Seminary Project Lab Workshops and Live Webcast

The following is a promo for Duncan Johnson’s sure-to-be-valuable lectures. I strongly urge guys training for the ministry to go to or watch at least the first two. I use a different system than Zotero, but if you have no system, go to the third one as well!

Saturday, October 9, 9:00 a.m., 10:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m. ML 3 Technology Classroom

Turning in quality seminary projects is hard work, and technological challenges don’t make it any easier. The Mack Library is offering three workshop labs for undergrad Religion majors, Seminary students, and faculty. Learn about the latest technology for using Greek and Hebrew in your documents, the easy way to set up a Turabian paper, and the most efficient way to organize and cite your research sources. All sessions will occur in the ML 3 Technology Classroom on Saturday, October 9 and are free of charge.

• 9 a.m. Greek/Hebrew fonts – Compares & contrasts the BibleWorks fonts and Unicode.

• 10 a.m. Turabian – Demonstrates setting up a Turabian document with the Turabian Wizard used at the BJU Seminary.

• 11 a.m. Zotero – Demonstrates using Zotero to organize research and insert footnotes into papers (ends at 12:30 p.m.).

Each session will be broadcasted live on the web. A video recording will be available shortly after the end of each session.

Sign up at the LibGuide where you’ll find more information including broadcast links and how-to videos.

American Evangelical Protestants are Blissful People

I guess my BJU Bible education and my stints as religious newsletter editor, religion researcher, Bible textbook author, and blogger have all been worthwhile, because I’m not ashamed to say that I aced the Pew Research Center’s 15-question Religious Knowledge Quiz.

I’m ashamed to say,  however, that white evangelical Protestants as a whole did worse than Jews, Atheists/Agnostics, and Mormons, and if evangelicals beat the overall population I’m guessing their victory may only just squeak past the survey’s margin of error.

(You may want to take the quiz now before you read further, because I’m about to reveal some answers.)

70% of Jewish respondents knew that Martin Luther and not John Wesley or Thomas Aquinas started the Protestant Reformation. Only half (52%) of white evangelical Protestants knew that.

A lot of evangelicals were fooled by the question about the legality of Bible reading in public schools. Jews beat them soundly on that one, too.

Hardly anybody knew that Jonathan Edwards—and not Billy Graham or Charles Finney—participated in the First Great Awakening.

Overall evangelicals are most notable for their ignorance of world religions, though their ignorance of their own religion, its doctrines, and its history is the most sobering result of the survey.

Another Verse in the KJV You Probably Don’t Understand Either

What profiteth the graven image that the maker thereof hath graven it; the molten image, and a teacher of lies, that the maker of his work trusteth therein, to make dumb idols? (Hab 2:18 KJV)

Is “the graven image” a direct object of “profiteth” or the subject of “profiteth”?

In contemporary English syntax it reads most naturally as a direct object. “What profits the graven image?” Or we might say, “What brings benefit to the graven image?”

But Habakkuk didn’t mean that. He meant, as all the modern versions render this, “What profit is an idol?” or “Of what value is an idol?”

If “graven image” is a direct object, the rest of the first part of the verse is nonsensical. “What brings benefit to the graven image that its maker has graven it?”

I’ve heard a lot of people say, “I know others have trouble understanding the KJV, but I grew up on it so I have no trouble.” I used to say that, too, and there’s certainly some truth to it. I can read the KJV much better than the low-income teenagers in my neighborhood can. But I still challenge what I’ve heard a lot of people say. I’m convinced that KJV readers are missing more than they’re aware.

Billy Graham: His Life and Influence

Billy Graham is an important 20th century man, and David Aikman tells the story of His Life and Influence exceptionally well. The standard stories are all included, the bases are all covered. Aikman is certainly appreciative of Graham, but he is willing to be critical. I recommend this book, especially if you want to read just one Graham biography.

Many others have reviewed this work—because they got it for free like I did* in exchange for reviewing it!—so I want to focus on just one chapter.

Graham’s Platform

Aikman spends significant space on Graham’s fight against racism. One of the most notable early decisions Graham made in that battle was to ask the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to pray from his crusade platform during the 1957 New York meetings. Aikman rightly praises Graham for his efforts against segregation—and he rightly encourages his readers not to judge Graham too harshly for waffling on the issue before 1957. It’s too easy to be critical from our safe historical distance.

