Aquinas, Biblical Hermeneutics, the Emergent Church, Postmodernism...it's on my mind

I’ll willingly humble myself enough to admit that I had a bit of a difficult time reading Aquinas' Summa Theologica the other day. It wasn’t that the content was difficult to understand it was more my lack of experience with reading medieval arguments that was the problem. Anyway, as I was doing a little additional reading on good old Aquinas I stumbled across the following, which might help you decipher Aquinas’ argument.

Check it:

http://www.bluffton.edu/~humanities/1/st_tips.htm
So what is it that Aquinas is arguing in Summa Theologica? Simply put, that Christ’s Incarnation was to restore human nature by removing “the contamination of sin”, which humans cannot irradiate by themselves. His argument is against several of his contemporary and of historical theologians who held differing views about Christ. Aquinas’ main point was that Jesus Christ was God in the flesh and that he had a real body of the same nature of ours and yet he was also a perfect Deity.

In Response to Hermeneutics: http://www.textetc.com/theory/hermeneutics.html
I found it interesting to read that originally Hermeneutics were thought of as a science. One in which the reader sought to understand the author’s intention, to strip his or herself of their own biases or prejudices. It all began with Schliermacher, and his wanting to look at texts more objectively. So really hermeneutics precisely attempt to strike a balance between the way of the sciences and the way of the arts. Perhaps this is why I like studying hermeneutics so very much. In many ways I am a creative person yet I still have an overriding scientific approach to thinking and analyzing information. Maybe I should just be a hermeneutican if there even is such a thing. As I was reading on hermeneutics I couldn’t help but consider how biblical hermeneutics fit, or don’t fit into a postmodern society. Do we allow the Bible so say that which we want it to say? I am afraid such has been the case actually since much before the days of postmodernism.
A few nights ago I was in a conversation with my father and he brought up the topic of the emerging church. Quite a popular and controversial topic these days, I must say. I’ve been curious about the emerging church for quite some time, and on quite a few occasions have read articles on it. The truth is, it is rather difficult to pinpoint a definition for the emerging church, perhaps that is because there really aren’t any overriding central truths. Emerging churches vary greatly, and in fact emergent churches argue amongst themselves in regards to what it is that they stand for- can we say- postmodern? I’m not saying that emerging churches are all bad news. There are some things most of them are doing quite well, like being missional, embracing a world that would be otherwise left un-embraced. But anyway I just wondering what the emergent church would think about biblical hermeneutics…maybe this is a question at issue for me =P. Or maybe I just don’t completely understand the interrelationship between postmodernism and hermeneutics- if anyone can help me out here I welcome your thoughts. Perhaps I should reading Crystal Downing’s How Postmodernism (Serves) My Faith.

Hermenutics- I like it!

I am going to respond to that which Michelle wrote on her blog because I like the topic and I have a few discrepancies or at least comments:

Michelle Writes:
I really am fascinated by this new section of Christian theory / hermeneutics that we are studying in class, one that I think is so often neglected when studying the Bible in general. I thought of this quote when we were discussing the question of Biblical interpretation. Someone actually brought up the fact that when we interpret the Bible today for ourselves, we are actually "interpreting an interpretation," since the Bible wasn't originally written in English, but translated from the Greek, Hebrew, and Latin (not necessarily in that order - see, I don't even know how our English translation came about!). Therefore, choices were made when interpreting words and phrases from language to language, since Augustine himself talks about the discrepancies sometimes found between languages. And from this short talk on the topic, I was left with a lot of questions and thoughts on Biblical interpretation.
My Response:
Hermenutics not talked about? Certainly we must hang out in different circles. I feel like I am constantly in conversation over biblical interpretation. Then again I am studying in the biblical and religious studies department and I am going to divinity school next year. Maybe I am the one who usually strikes up these conversations, but I don’t know they seem to be preeminent in my life. Indeed we are interpreting an interpretation. The good news (pun- ha) is that the interpretations that we have of the Bible are fairly similar to one another there is nothing vastly different about the way scholars have translated from the biblical language to the language of our context. It is true, what Augustine writes about translating biblical language. There are simply some words that can’t be translated from say Koine Greek to English. In example, take the word Amen we leave it as Amen in the English but really it means something like “so let it be” if I remember correctly back to my days of studying Koine Greek.
Michelle Writes:
First off, let's just think about one of the questions we discussed in class as a spin-off from this main theme: Do all readers have authority to interpret a text, or do scholars have greater authority based on their greater expertise? From looking at the above context, it seems that only scholars would have the means to go back to the Greek, Hebrew, and Latin to see what the original texts actually said. Then they are able to aid us in our present-day interpretive quandaries. But the common person is not fluent in any of these languages, and therefore cannot even begin to see their original meanings. And with meanings also comes connotations to words. Each society attaches connotations to words and phrases, and different meanings come about for words as the years go on (just look at where a word like "gay" has come from over the centuries, and what it means now). So words and phrases that mean something to us now meant something totally different to the Biblical writers, hence where many of our interpretational difficulties come from. Now, commentaries are available for the common person who does not go to school for Biblical studies or for languages such as the ones mentioned above, but really, let's be honest, when was the last time any of us picked up a commentary or concordance when we read the Bible. I'll be honest: I never have, unless I had to for a class. And I've forgotten most of what I learned there.
My Response:
Certainly, not all of us can read translate the Bible from the original, but thankfully that is done for us. Our job is to understand, or to interpret the meaning of that which has already been interpreted into our language. Michelle…I will be honest…I am a dork and I care about biblical interpretation and I do often use a Greek concordance and practice translation when reading the New Testament…there are some of us weirdos out there…
Michelle Writes:

