James Joyner has opened the proverbial can of worms in relation to a Northern Virginia college (Patrick Henry College) that caters to home schooled students. In clarifying his position he reopens the debate.
As a graduate of a Catholic university I was curious to see how the Christian charter of PHC differed from traditional Catholic universities.
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It’s interesting that the “Biblical inerrancy” crowd and the creationists (generally the same group of people, anyway) don’t allow for the human writers of the Bible to use metaphors. Or, by extension, don’t allow God to inspire the human authors to use metaphors. But parables are okay. Hmm…
My favorite example of their lack of understanding is the meaning of “40” in the Middle East, both then and now. Folks in Biblical times weren’t all that interested in numerical accuracy, so when there were “a lot” of something, they say “40.” You know, as in “forty days and forty nights” of the flood. Or Jesus wandering in the wilderness for forty days. And other examples.
The big mistake they make is that there’s no room for interpretation. They’re ignoring the fact that they are interpreting the Bible already. What they really object to is an interpretation that’s different than their own.
Clinging to the idea of creation of the world in six 24-hour days just astounds me. God performed sudden, miraculous acts “way back then,” but He’s gotten out of that business lately, preferring to work through the Laws of Nature that He created. God forbid (sorry for the pun) that He should be consistent in His works.
Oh, and this comes from the son of a retired Southern Baptist minister who is a big Biblical inerrancy proponent, and the brother of a former Southern Baptist missionary, now pastor of a church in Texas.
What’s wrong with a small, private college catering to a specific student group? Those student choose to go to that college, no? I don’t understand why people have any problem with a private school’s charter. If you don’t like it, then don’t go there. Seems pretty simple.
And, Jalal, 40 days/nights was how long it rained. The flood lasted for the better part of a year. I just did a study about Noah and the flood and I was surprised at the misconceptions I had about the flood account, even as a Christian who grew up in church all my life.
I actually have judged a couple of moot court competitions in which students from Patrick Henry University were involved and from my observations, the students are very well educated and all are on the top of their game. I, personally, am not that big of a fan of home schooling or of schools that are centered around religion. However, I am impressed with everyone I have met that is associated with Patrick Henry University. Whatever those people are doing, they are producing some finest students I have ever seen from the dozen or so that I observed in the competitions. Several other schools did well, also, with the exceptional student coming forth here and there, but the teams from Patrick Henry displayed exceptional abilities in every single individual. I was thoroughly impressed with their program.
And, Jalal, 40 days/nights was how long it rained.
That’s my point, Jen. We don’t really know (or for my part, really care) exactly how many days it rained. This phrase was and is a Middle Eastern way of saying, “It rained for a really, really, really long time.”
If you read an Arabic-language (or Persian-language, or probably a few others) newspaper published in the Middle East, you’ll notice that many things are reported in quantities of 40. They’re just saying, “There are a lot of them, but we can’t be bothered to count them exactly, or believe it’s necessary to the import of the story.”
Regardless, my point was that reading the Bible requires interpretation. A philosophy that rejects interpretation of written works, even the Bible, defies reality, and puts those who believe that they’re not interpreting the Bible in jeopardy of being very, very wrong.
“teach creation as both biblically true and as the best fit to observed data”
Well, I guess getting it 50% correct is better than 0% (at least for values of “biblically true” != “actually true”).
Jalal, believe me, we agree more than we disagree about biblical interpretation. =)
Patrick Henry College journalism students have their own blog, if you’re interested.
Sorry, try it now.