Click through to read the whole thing<\/a>, if you\u2019re so inclined.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I spoke recently with a reporter from the local paper\u00a0The Indianapolis Recorder about pastoral qualifications. The article that resulted has now appeared, and I am quoted quite a bit in it, saying things like this: Those who say the Bible is important to them, very often don\u2019t actually read the things that scholars within their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,131],"tags":[5131,7488,8088,8779,9512,9814,10059],"class_list":["post-13198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-christianity-religion","tag-indianapolis","tag-ministers","tag-newspaper","tag-pastors","tag-priests","tag-qualifications","tag-recorder"],"yoast_head":"\n
Pastors and Education<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I spoke recently with a reporter from the local paper\u00a0The Indianapolis Recorder about pastoral qualifications. The article that resulted has now appeared,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/03\/pastors-and-education.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pastors and Education\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I spoke recently with a reporter from the local paper\u00a0The Indianapolis Recorder about pastoral qualifications. 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BD University of London, PhD Durham University. Author of John's Apologetic Christology, The Only True God, Theology and Science Fiction, and The Burial of Jesus, as well as (with Charles Haberl of Rutgers University) the two-volume Mandaean Book of John critical edition, translation, and commentary. Also author of numerous articles (and a few science fiction short stories) and the editor or co-editor of several volumes.","sameAs":["https:\/\/amzn.to\/3Ge8ul5","http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/religionprof\/","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/jamesfmcgrath\/","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/jfmcgrat\/","https:\/\/twitter.com\/ReligionProf","http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/religionprof","https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/religionprof","https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/James_F._McGrath"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/author\/james-f-mcgrath"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/136"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13198\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Those who say the Bible is important to them, very often don\u2019t actually read the things that scholars within their own denomination have written about the Bible. We cultivate in many of our churches a strong instinct to respond with \u2018amen,\u2019 oftentimes because we have been moved by what has been said. Those two don\u2019t have to be at odds with one another. You can allow yourself to be inspired, but also practice critical thinking, caution and discernment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n