The Text, the Whole Text, and the Context

[kerravonsen]

I was pondering bible-studies I had participated in, and I realised something. Many Christians just sit around in bible-studies and wait to be told what to think. How totally bizarre! What do they think bible-studies are for? A place where someone in authority (the leader) spoon-feeds them pre-digested doctrine, and then they have a cup of tea and a gossip?

Don't they want to find out for themselves? Do they think themselves incapable of finding out for themselves? Or not qualified? Or not authorised? Or is it just like too much hard work? It's a text. Read it. Think about what it says. Figure out what it means. Like we did in English at school.

What do they teach them at these schools?

Yeah, I know. They teach them to hate learning.

Thank God for fandom, where people analyse texts in minute detail, for fun.

Comments

[kerravonsen]

It wasn't so much discussion of doctrine as indoctrination.
(sigh)
Yeah. Then again, RE and Sunday School were really more about telling kids what to believe, and people don't tend to be very intellectually rigorous with kids.

But bible-studies with adults? I expect adults to know better.

but most did not encourage too much "questioning of Faith"

Possibly they considered it disruptive, since they were supposed to be "lessons". Then again, they could also have been of the school of thought (also exemplified in Reynardo's comment above) that "questions" imply doubt and dissent, rather than a quest for understanding. Dumb.

Mind you, some questions are disruptive and full of dissent; they hold at their base hostility towards the teaching. Trick questions like "Can God make something too heavy for him to lift?" or the various questions that the Pharisees asked Jesus trying to trap him.

So, yeah, for someone who is all "ask questions" I also oddly believe that there are some questions which shouldn't be asked.