Fundamentalists and Scholarship, Part 1

Not Me

What I would like to do is to write about the role of scholarship within fundamentalism. I see this as an important topic that deserves a fair and open discussion. The short essays that I produce will be far from comprehensive, but I hope at least to raise the important questions and to provide the most important categories for the conversation.

Since this conversation is about scholarship, it must begin with an admission on my part: I am not a scholar. A scholar must meet certain qualifications that I do not possess. Nevertheless, I have spent a good bit of my life in institutions of higher learning, both inside and outside of fundamentalism. I have had the opportunity to observe and even to labor alongside at least some genuine scholars. Through their mediation I have been exposed to much of the scholarly world. While I cannot rightly claim to be a scholar, I think that I have a fair idea of what scholarship involves.

As I write about fundamentalists and scholarship, I have a particular kind of reader in mind. This reader is not the hostile critic who assumes that fundamentalism and scholarship are necessarily antithetical. Nor is my reader the stereotypical (but not unreal) fundamentalist who rejects scholarship and academic life out of hand. Rather, I intend to write for fundamentalists who are interested in understanding what a scholar is and in discussing what benefits scholarship might bring to fundamentalism.

In this series of essays, I wish to answer a series of questions. What is a scholar? Does fundamentalism need scholars? Does fundamentalism have any scholars? What would we have to do in order to produce scholars? Along the way, another pair of questions will have to be addressed: what are the dangers of scholarship, and how are these dangers to be avoided?

In this discussion, I do not intend to dwell upon the distinction between theological scholarship and scholarship in other disciplines. Since fundamentalism is a theologically motivated movement, we would expect to find biblical and theological scholars if we were going to find scholars at all. My interest, however, is not simply in theological scholarship. Rather, I hope to articulate the canons of scholarship that apply to all academic disciplines. Of course, I am personally interested in the biblical disciplines, and my own perspective is that of a practitioner in one of those disciplines. But I also wish to discuss whether fundamentalists should want to produce scholars in the other humanities and in the sciences.

Before proceeding with this discussion, however, I want to preempt certain misunderstandings. Most people—and not merely fundamentalists—hold rather flawed notions of what scholarship is. Therefore, I think it would be worth mentioning a few things that do not make a scholar.

First, scholars are not the same as doctors. Many doctoral programs are not designed to produce scholars, but practitioners. Physicians, dentists, attorneys, and veterinarians all graduate with doctor’s degrees, but none of those degrees by itself prepares one for scholarship. People who earn these doctorates are usually highly trained, but they are sometimes poorly educated. The same is true of people who hold doctorates in education and ministry. They may eventually become scholars, but their doctorate is not in itself a preparation for scholarship.

Even the Ph.D. (or, in theology, the Th.D.) is not a guarantee of scholarship. Historically, the Ph.D. was the terminal, academic doctorate that prepared people for research and writing. In recent years, however, the Ph.D. has been debased by its extension to certain non-academic disciplines. In any case, the Ph.D. is to scholarship what a driver’s license is to NASCAR. Finding a scholar who hasn’t earned it would be pretty difficult, but simply possessing the degree is merely a step along the way toward scholarship. To put it bluntly, I’ve known many a dim bulb who claimed a Ph.D.

Second, scholars are not simply people who publish. Granted, scholars do publish, but not all publication is scholarly in nature. Scholars as scholars do not write for popular readers. The number of pages that someone publishes (or, worse yet, self-publishes) in magazines, popular books, and internet websites has nothing to do with scholarly standing. Anyone with enough money and determination can find a way to put ink on paper or to light pixels on a screen. Writing 50 books does not make a person a scholar. Everything depends upon what those books are.

Third, linguistic fluency does not make scholars. We Americans are easily impressed by mastery of languages. We assume that someone who speaks three or four languages must possess some special intellectual standing. And, of course, scholars do study languages. Being a scholar means being able to read what other scholars are writing, and that ability requires a reading comprehension of at least German, French, and English. In theology, we rightly expect scholars to study Greek, Hebrew, and usually Aramaic. Other disciplines require yet other languages. Simply knowing the languages, however, is no guarantee of scholarship. The issue is not just how many languages a person knows but what that person reads in those languages.

Fourth, scholars and professors are distinct (though overlapping) categories. Most professors are not scholars, and some scholars are not professors. Being able to teach effectively does require a certain measure of learning, but a scholar is more than simply a learned person. A professor who concentrates on teaching may not have time to pursue much scholarship, while a professor who concentrates on scholarship will often be less effective in the classroom. Individuals who are both good teachers and good scholars are rather rare—and their value corresponds to their scarcity.

Scholars do usually earn doctorates, study languages, publish books and articles, and teach in institutions of higher learning. None of these things by themselves will make an individual into a scholar, however. In fact, all of them together won’t. Scholarship is something more than these. In the next essay, I will try to articulate what that “something more” includes.

From Christian Ethics

Thomas Traherne (1636-1674)

For man to act as if his soul did see
The very brightness of eternity;
For man to act as if his love did burn
Above the spheres, even while it’s in its urn;
For man to act even in the wilderness
As if he did those sovereign joys possess
Which do at once confirm, stir up, inflame
And perfect angels—having not the same!
It doth increase the value of his deeds;
In this a man a Seraphim exceeds.
To act on obligations yet unknown,
To act upon rewards as yet unshown,
To keep commands whose beauty’s yet unseen,
To cherish and retain a zeal between
Sleeping and waking, shows a constant care;
And that a deeper love, a love so rare
That no eye-service may with it compare.
The angels, who are faithful while they view
His glory, know not what themselves would do,
Were they in our estate! A dimmer light
Perhaps would make them err as well as we;
And in the coldness of a darker night
Forgetful and lukewarm themselves might be.
Our very rust shall cover us with gold,
Our dust shall sparkle while their eyes behold
The glory springing from a feeble state,
Where mere belief doth, if not conquer fate,
Surmount, and pass what it doth antedate.

This essay is by Dr. Kevin T. Bauder, president of Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). Not every professor, student, or alumnus of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.