I’ve recently met a new member of my church whose job confronts him with some situations of which I am gratefully ignorant. It is, I’m sure, the kind of job that would do a number on anybody’s faith, and this person has admitted as much to me.
Last night he told me that being a part of our church is helping him to “get his faith back.” He and his family have recently moved to Georgia from elsewhere and remarked that he appreciated the intellectual rigor and integrity he found in the Sunday school class of which I was a member. Such was not the case at his previous church.
We are, I must say, a fun bunch, including several PhD’s in various theological disciplines as well as enough “ordinary people” to keep us honest. (In some ways, we may be similar to the class Michael attends.)
We have lots of fun and don’t take ourselves too seriously. And we appreciate it when people speak their minds and ask difficult questions. If you think the only viable options are a lockstep fundamentalist approach to Scripture or a complete renunciation of the faith, you need to come see us! It’s the kind of class‚Äîand ours is the kind of church‚Äîwhere people know about JEDP and the Two-Source Hypothesis but still believe in Jesus! (For the record, I have never been convinced by the JEDP hypothesis, and Mark Goodacre is close to making me a Q skeptic. Still, I can discuss these issues without my blood pressure rising and then pray with the folks who disagree with me. In some circles, I think that makes me a “librul.”)
Anyway, I’m glad there are Christians out there who have their minds fully engaged. It’s so much more fun than living in fear that someone, somewhere might make it to heaven without having believed exactly as you do. And I’m glad that someone who is not a biblical scholar has found the (occasionally) rarefied air of our little class to be a balm for his soul.
Sounds great. I’ve been a part of a lay lead (actually no leaders) group for almost 30 years. Interdenominational…which is great because it is richer than just one denominational viewpoint.
I mentioned this on line to a Lutheran-Pastor-to-be [of another stripe] and he seemed appalled that we didn’t have a pastor leading or “teaching” the group. Like, “how is that even possible?” Well, we do have resources. And we apply the lessons to our lives. That can’t come from a lecturn.
But actually, the last three pastors did often sit in with the group if he/she has been in the building. Pastors can add depth to the information!
It is quite nice. If you have a group of folks who really believe in the priesthood of all believers, to the point that they actually act like it’s the truth, those kinds of groups can really thrive.
Thanks for the shout-out along with this great description, Darrell. I got some heat from others who thought my Sunday School class promoted the “every opinion is equal on every topic” approach to Bible study, but nothing could be further from the truth. There is also a middle ground between “only the experts should speak,” and pure reader-response chaos.
BTW, I have problems with JEDP, but haven’t seen a convincing alternative source theory for the Pentateuch and I work with the “don’t give up one answer until you have a better” approach. Goodacre and others show that Q can be dispensed with, but it still makes good sense. It is easier to posit a Q than not–but I am VERY skeptical of the multiple layers of Q approach of Kloppenberg and others! It is possible that the source we call Q is really simply a circulating group of oral traditions, though the discovery of Thomas made a written source more likely if only because it showed that sayings documents without much narrative were composed in ancient times. (Not that I hold that much in Thomas goes back to Jesus!)
I am librul enuff to question received orthodoxies of both traditionalists and liberal scholars, but I am conservative in method–i.e., cautious in coming to radically new conclusions–including new source conclusions.
