From: wagers@iglobal.net
Date: Tue Jul 30 1996 - 09:11:48 EDT
David John Marotta writes:
>2. Should be able to call yourself an Evangelical Christian, or be
>very sympathetic to Evangelical Christians. There is no assumption of
>religious faith on the B-GREEK list. But the list has a lot of evangelical
>Christians who come looking for a list to help them study the Greek
>testament better. There are scholars who can handle these budding
>armchair scholars with grace and encourage them in their endevors and there
>are those who cannot. I want only those who can as part of the B-GREEK
>board. Those who cannot will benefit from the board's work anyway.
>(Hence if you view being on the Board as an opportunity to blast away
>all those who post inappropriately, you shouldn't apply) There is no
>creedal assumptions I have in mind. And the litmus test toward Evangelicals
>is only because they are a majority of the non-Professors on the list.
>I would expect the same grace to be applied to other non-scholars.
Although I recognize the list owner's right to maintain a list for a purpose
of his own choosing, I was deeply shocked, offended, and hurt by this
declaration. I felt I had a home, of sorts, on B-Greek and B-Hebrew, and now
find, instead, that I have been a boorish and unwelcome guest. Apparently,
instead of doing my best to learn and, where possible, teach the Bible in a
scholarly environment, I have merely joined a group of interlopers who
had taken over the lists for their own purposes. Ah, but what interlopers,
men and women who see the world not only in black and white, not just in
shades of grey, but in colors. People who encourage intellectual
development, even of their opponents, believing intelligence and education
have the potential to unite those divided by a myriad of backgrounds.
I won't threaten to quit the list, because I have nowhere else to go for the
sort of information available here. Rather, I will remain on the list as long
as the information is here. However, I think the beauty and utility of
non-sectarian, scholarly discussions of the Bible are firmly established by
what the lists had become in opposition to the desire of the list owner to
achieve a much more modest goal -- providing an atmosphere to encourage
budding evangelical scholars. I hope that someone, somewhere will use
this unhappy occasion to establish a list for those of us who can only feel
increasingly alienated by the narrow, sectarian limits established for the list.
Apologies are certainly in order, for I have argued vehemently on and off
list against those who would turn the lists into "another little list about
Christianity".
I agree with Leonard Berkowitz that a more honest statement of goals in
the list description is in order. Mentioning the evangelical board and
adminstering the list accordingly will be all that is needed to prevent
more misunderstandings of my sort.
Regards,
Will Wagers "Reality is the best metaphor."
ousia: http://www.iglobal.net/pub/wagers/ousia
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