutions.
Now look at Liberal scholarship. Many are second, third, or forth generation critics who scoff at any idea of the supernatural and see traditionalists and conservatives as misguided (or worse, ignorant). The majority of them bought into the Documentary Hypothesis, treat Genesis 1-11 as “myth,” reject Mosaic authorship of any of the OT, and reject the traditional authorship of the Gospels. They embrace the “Historical Jesus” and many are fans of the Jesus Seminar. Is there any doubt as to why we are discussing this topic with such zeal!
Some of you (like myself) are studying at Liberal Universities and are very frustrated. Textual criticism, source criticism, form criticism, redaction criticism, narrative criticism, social-science criticism, Evangelical criticism (just kidding), its all enough to drive a conservative scholar nuts! So what do we do about it?
Its called Apologetics. Its called debate. Its called logic. We must engage the Liberal with friendly, reasonable arguments. Some will dismiss you like a Naturalist snubs a Intelligent Design/Creationist. But others will listen intently. I’ve had a number of students come up to me after class and compliment me on my views and arguments. They say something like, “I don’t belive everything you said, but I did like…” I feel that this is all need to do. I can’t sit still and be quiet and neither should you.
To all my friends at DTS, AGTS, Trinity, and all the others, keep the faith-keep pushing on. For those at the more “liberal” schools, be prepared and stay sharp.
Lastly, why would I spend so much time reading this thread and studying this subject? Liberal/Conservative scholarship and interpretation AFFECTS the CHURCH! As Schaeffer pointed out a number of years ago, what is believed at the Scholarly level eventually filters down into schools, pulpit, and finally the pew. Do we really want surrender our schools and congregations to the presuppositions found in liberal scholarship? Doesn’t the European Church cause us to cringe?!!
Just some more to think about.
God Bless.
Rev. J
There is a thread of comments within this thread that keeps cropping up: in the university setting, presuppositions, beliefs, confessions have no place. Free inquiry without constraints is all that is aimed for. Concomitant with this is the notion that a confessional school must be looked at suspiciously because all such confessions have a poor basis.
What I have been trying to argue is that, in many respects, the situation is just the opposite. Years ago, the Wittenburg Door (yes, that’s the right spelling for this magazine) had a little essay in which it spoke about the wonderful “freedom” of the mainline divinity schools–e.g., Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Duke, etc. It was an ironic piece, since it noted that there is a Kethiv-Qere at these schools too. Several things, never in print, were taboo. One was getting wine from California because of the oppression of the grape pickers. As I said, this was years ago.
Bring it to more recent times, and here’s the testimony I have received from many who have gone to mainline schools: on certain topics, there is such an oppressive spirit for free inquiry that they never get discussed, or at least openly discussed. The role of women in the church, authorship of various books of the Bible, whether John has anything of historical value, anything beyond a bare-bones eschatology, the possibility of systematic theology, biblical authority in relation at least to infallibility (i.e., the belief that the Bible is true in what it teaches with respect to faith and practice), etc.
In other words, one major difference between conservative schools and liberal schools is this: although both kinds of schools often have their beliefs solidly in place, one school is not afraid to make those beliefs public. Hence, armed with that knowledge, there have been many on this blog post who have harshly criticized confessional schools, not realizing that the liberal counterparts are, in some respects, just as restrictive but less honest.
I would like to note one other thing: Fuller Seminary had its roots in the emerging evangelicalism of the 1940s, but Charles Fuller founded the school on inerrancy. This was part of their doctrinal statement for a long time. Harold Lindsell was actually on the faculty there—a man who has been likened, and not unjustly, to the famous Communist-hunter, Senator McCarthy. Lindsell could smell a non-inerrantist fifty miles away!
Fuller’s decisive change happened in the late 70s when a faculty member not only disagreed with inerrancy, but with infallibility, too, in one of his publications. Now, I agree with Luke that inerrancy is by no means a sine qua non of evangelicalism, even though it is largely associated with American evangelicalism as such. (Yet even here, how one defines inerrancy has hardly been discussed. Each of us assumes that we know what it means, yet Millard Erickson gives six different definitions, I believe.)
Back to the Fuller faculty member. When the board met to discuss the matter, the professor’s job was saved by one vote. Since then, Fuller has continued to not require infallibility for its faculty.
Normally, one sine qua non of evangelicalism is infallibility. This means that Fuller is one step outside of the normal definition of ‘evangelical.’ And that’s one of the reasons why its students have a far easier time getting into American mainline schools than DTS students do.
But again, as I pointed out earlier, schools in the UK don’t have the same dividing lines as we do in the States, largely because the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy was far more prominent on our side of the pond. If you can defend your views, then you are accepted in the academy there—even if you’re from Dallas Seminary (and a very large portion of PhD students in religious studies are). That’s the kind of openness and liberal-mindedness that I claimed in the original blog post is not true in the States.
Dr. Wallace,
Your comments are spot on, but I would not limit them to DTS. I graduated from Moody for my undergrad; and when rejected from Yale Divinity School, I was told that the sole reason was because my eduction was too narrow, and I needed to go to a school with a broader theological spectrum.
