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Religion + Politics
Mr. Speaker, There’s No Such Thing as a “Bible-Believing” Christian
Why the myth of a single biblical world-view is so dangerous
I am an ordained Christian minister who has served various local Christian congregations in a ministerial capacity since 1990. I am also a Professor of Religion with a Master of Divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from Yale University. My area of training is biblical studies and social history of the early Jesus movement.
As a biblical scholar, I spend quite a bit of time reading the Bible. I don’t read the Bible because I’m a biblical scholar. I’m a biblical scholar because I enjoy reading the Bible. I have taught “Introduction to Biblical Studies” to undergraduate college students since 2001.
I teach in the religion department of a small liberal arts college associated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA). While the college has a “religion” general education requirement that all students must satisfy, the religion department is a “religion” department that promotes “religious studies” rather than a “Christianity” department that promotes “Christian studies.”
