Christianity is Changing
One of two things prohibits the average Christian from engaging in intelligent rational discourse: laziness and/or an inability to resource themselves.
Some Christians, pastors and ministry figures are downright lazy. How much easier is it to treat the Bible like a Ouija board where one can confuse one’s own internal voices with divinity. How much easier is it to say people should stay away from “the opinions of man [sic]”, to claim to have God alone as a teacher than to actually learn how to study and teach others how to study. I have found it all too true that lazy Christians are often the loudest anti-intellectuals. They would rather play their X-Box, watch TV, play golf, or do anything else that does not stretch their thinking ability and capacity. Give them a book and they freak out.
Then there are those that would love to read but they listen and hear 10,000 voices all clamoring to be heard, and wonder, where does one start? Most people in this category have full time jobs, families and lives and so cannot live the hermit existence of a bookworm, but would love to engage real authentic researched reading material even if just for ten minutes a day. These are the people I most admire.
In order to become capable of having an intelligent conversation you can in the course of a few years learn how to teach yourself (that is, to be an auto-didact). I am mostly self-taught, my best friend and theological conversation partner Jonathan is 99% self-taught. One does not need to go to college, university or seminary, or get a PhD in order to be able to engage all of the fine thinking available globally via Amazon or the Internet.
If you wish to become an auto-didact here are five simple things you can do:
1. Resource Yourself
2. Read
3. Reflect
4. Risk
5. Repeat
1. Resource Yourself: Find yourself a teacher and I don’t mean an indoctrinator, I mean someone who can teach you HOW to think, not WHAT to think. Too many Christian teachers are just indoctrinators, filling people’s heads with silly nonsense. A real teacher is more interested in helping a student learn how to discern, discriminate and evaluate truth claims, evidence and arguments. Another part of resourcing yourself is to learn how to study/research a topic. I advise my ‘students’ to 1) begin with an Introduction to a topic (e.g., Introduction to the New Testament), 2) determine a field of interest (e.g., Paul and his letters), 3) read an up-to-date “research history” of that topic (e.g., a book that examines the various shifts, thinkers and new discoveries in Pauline studies) and then 4) narrow down their interest to a specific topic or text. By that time one will be familiar with the ‘names’ of the scholars writing on the subject and can then purchase or download reference works.
One can take online classes if one chooses. Not the cheesy “schools” offered by so many ministries but real Uni, College or Seminary classes. If you live near a major city you can always go audit classes fairly inexpensively (and you have no paper to write or exam to take!).
Sometimes I am sked how I came to know so many great scholars. I read their books and then I called them on them on the phone or e-mailed them with a question(s). Teachers love to teach. I have a FB friend who read Douglas Campbell’s The Deliverance of God and has struck up a very fruitful e-mail exchange with him.
If there is an academic conference near you attend it. I went to my first AAR/SBL meeting as a very green Bible College student in 1981. Most of what was said went over my head. However, I came away with many nuggets and a passion for learning more. Twelve years later I was presenting a paper at that Conference!
2. Read. Yes, you must read. Lots. There is a lot of information out there on any given topic. Tons of it. I am not talking the cheap devotional shit either. Pick a topic, biblical or theological, and I could name you an easy ten books to read on that topic. So, yes, you will doing lots of reading. In addition to reading there is a plethora of video available on the Internet by critically acclaimed scholars (and not everybody with a PhD is valid; there are too many who ‘have a PhD’ from a mill, not an accredited school, beware of these folks).
Read in small chunks. Read slowly, even out loud if you must (or can). If material if new to me, I read it out loud to myself quietly, knowing that by engaging not just my eyes but also my mouth, I am giving my brain a chance to embed the material deeper in neural pathways.
3. Reflect. Don’t try to read ten pages if your brain can only handle one. Many books I read are above my ‘pay grade’ and in disciplines I am unfamiliar with. I take these books very slow, learning new concepts and terminology. Better to read one page and comprehend it well than ten pages leaving your brain feel like it is on theological crystal meth. Take time to reflect and ponder. If you can, talk about what you are reading about with someone.
4. Risk. At some point you will make a decision to take a position in a field of inquiry. So, e.g., did Paul write Ephesians? You may decide yes or you may decide no, but you will be familiar with the arguments for both sides and can give a rational account of why you have made the decision the way you have made it. Every decision is a risk. And that’s OK. You can always change your mind. There is no valor in clinging to a position when all the evidence is contrary to it!
5. Repeat. Repeat what you have learned by teaching it to another. You are not an expert yet, so don’t pretend to be one. Just share what you are learning. If you don’t know something don’t pretend to know it. Be comfortable with what you know and what you don’t know. Learning is not about the right answers but the right questions.
If you do these five things, over time you will discover that you are adding material and knowledge to the wealth of information you have studied. And then you will be like the scribe who brings out of her/his warehouse both things old and new.
Live. Love. Learn. Laugh.
You will never regret it.
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