Graham was emphatically right to fight racism. Except for the fact that King was a theological liberal, King’s prayer was a good thing for which Graham deserves praise.

But I want to make what I think is a key point: if King’s presence on the platform is significant enough to warrant praise for Graham, then the presence of liberal and Roman Catholic clergy is significant enough to warrant censure. If King’s presence implies Graham’s endorsement for the righteous cause of civil rights—as well it should—then the presence of what the NT calls “false teachers” does imply Graham’s support for at least something in their unrighteous cause. The Bible doesn’t give us the option of qualified support for false teachers. Even a greeting makes you guilty of “taking part in his wicked works” (2Jo 1:9-11).

Graham insisted long ago, “I intend to go anywhere, sponsored by anybody, to preach the gospel of Christ if there are no strings attached to my message” (p.152). But when you put preachers of another gospel on your platform, you’ve just tied on a string. Admittedly, it’s difficult to say exactly what strings you’re tying. Few would doubt, I think, that Graham is personally opposed to Marian devotion, for example. And  “the-Bible-says” is a mantra meaning only one thing for Graham—what I’m about to say is truth straight from God—whatever it means for the United Methodist clergywoman sitting on his platform.

But to have preachers of another gospel sitting behind you supporting your preaching of the biblical gospel says, at the very least, “These people represent a valid expression of Christian faith, even if we disagree on a few particulars.” When the simple fact is that they are not true Christians, you are, at best, creating confusion. At worst, you’re inviting people to consider the differences between the true gospel and false ones as insignificant.

Aikman deals with this issue fairly evenhandedly; I only wish he could have found a better exemplar of continued criticism for Graham’s inclusion of liberals than an extremist such as David Cloud.

But as they said on Reading Rainbow: don’t take my word for it! Read it for yourself!

*I received this book for free from Thomas Nelson as part of their BookSneeze program. I was not required to write a positive review; all opinions expressed are my own. I make this disclosure to remain in accordance with FTC guidelines.

Our Father Which Art in a Lab Coat

I was driving to church Sunday and passing through downtown Greenville, hoping to avoid traffic created by a poorly placed bike race, when I glanced over at the car next to me. I saw a decal on its bumper that I hadn’t seen before. It’s a fish (reminiscent of a rocket) with an all-caps message inside: “SCIENCE.”

A customer review of the decal at Amazon describes its purpose succinctly:

Great way to express your love for science and disgust for religion.

But there’s a problem with this comment, and I’m not yet tired of pointing it out: when you start advertising science on your bumper like this, science is your religion.

Let’s think of some parallels:

• Science has a canon, books and journals which are generally accepted as accurate and authoritative.
• Science has a priesthood which mediates sacred truths to the populous—namely credentialed scientists who explain to the rest of us what matter and energy are telling us.
• Science has various denominations, because not all the priesthood agrees on every point.
• Science, as Neil Postman has pointed out, creates miracles—iPads, GPS, etc. etc. ad infinitum.
• Science has a liturgy, the scientific method.
• Science has an origin story, the Big Bang.
• Science offers an eschatological hope, the eternal upward progress of humankind.
• I suppose science does lack a recognizable musical tradition, but at least there are approved vestments—the white lab coat. (If that coat didn’t carry the authority of the priesthood, people on infomercials wouldn’t be wearing it.)

I’m not anti-science if I get to define science. I use science every day. But that’s just it: I use science to get to Christian ends. Christianity is still my criterion. People who make science their criterion for truth have turned it into an end in itself, as if scientific or evolutionary progress is our purpose in this world.

Now, to be fair, not everyone who slaps a snarky decal on their Subaru takes their scientism to this extreme. Some would call themselves Christians (and some might even be [confused but genuine] Christians!). But if you use this decal you are placing an exaggerated faith in the power of a limited human discipline. You are placing faith—faith! Most of these decal users do not have the credentials to question their priests’ conclusions. And even the priests rely on faith-based assumptions to do their work. (For more on that, read ch. 6 in this book.)

Even if a SCIENCE-fish-rocket-decal sporter finds my parallels hokey (ok, the liturgy one’s a stretch), he ought to be willing to recognize that he has not arrived at all of his knowledge/belief through the unbiased scientific method.

And Christians shouldn’t be afraid of fish with legs, even if some people believe in them.