Amusingly, my university’s Theology department has a reputation of deconverting people, many of whom are studying the subject in order to become priests. Apparently the subject is taught in a very scientific and critical manner. E.g. the exegesis lectures talk a lot about how it was common to make someone seem more impressive by claiming that he was born of a virgin, or about how many pre-Christian religions had a god who sacrificed his son and Christianity may just have borrowed the popular motif. This can apparently be disenchanting.
Same thing at the academically best divinity schools in the US; they turn out a lot of non-theists, a fact that shocked me when (as a devout undergraduate) I took a “History of the New Testament” class and found myself surrounded my aspiring preachers who were losing their religion.
One interesting facet of this: since they’re exposed to all of these facts by a respected scholar who’s not trying to turn them into atheists (i.e. a non-adversarial interaction with someone of higher status), they’re much more susceptible to the ideas than they’d be if they were arguing with an atheist peer.
a fact that shocked me when (as a devout undergraduate) I took a “History of the New Testament” class and found myself surrounded my aspiring preachers who were losing their religion.
Unlikely; I think it’s more a case of lost purposes.
One notable case is that of the Jesuit order, which from its inception had the most extensive scriptural/theological/philosophical training (seven years before ordination) of any order. In previous centuries, this reliably produced extremely devoted and intelligent priests, who racked up massive numbers of conversions as missionaries.
However, as the field of scriptural studies changed in the 19th and 20th centuries, the Jesuits incorporated new historical-critical material which contradicted some of the traditional claims of the Old Testament. (It’s to their credit that they did this, even if their reasoning was that knowing the exaggerations of the Old Testament surely wouldn’t undermine the core of the faith.)
But as this process continued, eventually the Jesuits transformed into one of the most liberal of the Catholic orders. The original policy came at a time when the most educated people knew of little to contradict the Church, but the world changed.
According to Dennett Seminaries tend to deconvert people—or at least rock the foundation of their beliefs. Since studying theology means you have to engage in quite a lot of literal criticism of the bible.
I’ve heard similar stories (each one at least second-hand); there seems to be a binary split in the kind of people who go on to study theology in university: those who believe hard and those whose faith is already teetering.
It’s also similar to my own experiences; while I never took a university-grade theology class, I did go through the Finnish school system and the associated nine years of exposure to religion.
I’ll say this for religion and teaching it at school in a predominantly secular country: it’s a great way to get people thinking. It was because of those religion classes that I first went out to find out about (read: “scratch the surface of”) logical argumentation and fallacies of reasoning.
If only there were a way to predictably accomplish the same effect without all the collateral damage.
Amusingly, my university’s Theology department has a reputation of deconverting people, many of whom are studying the subject in order to become priests. Apparently the subject is taught in a very scientific and critical manner. E.g. the exegesis lectures talk a lot about how it was common to make someone seem more impressive by claiming that he was born of a virgin, or about how many pre-Christian religions had a god who sacrificed his son and Christianity may just have borrowed the popular motif. This can apparently be disenchanting.
Same thing at the academically best divinity schools in the US; they turn out a lot of non-theists, a fact that shocked me when (as a devout undergraduate) I took a “History of the New Testament” class and found myself surrounded my aspiring preachers who were losing their religion.
One interesting facet of this: since they’re exposed to all of these facts by a respected scholar who’s not trying to turn them into atheists (i.e. a non-adversarial interaction with someone of higher status), they’re much more susceptible to the ideas than they’d be if they were arguing with an atheist peer.
I’d be interested in hearing more of this story.
Do you think this is intentional to find only the most devout preachers?
Unlikely; I think it’s more a case of lost purposes.
One notable case is that of the Jesuit order, which from its inception had the most extensive scriptural/theological/philosophical training (seven years before ordination) of any order. In previous centuries, this reliably produced extremely devoted and intelligent priests, who racked up massive numbers of conversions as missionaries.
However, as the field of scriptural studies changed in the 19th and 20th centuries, the Jesuits incorporated new historical-critical material which contradicted some of the traditional claims of the Old Testament. (It’s to their credit that they did this, even if their reasoning was that knowing the exaggerations of the Old Testament surely wouldn’t undermine the core of the faith.)
But as this process continued, eventually the Jesuits transformed into one of the most liberal of the Catholic orders. The original policy came at a time when the most educated people knew of little to contradict the Church, but the world changed.
According to Dennett Seminaries tend to deconvert people—or at least rock the foundation of their beliefs. Since studying theology means you have to engage in quite a lot of literal criticism of the bible.
The evolution of confusion 17:20
I’ve heard similar stories (each one at least second-hand); there seems to be a binary split in the kind of people who go on to study theology in university: those who believe hard and those whose faith is already teetering.
It’s also similar to my own experiences; while I never took a university-grade theology class, I did go through the Finnish school system and the associated nine years of exposure to religion.
I’ll say this for religion and teaching it at school in a predominantly secular country: it’s a great way to get people thinking. It was because of those religion classes that I first went out to find out about (read: “scratch the surface of”) logical argumentation and fallacies of reasoning.
If only there were a way to predictably accomplish the same effect without all the collateral damage.