Again, when I graduated from Trinity with an M.A., and while studying for a ThM at Westminster, I drove five and half hours to interview with the head of the dept. of Near Eastern Studies at Harvard, where I was told by the chair that I hadn’t studied historical criticism enough. He, of course, had not looked at my transcript, knew nothing of my courses, and apparently was completely unaware that I had studied to a great degree and believed in it. I, of course, wasted time and money bothering to even apply.
I’ve since given up on my quest for three PhDs as when I first started my education, as one must have a degree from a secular institution these days to publish and work within most seminaries and colleges. It has been a frustrating endeavor.
To the person who argued before about language, I had Hebrew, Greek, Ugaritic, Akkadian, Middle Egyptian, Aramaic, Sumerian, Latin and German under my belt, and it was meaningless to those Profs who simply saw me as a fundamentalist simply because I had gone to evangelical schools. BTW, I remember having a conversation with Ray Westbrook before he died, where he lamented the fact that most of his students from “secular” schools couldn’t get their French and German down, and were woefully under-educated to be in the degree program at Hopkins. Unfortunately, that does not hinder them from choosing the prestige of the university over the broader academics of the more astute evangelical schools.
“the governing assumption is that there are no gods, demons, angels, avatars, nature spirits or ancestral ghosts these mythical entities have a literature which is the subject of study and that is it.”
Yep, it sure is. The governing ASSUMPTION/presupposition based in ultimate beliefs (i.e., faith). This is a perfect example of liberal bias. Evangelicals have biases that don’t fit liberal biases. Therefore, the evangelicals practices pseudo-science because he doesn’t have the same faith that the liberal has.
We live in the postmodern age, People. Let’s drop the fantasy of objectivism. I would just be happy to study the physical aspects of the Scripture at a secular university without getting into what was “true” according to the secular academy. We don’t need to discuss metaphysic reality in the secular classroom if we’re discussing the meaning of a Hebrew term or the theology of a particular source anyway.
Interesting that we all think our opinions of the truth are going to change the truth itself. We may look good among our peers for being liberal, or embracing whatever the popular theory is at the time. However, the real question we need to ask ourselves individually ,(since that is how we will be judged by Christ in the long run) is how closely do our opinions really match us with His. I think a lot of it boils downs to that, period.
If evangelical/fundamentalist views are accepted in the UK as defensible ideas (I’m taking Dan’s word on this as I have no first hand knowledge myself) then this is, to me, a major indictment of the state of scholarship in either the US or the UK.
Either these views are legitimately defensible or they aren’t. If they are not legitimately defensible then one has to question the rigorousness of scholarship in the UK. If they are defensible then one must question the openness of scholarship in the US.
I don’t see how those who argue that fundamental/evangelical views are unworthy of consideration could at the same time accept scholars from the UK (even liberal scholars who rebuke those views.) The scholars from the UK would have been trained in a system that is, by its very openness, not as high a quality, as the US system.
Somehow I doubt that a highly-learned doctoral student from, I don’t know, Oxford, seeking a position in a US university or college would be treated as inferior to a similar level student from Harvard or Princeton. Unless of course that Oxford trained student voiced evangelical or fundamentalist views that the Harvard student does not. Maybe I’m wrong about this. I suspect I’m not.
I think it’s fascinating that anyone would harbor the suspicion that working toward being loving, compassionate and liberal would ever garner admiration from peers. That’s not been my experience.
I agree that the question is how closely our thoughts and behavior match us with his truth. And I guess I would have to draw on biblical tradition and world religion and philosophy to remind us all that truth is not a possession of fallen humanity, but something that we point toward and work toward and follow as a path that is a lifelong journey, no matter how confident we may feel about it. Learning to ask better questions takes one further, sometimes, than parading with answers – especially when those answers dehumanize others.
In a secular context just the opposite should occur: the governing assumption is that there are no gods, demons, angels, avatars, nature spirits or ancestral ghosts these mythical entities have a literature which is the subject of study and that is it.
While I agree with much of what CD-Host has to say, I do not think that this is an accurate statement of the secular assumption. I think the governing assumption in the secular university is that scholarship addresses itself to “objective” reality with one of the senses of “objective” being “perceptible by all observers.” Scholarship must be based on evidence that is available to all. The problem with the evangelical schools is their insistence upon interpreting objective evidence in light of revealed truth that is only available to those who have had a particular subjective religious experience. It is not an anti-supernatural assumption that precludes the consideration of gods, demons, angels, etc. It is the fact that their existence cannot be ascertained by objective methodologies.
Vinny, on what basis can you say that scholarship must limit itself to reality that is perceptible to all observers? That is not true in law, literature, history, etc. Unless science—and only a particular kind of science—is taught in universities, this definition is so narrow as to rule out most of reality as we now know it.
On the other side of the coin, one of the problems of modern western scholarship is that it is both unbelievably arrogant and as politically incorrect as it can be. Boyd and Eddy show this in their book, The Jesus Legend. They demonstrate that the ancient worldview, and much of the non-western modern worldview, is radically different from the modern western worldview, and they question why it is that we only allow our definitions of reality to stand. Karl Popper, the philosopher-scientist, argued that even science can only demonstrate what is, not what is not. Hence, the method that many scholars today use of denying the possibility of something because they haven’t witnessed it is actually bad science.
