Monday, February 1, 2010

Theological scholarship?

“Christian scholars cannot have their cake and eat it. Carl Trueman of Westminster Theological Seminary, for instance, wrote last week that "all theological scholarship should be done with the ultimate goal of building up the saints, confounding the opponents of the gospel, and encouraging the brethren." If your main goal is to uphold a religious agenda (and again, a very specific one, in this case very conservative Reformed Calvinism), don't call it scholarship.” (Rattigan Writes)

There is some truth in this. From my reading of Evangelical literature, the primary purpose seems to be apologetics, not scholarship.

Posted by Qohelet at 2/01/2010 12:30:00 PM
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1 comments:

  1. I almost posted on another quote from the same article (Trueman's, not Rattigan's). That is a perfect conclusion by Rattigan, that they are trying to have their cake and eat it to.

    Truman's quote comes from a section in his article with the heading, "WHY DO EVANGELICAL ACADEMICS CRAVE WORLDLY ACCEPTANCE?" I have seen this claim almost casually thrown around by Evangelicals taking issue with other Evangelicals who would question the doctrine of biblical inerrancy. As though there are no legitimate reasons to question inerrancy and the only possible reason would be a moral default on their part. I agree, if someone cannot follow the evidence where it leads it isn't scholarship. An article like that is just changing the definition of the world "scholarship."
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