A Fresh Perspective

In my final year of Seminary, I pastored a small rural church in a little Indiana farm community. This was a seminary pastorate; the church didn’t expect me to stay after graduation and I didn’t expect to stay. As graduation drew close, I was ready to go on to bigger and better things. The problem was that no one else seemed ready for me to go on to bigger and better things. I had sent out resumes. No response. Not even a nibble. Churches were not exactly knocking on my door wanting me to come. In fact, they were not even sending me any rejection letters. This went on for several months. I began to question my calling. At one point I was so filled with anxiety that I found it difficult to sit in class. I felt miserable and felt guilty for feeling so miserable. And the feelings of guilt for doubting my calling and questioning my faith compounded my anxiety.  I happened to be taking a pastoral counseling class at the time and the professor said something very simple that struck...

New Testament scholar Marcus Borg tells a wonderful story illustrating two different ways to approach Scripture. For many years Borg taught an introductory-level Bible course at Oregon State University . At the beginning of the class, he always informed the students that the course would be taught from the perspective of the academic discipline of biblical scholarship. Borg would tell them that they didn’t have to change their beliefs, but to do well in the class they would have to be willing to look at the Bible from that viewpoint.  He explained that the Bible is the product of two ancient communities. The Hebrew Bible is the product of ancient Israel , the Christian Testament is the product of the early Christian movement. As such, the Bible tells us not how God sees things, but how those two ancient communities saw their relationship with God.   R oughly 20 percent of the students that took the course believed that the Bible was inerrant (literally the Word of G...