The God Blog

June 17, 2008 | 4:37 am

The toughest subject for Christian students is Christianity

Photo

Here’s a sad story from The Christian Century about how Christians don’t understand their own tradition, written by a woman who teaches “Intro to World Religions” at Piedmont College:

Students who complete the class say they feel more at home in the world. They are less easily frightened by religious difference. They are more informed neighbors, better equipped to wage peace instead of war.

The only place the course backfires is in the unit on Christianity. Students who have spent every Sunday of their lives in church may be able to name the books of the Bible in order, but they rarely have any idea how those books were assembled. They know they belong to Victory Baptist Church, but they do not know that this makes them Protestants, or that the Christian tree has two other major branches more ancient than their own. Very few have heard of the Nicene Creed. Most are surprised to learn that baptism is supposed to be a one-time thing.

With only five class sessions for each religion, I cover the basics quickly: early Christian history, composition and content of the New Testament, the Great Schism, the Protestant Reformation, central Christian doctrines and common religious practices. Faced with so much new information, students often have a hard time formulating their questions.

“If Paul wasn’t one of the 12 disciples, where did he get his stuff?“

“Do Catholics really think saints answer their prayers?“

As often as I have answered such questions, my sinking feeling never goes away. The things I tell students are so different from the things they have heard in church that I can hear their brains straining against the waves. They never noticed that Matthew and Luke tell different stories of Jesus’ birth, or that Mark and John tell no such stories at all. They never imagined that the first Christians did not walk around with New Testaments in their pockets. No one ever told them about Constantine, Augustine, Benedict or Martin Luther. They never thought about what happened during the centuries between Jesus’ resurrection and their own professions of faith. In their minds, they fell in line behind the disciples, picking up the proclamation of the gospel where those simple fishermen left off.

Even as they are turning in their quizzes, the students know that something has just gone badly wrong. “I think I just did the worst on my own religion,“ one says.

The rest of the article can be read here. I find this tragic but not surprising. We’re not even talking about a major university here that might offer in-depth explorations into a Christian theology foreign to Sunday School graduates. This is basic intro-to-Christianity, Huston-Smith stuff.

This reminds me of Os Guinness’ book “Fit Bodies, Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don’t Think and What to Do About It.“ I also think it has a lot to do with the unbiblical teachings that can be heard in many churches.

Any thoughts?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg in 1 CommentsLeave your comment

COMMENTS

We welcome your feedback.

Privacy Policy

Your information will not be shared or sold without your consent. Get all the details.

(This is the LA What Journal?)

Why am I not surprised? Becaue I see the same thing in spades with the regard to the mass ignorance of the basics of Judaism and its brutal oppression by Rome and its destructive agendas and vigorous erasure of the Jewish identity of Israel and torturous eradication of Judaism as a backdrop and context for the early years of the development of the Christian church and theology at the hands of the Church fathers. You could know every Christian fact and document by heart and still not have feeling for where it is coming from. In fact, Rabbi Asher Wade, former corn-fed midwestern gentile Oxford theology scholar and Protestant minister relates his surprise at eventually encountering some theologiocally difficult portions of the Christian Gospels simply not taught in seminary.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 6/17/08 at 5:09 am

Post a Comment

Name:  
Email:  
URL:  

Type the word you see below:

Comment:

About this Blog

Blog Home
About the Blogger(s)
Contact

RSS


Blog Archive

Blogs

Jewish Journal Blogs


Featured Stories

U.S.
SF cops probing death of Israel activist—body found in elevator shaft

Daniel Kliman's body was found Monday in a San Francisco building where he was taking Arabic classes. It had been at the bottom of the elevator shaft since Nov. 25, building manager Brad Bernheim told the San Francisco Chronicle. There were no classes held last week, and the

World
African AIDS fight uses Israeli circumcision skills

The United Nations announced last year that the procedure could reduce the rate of HIV transmission by up to 60 percent. It was in Israel, with its experience performing adult male circumcision on a wide scale, that the international medical community found an unlikely partner

Israel
Palestinian civil war casts shadow over peace process

Until now it is unclear whether Obama and his advisers will address the internecine Palestinian conflict as a key component in their Middle East foreign policy. If they fail to confront this critical issue, we risk engaging in yet another failed round of diplomacy. And as we

Los Angeles
Judge dismisses charges in ‘kidnap’ case

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge last week dismissed the criminal case against four Iranian American Jews. One woman and three men were accused of kidnapping and holding for ransom a man the defendants claimed had cheated them out of $100,000 in a business deal.

Torah Portion
Lentil soup

Parshat Toldot (Genesis 25:19-28:9) Why does a mourner eat a round food? The circle represents the circle of life, and it is supposed to remind the mourner that life is cyclical: The tragedy of death that has stricken me today will strike my neighbor tomorrow.