On Thu, 08-4-05 7:21 pm
Scot McKnight left a comment on my Re-Thinking My Thinking post that I inadvertently deleted (he left it there but also on another post accidently: when I deleted the latter, it deleted the former, too). But my apology is not for deleting his comment; my apology is for unintentionally misrepresenting him.
His comment, if I can faithfully summarize it, said that he was innocent of teaching while uncertain about his position. He added that he believed all teachers’ beliefs deepen as they teach a subject or passage.
I agree with both of Scot’s statements. I had tried to make it clear that I was not accusing him but only using his experience as a springboard for the discussion. I may not have made that point clearly or forcefully enough. A (more) careful, third reading of his series – which I did after posting – indicates that he was quite convinced of his changed perspective by the time he taught the class. If I’m not reading too much into it, his summer of exegeting the Book of Hebrews only deepened and solidified his conviction.
If you read the earlier post and concluded that Scot was guilty of this practice, it’s my fault. Scot did know where he stood (and still does) and, I believe, would not have taught it if he had significant doubts.
Wow. This is kind of you. And when I saw that my comment was gone I thought I had been censored.
You have all my respect.
Now, if I might extend this: please understand that teaching is a give and take proposition, and that sometimes the take (as in taking back) is part of what teachers do have to do. Sometimes I’ll teach something, and later say “I think I got that wrong.” Sometimes it is students who make you aware that your view is weaker than you thought.
And, as a teacher, we grow and change. I am aware of a Professor at TEDS (before my time) who changed in one semester on the issue of Arminianism and Calvinism — and his students enjoyed the move on his part.
What I am saying is simply this: it is unfair to teachers to ask them to come to class “right” every time. We have to teach about too many things, about topics that we have various shades of judgment, and we will change our minds on many things over our career.
And one further point: originally in my blogs on Post-Calvinism I was planning to talk about how I encouraged students to disagree with me. I did and I still do. I will challenge students, but I can say with a clean conscience that I never graded students in that Hebrews class on whether or not they agreed with me. Some of the best papers I read were by Calvinists who thought I was wrong; I thought their papers were wrong, but they worked hard at marshalling biblical evidence for what they believed, and that is all I can ask for.
And it appears to me you are just like them. And I thank you for it.