18 June 2024
One of the things that has always bothered me was the sharp divide between professional ministry training versus academic Bible education. It's two entirely different worlds. To some degree, the seminaries are to blame, because of their institutional prejudice against those on the divinity (ministry) track versus those on the academic. The latter are always given better accommodations, for example. However, the much larger bulk of divinity students is what pays the bills.
You can find academics like Dr. Michael Heiser complaining that ministers don't have a full depth of biblical languages and context when they produce biblical commentary, but he's part of the problem. He is deeply committed to exposing the flaws of typical ministry teaching and preaching, but he then seldom discusses how his academic depth applies to our daily lives. Nowhere does he discuss how this depth of Bible knowledge applies to the issues of personal faith and commitment to the Lord. The system of western religion itself created this divide and keeps it going.
Do you realize that the academic branch is almost wholly controlled by secularism? The best scholars are seldom men and women of faith at all. This is largely because the whole meaning of academic depth is controlled by a secular orientation.
This is part of my complaint about Heiser's work. He did invest some effort into bringing the academic depth to the mass of believers, but he didn't apply that depth in useful ways. He perpetuated the fundamental division between the two. There was very little of the shepherd's reflexes on display. He was so taken with correcting false mythology that he forgot to actually surrender to the right mythology. Humans cannot function without a mythos of some kind to guide their value system. The whole issue remained an academic exercise for Heiser.
On the other hand, there are many in the pulpit who do seem to care about the faith of their congregations. However, ministry professionals are seldom genuine scholars; they are institutional professionals. This is another damning trend in western Christian religion. They have a mission of what amounts to church management, and that receives all their attention, so that genuine academic depth is missing. Instead, they hope that what they offer becomes popular and draws a larger audience.
The academic depth is too rarefied and isolated from reality, while divinity is merely professional mass manipulation training. I'm not suggesting that divinity students be dragged through academic depth. I'm suggesting that we stop making religion an object of rarefied academic study and turn it into an actual matter of faith.
The only reason academic depth is so consuming is because of the obsession with making sure everyone receives the same intellectual orientation, wading through the same academic process that serves to remove faith from the picture. There is no common core of faith because the academic system has been designed to destroy it. Academics are wholly bereft of the shepherd's instincts.
It's hard to suggest a solution until those who hold the leadership positions recognize the problem. If you start bringing out any element of the academic depth, the professional leadership treat it as an infringement on their prerogatives. They are so deeply committed to the false democracy of accessible religion that they lose track of the demands of faith. They want to keep the common religion simplified ("dumbed-down") so they can then pretend to offer a more challenging message to keep the audience interested. This is how big churches hold together, so that the leaders can keep their big crowds, big buildings and big budgets.
Of course, this divide is the direct result of western elitism. The divinity folks want to keep the church members dependent, and the academic folks don't want their work spoiled by having to let faith take precedence. Believe me; I've seen this first hand in both atmospheres.
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