Consequently, when an educational institute virtually outlaws certain positions—positions that are even held by respected scholars but are outside the guild—that institute demonstrates, once again, that it is not truly liberal.
It is interesting that the chaplain of Harvard Divinity School gave a message a couple of years ago regarding the fact that Harvard was going to hire an evangelical professor. His message was essentially, “Do not fear! This will not destroy Harvard.” That this message needed to be given shows how deep the divide is between evangelicals and liberals in America.
Re comment #150 “Your requirement to “pursue truth” is philosophically loaded, is it not?” and comment 156 re frustration.
I agree that “pursue truth” is philosophically loaded, and I bear no illusions that a secular university is more likely to arrive at truth, or has a better methodology or philosophy of truth, than a “confessional” one. I believe that students from evangelical schools and ones with confessions that must be signed produce students that are frequently better than ones from secular students, but that to me does not justify accepting the secular students on equal terms. Each side of the divide has different reasons for being, different philosophies of education and learning, different “culture”, and different expectations. Secular institutions are therefore within their rights to reject students sight unseen merely because they come from a different kind of institutional background. The US schools may miss out on great students, but it doesn’t seem illogical to me..
The UK schools evolved differently over the years and so are being consistent with their own particular history. Should US schools become more open to evangelical scholars? Yes if they want to get the best students, but I don’t think it’s necessary from their perspective. It would certainly be better from a financial perspective for evangelical schools because they could retain students longer in their programs and advertise as being acceptable preparatory schools for academic vocation pursuit.
However, and it seems that I am one of the minority, but I just always accepted that the two (secular, Christian) were / are different animals. I was only 20 at the time I was making my choices, but even then I wasn’t so naive or deluded as to believe that I could pursue a PhD by attending a non-secular institution. It strikes me as quite odd that anyone would believe that they could. If I wanted a PhD from Harvard, I never would have bothered with a Masters from a Christian institution, unless I was planning on doing two. Even 25 years ago or so I checked into which secular institutions accepted which credits and degrees from which Christian ones. It was pretty evident to me that (a) Christian degrees wouldn’t cut it if I wanted a prestigious secular degree, and (b) anything beyond an undergrad at a Christian institution was not required for me personally to be secure in my faith before I went off to a godless school.
So as a student, I didn’t and would not now be concerned over this divide. I would just go the route (secular v. Christian institutions) that would result in the degrees and career I want. One can’t go the evangelical school route, but so what? The secular route is available (and has more $ too).
I can, however, certainly see the concerns of profs (e.g. Wallace). I would much prefer better academic respect and legitimacy and would be pushing to get my research, my institution, and my students to have better recognition and…
For the record, I thought it might be helpful to recommend Stanley Hauerwas’ “The State of the University: Academic Knowledges and the Knowledge of God” (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007) as a useful resource for thinking through the kinds of issues we’ve been circling around here. In fact, if the role of God and/or theology in the modern “secular” university is of interest to you at all, Stanley’s is a book you really can’t miss.
Also, to supplement Dr. Wallace’s post on Fuller, George Marsden’s “Reforming Fundamentalism: Fuller Seminary and the New Evangelicalism” (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1987) and Rudolph Nelson’s “The Making and Unmaking of an Evangelical Mind: The Case of Edward Carnell” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) provide nice historical forays, the former being more general in scope than the latter.
It seems then that it is not language preparation that is lacking. I do still have some slight reservation here, but it is minor. That is, I think that a broader classical and Hellenistic Greek may be a better preparation than studying NT Greek but that is still debatable.
However, Dan now mentions both inerrancy and the role of women as factors. Does this mean that dispensationalism is not really the problem. What is the key problem – inerrancy or gender politics? Which one seems like more of a block? Any thoughts?
Sue, Dr. Wallace did not mention anything about the roles of women. Only you are talking about the roles of women in a post where it is completely irrelevant. The topic is about how there is an inherent bias in liberal academic institutions towards students trained at conservative evangelical ones.
If the title were Frustrations from the Front: The Myth of Theological Conservatism then perhaps your topic may have a voice amongst like minded people. But it is not.
It would be nice if you would not taint what has been an extraordinarily interesting and insightful post with endless tirades about seemingly conservative injustices against women especially when it has absolutely no bearing to the topic.
Lisa,
It has been a long thread. I did bring these issues up myself earlier. However, Dan echoed my thoughts rather closely in comment #154, writing,
“Bring it to more recent times, and here’s the testimony I have received from many who have gone to mainline schools: on certain topics, there is such an oppressive spirit for free inquiry that they never get discussed, or at least openly discussed. The role of women in the church, authorship of various books of the Bible, whether John has anything of historical value, anything beyond a bare-bones eschatology, the possibility of systematic theology, biblical authority in relation at least to infallibility (i.e., the belief that the Bible is true in what it teaches with respect to faith and practice), etc.”
The role of women heads up his list and the rest, more often than not, falls within the general area of inerrancy.
Lisa,
I am honestly curious. I attended courses in a local evangelical seminary and then was accepted into a ThM in a liberal college. I also found that there was a certain attitude or arrogance toward my mention of courses taken in the evangelical school.