I took my last Bible class last semester, and I will never forget something the professor said. Our study was going deep into historical contexts and into many other areas that I had never heard of in the church. The professor said that the average preacher would not know half of these things, for they do not go to school and study all the same things that Biblical professors study... their classes are different for the different degrees (I'm sure I'm grossly misquoting, but the point was that Biblical scholars often "know more" than the average preacher, and if they do know the same amount, there is no way they can cover such intense and obscure topics as we are talking about here in a Sunday sermon - they'd lose half the audience!). That leaves us with scholars who know more about the Bible, or can talk more about the Bible in different ways than the average preacher can on a Sunday morning, and therefore they have authority to help us interpret in ways we couldn't do because of lack of knowledge.
My Response:
HOLD UP! Dare I say…don’t believe EVERYTHING your professors say. I would say it depends largely upon whether the pastor has had a seminary/divinity school education. Most denominations today require such an education. So if a pastor has his or her MDIV degree they most likely had to studying biblical languages as part of their education. I would know I have looked into many divinity school curriculums. I have heard the same kind of response from Bible professors who have liberal theological views. They say they hold these views because they have studied Hebrew and Greek and that their knowledge from such has led them to have these view- to which I say…HOG WASH there are many conservative biblical and theological scholars who have studied just as much biblical language. I argue it is all about one’s presuppositions
Michelle Writes:
Going back to the beginning, the study of languages opens up a whole new arena for Biblical interpretation, because we are seeing the original language and what those words really were. And if we go into the historical context, we see what those words really meant to the people of that day. My Bible professor last semester often gave us the Greek interpretation of the passage we were reading, focusing on what the words really meant for the people then. It was an awakening for me. But in the end, that's as far as it went. I haven't researched any deeper into it (mostly for lack of time and energy, since life takes over with all its busyness). And that leads me to not be as much as an "authority" as my professor, since I do not know all that he knows. Yes, it is at my disposal with the advent of such a large dissemination of print texts, but I also need the time to go and find those books... and then read them.
My Response:
I of course don’t know who your professor is or what his agenda but all I can say is you have to use discretion. This is why I am such a proponent of doing my own study. Maybe one of the reasons I am headed off to divinity school next year myself. I think we have to be aware that scholars often use their authority to bend the truth, or simply just to interpret it in a way that suits themselves and it is easy to fall into the trap of believing them simply because they have Ph.D by their name…I say…I’ll do the study myself thank you.

