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Good things from Bible classes? WHAT?
10/09/03
Good things from Bible classes? WHAT?
Okay, so, on the note of my heretical and blasphemous Bible class that I am required to take for school - Despite the fact that I should have long fulfilled the "Biblical Studies" class requirement by my three years of Theology College, I have to take a Bible class here at Riv. My first reaction at being told this by my advisor was mild disbelief. I was all, "Hel-lo guys, I'm a nursing major!" Then there was that steeled attitude I get for all of a week until reality kicks in and I buckle a bit. I was ready for this, I decided, and hey, maybe learning Catholic theology wasn't so bad from an education perspective. I mean, I always knew I wasn't going to agree with everything I heard in college, I just figured that formal theology in and of itself wouldn't be one of those arguable things. When I finally got to the class, though, I really was disappointed, because there was (and hasn't been since) even any semblance of actual doctrine taught in the class.
It's all about God. How we FEEL about Him. How He's good to apply to our lives in SOME instances. How maybe He's holy, but maybe He isn't even REAL. Maybe he's the chiefest God among MANY. How the Bible isn't really true, it's mostly myth and ORAL TRADITIONS.
My mind spins. I've been prepared for a lot of things in life. I haven't been sheltered from people who didn't agree with what I believe. I understand that a whole lot of people believe the Bible is bunk, and I don't have a problem telling people what I believe. But this? Taking the Bible as an influential book and talking about its beauty and importance but stopping short at "it's holy?" I am really having a hard time with that. I know a lot of people who believe the Bible is a good book, but I don't think I've ever met, face to face, a woman who has spent 9+ years in school studying it and has no feelings about it beyond, "Look at this beautiful book of myth?" And why study it at all? Why require me to take a class on a book that is only influential? Why not study War and Peace? Or Mein Kamph? Or The Communist Manifesto? Or the Federalist Papers? All were influential - why am I not taking a class on these? I'm frustrated at being made to write insipid papers that I can't become even marginally interested in. I don't want to sound like a complete and total know-it-all-snob, but immediately prior to taking this class, I was writing exegetical papers, citing Greek from the text, and studying actual doctrine. To be writing one- to two-page papers about how I feel about the story of the Exodus completely paralyzes all the skills I loved learning and using in Bible College and cuts off every last line of creativity I can squander up in me. In short, I have become queen of BSing through my BS(that's "Biblical Studies") papers. I realize that I'll probably have to mickey-mouse my way through many a paper in school, but I never thought it would be quite to this extent or that it would be so much of the professors fault. On the other hand, I really grieve for her. She has all this knowledge, but no idea how she should really use it. It's the whole "knowledge puffeth up" thing. She stands in front of class, so excited about teaching us all the Bible, smiling, and encouraging these kids who have probably never cracked a Bible in their life to read whole passages at a time.. And yet, she's speaking lies. Blasphemy. She is a deceiver. I have so much pity for her but at the same time I am so disgusted with the thought of her life's profits to yield to the Lord at the end of her life. What will she say to Him? "I have told many thousands of kids about you who have never heard of you before.. but then I told them you don't really matter aside from a passing social interest and application of 'good living' principles."
I love school, I love the atmosphere of learning and growing, I really do. I love being able to be an example of Christ, though it terrifies me to think that I am because I know that I'm not what an example of Christ should be. I don't worry that now that I am in a secular school that I will let loose and be everything I shouldn't. I don't do drugs, I don't party, I don't have sex, I don't participate in hazings, and I don't destroy school property. I don't even bring drinks into the "no drinks" section of the library, guys. I'm a goody-goody, but that's not the point. I'm not worried that I'll lose it and not act like a Christian should act (however THAT is), but it's daunting. From my perspective, I am the only Christian on campus right now. I know there are others and that maybe soon I'll meet them, but as far as I know, right now, I am alone. Alone feels like... loneliness. I have friends, I know people, I have people to talk to, but my heart is aching for someone who understands me and who I can talk about Jesus with. I am at school five days a week and when I'm not at school I'm at work, and I miss friends who love the LORD.
