{"id":31603,"date":"2015-09-01T09:50:07","date_gmt":"2015-09-01T13:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/?p=31603"},"modified":"2015-09-01T09:50:07","modified_gmt":"2015-09-01T13:50:07","slug":"how-to-get-the-least-possible-out-of-university-religion-classes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2015\/09\/how-to-get-the-least-possible-out-of-university-religion-classes.html","title":{"rendered":"How To Get The Least Possible Out Of University Religion Classes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

<\/iframe>\n<\/p><a href=\"http:\/\/michaeljkruger.com\/how-to-survive-a-university-religion-class\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Michael Kruger<\/a> has made a video which describes\u00a0his own experience of having\u00a0taken classes with Bart Ehrman, who he depicts as attacking Christianity. He\u00a0complains that youth groups do not prepare student intellectually for their experience at university. That is true \u2013 but what Kruger seems to want is not intellectual and academic preparation, but inoculation that will prevent students from learning new things at university. He seems not to realize that it is the inaccurate depictions of the Bible, Christian history, and other religions in fundamentalist Christian contexts which sets up students to lose their faith when they are confronted with\u00a0more accurate information and other perspectives\u00a0at university.<\/p>\nInstead, he encourages fundamentalist university students to assume that\u00a0the perspectives offered by professors are not different from that of fundamentalist students because the professors know more about these subjects, but rather they supposedly differ because God has not opened the minds of these professors. That is insulting to the many Christian\u00a0professors\u00a0who disagree with Kruger\u2019s narrow dogmatic stance on the basis of the evidence in the Bible itself, and who are convinced that they are not being unfaithful to God in being honest about these things. And it ignores the possibility that Kruger\u2019s own narrow and unbiblical stance is itself due to God not having opened his mind.<\/p>\nKruger\u00a0emphasizes that scholars are not neutral \u2013 but doesn\u2019t seem to realize that this applies to his fundamentalist biases, which are far more problematic than the secular ones he decries.<\/p>\nHe also\u00a0says something that fits no\u00a0scholarly book or classroom I have encountered, namely that secular scholars present issues which have long been known about as though they are a new discovery. Perhaps he means that\u00a0students from a fundamentalist background will hear them for the first time in this context \u2013 but that issue is with the selective teaching about the Bible they have received, and not with professors.<\/p>\nKruger\u00a0rightly says that the painful experience of being challenged leads to growth and depth. But he pretends that the ancient apologists merely preserved and did not change the faith they inherited as they had this experience.<\/p>\nAnd so, if you want to be well prepared for university and avoid losing your faith there, while learning and getting as much as you can out of your studies there, I think there is a good solution: get out of fundamentalism sooner rather than later, and don\u2019t trade it for\u00a0purely individual exploration, but find a community of people who share your faith heritage but who, unlike fundamentalists, will not hide awkward truths about the Bible from you.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Kruger has made a video which describes\u00a0his own experience of having\u00a0taken classes with Bart Ehrman, who he depicts as attacking Christianity. He\u00a0complains that youth groups do not prepare student intellectually for their experience at university. That is true \u2013 but what Kruger seems to want is not intellectual and academic preparation, but inoculation that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":31604,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,139],"tags":[1024,1930,2970,3203,3678,7360,11009,11988,13175,14023],"class_list":["post-31603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-fundamentalism-religion","tag-bart-ehrman","tag-classroom","tag-education","tag-evangelicals","tag-fundamentalists","tag-michael-j-kruger","tag-secular","tag-students","tag-university","tag-youth"],"yoast_head":"\n<title>How To Get The Least Possible Out Of University Religion Classes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Michael Kruger has made a video which describes\u00a0his own experience of having\u00a0taken classes with Bart Ehrman, who he depicts as attacking Christianity.\" \/>\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\/2015\/09\/how-to-get-the-least-possible-out-of-university-religion-classes.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How To Get The Least Possible Out Of University Religion Classes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Michael Kruger has made a video which describes\u00a0his own experience of having\u00a0taken classes with Bart Ehrman, who he depicts as attacking Christianity.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2015\/09\/how-to-get-the-least-possible-out-of-university-religion-classes.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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