Dr. Wallace,
I am not sure what your basis is for saying that something like history does not limit itself to reality that is perceptible to all observers. The coins, inscriptions, and writings that form the primary sources for the historian of ancient Rome can be perceived by all other historians of ancient Rome. None of them are allowed to rely on crystal balls or Tarot cards to determine the course of the Carthaginian wars. Doesn’t peer reviewed scholarship depend on other scholars being able to perceive the evidence upon which their peers have based their conclusions?
I don’t generally think that scholars should deny the possibility of something just because they haven’t witnessed it. That is why I disagreed with CD-Host’s characterization of the non-existence of demons and angels as an assumption of secular scholarship. I think that a scholar should be agnostic about that for which he have no evidence one way or the other. On the other hand, if we cannot conceive of any objective evidence that could establish a thing’s existence, there is little practical difference between agnosticism about its existence and affirmation of its non-existence.
I understand that the attitude of modern western scholarship towards revealed truths can seem like intolerance and arrogance for the Christians, Muslims, Mormons, Scientologists, and others who might embrace them. However, by excluding truths that are only accessible to groups who share a particular faith experience, modern western scholarship aspires to knowledge that can more truly be considered objective. I think that more is gained than lost.
Vinny, you make some excellent points which affords me the opportunity to clarify what I meant. Yes, all can observe coins and inscriptions. They are usually contemporary and thus provide good evidence. But they are not the same thing as observing the event itself. In historical investigation, we always have to rely on someone else’s testimony. If all we had were coins and inscriptions, and we jettisoned the rest because it was not as hard data, our knowledge of the ancient (and even modern) world would be a small fraction of what it is now. There has always been belief at the core of historical investigation.
You also lumped writings in with coins and inscriptions. But they belong to a different class. We don’t have the original documents of just about any literature from the ancient world. We have copies—copies that were usually made many centuries after the autographs were penned. Scholars have to sift through the copies to establish the most likely autographic text. Ehrman has gone so far as to say that he doesn’t trust ANY ancient literature since it all needs to be reconstructed. But he doesn’t actually apply this in what he writes.
To take but one example: In The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, Ehrman quotes from Euripides, Galen, Josephus, Lucian the satirist, Marcus Aurelius, Philostratus, Plato, Plautus, Pliny the Younger, Plutarch, Suetonius, and Tacitus—to name a few. Yet all such sources have to be reconstructed from the surviving manuscripts—almost all of which were copied several hundred years later than the originals. But Ehrman quotes them without any caveat such as ‘the earliest MSS of Suetonius say,’ or ‘our best sources for Plutarch read this.’ No, he simply enlists these authors and their writings as though the extant documents are identical at those points with what the author wrote.
The irony here is that the New Testament fares far, far better than any other ancient Greco-Roman literature in terms of the date and number of its surviving copies. So, if you really want hard, objective historical evidence (by your definition), you’d better stick with the coins and inscriptions. Certainly they are helpful, but if that is to be our approach our grasp of Late Antiquity would be similar to what a four-year-old’s grasp of metaphysics is!
As for excluding those who share a faith experience, that’s not entirely what I was speaking about. The New Testament records what the enemies of Jesus thought of his miracles. They saw them. They never denied that they were miracles. They only denied the source of the miracles. This is what I am getting at: even those in the ancient world who did NOT share the same faith experience still had a similar worldview, a worldview that modern western scholarship has deemed naive and irrelevant and thus has rejected without a fair hearing.
Vinny,
The common problem with this type of obliviousness to presuppositions and bias is that observable data, although evidence to all, does not interpret itself.
Now, if we are talking only about the identification and arrangement of data, metaphysical bias might play a more minor role; but since the academy does not stop there, I think it is safe to say that the metaphysical bias of the academy is not one of neutrality (something you seem to admit here as a default atheism which stems from a sort of practical agnosticism the American academy adopted due to its limitations on true science as merely empirical and the erroneous idea that human interpretation can be neutral if conducted correctly. Such empiricism works with the scientific method when building a rocket, but doesn’t cut the mustard too well when answering how one ought to study the Bible, whether merely through anthropological or theological intent.
A good example of why this attitude toward evangelicals is not merely due to biased interpretations (as all interpretations are biased) can be observed from my experience at UPenn. I took a course in Late Egyptian there, and as soon as they found out I also attended Westminster, it was pretty much over from there. The prof wanted to put me in as many awkward situations as possible, and the more secular students became incredibly hostile toward me. In fact, I had to drop out of the class because he would give all of his work assignments to his aide in the class, and because she didn’t like me being there, I either did not received when the class was going to meet, or what the assigned reading was to be for the next class, or she would email me 30 minutes before class, knowing that I lived an hour and a half away. Eventually, I just called it quits.
My point is that this isn’t just about a prof worrying about “correct” methodology. What was I going to do? Interpret Egyptian texts supernaturally? Let’s face it. Those who lean toward philosophic naturalism have ultimate beliefs that dictate that worldview and methodology of inquiry; and people don’t tend to like other people whose ultimate beliefs reject their ultimate beliefs, unless you are trained to be tolerant (as many evangelical scholars are).