On Biblical Interpretation

Ahhh…yes I loved the discussion of biblical interpretation that we had in class today. It was interesting to hear from the perspectives of English majors rather than my usual hearing about it from my classmates in the field of biblical and religious studies. I think it is important to interpret Scripture with recognition given to its original context. And as much as I hate to admit it, because I know how much I struggled in my study of it, I think it is important to have the ability to interpret Scripture from its original language. I cringed as I typed that because I know how much I wanted to die when I took Koine Greek (okay so maybe I am being a little dramatic but not really) it was a painful experience. Anyway, you know how they say beauty is pain? Well, I suppose such is the case with interpreting from the original language and context. It isn’t an easy process, but it allows us to interpret Scripture and bring it into the context of present day. And yes I will admit that it is strangely rewarding to be able to translate from the original language. Ok, but what about those who don’t have the education and/or ability to translate in such a way? This is something a friend and I were recently discussing. She is studying Christian Ministries and I Religion, so we have both been taught all kinds of things about biblical interpretation that we wouldn’t know if we weren’t studying in the Bible/Religion Department. Yet both of us question…isn’t God a clear and contextual communicator? Wouldn’t he communicate in such a way that the common person would be able to read and understand the Bible? I want to say yes, but I really don’t know. Sometimes the more I study the Bible and Religion the more I honestly feel like I know nothing of it. We all come to the Bible with our own presuppositions. We give different hierarchal value to different sources. Hence the flatbook verses hierarchal reading of Scripture. Hence the countless ways in which various denominations interpret Scripture. Is one of us correct? Is there a certain ordering of sources we should use in out method of interpretation? These are questions that seriously plague me on a daily basis. I know this post is out of control grammatically, but it is rather stream of conscious. I want to believe that there is one correct way of reading the Bible, and yet I want to believe that it can be read and understood by all people. I want to believe that the context in which it is written can be translated into present day. I want to believe that God communicates clearly and contextually throughout time. There are so many cans of worms though…biblical hermeneutics, biblical exegesis, dispensationalism, reading the Bible as a flatbook as opposed to a hierarchal view of Scripture, reading through a binocular verses reading through a telescope. There are so many questions, and so few solid answers. I am going to be a student at divinity school next year…these questions are going to plague me even more than they do now. As a theologian I am going to be responsible for giving my best answers to some of these questions. Oh my, what have I and am I getting myself into? Overwhelmed.

If only Aquinas would have lived to finish Summa Theologia, but atlas he didn’t, as morbid as that might read. I find it so fascinating, and yet I, as well as all others, are left to wrestle with its incompleteness. I like how his prologue suggests that he is about to attempt to understand sacred doctrine with clearness, “so far as the subject to be treated will permit.” So long as the subject permits, isn’t that the truth?
As a student studying English and Religion, I find myself frequently being plagued by the questions of interpretation. Interpretation of biblical texts is precisely that which divides those of the faith community. Our interpretation can have tragic implications, so we ought to take it quite seriously. In articles nine and ten Aquinas chimes in on the issues at hand in relation to figurative language. Those who study theology know that this is huge in relation to biblical hermeneutics. This is something that I find myself struggling with and pondering on a daily basis. How do I know what to interpret as figurative language? If I choose to interpret something figuratively what are the implications? How would people of a lesser education even know that Scripture can be interpreted figuratively? Even if they did know, how would they know what it meant to interpret it figuratively? Wouldn’t God communicate with people in a clear and contextual way? These are just a few of the questions I find myself constantly at arms with.
Maybe as an English major I should have a bitter distaste for Aquinas since he suggested that poetry is to be distrusted, that is obscures truth, that it is the lesser of sciences. Yet, I admire Aquinas for so much desiring to pursue that which is true, even though in the process, yes, he does downplay the value of poetry. Aquinas however does not completely disregard the use of figurative language. He does after all believe use the convention of searching for “hidden meaning” and agrees that texts sometimes have a multiplicity of meanings.

This is powerful, thank you Augustine:
“In the likeness of our word, there is also this likeness of the Word of God, that our word can exist and yet no word may follow it; but there can be no work unless the word precedes, just as the Word of God could be, even though no creature existed, but no creature could be, except through that Word through whom all things were made. Therefore, not God the Father, not the Holy Spirit, not the Trinity itself, but the Son alone, who is the Word of God, was made flesh, although the Trinity brought this about, in order that by our word following and imitating His example, we might live rightly, that is, that we might have no lie either in the contemplation or in the work of our word. But this perfection of this image is to be at some time in the future. In order to obtain it, the good master instructs us by the Christian faith and the doctrine of godliness, that ‘with face unveiled.’ From the veil of the Law, which is the shadow of things to come, ‘beholding the glory of the Lord,’ that is, looking as it were through a mirror, ‘we might be transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as through the Spirit of the Lord,’ according to our previous explanation of these words.”

