Thing is, I’m not raising that banner against Biblical Scholarship. Mind you, I’m capitalizing Biblical Scholarship for the purpose of specifying a category of people who are raising the concerns about Anti-Intellectualism in Evangelical circles. This doesn’t mean that the category Biblical Scholarship is merely confined to academia nor does it mean that Anti-Intellectualism is something happening only in churches. In fact, I use the term to mean the Group That Is Most Qualified To Raise The Concern And Has Done So. In my last post I called this group “Anti-‘Anti-Intellectualism”-ists but that title is way too bulky and apparently no one got it. I did have a quibble with the term Anti-Intellectualism since the mindset seems to be more anti-scholarship but that’s a minor quibble.

A personal concern of mine is that Anti-Intellectualism is also occurring in the universities and perhaps even the seminaries. As I’ve grown older, I’ve looked back at my schooling with some sadness that I never got a chance to get Biblical training. I sort of envy the folk who do get that opportunity and I get pretty shaken when they don’t take advantage of that and go all the way. You can only teach yourself a small amount of Greek when you have a toddler pulling at your pant-legs and a baby screaming in the background. That opportunity and access to that education is invaluable and if you get the chance at it, jump for it.

Unfortunately, I know a bit too many people who have gone to get Biblical training but they don’t maximize their education and then walk around deriding higher-learning of the original languages. Horrendous. In fact, some time ago I remember seeing some letter on Dallas’ Seminary site regarding anti-intellectualism in campus and that’s a sad sad thing.

So when I wrote that post I wasn’t defending evangelical anti-intellectualism. In fact, I was trying to paint a picture of how it likely arose and some of the misconceptions that may be found in the practice. I then purposefully highlighted examples of information leak and showed how Biblical Scholarship is not like those things. I then went to Biblical Scholarship’s counterpoint and underscored the illustration and analogies they use and that’s where I had a problem. The problem was that the group uses these analogies with secular and natural professions to justify their profession—but they don’t need those weak analogies as a defense. The problem with the analogies is that the fields they cite are influenced by a great many external variables whereas theological scholarship is affected by a celestial variable and even a supernatural event in the heart of theologian. It’s a concern because there are unbelievers who view theological scholarship as just another career choice when, in reality, it isn’t.

Now at the close of my post I asked some questions that some took as being argumentative. The questions were honest and not exasperated rhetoric. I wanted to know what Biblical Scholarship would like to see panning out in the evangelical circles that would get rid of Anti-Intellectualism. Is there an offered solution? It wasn’t a challenge or a thrown gauntlet it was an invitation to dialogue. Mike had a great post that highlighted his concerns and it proved very helpful as well.

I hope this makes sense to you all and if you need some more clarification let me know. Ignore the typos because I posted this in haste after seeing some concerns by my brother in Christ. If I offended any of you, I deeply and truly apologize.

-r-

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