Good discussion all. A few miscellanies points in responding to today’s post. I’ll start with Vinny and get more broad.
I see no principled distinction from a perspective of scholarship between the statements:
X does not exist.
X does not induce publicly observable events.
This is essentially Russell’s teapot. The key criteria if whether the only admissible evidence is that which is publicly observable.
I think we agree here and are disagreeing on phrasing.
But there is another area of phrasing which I think is leading to confusion. In reading this thread I think a distinction needs to made between 3 not 2 major classes of scholarship:
1) Conservative / Traditional Christian
2) Liberal/Liberal Christian
3) Secular / Atheist
I think a lot of the readers are conflating the 2nd and 3rd category. People are passing freely between Harvard divinity school, and the Harvard classics department. There are substantial differences between the results of these different groups. Since people seem familiar with April DeConick:
1) Bock
2) Crossen
3) DeConick
The issue between 1 & 3 is essentially methodological, what I talked about in my earlier post. The issue between 1 & 2 is IMHO essentially religious. I did a summary of DeConick’s 8 rules of bible study which I’ll repeat here:
No apologetics. Study this history the way you would any other.
No miracles or supernatural events.
No heresy. We treat all ancient authors equally, not giving weight to the eventual winners.
Religions develop in religious communities they don’t fall out of the sky.
All sources have human authorship.
The sources were written by people in the midst of events, the authors don’t understand how events will turn out.
The authors are not neutral. They are writing apology and polemic and propaganda, and they need to be deconstructed as those.
Our sources are dependent on the human being: physiologically, psychologically, emotionally, socially.
I think anyone can see that liberal Christian scholarship no less than conservative Christian scholarship couldn’t affirm those 8 principles.
Bryan, that is a well-put yet sad commentary on modern American theological liberalism. It underscores what I have been saying in the original blog post. If we had scores of such first-person anecdotes posted here, perhaps—just perhaps—we might be able to open up the eyes of some of our liberal friends who seem to see us as a threat.
Two policemen Ben and Sam are looking at a robbery scene:
Ben: This door is strong the perps must have had a crowbar to force it open. You can see the broken lock.
Sam: Well a poltergeist could have forced it open.
Ben: No look you can see the scratch marks from the wedge right here about 3 1/2 feet off the ground, which is completely consistent with where a 6′ man would use a crowbar.
Sam: You are assuming your crowbar theory. The scratches might from an entirely different event. I still see no evidence it wasn’t a poltergeist.
Ben: Well what kind of evidence could I possibly produce that it wasn’t a poltergeist?
Sam: A video of the crooks breaking the door.
Ben: Well there is no camera.
Sam: So I guess it must be a matter of open debate.
____
Yes, it is absolutely true that the issue of how to evaluate the evidence is dependent upon the relative frequency of a breaking and entering being performed by a poltergeist vs. normal human robbers. Still I’d say that Ben is doing is consistent with normal police work and what Sam is doing is likely to get him fired.
Bryan —
That is a sad story and it never should have happened. If it was recent you would be doing everyone a favor by filing a grievance with the administration.
Dr. Wallace,
I appreciate the distinction between coins and writings when it comes to ancient history, however, even with the writings, all historians are on an equal footing with respect to their limitations. Every historian must temper the certainty of any conclusion he draws in consideration of the possibility hat some scribe didn’t like the way that his political patrons had been portrayed by Suetonius and altered the offending passages. No historian can claim a reason for believing any passage to be uncorrupted that is not equally perceptible to all historians.
As for scholars not referring to the “earliest surviving manuscript of Plato,” I think the issue is generally too trivial to mention. I think any classicist worth his salt would acknowledge the possibility that parts of the body of work that is attributed to Plato may not actually have been written by him. One of Plato’s students may have written one of the dialogues. Some anonymous philosopher living fifty years later may have used Plato’s name in order to get his own work. Some of Plato’s original writings could have been extensively edited and revised by later philosophers. The surviving record does not enable us to eliminate any of these possibilities.
By and large, however, nothing any scholar has to say about Plato is altered by these possibilities. The influence of Plato’s dialogues on western thought is not dependent on each and every one of them being written by the person we think of as the historical Plato. In a similar vein, the significance of Shakespeare’s plays in English literature is not lessened by the possibility that some of them may have written by Francis Bacon rather than the Bard of Avon. It is little more than an interesting academic tidbit for most purposes.
The New Testament, on the other hand, presents a completely different situation. Certain Christians maintain that certain writings are uniquely authoritative—e.g., inspired, inerrant, or infallible—because they were written by certain specific individuals who had a special access to divine guidance. From this perspective, it matters whether the specific words in the writing we know as Galatians are actually the specific words that Paul personally wrote. Their significance is directly dependent upon being written by someone with a particular apostolic pedigree. There is no similar reason to care whether any specific words in the writing we know as The Republic were actually written by Plato.
So I see little more than a red herring in the fact that Ehrman and other scholars do not constantly point out that what they refer to as Plato, Euripides, Galen, or Tacitus is actually the writings that have come down to us attributed to those writers rather than the original manuscripts. For the most part, it is a trivial point that goes without saying.
re comment 175
If all we were concerned about were ideas then perhaps that view (i.e., red herring) might be correct.
