Posted by Walker on June 03, 1998 at 01:19:04:
In Reply to: Oh yes, I remember. posted by blue on June 02, 1998 at 23:05:37:
I've looked at them and most of them seem like real problems.
I looked at rpcman's link to murder and atrocities in the Bible. Eeow! Those are awful.
: But that is a separate issue. It seems those of you with a Mormon background refuse to study the Bible even as literature, which would be a nice start for discussion. Look at Walker's method of teaching the Book of Judges to teens. He is encouraging them to draw conclusions about a topic they know nothing about. Is this teaching? Study the material.
My view of how Walker taught Judges: Though Walker is cynical about many things, he tries not to show it in church. In the case of the class on Judges, he merely retold the story as found in the book. He avoided inserting the useless "Attention activities", diagrams and supplimentry spin doctoring of the lesson manual. Now it was the kids who didn't believe that Walker was really reading from the Bible, so as they challenged me I let them read to the class. One student read 15:4
And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes,
and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail,
and put a firebrand in the midst between two
tails.
After reading it themselves, they found it difficult to swallow. So why were my kids incredulous about this story. Perhaps they've picked up on my attitude, but I believe it's also because they've never heard the real stuff before; we've been sugar coating it for so long.
One point I will agree with blue on is that if it to be taught, one should spend a lot of time in preparation reading each verse carefully and thinking about each detail and also the big picture. But considering some of the less noble content of the Bible as pointed out by rpcman, wouldn't I better serve my fellowman by teaching from some of the good books on science, ethics or phylosophy? Sometimes, usually not, but sometimes, teaching from the old testament seems like retelling a horror show or an X rated video except that you don't talk about the most offensive parts and try to derive something holy out of it.
I just started reading "The Demon-Haunted World". Perhaps I'm condemmed for saying this but it seems I could do more good to humankind by teaching one chapter of this book than the entire OT.
I sure was envious of rpcman when I heard that he got a lecture from a SETI board member for church. What I got for church (for the kazillionth time) was an hour long lesson on the 5 Rs of repentence as sign up sheets for hometeaching interviews, softball and initiatory was passed around; all the while thinking how nice it would be to listen to a discussion philosophy or science that some other lucky ***s get to do.