Ngugi's Devil On The Cross and Postcolonial Criticism

Recently, I read Ngugi's Devil On The Cross. Below I is a short essay in which I relate some of the text with some of the concepts of postcolonial criticism:

It’s the story of two families, one living with the legacy of colonialism, and the other basking in the largess of a new imperial power. The families lives, though very different, draw a definitive parallel. Anita Desai, in her novel, Fasting, Feasting, creates strict comparisons between an Indian and American middle-class family. She points to these comparisons through the stories of characters who are accustomed to particular ways of thinking and living largely shaped, respectively, by colonial and imperial ideology. In so doing, Desai brings light upon the negative realities present in both India and the United States. Desai shows that both colonizers and the colonized struggle in the balance between that which she terms fasting and feasting.
The story opens with the presentation of the colonized orthodox Indian family. The father is presented as a generally successful man who holds steadily to a consistent way of living. He has been impacted largely by changes brought to India by American colonizers. As the text explains, “his eyes had been opened to the benefits of meat along with that of cricket and the English language: the three were linked inextricably” (Desai 32). The mother, though largely submissive to her husband, as the two are named as one, MamaPapa, has never completely given way to the “novel concept of progress” (Desai 32). The two have three children; Uma, the eldest daughter is described as clumsy and slow, Aruna, the middle daughter described as beautiful and intelligent, and Arun is the only son whom the parents pour the hopes and dreams of their lives into, in an effort to become more eurocentistic.
The tension between fasting and feasting is shown in Uma in relation to the colonialism of the educational system. Uma, unlike her sister Aruna, is unable to get high marks in school, and therefore is essentially forced to withdraw from the highly selective system of education. That which she desires to feast upon, namely education, becomes that which she fasts upon. The tension between fasting and feasting is also found in relation to Uma’s experience with the Indian system for arranged marriages. Twice her family attempts to get her married, figuratively speaking, attempting to strive toward feasting but twice their attempts fail, and leave them fasting. In their first attempt a family cons Uma’s father into giving a dowry, but then breaks off the engagement. The second time Uma gets married, but finds that the man she married is already married, leading to the devastation, or fasting, of her divorce. The devastation of Uma’s life situations which have led her to fasting bring her to the place at which we meet her, as a gray-haired spinster, living under her parents rule. When Uma is given the potential to feast, as she is offered a job at a local hospital, her parents refuse to allow her to work there, leaving her to again fast. Even Uma’s moments of greatest feasting are marked by her oblivion or fasting such as when she succumbs to a fit in an ashram which her Aunt Mira-Masi has taken her to, or when she nearly drowns in the Ganges River during a religious ritual. Though Uma attempts to move toward feasting she is seemingly doomed by inevitable fasting. Uma is largely caught in the tension of syncretism between India and America.
Uma’s younger sister, Aruna, though beautiful and intelligent, is also struck by the tension between fasting and feasting. Aruna marries a man who is termed a “catch-prize” and moves to Bombay. For a time she appears to be feasting in her marital relationship, but even her feasting is short-lived. Her obligation to keep up with her appearance leads her into a mode of fasting. Furthermore, Aruna become neurotically obsessed with the need to keep both her children and her husband under her control at all times. Aruna portrays this idea that sometimes one’s seemingly blinded striving toward feasting only leads to fasting.
As the youngest child, and the only son, Arun’s parents have poured their resources into his intellectual nourishment. Arun is almost held as an object that has the potential to lead the family toward upward mobility. For this reason, the parents are feasting with joy when Arun is accepted to study at an American University. However, his parent’s response of feasting is contrasted with his own fasting. Uma speaks of her brother’s blank joylessness upon receiving word of his acceptance into the American University. Here we find the tension between fasting and feasting, even between members within the same family. Arun’s parents appear fixated on the hope of their son becoming educated, which shows that they have been influenced largely by the ideology of the imperialist’s power to convince them that upward mobility is equivalent to idealism. However, Arun remains more or less unconvinced of these colonial idealistic values.
Through Arun’s experience of moving to Boston and living with the American Patton family, we begin to view parallels between fasting and feasting in regard to the people of colonized India and the United States imperialist powers. The American Patton family symbolically represents feasting in regard to their excess. We find that the father is constantly barbequing large slabs of meat, and the mother is obsessed with restocking the family’s freezer. The daughter of this American family binges, or feasts and then fasts, on candy bars. As a victim suffering of bulimia, the daughter, Melanie, symbolically represents the ever-present tension between feasting and fasting as she consumes candy bars and then regurgitates them. We find the Patton family son, Rod, to be a jock, who is completely obsessed with his body image, constantly jogging, in an effort to work toward feasting upon the body image that he hopes to attain. Through the Patton family Arun witnesses the tension that both Indian and the United States have in relation to fasting and feasting. Specifically, Arun finds a strong correlation between his sister and Melanie and thinks, “How strange it is to encounter it here, where so much is given, where there is both license and plenty.” (Desai 214). Arun also says, “one can’t tell what is more dangerous in this country (America), the pursuit of health or of sickness.” (Desai 205).
The condition of both the Indian and American families portray the reality that people of both the United States and third world countries struggle with tensions associated with fasting and feasting. Often we are lead to believe that the United States, because it holds imperial power, is somehow superior to colonized countries, such as India. In Fasting, Feasting, we come to recognize that though the people in both countries struggle differently, they both struggle. There is an ongoing tension between the denial of one’s basic needs, and the denial of basic liberties, leading to the struggles related to fasting and feasting which, as we read in the novel, are present in families in India as well as the United States. Anita Desai, in Fasting,Feasting, shows that both the colonized and the colonizers are in a constant battle to escape imprisonment from the struggle between fasting and feasting.