But if we are trying to do historiography or determine historical truth, then the possibility of changes, of authorship, dating, accuracy, author bias, etc. become very relevant.
regards,
#John
Bryan,
I am not oblivious to bias and presuppositions. I know that they exist and that everyone has them.
Consider the following two statements.
(1) Columbus sailed across the Atlantic Ocean in 1492.
(2) Columbus discovered America in 1492.
Both statements describe the same event but the first in more objective than the second. The second interprets the first event and reflects certain presuppositions about the people who came to America prior to Columbus.
The fact of the matter is that it is the interpretations that make history interesting. On the other hand, assessing the significance of events and the connections between events opens the door to biases and preconceptions.
I think that secular scholarship takes preconceptions and biases seriously by making objectivity the ideal and developing methodologies that help identify the scholar’s preconceptions and force him or her to distinguish between facts and interpretations. I think that peer review is part of this process. We may never reach true objectivity but it is the direction in which we work. Even a historian with all sorts of biases could write the first statement about Columbus rather than the second.
Evangelicals scholars, on the other hand, often seem to want to just throw up their hands in defeat. Rather than grapple with the impediments to objectivity, they would simply declare all presuppositions equal and acceptable.
“I think that secular scholarship takes preconceptions and biases seriously by making objectivity the ideal and developing methodologies that help identify the scholar’s preconceptions and force him or her to distinguish between facts and interpretations.”
I’ve been in the community and read too much to believe that this is the case among secular scholars. Instead, there seems to be the idea that philosophic naturalism is true, and all proper evaluation must not only stem from this, but “prove” it in one’s study. So if I am reading James and Paul, I must conclude that the two are contradicting each other instead of complementing one another, simply because the former would supposedly be assuming coherence gained from the divine author, and the latter, more “objective” approach, would be to see the human authors as solely distinct minds that disagree with one another.
Now, it is not true that to see these in conflict or communion has anything to do with philosophic naturalism or supernaturalism; but since it is perceived to be the case by the secular community, it is only deemed scholarly to hold the latter. This is the same thing that happened to me in the Harvard interview. The Chair could not imagine in his wildest dreams that someone with a supernatural worldview could study the Pentateuch through the Documentary Hypothesis, precisely because the DH has been used to promote philosophic naturalism for so long that secular scholars often have no awareness that DATA A can be interpreted within WORLDVIEW B or WORLDVIEW C. I could have made it through Harvard, frankly, without even mentioning this fact in class, and my work would only be visibly different in that I would not have been using the data as an apologetic for my worldview, as the secular “objective” academy does. I realize they attempt to gain objectivity, but this is philosophically naive, as one who is bound to the subjectivism of his ultimate beliefs cannot be objective in any of his metaphysical interpretations whatsoever. There is, therefore, no such thing as a “more objective” methodology. There is only a methodology that becomes more committed in seeing its ultimate beliefs as the only beliefs worth having within academic discussion.
John1453,
I agree that “the possibility of changes, of authorship, dating, accuracy, author bias, etc.” are all very important but scholarship is constrained by the available evidence. It could be that Plato’s relationship with his mother had a profound influence on his thinking, but it is unlikely that there will ever be any evidence that allows a scholar to investigate the possibility. Therefore, scholars should avoid trying to draw conclusions that depend on whether Plato’s mother breast fed him until the age of seven.
By the same token, scholars can seek to corroborate Tacitus as much as possible through other sources, but the possibility of alterations and corruptions is simply a reality that they must take into account by limiting the certainty with which they draw their conclusions.
Two archaeologists Ben and Sam are looking at a dig:
Ben: This statue is strong [evidence] the ancient Israelites must have been polytheistic and the Bible is therefore a later polemic. You can see the idol clearly, so YHWH, as the Bible reports Him, is clearly never a part of Israel’s more ancient history.
Sam: Well, the Bible could be genuine, and this idol a deviation from the cultus. Popular religion often differs and is more reflective of the surrounding culture than the official religion.
Ben: No look you can see the idol right here, which is completely consistent with the idea that the Israelites worshiped other gods instead of YHWH as the one and only. YHWH is therefore a later development of Israelite religion, not a genuine case of Israel experiencing God.
Sam: You are assuming your progressive religions theory. The idol might [be explained by] an entirely different event. I still see no evidence it wasn’t as the Bible reports.
Ben: Well what kind of evidence could I possibly produce that the Bible doesn’t describe the situation accurately?
Sam: There isn’t any because evidence is data that must be interpreted with one’s ultimate beliefs, and when discussing an historical past event or the metaphysical reality thereof one’s presuppositions determine his conclusions. Hence, it cannot be decided empirically.
Ben: Well I want my ultimate beliefs to explain everything, and yours to be invalid even though mine may be self refuting since they stem from a universally negative proposition.
Sam: So I guess it must be a matter of open debate among those who are kicked out your universities for not believing as you do, and I guess the debate will be closed by the village elders who don’t want their “obvious” and self evident beliefs exposed.
Bryan,
I understand where you are coming from, but I think my belief in the truth of philosophic (or methodological) naturalism is based on its solid record of demonstrating its utility.