Don't get me wrong, and don't misunderstand. This isn't a plea for pity. I just miss my family, my best friends, who are overwhelmed by my grandmother right now and who I don't get to talk to as much as I would like. I miss my friends, Sar, Handzel, Stine, James, Mark, all the NSTM kids, Kate, Heidi, and on and on, who I rarely see or talk to anymore. I'm praying for strength in all aspects in which I know I am lacking, even if I don't feel like I'm lacking them. I can walk through days and weeks and not feel discouragement about my Yia, or about the time I don't get to spend with my Lord during the day because of busyness, or not hearing from friends. I don't walk around in a funk of depression and loneliness because I have no choice but to get up and enjoy what I learn in school and live each day out to the best that I can, but still, underneath it all, I know it's there, and I know that I'm tired already. Things pile up in my family nowadays, and I come home from my day to find my family suffocating under a pile of things that nobody else could see if they came to visit or talked to us. I can't do anything or say anything to make things better. A lot of people from my church try to say things to encourage us and they try to fill a need that they see. They don't know what to say, so they say the silliest things to try to encourage us. They shoot out Bible verses, relate their own life experiences, tell us about an inspirational song they heard recently, and the truth is, I think most of us are just tired of all the inspiration. At least I am. I want to buck up and pray, read the Word, be inspired by the Lord, and only He is the one who can give that to me right now. I feel discouraged from going to church. Doesn't that make me such a heathen? But I yearn for a part in the body, but I feel as if I can't contribute my part into the body of believers right now. I feel selfish, selfish, selfish, focusing on me, me, me, and the more I dwell on myself, the more unhappy I am with me. I used to be always the one who was the encourager, who most of the time knew the right thing to say. That part of me is on the backburner to myself right now, and though some people tell me that's okay, it's not easy. I want to focus on someone else for a while. That's why I need the Lord. And He is so encouraging. In the midst of whatever else, He is just there. He is the I AM. While all the other gods worshipped by the heathens in the Bible had human names that were constraining, my God was called, simply, "I AM WHAT I AM," or "I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE," or "I WAS WHAT I WAS." He is self-contained, yet not. In the Bible, names meant a lot. Those who were named a name with meaning (and they all had meaning) lived up to the meanings, or grew into them. They became the personification of the name. The gods all have names that describe them and restrain their personalities and lifestyles. But my God, He doesn't have a name, per-se. He just is what He is. He can't be bound or constrained by a mere moniker, because He is not a God who can be bound. He is called Lord and God only because we can't pronounce or ascribe an understandable name to Him. "Lord" and "God" are, it seems, only titles or pronouns to replace the characteristically-focused name of his that we are unable to comprehend, and thus, we are not able to speak.
I love that.
13 comments
Wow. First poster. I'm honored. I'm prayin' for you, Cass. Stick it out like a Good Greek Girl. :-D Praying that you will find a Christian friend at Riv :) cass, you have no idea how much i sympathise for you. i'm taking a world religions course taught by a jesuit priest - someone who, in theory, has given up everything for the sake of a now-impotent 'gospel'. and just to let you know, your staunch appreciation of good theology - and critique of bad theology - is truly an amazing example of how i ought to be thinking, and rationalising. too often i find myself probing as they are probing. thinking as they are thinking.
i'm praying for you. and believe me when i say i totally know what you're going through.
pray for me, too. Thank you. I enjoy a good sympathetic and understanding mind, John. :D There's always going to be the draw to probe the fringe thought around Christianity - "What if we take THIS verse THIS way.. then, you'll see that it's like THIS actually..." - and that doesn't mean you can't ask why they think that way, but realize that they are in darkness, and I would encourage you not to forget your roots. I know I have to tell myself that a lot. It sounds like one of those things that everyone says in Christianity, but I really want to learn how to hate sin. Sure, I know it's wrong, and it's bad and all that, but do I hate it? No. And so sticking to good theology is the first step, I hope. :)
Beneath all the talk of what we should and could do, I've definitely got to concur and say that it's more tough than I ever realized. It's hard to deal with people who have half the truth, because they think they've heard it all already (and maybe they have). Just stick to your guns, and I'll try to stick to mine.
And, yeah, I'll definitely be praying, and thanks. :) This whole "titled john" thing makes things so muche asier around here. :)
Well, no, John. This Biblical Themes 280 class is the only "religious" class I'm required to take (as far as I know), and the prof is barely covering Catholicism's history, let alone the Protestant Reformation. Maybe I should ask her about it, though, to see if she has anything interesting to say. On the other hand, I'm not even sure she's Catholic. She certainly doesn't line up with the pope, so i'm not quite sure what she classifies herself as to begin with.
Revisionist, eh? hee. I'll bet THAT's a fun class. This is totally off topic, Cassie, but have any of your classes covered the history of the Protestant Reformation? Because one of my profs, whom I think is Catholic, has made some slightly, ahem, revisionist statements about it in class. It's not even a theology ("Religious Studies" here) class, ironically: it's "Victorian Literature and Culture." But since a lot of the works deal with theological themes and because Christianity was splintering in Victorian England, the issues come up. The other day, for instance, we learned that "the God of the Old Testament [as seen in ONE snippet of Isaiah] was malevolent, but somehow he changed to a loving God in the New Testament." WOWIE! That's exactly what WE learned about God in the New and Old Testaments in THIS class!
Hey, I mean, Literature.. hrmm... that actually sounds like it might be interesting to take a class on, however, sometimes I wish that the professors would stick to their own fortes and not try to wander into the realms which they really shouldn't be commenting on (i.e. theology). Besides the botched theology, though, how are you liking the rest of the class, John? The subject matter is tolerable enough, but the prof has the annoying habit of assuming that none of us ever learned how to write a paper in high school. So she tends to waste a lot of time covering composition instead of actual literature. That's funny, especially since you aren't in your first year of school or anything. I know here EVERY prof is making it out like nobody has ever before written a paper/studied for a test, but they always preface discussions on the subject with, "Since you guys are freshman..." (which I'm not). I'm hoping this is only freshmanitis on their part. Hmph. We had our VL midterm today, and the prof didn't ask ONE question about how to write a thesis or why the passive voice is to be avoided. And I studied so hard. :P 
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