Check out this harsh article:

The bad news is that Shakespeare has disappeared from required courses in English departments at more than three-fourths of the top 25 U.S. universities, but the good news is that only 1.6 percent of America's 19 million undergraduates major in English, according to Department of Education figures. When I visit college campuses, students for years have been telling me that the English departments are the most radicalized of all departments, more so than sociology, psychology, anthropology, or even women's studies.
That's why it was no surprise that Cho Seung-Hui, the murderer of 32 students and teachers at Virginia Tech, was an English major.
Demonstrators gather to listen a speech at the Columbia University campus where Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will speak during his stay in New York September 24, 2007. Ahmadinejad met leaders of an anti-Zionist Jewish group on Monday at the start of a visit to New York for the U.N. General Assembly meeting that has sparked protests and anger. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson (UNITED STATES)
Related Media:

In the decades before "progressive" education became the vogue, English majors were required to study Shakespeare, the pre-eminent author of English literature. The premise was that students should be introduced to the best that has been thought and said.
What happened? To borrow words from Hamlet: "Though this be madness, yet there is method in it." Universities deliberately replaced courses in the great authors of English literature with what professors openly call "fresh concerns," "under-represented cultures," and "ethnic or non-Western literature." When the classics are assigned, they are victims of the academic fad called deconstructionism. That means: pay no mind to what the author wrote or meant; deconstruct him and construct your own interpretation, as in a Vanderbilt University course called "Shakespearean Sexuality," or "Chaucer: Gender and Genre" at Hamilton College.
The facts about what universities are teaching English majors were exposed this year by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. English majors are offered a potpourri of worthless courses.
Some English department courses are really sociology or politics. Examples are "Gender and Sociopolitical Activism in 20th Century Feminist Utopias" at Macalester College; "Of Nags, Bitches and Shrews: Women and Animals in Western Literature" at Dartmouth College; and "African and Diasporic Ecological Literature" at Bates College.
Many undergraduate courses focus on extremely specialized subjects of interest only to the professor who is trying to "publish or perish," but of virtually no value to students. Examples are: "Beast Culture: Animals, Identity, and Western Literature" at the University of Pennsylvania; and "Food and Literature" at Swarthmore College.
Some English departments offer courses in pop culture. Examples are: "It's Only Rock and Roll" at the University of California San Diego; "Animals, Cannibals, Vegetables" at Emory University; "Cool Theory" at Duke University; and "The Cult of Celebrity: Icons in Performance, Garbo to Madonna" at the University of Pennsylvania.
Of course, English professors now love to teach about sex. Examples are: "Shakesqueer" at American University; "Queer Studies" at Bates College; "Promiscuity and the Novel" at Columbia University; and "Sexing the Past" at Georgetown University.
Some English-department courses really belong in a weirdo department. Examples are: "Creepy Kids in Fiction and Film" at Duke University, which focuses on "weirdoes, creeps, freaks, and geeks of the truly evil variety"; "Bodies of the Middle Ages: Embodiment, Incarnation, Practice" at Cornell University; "The Conceptual Black Body in Twentieth-Century and Contemporary Visual Culture" at Mount Holyoke College; and "Folklore and the Body" at Oberlin College. Replacing the classics with authors of children's literature is now common. Assigned readings for college students include Dr. Seuss, J.K. Rowling, The Wizard of Oz, and Snow White.
Twenty years ago, University of Chicago Professor Allan Bloom achieved best-seller lists and fame with his book "The Closing of the American Mind." He dated the change in academic curricula from the 1960s when universities began to abandon the classic works of literature and instead adopt multicultural readings written by untalented, unimportant women and minorities.
Bloom's book showed how the Western canon of what educated Americans should know - from Socrates to Shakespeare - was replaced with relativism and the goals of opposing racism, sexism and elitism. Current works promoting multiculturalism written by women and minorities replaced the classics of Western civilization written by the DWEMs, Dead White European Males.
Demonstrators gather to listen a speech at the Columbia University campus where Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will speak during his stay in New York September 24, 2007. Ahmadinejad met leaders of an anti-Zionist Jewish group on Monday at the start of a visit to New York for the U.N. General Assembly meeting that has sparked protests and anger. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson (UNITED STATES)
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Left-wing academics, often called tenured radicals, eagerly spread the message, and students at Stanford in 1988 chanted "Hey hey, ho ho, Western civ has got to go." The classicists were cowed into silence, and it's now clear that the multiculturalists won the canon wars.
Shakespeare, Chaucer and Milton have been replaced by living authors who toe the line of multicultural political correctness, i.e., view everything through the lens of race, gender and class based on the assumption that America is a discriminatory and unjust racist and patriarchal society. The only good news is that students seldom read books any more and use Cliffs Notes for books they might be assigned.
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni says "a degree in English without Shakespeare is like an M.D. without a course in anatomy. It is tantamount to fraud."
College students: Don't waste your scarce college dollars on a major in English.