Vinny,
Please show me when philosophic naturalism, a worldview produced by a negative proposition concerning metaphysical reality, has proven one’s metaphysical analysis as accurate. The problem is that philosophic naturalism IS the metaphysical analysis, so how can it prove itself?
What you are doing is equating empirical analysis of present physical events with historical past events and metaphysical reality. We all agree that a thief most likely pried the door open with a crow bar; but what happened with the Israelites? and what is the metaphysical reality of the Bible?
Wow… this is a very good discussion!
I’m wondering, how would Talbot School of Theology (where I’m a student) be perceived by the so-called ‘mainstream’ schools?
Dr. Wallace’s post scared me a bit…
[…] 1 tags: Christian education by Kevin Sam I was just reading a very interesting blog post on Parchment and Pen (HT: TC & Joel) posted by Daniel Wallace, a dispensationalist at Dallas Theological Seminary. […]
Bryan,
I deny that philosophic naturalism is produced by a negative proposition. I believe that it is the result of empirical observation of the world in which we live. I don’t believe that it extends to metaphysical analysis so it doesn’t tell me what the metaphysical reality of the Bible is.
[…] forth the idea of New Testament eclecticism I’d like to post a quote from one of his recent blog posts about the the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature : As remarkable as it may sound, […]
Well, I don’t really want to rehash an old debate, but empirical observation is data, Vinny, not interpretation. It’s not until one’s metaphysical beliefs come into play that one then interprets that data. I think, however, you’ve hit the nail on the head as regarding what this debate is really about. There is simply little to no reflection upon the fact that philosophic naturalism is a worldview that assumes an ultimate belief system. Our reasoning bases itself in that ultimate belief. It’s how we move from one premise to another, but there must be a first premise in order to do that. The idea that somehow what I perceive as reality and therefore is self-evident is itself a fantasy. It must assume the company line, a relatively new belief in the history of the world, and even a minority position within the contemporary world, but one with which a great clout of prestige as the “in” belief system has given it the primary place within our academic culture.
Now, of course, I am not saying that one does not use empirical means in order to observe data, nor am I saying that all belief systems are equally valid. I am only saying that what belief system gets to interpret that data should not be rooted in the idea of objectivism, which has been proven to be a modern fiction time and time again.
Vinny,
If it doesn’t allow you to comment on the metaphysical reality of the Bible then what would you say to modern scholarship that concludes that BIBLE BELIEF A stems from CULTURAL CONDITION B instead of from a divine source?
OR
How would you analyze the Bible in general. Is it open to ultimate contradiction, since it is only written by humans, or should it be interpreted as complementary because its production was governed by God? Or do you say nothing of contradiction or complementation in variation because you cannot assume a metaphysical belief about the Bible?
What I am essentially saying is that observing empirical data is one thing, and interpreting that data with a naturalistic empiricism rooted in an ultimate belief is another. Everyone does the former, but not everyone does the latter. Academia ought not discriminate based on one’s ultimate beliefs, therefore, because they are not a matter of a person’s scholarship being more primitive or limiting than another’s. Doesn’t university mean “unity in diversity” anyway? Where’s the diversity in worldviews within the classroom?
Bryan,
I interpret the Bible as written by man because that is the only criteria available to me. I have lots of empirical data on the way men act and the kinds of things they do. I can look for similarities and differences between the writings in the Bible and other things men have written. I can make reasoned inferences about the perspective and beliefs of the men who wrote the Bible.
I have very little empirical data on God unfortunately. Being supernatural, he is not subject to the natural order that I observe around me. I have no other books written by God to which I can compare the Bible. I have no objective criteria by which to judge whether he is likelier to have meant one thing rather than another. I have no criteria by which to judge it more likely that God inspired Paul rather than Mohammed or Joseph Smith.
It is not my ultimate belief that there is no God that leads me to interpret the Bible this way since I do not in fact have such an ultimate belief. It is rather that the tools available for me to determine what is and is not so limit my ability to interpret things in light of their metaphysical reality.
Suppose a student proposed to base his doctoral thesis on what he divined from Tarot cards. Is it intolerance if the university tells him that such knowledge isn’t within the realm of accepted academic methodology? Should he be surprised if the university tells him that he must strive for the kind of objective knowledge contemplated by modern western scholarship? If he insists that such objectivity is a myth, shouldn’t he expect the university to tell him that he will have to go elsewhere to pursue his investigations.
Brian and Vinny, interesting discussion, but it has become isolated to the two of you and most others have no idea. I don’t want this thread to be dominated by a side discussion that has only peripheral relevance (i.e. the validity of methodological naturalism) to the main point of the post.
Michael,
I am not sure it is tangential. If an evangelical student goes to a secular university seeking a PhD and insists that revealed truth is a valid basis for reaching conclusions, isn’t he somewhat like a student who wishes to do research by reading Tarot cards? Is a university intolerant if it declines to recognized divine revelation or Tarot cards as valid academic methodology?
I understand its relevance. My statement earlier was not good calling it peripheral. I just don’t want this to become a two way conversation. I would much rather you focus on asking Dan questions.
Michael,
Okey-dokey. Consider my last question posed to Dr. Wallace.
