Friday 4 March 2011

Biola - fighting or fomenting Biblical Illiteracy?

Biola University's Talbot School of Theology has set out to bring biblical literacy to the masses with something called The Good Book Blog. In fact they're promoting it as "free education to the public." The Christian Post has an article that fairly gushes at the news.
"At a time when biblical literacy is at an all time low and there are so many muddled, uninformed views of the Bible, something like The Good Book Blog is such a breath of fresh air," said author of Hipster Christianity and blogger Brett McCracken.
Hipster Christianity???

What then should we expect?
Ken Berding, associate professor of Biblical and Theological Studies, recently wrote a brief post warning Christians about the significant risk when they bow for prayer but don't actually pray.
Uh, this is "free education to the public"?

Gotta be honest, the stuff appearing at this moment in time looks like homiletic and devotional slush. But judge for yourself.
McCracken applauded the project, commenting, "For a seminary to take its vast academic resources and put it online for the world's benefit is not only to be lauded, but it's to be modeled. More schools should be doing things like this."
It might be worth joining in the applause if Biola's "theologians" were doing something with greater substance than this. But this is, after all, a place where you can get an MA in apologetics.

Vast academic resources? Where, where?

2 comments:

  1. Biola... sounds like a non dairy butter substitue, doesn't it?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, "homiletic and devotional slush" sums it up pretty well, Gavin.

    The Good Book blog has all the substance of a particularly acute case of dysentery.

    No wonder non-Christian people interested in the Bible tend to consult quack populist theories before they even think of consulting so-called academic theologians.

    ReplyDelete