Category Archives: theological education

Intellectual Dishonesty and Bad Hermeneutics

education, interpretation, Jesus, Paul, science and religion, theological education, women,

People frequently ask Sophia faculty and trustees what we intend to prepare our students to be and do. This entry is the fourth and final installment in answer to that question. With thanks to my faculty colleagues, Drs. Melissa Jackson and Jon Barnes, it continues our statement concerning how Sophia seeks to prepare individuals and a community for having the mind and doing the work of Christ more authentically today.

Intellectual dishonesty – The science vs. faith dichotomy that predominates in much of the church seems to require that one divorce one’s mind from one’s belief. The result is two distinct realms of discourse, two distinct worldviews, or, as Stephen Jay Gould has put it, two “non-overlapping magisteria.” In such a situation, no communication whatsoever can occur across the boundary between faith and reason. The systems produce completely incompatible understandings of the world, of humanity, and of the “criteria for human flourishing.” Looking ahead, then, neither of the two options regarding the relationship between theology and empirical science—denial or divorce—has proven to be healthy or helpful. The former inevitably results in stances such as contemporary climate change denial; the latter forestalls any communication between faith and science in an untenable epistemological dualism. Thomas K. Johnson laments the direction of Christian theology that resulted in a false dichotomy between faith and science and, ultimately, in the diminishment of Christian influence on decision-making in the public square. As he put it, “We theologians disarmed God’s people on the eve of the battle with exclusive secularism, so our people did not know how to address the public square . . . without giving the impression that person or a society must follow Jesus to know the difference between right and wrong.” The problem reaches even deeper than the somewhat arrogant and exclusivist claim that Christian ethics has roots in a sphere of truth inaccessible to non-Christians. Disdain for empirical science subjects Christian ethics to charges that it is esoteric, blindly ideological, and anti-intellectual or at least intellectually dishonest. Christian anti-intellectualism eliminates any possibility of speaking a common language with non-believers. Vibrant faith does not deny reason and experience.

Bad Hermeneutics* – Intellectual dishonesty, in turn, contributes to the ignorance and misunderstanding of the tradition rooted in Scripture that pollutes the thoughts and actions of much of contemporary Christianity. Often, the problem manifests itself in the supposed conflict between biblical faith and modern science. The biblical authors did not have, could not even anticipate, and therefore could not incorporate into their writings, the vast knowledge about the universe revealed to us by modern science. Indeed, the Bible nowhere claims that it reveals the summation of knowledge about the world. This circumstance is not a problem for believers unless they are unwilling to “harmonize” the ancient and the modern, so to speak. The Bible intends to tell the story of God’s relationship with a community of faith, not to teach science. Worldviews change continually as people acquire more information and understanding. The need to harmonize modern and ancient worldviews does not always apply, however. On many questions, especially regarding matters of wisdom, faith, and righteousness (cf. 2 Tim 3:15-16), the worldviews of ancient Israel and the early church stand against modern understandings and practices. The Bible that commissions God’s people to be “light” to the world and that calls for loving others, even Samaritans and those who hate us, as we love ourselves, does not support protectionism, isolationism, or any actions that manifest lack of empathy – personally, communally, or nationally.

Bad hermeneutics fueled by intellectual dishonesty surfaces in hyper-emphases on certain texts, read without regard to cultural contexts, literary contexts, or the empirical evidence that the world surrounds us with. One example involves the patriarchy that functions as a substrate in both Testaments because it characterized the cultures of the world in which Israel and later the Church came into existence. As early as Genesis, however, the Bible undercuts the idea that gender hierarchy conforms to God’s will. God created humankind in God’s image; both male and female reflect God’s likeness (Gen 1:26-27), for example. A range of other texts about prominent women in the Hebrew Bible contribute to a critique of the notion that gender hierarchy represents God’s intention:  Deborah, Jael, Huldah, etc. Good biblical interpretation does not shoehorn the stories of these women into a construct of the “submissive woman.” Arguably the clearest example of a text dangerously misinterpreted through selective emphasis and intellectual dishonesty is 1 Tim 2:8-12:

I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling; also that women should adorn themselves modestly and sensibly in seemly apparel, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly attire but by good deeds, as befits women who profess religion. Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent. (RSV)

Perhaps the first thing one should note in this text involves the fact that the author reports his own position and practice: “I desire,” “I permit” (cf. 1 Cor 7:25-26). He makes no claim to be proclaiming a divine mandate. Second, the text notably expresses as much concern for women’s appearance as it does for their silence. The description of a well-dressed and well-coiffed woman speaking before a group of men calls to mind the hetairai or “courtesans” known in the Hellenistic Mediterranean world. Paul elsewhere expressed concern that Hellenistic converts who came from unsavory backgrounds (“And such were some of you,” 1 Cor 6:11, RSV) take care to distance themselves from their pasts. Notably, those today who emphasize the idea that women should “learn in silence” rarely also decry expensive clothing, fashionable hairstyles, pearl necklaces. Third, 1 Tim 2:8-12 should also be read in the literary context of the entirety of scripture, including and especially Paul’s statement concerning the equality in Christ of Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female (Gal 3:28).

