Re: various

Warning - those who've reacently claimed that Burgy & I are 2 peas in the
pod "liberals" should not read this. It might disorient them.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Carol or John Burgeson" <burgytwo@juno.com>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Monday, March 27, 2006 10:20 AM
Subject: various
....................
>
> Mervin Bitikofer wrote, in part: "But one can imagine the
> frustration among eager students, after they've paid good tuition money,
> of going to class only to have their more knowledgeable instructor grant
> floor time for every student to air their opinions. "
>
> Maybe. I studied under a very liberal seminary professor, a one time
> assistant to Tillich, Bill Dean. He made me think! And he was not shy
> about letting students "air their opinions" in class -- even two very
> conservative ones. He made little or no effort to "convert" students to
> his particular position; he was most anxious for them to develop their
> own.

I think you've missed Merv's point. There is some value in letting students
express their views & a prof shouldn't allow only those students he/she
agrees with to speak. But unless the course is advertised as being
primarily a student discussion group, students should be able to expect that
a good deal of class time will be devoted to learning from a teacher who has
some expertise in the area. Otherwise they could just as well spend their
time conducting their own discussions in the local saloon & not have to pay
tuition.

When I teach a class - either in church or seminary - I try to encourage
questions & discussion & to avoid the impression that I want to just talk at
learners. But I'm also sensitive to the fact that most of them want to hear
something from me as a person who's supposed to have some knowledge of the
subjects under consideration. Occasionally there'll be a student who often
wants to interject his/her views which may be off the subject, obscure, or
wrong or some combination thereof. The teacher has to be sensitive to the
concerns of other students and get things back on track before the eye
rolling begins.

Should a teacher try to "convert" students? In some cases, of course. When
I taught physics & would have students who insisted (e.g.) that time
dilation couldn't be symmetrical (i.e., both observers couldn't see the
other one's clock run slow) then I was sympathetic & tried in various ways
to make the point clear precisely for the purpose of "converting" themon
that point. Are similar considerations valid in theology? In some cases I
think so.

.....................
> mrb22667@kansas.net wrote: "Is this the same Spong (J.S.) that wrote
> "Why Christianity must change or die"?"
>
> Same guy. He makes some pretty good points in that book. One does not
> have to agree with him to profit by it.

In principle - but in the this case the principle needs a lot of
qualification in practice. I don't know about you but I'm not a real fast
reader & just don't have enough time to get to everything. I've sampled
some of Spong's writings (& get his weekly email essays) & know his approach
& his views on a number of subjects & while he does indeed sometimes have
some worthwhile things to say, both his theology & the quality of his
scholarship are seriously lacking. That being the case, I'm probably not
going to devote a lot more time to reading him. Maybe I'll miss something
of value, but there a lot of other authors with whom the probability of
getting something worthwhile is a lot higher.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
Received on Mon Mar 27 12:02:21 2006