I was always told not to go to seminary because you'll lose your religion, especially at the secular universities like Harvard, Yale, or Princeton. This tendency exists. Some of my friends, entering seminary with certain religious beliefs, lost those beliefs, or at the very least had a crisis of faith which may not have necessarily been a bad thing.
Other friends tried to avoid the situation and went to denominational schools of theology, religious studies, and divinity. However, even in some of these religious universities, you can experience professors or lecturers who shine a new, different, and sometimes disturbing light on religious perspectives. To continue our exploration of ways faith and science can work together, I wonder if inspiring faith can survive and coexist with "surprises" that come from many of our social sciences -- archaeology, anthropology, sociology, history, economics, and even religious studies and philosophy of religion.
After listening to a recent episode of the podcast Homebrewed Christianity about the ten not-so-shocking things you learn in Religion 101, I thought I would share what Adjunct Professor and journalist Greg Horton and Trip Fuller spoke about and add in a few of my own shocking things. These are concepts that you learn in Religion 101 that you somehow don't learn growing up in certain faith communities.
- The spectrum of Christian thought in Christian history is wider than what is preached from church pulpits in modern, Western, mainstream Christianity - I started with this one because, in some sense, it encapsulates the entire list and evinces why there is a crisis of faith. For some reason, ministers, pastors, and priests study religion and learn about the wide spectrum of thought, but when they go to the lectern or pulpit to preach or speak, they do not share that spectrum with their congregations, but only their perspective or their church's narrow piece of the spectrum. The problem with this gatekeeper mentality is that it prevents a fuller education of the audience. Instead of acting as a gatekeeper for what information the congregation is allowed to know, it would be much better to expose congregations to all ideas and discuss and learn and debate and grow with them together. When Rob Bell wrote Love Wins, he espoused or shared alternative views of Hell and Heaven that were not new and can be found in writings from C. S. Lewis to Gregory of Nyssa. And what I loved about it was that even though the playing field was wide for academics, it opened wide the playing field for lay people and people outside the faith to say that you can hold a non-mainstream view of hell and still be a member of the faith. Think of sacred texts like a piece of literature that you study in your school literature class. Just like the teacher will ask you to write a paper on a novel giving your viewpoint and interpretation, so too are there many interpretations of sacred texts on who or what God is, what will happen in the future, etc.
What others can you add to the list from your religious studies?
These 10 items highlight one of the toughest questions facing theological education today. How can we possibly tell students "The stories in your text are not unique. They borrow from other traditions. Your text is not 'inspired,' etc." and then say "Now go into the world, minister to people, and inspire them?" We've delved so deeply in the social science of religious studies, we have lost the inspirational part of theological education. How do we bring the two together?