One of the reasons I chose to attend a public university, rather than a faith-based school, is my belief that faith-based schools ignore much of the controversial material or material that might make a student challenge their belief system, material that is presented in the public university.
Having attended a faith-based school for my undergrad, I know that there are certain topics that faith-based schools do touch on such as creation/evolution and questions of inspiration and biblical interpretation and authority. They also frequently offer courses in ethics and on religions other than Christianity. Yet, all of these courses are taught from the viewpoint that Christian perspectives and biblical authority are correct and therefore, these (and other) courses end up simply proving that the students' faith is the correct viewpoint from which to analyze the world. The professors who teach them are Christians and the majority (if not all) of the student body are also Christians. While discussions may take different viewpoints, all participants take for granted the assumption that God exists, that the Bible is the revealed word of God, and that religion (right or wrong) is the result.
It is quite a different thing to study from the viewpoint that Christianity is simply one of many faith systems, each with an equal claim on people's lives, and each with an inherent set of contradictions and problems that make it vulnerable to academic and scientific scrutiny. When creation is NOT the acceptable theory of beginning, when evolution or certain variations of it, are the accepted theory of how life began, the entire foundation upon which the study of beginnings happens, changes significantly. In a world that looks for scientific proof, despite what creationists claim, there simply are no definite proofs for many of the foundations upon which faith stands.
This is a fascinating and challenging world to enter, and one that I find completely engaging. The biblical account of any event is not considered to be proof of that event, nor is it considered a reliable historical document. This does not mean that a person who is an academic can not have faith in the bible (or any other religious document), only that this person can not use it as proof that their opinion or viewpoint is valid within an academic and scientific context.
The concept of spiritual beings such as God, Horace, Zeus, or Allah who created this world, began life on it, and delivered their will to its inhabitants through visionary and revelatory experiences is only one of many theories that explain the formation of religion. Other theories include animist, naturist, psychoanalytic, and social from the likes of Durkheim, Frazier, Tyler, Freud, and others.
My particular area of study, alternative religious movements (better known as cults), lends another level of skepticism to the validity of religious claims of divine origin. The field of textual analysis and criticism erodes confidence in the divine origin of the biblical text even further than the area that I am engaged in. And of course, there are always those damn republicans claiming that God told them to invade Iraq and find those weapons of mass destruction - a claim that has led many to scoff not only at Bush and his policies, but also at the God he invoked as authority for such outrageous claims. In the world of the conservative evangelical church, such things tend to be quietly ignored or explained away, but not in the world of academia, and not (I would premise), in the larger world outside the church doors. (Having been one of only two democrats on staff at a conservative evangelical american church during Bush's reign of terror, I know what I am talking about when it comes to blind acceptance of God's sovereign role in Bush's America).
Someone asked me recently if my adventures in academia have caused me to question my faith. The answer is yes. This answer, however, is not (in my opinion), a cause for either fear or celebration. It is simply a statement of where my spiritual journey is taking me. Everyone should, in my opinion, question what they believe and why they believe it from time to time. This applies equally to those involved in professional ministry and to those solidly embracing an athiest position. True faith has nothing to fear from an inquisition, and those who might hope that this questioning will erode faith do not understand the simple fact that for those who have faith, lack of scientific proof simply strengthens faith. Faith is, after all, belief in things not seen. If we could prove everything, there wouldn't be anything left to believe in. In the same way, if we don't challenge ourselves to honestly look at what we can and can not prove, we are in danger of becoming zombies, robots, brainwashed cult members who blindly follow whatever anyone tells them to believe.
In my adventures, I have met and become friends with Buddhists, Muslims, Athiests, Christians, and those of every religious persuasion in between. Discussions that happen around a table or in a classroom where all of these different viewpoints represent real and honest beliefs ( for now I will call athiesm a belief - belief that God does not exist) challenge me in ways that I have never been challenged before. Answers that I might have offered five years ago, I no longer feel are valid answers, and certainly do not stand up to academic rigor. So I am searching for better answers and better ways to express those answers....when and if I ever find them.
The adventure continues...
