Having been conducting a running e-mail conversation with Beth for the
last few months, and having just taught a section in a course in
argumentative writing on the basis of religious belief, I think I
understand where she's coming from. The attitude that I have
encountered in far too many of my Christian students is one of dismissal
for any religion other than their own. One student, A Jehovah's
Witness, went so far as to inform the rest of the class that they were
damned because they did not believe as he did. Other Christians held
similar views (if not quite so radical), and chit-chatted with one
another while my sole Buddhist student talked a bit about his religion.
It is this closemindedness and the willingness to judge and damn
non-Christians that has been behind many of the atrocities since the
advent of Christendom. As medievalists, I think we need only look to
the Crusades to see where this attitude might possibly lead. Here in
California, we have the example of Junipero Serra to look to, certainly
a fine model of what to do with "infidels": subjugate them, and use them
for slave labor.
Some might argue that these examples are from them past, that we have
become far too enlightened to commit such atrocities today. Perhaps we
do not commit them so blantantly, but we do exert a subtle but real
pressure on the rest of the world to join Christianity, and we can be
rather high and mighty when expressing our beliefs and comdemning those
of others.
I don't think that Beth, or I, or any other responsible instructor is
trying to kill off our students' beliefs; but I do think that as
educators we have a duty to show them that there are other belief
systems out there, and that they must learn to respect them.
Of course, to respect them, they must learn to understand them, and that
means reading them without Christian bias. Granted, the twentieth
century has seen the development of the "intentional fallacy," and the
birth of reader-response criticism, which would seem to justify a
Christian student's reading of the Hebrew Bible from a Christian
perspective. But, this is only ONE interpretation of the work, and a
course in literature must deal with the multitude of interpretations
that exist, particularly if we are going to utilize reader-response
theory. It goes without saying that many Jewish readers will not be
reading the Hebrew Bible from the Christian perspective, and, if we are
going to be fair to the text, we must acknowledge these readings and
give them as much attention and credibility as we would those we
ourselves might espouse.
Sorry to vent--it's been one of those weeks, and I have seen a little
too much religious fervor, both in my classroom and on many of the
recent postings in here. I can only hope that we will now move away
from spouting dogma at each other and go back to a substantially more
objective point-of-view.
Incidentally, I was raised Catholic, so I hope that any replies to this
will not incorrectly cast me into the position of religious "other."
Ron Ganze
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