Author of the “Unlikely Disciple,” Kevin Roose, wrote an article on Forbes about Easter and the Bible. He describes that America has a lack of Bible knowledge. He mentions his time at Liberty and he regained knowledge on this topic where before he knew very little of. Here are some short snippets of the piece:
Until my sophomore year in college, when I left Brown University and spent a semester experiencing far-right Christianity as an undercover student at Liberty University, Jerry Falwell’s “Bible Boot Camp” for young evangelicals, I, too, was guilty of massive Bible ignorance. I grew up in a liberal college town with a reputation as a godless enclave, and I was educated in schools where I was never taught even the most basic facts about the Bible, its historical importance or the various faith communities who consider it holy writ. I had acted in a school musical about the Garden of Eden, so I knew the basic plotline of Genesis (Adam names the animals, Eve bites an apple, and we all break into jazz squares, or something like that). But as far as actual Bible knowledge? I didn’t know Job from Jehoshaphat.
When I began taking classes at Liberty, of course, I had a lot of catching up to do. My classmates, for the most part, were lifelong Sunday school students, and exam questions that were mind-bendingly hard for me–like, “According to Galatians 5:22-23, what are the fruits of the spirit?”–were second nature for them. Over the course of the semester, I stuffed mountains of knowledge into my head, both about the Bible itself and about the interpretations and factions that have accompanied it through the years. I found out what Jesus said in the Parable of the Sower, and what the Council of Trent decided about the nature of God’s grace. I learned that Goliath was uncircumcised, that Stephen was the first Christian martyr and that it’s never a good idea to sell out a friend, even if 30 shekels are on the line. By getting a solid foundation in the Bible in my Liberty classes, I gained access to an incredible amount of cultural capital. Suddenly, hidden metaphors in classic works of literature leapt out at me from the page, and I caught the subtle scriptural references embedded in political stump speeches. Thanks to Liberty’s required course in creationist biology, I came to know Genesis like the back of my hand, and was finally able to understand the ideological controversy driving one of our nation’s most heated debates.
the most prominent Bible snafu in recent memory can be found in a 2006 magazine article about my former school. While reporting on Liberty University’s top-ranked debate team, a reporter from Newsweek quoted the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Liberty’s late founder, as having said, “We are training debaters who can perform assault ministry.” What Rev. Falwell had actually said–“a salt ministry,” a reference to a passage in the Gospel of Matthew in which Jesus says “ye are the salt of the earth”–was both much more orthodox and much less controversial than a call for widespread Christian thuggery.
Interesting article . . .