As well, I ascribe, myself, as an Evangelical, to a sort of methodological naturalism to first level studies in a university setting. However, methodological naturalism, unlike philosophical naturalism, does not assume that certain conclusions cannot be drawn based on the evidence.
The illustrations that you point out are good in isolated cases, but are going to be far less effective when dealing with certain issues such as the resurrection of Christ.
I think the Evangelical should be beyond, in academic studies (even in an evangelical institution) the letting of presuppositions be his guide. But if the evidence creates certain presuppositions that are paradigmatic (i.e. Christ rose from the grave) there is going to be a hermeneutical spiral which creates an outcome on other issues that is not only responsible, but necessary.
The possibility of other options does not equate to probability. Sometimes the most rational choice is that it happened exactly as the Bible says it did. Once that is allowed, it is going to create a set of assumptions that, even under a methodological naturalistic approach, create greater probabilities that those who are philosophical naturalists are not willing or able to explore because they are not liberal enough!
Vinny, btw, don’t feel as if you cannot respond to me on what I just said. I don’t mean to keep you and Bryan from your conversation. Normally, especially when it is so good, I would allow it. I just did not want this thread to go in such a direction yet. Once two people start going at it, it normally becomes dominated by such and others don’t feel compelled to join any long.
This is just a very interesting and important issue.
*As you can see since I am involved to such a degree and I am not normally involved in even my own posts!
I do appreciate your arguments and your kindness…both you and Bryan.
Hi Michael, I’m also loving this thread. I must admit that I find the discussion by Brian and Vinny to be central to the topic and not just isolated to methodological naturalism. Dr. Wallace mentioned in his opening post about “going where the data leads” which opens wide the epistemological door for this necessary discussion. Following Decartes, Hume, Kuhn and others, it is recognized that data, always underdetermines. This is what I think Luther meant when he said that “reason is the Devil’s greatest whore.” This means that most of the places where liberals and conservatives differ, are deductively underdetermined. The available evidence does not contradict either theory, however both theories can apply good scholarship to make their case using the available data. Correction is made by either side when an argument does not account for all the data, makes an argument from silence, or some logical error, or fails to provide a reasonable account of available data. This is what happened when Walter Bauer’s thesis was quickly refuted by Walther Volker, too bad the NT guys get read more than the HT ones. The discussion above about presuppositions, and “ultimate beliefs” is often overlooked. However, this is what Tyrell means when he responds to Harnack’s Das Wessen des Christentums by saying that “The Christ that Harnack sees, looking back through 1900 years of Catholic darkness, is only the reflection of a liberal protestant face, seen at the bottom of a deep well.” The writings of both liberals and protestants seem to mold the data into their own image and likeness.
Good scholarship is based on work which carefully explains the data in a reasonable way, given the underlying presuppositions of the scholar. If these are properly basic, then they must be allowed and should be acknowledged by both sides.
Sorry folks, the site went down for a bit…Dan’s post is overloading the server!!
Re the use of tarot cards in graduate level studies
Tarot has powered a number of doctorates:
(1) 2001 PhD, University of Stockholm, Gudmundsson, Magnus Tarot. New age i bild och berättelse. (Tarot. Illustration and narrating in the New Age)
and Masters
(1) 1994 MA, Pacific Oaks College, Pasadena, California
Semetsky, Inna, Introduction of Tarot Readings into Clinical Psychotherapy-Naturalistic Inquiry
One can even do a degree related to Tarot:
UK – University of Kent
MA in the Cultural Study of Cosmology and Divination
Description from the brochure:
The study of contemporary astrology and the interpretation of astrological symbolism form a central part of this MA programme which involves taught and research elements, including four modules, a learning journal and a dissertation. It may be taken full-time (1 year) or part-time/modular (2+years).
Core modules on Thursdays, optionals Wednesdays or Fridays. Modules are:
– Interpreting the Heavens: theories and methods (core)
– The Imaginal Cosmos: interpreting symbolic texts & images (core)
– Cosmology and the Arts (optional)
– The Intelligible Cosmos (optional)
– Nature, Culture and Religion (optional)
Themes include Egypt & alchemy, I Ching & Chinese philosophy, Renaissance astrology & magic, literature, art, music & cosmos, enchantment, tarot and the divinatory narrative.
Distance education option: in negotiation
If one can do a degree in Tarot and a thesis, why should there be any antipathy toward evangelicals in the secular academy? One would think there shouldn’t be, but there is. I guess evangelicals are not trendy enough. There will never be a book “Harry Potter and the Last Evangelical”.
regards,
#John
Dr. Wallace,
Would you say that the same holds true for some Fundamentalist schools? I am taking a Ph.D. at an old Fundamentalist institution. In fact, I looked at receiving my terminal degree at Dallas. To be honest, the program at my current school is every bit as challenging (among other things still requiring two research languages for graduation). Except for several differences, the programs are nearly identical. The fundamentalists I train under are not “your father’s” fundamentalists either. Many young fundamentalists are gaining great footholds in scholarship (though, I must admit, we are playing catch up). Yet, at conferences I receive the same treatment. Not necessarily from liberals, but from evangelicals. Interesting. Ditto on your evaluation. Thank you for stating as such.