I would like to begin by clarifying that being an English major does not automatically make me eligible to be a killer, as this author suggests. So this author is a bit off her rocker. Talk about an article that completely lacks balance. Couldn't she give English majors a little credit? Though I do have to admit that I think she has some legitimate points, its just that she makes you not want to believe a word she says because of her abrasive stance. As an English major I agree that a lot of times the major feels more like hmmm...I suppose like a mixture of majors. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing though. In fact, it suits me just fine as a person who likes to study many subjects other than English. I do however sometimes sense that English Departments are dropping that they were originally about in an effort to be politically correct. Dare I say it is a rather progressive field of study. I like the quote she includes about an English major graduating without having studied Shakespeare is like an M.D. who hasn't taken a course in anatomy. I agree and yet...I haven't studied Shakespeare as an English major- ouch! Sometimes I feel like the English major is actually way too few credits. Something is just wrong with the fact that I finished the major in two years, although I'm not complaing because it worked well for my specific situation. I think the author has some legit. points she simply needs to tone it down a bit and embrace the side of an English major, the positives, a bit more, and by that I meant atleast somewhat!

Re: On the Abolition of the English Department at Messiah College

Re: A Modest Proposal: Viz, On the Abolition of the English Department at Messiah College

The first thing among many things I would question about this proposal is how it serves to replace the English Department. I really don’t think that you would be drawing from the crowd of perspective students who want to study English. Simply put, students wanting to study English would just attend another institution. Even though the proposal seeks to address how the Christianity and Cultural Studies Department would benefit Christian students, it still doesn’t uphold the same ideals as an education in English. Furthermore, as a student who is also studying Religion I can say many of the objectives of the proposed Christianity and Cultural Studies degree are covered by the Religion major.
Many of the basic principles for the proposed department can be implemented into the English Department as it now stands without completely changing the department. As it now stands it completely lacks balance, and honestly I am pretty uncertain what one would do with a degree in Christianity and Cultural Studies, certainly not that which they would do with a degree in English. As if finding a job with an English degree is at all easy.

Responses to the four basic principles:
1. You can study Christians authors/ their history without it being the entire curriculum
2. As a liberal arts institution we already are required to take many of these courses
3. Students can develop more imagination when they are confined
4. We can require service learning without changing the entire department

· I could write a lot more but granted it is near 12 a.m. and I have been up since 6 a.m.- I’m quite tired.