Sophia intends to focus on reading scripture honestly and taking seriously Jesus’ mandate to “love the Lord your God…with all your mind.”

* (Portions of this discussion have been adapted from entries dated to February through April of 2025.)

“Church”: Interrogating a Word

church, reconciliation, theological education, vocation, , , ,

People frequently ask Sophia faculty and trustees what we intend to prepare our students to be and do. In order to answer that question, in part, my faculty colleagues, Drs. Melissa Jackson and Jon Barnes, and I have attempted a rough assessment of the state of affairs prevailing in Western, particularly American, Christianity today. This will be the first in a series of the elements of our analysis. Each will include a statement concerning how Sophia seeks to prepare individuals and a community for having the mind and doing the work of Christ more authentically today.

First, of course, we need clearly to identify the entity/ies for whom we are educating leadership. In so doing, we must interrogate the word “church,” and we must seek clarity regarding the Gospel (“God was in Christ reconciling the world to God’s self”) and regarding the key function of believers in relation to the larger world (“the ministry of reconciliation,” peacemaking).

Because of its associations with denominationalism, with buildings, and with institutions, the continued use of “church” presents difficulties for some of Christ’s followers, including ourselves, who wish, rather, to focus attention on communities of people actively seeking to encourage and assist one another in the ministry of reconciliation. By implication, then, a Sophia education will not aim at preparing its students to fulfill denominational or institutional roles. Its students may certainly choose such a trajectory, but Sophia recognizes that any number of new incarnations of communities of faith, ‘para-church,’ or non-profit settings may be appropriate contexts for “the ministry of reconciliation.”

What term, then, can best serve as an alternative to “church” that can communicate primarily the idea of the gathered community, rather than of the structures that contain it, both physically and systematically, and too often stifle it. Kyriake (oikia), kyriakon doma, “house of the Lord,” used beginning in the third century CE suggests structures;  Hebrew qahal and Greek ekklesia, the origins of words used in Romance languages (eglise, iglesia, etc.), resonate with the idea of a “body convened for a purpose,” but quickly came to focus on institutional entities (as in usages like ‘the Catholic Church,’ ‘the Methodist Church’); German baptists refer to their congregations as Gemeinden “communities/fellowships,” an option that does not imply hierarchical structure or expectations of rigid doctrinal conformity, but that also does not point to any purpose other than togetherness. The recent coinage, the “kindom” of God, or the biblical image of “the body of Christ” may come closer to describing the entity for whom Sophia seeks to prepare servant leaders. A major factor influencing the erratic trajectory of Western Christianity today is a Christendom mindset that sees Western forms of faith as normative. The fact is that there is no normative, universal Christian faith defined as a set of doctrines or system of structures. There is no one way to live a “Christian life.” As Lamin Sannah has noted, the Christian faith is “infinitely translatable” and each manifestation is faith being lived and believed in a local, cultural idiom. This recognition implies something about the need for theological education to be honest about its limitations: it does not involve requiring assent to a set of answers – doctrines – concerning questions of faith, but engagement with the Christian tradition’s efforts at “faith seeking understanding” (Anselm’s definition of theology). Just as Sophia does not understand the body of Christ as a hierarchical human institution, it does not understand Christian faith as a structure of doctrinal statements. Along the lines of Orthodox apophatic theology, Sophia finds wisdom in acknowledging that, no matter how true a statement concerning God may be, it is also profoundly inadequate.

Introducing Sophia Theological Seminary

community, education, environment, ethics, harmony and diversity, inclusivity, little b baptist, ministry, theological education, Uncategorized, wisdom

I am the founding dean of Sophia Theological Seminary.  This blog entry introduces Sophia.

A standard seminary curriculum overly fragments the subject matter into discrete and disjointed specialized disciples, too often leaving students on their own to integrate blocks of knowledge into a coherent and holistic understanding. Social forces undermine traditional community/communities and alienate individuals and communities from vital connections with nature, the land, and the rhythms of creation. Sophia re-imagines theological education to address these concerns through a curriculum emphasizing wisdom over data, a funding scheme stressing self-sufficiency and sustainability, and an ethos accentuating context and cooperation – in God’s good creation, in the world, and as a community.

Sophia Theological Seminary re-imagines the educational program based on the insight that the best theological education integrates the traditional fields of theological study, with one another and with life (of the individual, the community, and the world) and ministry. Consequently, its curriculum will be integrated across disciplines, seminar-based, and focused around specific, “everyday” ministry topics. Sophia recognizes that ministers of the Gospel need to be equipped with data, information, knowledge – in Sophia’s case, the traditional disciplines of theological education – in order to serve well the kindom of God, but it acknowledges further that, in the complicated and confusing modern context, ministers also need the wisdom “from above” to guide them in making their knowledge and skills relevant. Ministers need real community and experience in maintaining it; they need to harmonize with the rhythms of work and rest built into the created order; they need firm connections with the goodness of God’s world so that they can envision what redemption looks like.

