The preacher stopped at least, and there arose out the darkness a woman with her hair pulled back into a little tight knot. She began so quickly we couldn’t hear what she said, but soon her voice rose resonantly and we could follow her. She was denouncing the reading of books. Some wandering book agent, it appeared, had come to her cabin and tried to sell her a specimen of his wares. She refused to touch it. Why, indeed, read a book? If what was in it was true, then everything in it was already in the Bible. If it was false, then reading it would imperil the soul. This syllogism from the Caliph Omar complete, she sat down. There followed a hymn, led by a somewhat fat brother wearing silver-rimmed country spectacles. It droned on for half a dozen stanzas, and then the first speaker resumed the floor. He argued that the gift of tongues was real and that education was a snare. Once his children could read the Bible, he said, they had enough. Beyond lay only infidelity and damnation.

-H.L. Mencken – The Hills Of Zion 

Fair warning: I’m going to relate some of my own spiritual beliefs here.  Your mileage may vary.  

In May of the year 2006, in the nation that once put men on the moon, three college professors resigned their posts after being taken to task for telling their students that there is more that they need to know about life, then what written is in the bible…

Professors To Leave Patrick Henry

Mar 23, 2006 — A public debate at Patrick Henry College about whether the Bible is the only source of truth preceded the decisions by three professors and an instructor last week to tell school administration they would not return for another year.

Assistant Professor of Classics David C. Noe, Assistant Professor of History and Literature J. Kevin Culberson, Chairman of the Department of Government Robert Stacey and Instructor of Government Erik S. Root, all submitted letters indicating they would not return after the current school year, according to sources from the Purcellville college. Patrick Henry founder and President Michael Farris said the departures followed an “exchange of ideas” and a critique of an article Culberson and Noe wrote in the student newspaper The Source.

“Shortly after the responding article was published these people indicated they weren’t going to come back next year,” Farris said.

The article in question, titled “The Role of General Revelation in Education,” argues that sources outside of the Bible are needed for Christians to lead happy and productive lives.

“Christians may be inclined to accept this proposition when it comes to things like carpentry and the law,” the article states. “After all the Bible does not tell us how to fix a door jam or file a brief in appellate court. They are less inclined or sometimes refuse to accept this when it comes to matters of ethics and the nature of the soul. But while it is true that the Bible contains all we need to know for reconciliation with God, it does not include all the information we need to live happy and productive lives.”

Patrick Henry College’s Statement of Christian Philosophy states “God is the source of all truth, be it spiritual, moral, philosophical, or scientific. … Christian faith and genuine learning cannot be separated; neither is our Christian faith a mere addendum to the liberal learning process. Instead, our Christian faith precedes and informs all that we at Patrick Henry College study, teach and learn.”

In response to the article in The Source, Raymond Bouchoc, the college’s chaplain, sent a campus-wide e-mail that dissects Culberson and Noe’s article point-by-point. Bouchoc’s response stated that it was endorsed by Farris. The lengthy response cites numerous “harmful implications” of Culberson’s and Noe’s column.

One of those “harmful implications” rebuts Culberson and Noe’s position that the Bible does not include all information needed for happy, productive lives.

“God, by means of His common grace, has provided mankind with the ability to understand and harness the operations of creation for his own benefit and prosperity,” Bouchoc’s response states. “While it is true that the particulars of ‘all things’ are not spelled out explicitly in Scripture, it is, nevertheless, sufficient in that it provides the universal guiding principles for all of life, leaving nothing within creation that is not addressed.”

The bible tells us everything we need to know…  But is that really seeking God?  

The school’s mission statement doesn’t mince words. It states: “God is the source of all truth, be it spiritual, moral, philosophical, or scientific. … Christian faith and genuine learning cannot be separated; neither is our Christian faith a mere addendum to the liberal learning process. Instead, our Christian faith precedes and informs all that we at Patrick Henry College study, teach and learn.” 

God is the source of all truth…  Okay…fine.  If God is that which created all that is, all that was, and all that will ever be, then God must be the source of everything we will ever know.  But confining your understanding of God to the pages of the bible is worse then Newton’s image of himself: as a boy playing on the beach, now and then finding a prettier shell or pebble then usual, while the great ocean of truth lay undiscovered all around him.  It is listening to someone else who claims they were at the beach, telling you all about it, and then telling you that what they just said is all you need to know about it.

Take a stroll down any favorite beach one day.  Reach down into the sand and scoop up a few grains.  If God is that which created all that is, all that was, and all that will ever be, then there in your hand is the Testament of God.  Right there.  Blake said it best at the beginning of his Auguries of Innocence

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
 

Little grains of sand glinting the palm of your hand.  The sunlight that makes them sparkle.  It is the handwriting of God.  Anyone can write a bible.  Anyone can sit at their word processor, crank out several hundred pages of holy writ in a few breathless hours of drunken inspiration, pound the pavement waving and screaming it in the face of every passing stranger they meet, and Get Followers.  You know it’s true.  L. Ron Hubbard proved it in our lifetimes.  But only God can make a grain of sand out of nothing.  When the bird and the bird book disagree, believe the bird.

I can appreciate the insecurities and the fear that animate the fundamentalist.  Better to read about God second hand, and from a congenial source, then stand at the edge of everything you know, everything you’ve ever hoped, all your fears, all your dreams, all your deep secret conceits, look God in the face and ask it a question.  Because you might get an answer.  Why no pope Urban…actually the earth isn’t the center of the universe…and neither are you…  It can take your breath away with its beauty.  It can scare the steaming shit out of you.  But it is not those of us who are willing to let nature speak for itself that are elevating men over God.

“I’ve been told there are things I cannot teach,” Root said. “There are things I cannot ask.” At most any liberal arts college, political science students study Thomas Hobbes and his State of Nature, in which the lack of government causes chaos and an ugly, every-man-for-himself state.

To illustrate this point, Root gave his class a fictional example of the State of Nature, in which two people were stranded on a lifeboat that would only be able to save the life of one person. What would ensue? In Hobbes’ State of Nature, the result would likely not be pretty. This example, Stacey said, was perceived as an example of postmodern deconstruction and used to break down morality. So Root’s lifeboat example was gone.

But there were other instances that rubbed Noe, Root and Stacey the wrong way. A work of literature, which chronicles the birth of Hinduism, was banned. A text, used to teach the Theology Sequence, which had been chosen by various instructors, was pulled from the shelves unless another, balancing view was added to the curriculum.

“We don’t know from day to day, what is going to be accepted or what is not going to be accepted,” Root said. “It’s a moving target.”

That “moving target” has had an impact on discussion, the professors say.

“Students are afraid to raise questions or criticize the school,” Noe said.

The Zeroth Commandment:  Thou shalt not ask questions.