So Far, So Good

My first week of theological school/seminary/whatever you want to call it is on the downslope! And, I’m still alive! So far, so good, indeed.

Cue the Monty Python and the Holy Grail “Intermission” Music…
NOTE: Just looking at my visitor stats, it seems like I get quite a readership bump when I link my posts on Facebook. So, I’m going to make a habit of that.
…and now, back to your irregularly scheduled blog post!

It’s a Wednesday afternoon, which means for the first time in my week I have time to breathe. My course load is heavily weighted toward the beginning of the week, with seven hours of class (beginning at 8:00 a.m. and ending at 9:00 p.m.) on Mondays, three on Tuesdays, and the final three spread out over the final three weekday mornings.

Classes this semester are Greek I (ἀπόστολος!!!), Theological Ethics, Old Testament Literature and History I, and History of the Christian Church. Each class will present its own unique challenges…

Greek: I took three years of Spanish in high school, which produced in my brain just a mix of Spanglish and silly phrases… ¡Tengo un gato en mis pantalones!
Theological Ethics: This class is on the 7000 level, and I am the only first-year in the class. I get the sense that I’m not supposed to be there, but I actually like it a lot so far.
Old Testament: So… many… maps…
History of the Christian Church: I thought this class would cover fairly broadly the development of the church from the many individual (and later, identified as heretical) sects of Jewish Jesus-followers to now, but judging by the syllabus and the required texts, we’re mostly covering 1800-present (Pentecostal movement, black churches, religious right, etc.). Not that that’s bad, but it’s unexpected. I hope I’m not getting shortchanged!

My mascot is the Raven. I get the Biblical connection, but we'd be much more cool and unique if we were the Talking Donkeys...

In addition to the classes, I now all of the sudden have access to a great resource – a fully-functional gym and wellness center. So I’m forcing myself to workout every weekday. As the blog post is titled, so far, so good (besides the soreness)… but I suppose we will see how long that lasts.

I do have a nifty little Twitter application on the right side of my blog, so you’ll be able to see what I’m tweeting about even if I don’t have the 25 minutes or so to crunch out a new blog post. This morning, my friend (and member of Rob Bell’s church!) Mike Lamson tweeted an opinion piece regarding the Glenn Beck pseudo-rally in Washington, D.C., that I found particularly edifying. I tweeted the concluding sentence from that post, but here it is in its entirety (note, I have not heard of the author before):

God, the Gospel, and Glenn Beck by Russell D. Moore of Moore to the Point

Anyway, tomorrow I have a quiz over the Greek alphabet. Time to go connect the symbols to the letter names! Thanks for reading, friends.

New Beginnings

Tonight’s post will be a quick one, as I had an exciting but fulfilling day!

It was the first day of orientation for my Master’s program at Anderson University. See above for some student ID card hilarity, but at least it’s better than my strung-out-high looking Eminem wannabe ID card that I carried around at Miami!

Anyhow, I met several of the wise professors and dedicated staff members in the School of Theology today, along with many of my fellow new students. The whole time, I felt encouraged that this is the place I should be. The next two years or so will be an important and formative time in my theological life, and I am excited to be with such a seemingly genuine group of people.

Tomorrow is the second of three days of orientation. Looking forward to it!

A Weekend In Literature

This Saturday, my wife and I awoke to three large mounds of laundry, and her weekend master’s classes meant that I was the lucky one to head to the laundromat. In doing so I wanted to revisit one of my favorite passages in Brian D. McLaren’s recent work of genius, A New Kind of Christianity. You see, I’d heard a lot of preaching lately on “the way and the truth and the life,” attributed to Jesus in John 14:6, and I remembered that McLaren rebuffed folks who read the passage as an eschatological and evangelical golden ticket for Christians. If you have the book, dive your nose in pages 215-224; if you don’t have it, get it tomorrow. You may not agree with the totality of the book, and even I don’t, but you will be inspired.

For our wedding, one of Lauren’s friends got us a gift card to Barnes & Noble, which we split last night. She bought some curriculum-related thing for her first grade classroom, and I got Jesus, Interrupted by Bart D. Ehrman. A little bit of backstory here: I first heard of Ehrman about three months ago when in the library I stumbled upon a book that took issue with his 2005 work Misquoting Jesus. I checked it out, but returned it soon after. It wasn’t well written, despite the references to John Lennon and The Beatles, and it read completely like a contrived defense against some heinous madman think-tank scholar. To my surprise, Ehrman also popped up recently in a History Channel documentary I was watching, where his credibility was obvious. Sure, he said radical things, but I think radical things myself… oh well. Long story short, I bought his book Saturday night.

After church and youth group today, and after completing Day 27 of my 30-day trip through the four gospels, I started reading out of Jesus, Interrupted. I’m one chapter in, and the story is a story that needs to be told. The Bible has errors, many small but several that are significant. It’s not the perfect, God-breathed story that is preserved for us without flaw. And that’s okay.

When I first realized this at Miami University around the spring of 2006, my eyes were opened. I was set on a course for academic Biblical scholarship, a reality that will finally come true next week at Anderson University. I plan to discuss my theological goals, wishes, etc. in a later post, however. For now, back to Ehrman.

He writes that too many people are stuck in a devotional reading of the Bible, trying to glean some measure of wisdom appropriate for application to their lives. This is positive, fruitful and necessary, I believe. But churchgoers are largely oblivious to the realm of historical-critical Biblical analysis. Yes, it’s out there and can be found if they want it, but well-meaning pastors also shield them from it. As if people can’t handle the supposed can of worms it might open if there are any inconsistencies with the texts, or if the Exodus is called into question… and so on.

Tomorrow is a new day and I plan to post more about my goals at Anderson, my reasons for going to seminary, ideas for practical application of my postgraduate education, and the like. And I should get to a biographical page, as well. For tonight, thanks for reading!