Tearing Down Walls: The Academy and the Church

Mike Fox, over at Fox’s Wanderings discusses “Scholarship as Worship”

I personally don’t think academic study and worship are mutually exclusive. i talk to folks in biblical studies all the time who make hard distinctions between their academic work and their devotional study. i personally don’t want to do that, just like i don’t want to partition off my sunday behavior from my mon-sat behavior.

Along with Stephen and Chris Heard as well as Joel , I did have some concerns initially about the officialization of the relationship between the Biblioblogs and the Society of Biblical Literature. I had a feeling that there was going to be a re-establishment of some hierarchy of knowledge and ordering of blogs according to the number of degrees earned or the number of years in the profession, something of the sort.  And now, from that one small step toward hierarchy, yet we have another larger step as we are now ordered by “academic qualifications.” Let’s call a spade a spade; I know what academic elitism looks like. Being in the academic realm, laypersons and students who have a heart for ministry really are on the margins.  Practical concerns are eschewed in favor of questions of theodicy or the ancient origins of sacred texts. I am becoming much more aware of the separation of academy and church (or religious institution) where the select priesthood shuns those with who work with ordinary people. It was my hope that the Internet (“The Great Equalizer”) and the blogosphere would best serve bridging the divide between “Athens” and “Jerusalem” but instead we have made it an extension. My blog is one of the ways I see my scholarship becoming accessible to those outside of the academy. I can only hope that this trend halts before we see a decline in dialogue in interaction between scholarly blogs that are up there and the yeoman/yeowoman blogs which remains with the peasantry down there.

Truth and Peace,

Rod

RodtRDH

Formerly known as Rod of Alexandria, Rod the Rogue Demon Hunter Preacher of Hope | Black Scholar of Patristics | Writer for Nonviolent Politics. Destroyer of Trolls. It must be that angry puppy.

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