New Seminary Students are Bible Lite


The Dean of a famous seminary told Christian Post that today's freshman seminary students have little knowledge about what the Bible says. This make perfect sense.

The general public does not read the Bible but hears and sees bits and pieces. It is as if the entire society's knowledge about the Bible was learned from four word billboards seen while driving past at 70 MPH.

One problem we all know about is that the Bible is boring. To pick up and read the Bible for pleasure is not something I would do. This is one of the reasons new seminary students have not read it. Catholics are encouraged to accept it hierarchy's interpretation of the Bible instead of having lay people read it for themselves.

Even more important than the above for few Bible readers entering the seminary is that the Bible is not a book to be taken literally. Stories of walking on water, dead people coming back to life and turning water into wine are ideas of a past era. Modern people are taught to be skeptical of outlandish claims and the Bible has lots of them. Who can blame a young person for not wanting to spend his/her time with it.

The problem is not Bible ignorant young people. It is institutions like seminaries who take the Bible so seriously. A more critical and skeptical approach to the Bible will help both the students and their future congregations.

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