Sophia expresses its core sensibilities as follows:

  • being a community of inclusive welcome [which] is foundational to the life, work, and self-understanding of the seminary.
  • theological education [as a] holistic endeavor, with a curriculum that is integrated across disciplines, both ‘classical’ and practical,” and that moves freely between “church” and “academy.”
  • theological education …undertaken with rigor, [with] all members of the community …considered to be learners in need of continued growth and challenge.
  • governance of the community [through] a collaborative partnership amongst all constituencies invested in the life of the seminary, each represented with a full and equal voice.
  • its heritage as little “b” baptist, understanding this heritage as historical, transcending specific denominational confines, [while] equally commit[ting] itself to ecumenical and interfaith work, locally and globally.

One other important aspect of Sophia’s structure addresses the problem of declining denominational economic support for theological education. This circumstance has necessitated that seminaries rely for funding primarily on increased student tuition and the generosity of donors, each with a negative consequence. Students regularly graduate from seminary now with student debt resembling that of law and medical school graduates, but with significantly less prospect for earning enough to repay the debt comfortably. One result is a decline in the numbers of those willing to take the time and incur the debt to earn a theological education. Donors, meanwhile, have begun to tire of seeing their gifts go primarily into the operating budgets of seminaries, rather than into endowments that could sustain the viability of institutions. Consequently, seminaries all over the country and from virtually every denomination are closing or otherwise curtailing their activities. The earnings of Sophia Seminary’s sister institution, Sophia Farms, a 501(c)3 vegetable farm operating with sustainable, responsible farming techniques, will go to fund the operating budget of the seminary. The marketing model addresses carbon footprint issues, embraces ecologically-responsible farming practices, and, through Sophia’s commitment to “tithe” produce directly to local organizations that address food insecurity and nutrition education, responsibility to the community. If you’d like to know more, visit www.sophiasem.org and www.sophiafarms.org.

Three Ways Baylor University Has Failed its Students . . . and the Gospel

imago Dei, interpretation, justice, love, science and religion, theological education, , , , , ,

The church often trails behind. Under pressure from conservatives, Baylor University recently returned a $640,000 grant from the Eula Mae and John Baugh Foundation for a project titled “Courage from the Margins” designed to study how the church can be more welcoming to LGBTQIA+ individuals.  A matter of days later, Dr. Jon Singletary stepped down as Dean of Baylor’s Garland School of Social Work. The timing of these events suggests that conservative pressure may have also influenced Dr. Singletary’s decision. I find these developments troubling in three respects, in particular.

First, from the perspective of higher education, they both constitute an affront to academic freedom and they also call into question the wisdom of Baylor’s leadership. We are no longer in the medieval period, when church and academy were so intertwined that the results of scientific inquiry required the church’s imprimatur. There is no freedom of inquiry if the outcome has been predetermined. In purely practical terms, surely, Baylor’s administration could and should have anticipated the conservative reaction to their initial decision to accept the grant. As it is, they have brought trouble upon themselves, including the appearance of insincerity.

Second, from the perspective of faithfulness to the way of Jesus, ironically, by repudiating the project that set out to study how the church can be more welcoming – more hospitable – and by apparently pressuring Dr. Singletary, Baylor’s leadership acted contrary to the Gospel’s call to love one’s neighbor. The whole affair reminds me that institutional structures seem unable or unsuited to being Christian. Almost invariably, they seek to sustain themselves at the expense of individuals. They inevitably find it expedient to sacrifice individuals to preserve the corporate entity.

Finally, the opposition to “Courage from the Margins” rests on an inadequate and dangerous hermeneutic that selectively absolutizes scriptural texts (Lev 18:22 and 20:13, but not Lev 11:1-8 or 19:33-34), that fails to comprehend the dynamic movement toward inclusion evident within Scripture (cf. Deut 23:1 with Isa 56:3-5 and Acts 8:26-40), and that misapprehends or willfully ignores the testimony of modern science (all truth points to God). This is perhaps the most troubling aspect of Baylor’s actions. The Bible can be very dangerous and destructive when its interpreters misuse and misconstrue it, stumbling over the letter and thereby missing the spirit of liberation that breathes through it.

Too often in the history of the human struggle for justice, the church has trailed behind. In 1688, Quakers issued the “Germantown Petition” calling for the end of slavery only 69 years after the first enslaved people were brought to the colonies, but the rest of the church…. As Rev. Lauren Ng of the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists has reminded us, “The Gospel calls us to radical love and justice.”

“Study to show yourself approved unto God…” (2 Tim 2:15)

church, education, theological education

Evidence suggests that two impulses deeply rooted in my religious tradition have recently resurfaced in not-so-subtle disguises to the potential detriment of the church:  ministerial servitude and anti-intellectualism.  By the former, I mean the constellation of behaviors that churches manifest toward their ministers and that reveal an underlying confusion

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