Best Friends
Saturday, January 9th, 2010
There is one thing I never understood about Baptist theologians. With Ph.D.’s in theology, they claim that Jesus is their best friend. How can you be best friends with someone you have to have a Ph.D. to understand?
I found it rather confusing because person A believed a certain passage asserted a particular cultural value or what have you to justify his beliefs, while person B did the same thing, but in a contradictory way. I guess I just don’t understand why reading the Bible should be so complicated, that’s all. If fully understanding the message of God depends on doctoral level classes explaining language and culture, doesn’t that kind of diminish the message? A question I’ve had for years, but never really got answered. I’ve asked a couple of theology students, and got a couple of answers that skirted the question.
Most people I asked don’t like this question because of the implications of the answers. That God isn’t really our best friend may be fine with some of the more liberal denominations, but not the conservative ones I asked. That you don’t really need a Ph.D. to understand the Bible is also not very popular among the educated ministers, because then it means both that they have wasted their time and money, and that the points of view of people like Steven Anderson would have to be taken more seriously, because he is just as likely to have the truth as anyone else. In fact, the only ministers who seem to think you don’t need ministry classes are the ministers who don’t have them. But what does that say about the rest of the populace who don’t have time, money, or energy to take the same classes? What does it say about a personal God? Not much.
Tags: Bible classes, Jesus is my best friend, ministry, theology, understanding God
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January 9th, 2010 at 4:34 pm
Dan Dennett answers this question is his latest AAI talk ‘The evolution of Confusion’. Basically people learn by example how to answer questions about theology in a way that doesn’t lead to further questions.
January 9th, 2010 at 5:08 pm
owww, that Steven Anderson, he is good-looking but Very Scary. Yuck
January 9th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
I don’t think you have to have a degree to understand the Bible. The education could be helpful, but are they learning or memorizing someone else’s thoughts about it?
January 9th, 2010 at 6:00 pm
I thank God that we live in a time when Christ allows us to go to school and earn a PhD to understand what it is that He was saying.
I just wanted to say it before zdenny did.
January 9th, 2010 at 6:58 pm
I’ve been thinking along these lines too lately. When I hear one person say this verse means this, but another person says this other verse means the opposite, I think why couldn’t god have just written it more clearly, it’s almost like he wants his followers down here quibbling with each other.
January 9th, 2010 at 7:33 pm
And people wonder why I don’t attend church!!!
January 9th, 2010 at 10:18 pm
I think the simplicity of Christianity is found in the love of God which is known through faith in Jesus Christ. When a person has faith, they begin to grow in their knowledge of His love and become a blessing to the world.
People with PHD’s are really just apologists who have spent a lot of time thinking about what the critics have to say about Christianity. I don’t believe most Christians read the critics and I don’t blame them. Most in life are trying to raise kids, stay employeed and the like. A degree though demonstrates that a person has spent time interacting with sources that are critical of their faith and have had time to formulate answers in order to respond to those who ridicule, mock and even hate the name of Jesus.
In order to provide wise leadership, a leader has to be aware of the arguments so that they can provide wise leadership. A degree provides proof that a person has interacted in some way on an intellectual level with sources that are contrary to teachings of Jesus Christ and knows how to answer the critics.
God Bless…
January 9th, 2010 at 10:33 pm
Ack! Steve Anderson! I used to lurk (and rarely post) in the Fighting Fundamental Forums and even IFB’s can’t stand him. (I thought it would be good to be reminded where I came from. I don’t recommend it – even to mock. I had to delete the link from my favorites because it made my heart hurt.) By the way, I found your blog, circuitously, from Television without Pity and have spent many hours at work not working, so as to catch up. Sooo many of your stories and insights resonate with me. I too was once born again (I know I was, as you know you were) and now am an atheist. Reality is awesome.
January 9th, 2010 at 10:41 pm
[...] Redheaded Skeptic just wrote about “Best Friends?” where she asks an important question: Why do certain conservative Christians have this idea that [...]
January 10th, 2010 at 7:19 am
No, Really the funny thing is that they are spending immense sums of money studying an imaginary being and deluding themselves to be “best friends” with this imaginary being, complete with imaginary conversations too!
January 11th, 2010 at 2:18 pm
People get PHDs in such subjects are really just majoring in History and Culture.
If they think they’ve found their best friend in their course of study they need to lay off the no-doze and RedBull.
Everyone has to rationalize their reason of existence. Except for me. There is no reason for me to be here, (but I’m glad I am!) and when I look at images of the universe I see no reason for the Earth to be here either, but we are so why not enjoy our time here instead of fighting about who’s right and who’s wrong.
Obviously, we all know that I’m right
January 14th, 2010 at 3:10 am
I grew up Catholic and I really couldn’t get my head around the fact that an all-knowing, all-loving, and all-powerful god could pull such a “gotcha!” as the Bible. Instead of speaking directly to us, which he was clearly capable of, he “inspires” some scribes writing in an obscure language, which is mistranslated and poorly distributed*, and if you don’t follow the (obscure and conflicting) instructions, you get sent to hell for eternity. Gee, thanks bunches!
Just seems … I dunno .. evil.
*-I had never heard of Wyclef Bible Translators… they’re major fundies and I was Catholic, after all.