After reading this week\u2019s material and watching Robert Coven\u2019s TED talk on threshold concepts, I can\u2019t help but share my personal journey of struggling through certain thresholds regarding my faith, and in particular Scripture in higher education. I have a deep love and respect for the Bible. I couldn’t always say this, but I appreciate its richness, complexity, and layers more than ever. However, when it comes to threshold concepts, I\u2019ve learned the Bible is not off limits. The text doesn’t change, but our understanding of it certainly can.<\/p>\n
Robert Coven says, \u201cWe have to challenge the limits of what we think is our understanding. We become skeptical. We become open. \u00a0We become questioning\u2026We have to get away from the obvious solutions and move toward the confusion. Understand that ultimately questions are more important than answers. Questions are really hard to come by. Once you\u2019ve done that you\u2019ve gone through the threshold, and you now have clarity and understanding that is deep, transformative, permanent, and transferable.\u201d [1]<\/a><\/p>\n This week\u2019s reading expressed a stressful, but transformative journey I began while in my undergraduate program. To back up a bit, I was raised in a small, very country town in Tennessee. Our family was heavily involved in a non-denominational church rooted in Pentecostalism, where I had some beautiful experiences with God that forever changed my life. When I announced that I was going to Bible school to pursue ministry and get a good biblical education, everyone celebrated, until I came back and began sharing what I learned.<\/p>\n I did in fact get a good education, that I wouldn\u2019t change for a second, but I\u2019ve been paying for it ever since, and I don\u2019t mean student loans.<\/p>\n You just can\u2019t unsee some things.<\/p>\n Because of my upbringing, I was taught the Bible was completely inerrant and fully reliable in all matters of history, morals, and theology. We took a very literal, \u201cwhat you see is what you get\u201d approach. That was my ingrained and inherited value system.<\/p>\n I was first introduced to the historical critical method to interpreting the Bible in undergrad and went even deeper while pursuing my masters. My education exposed me to alien ideas that Scripture could contain ancient mythology, that some books appear to have a compositional history, and that theological and moral developments seem to be at play throughout Judeo-Christian history. We also examined various ways biblical scholars have attempted to make sense of what looks like historical and literary contradictions for the last three hundred years.<\/p>\n Felton, describing students emotional load while learning new concepts, says, \u201cStudents often described their own learning process as \u2018stressful\u2019, \u2018debilitating\u2019, \u2018frustrating,\u2019 and \u2018intensely emotional\u2019. They reported that they were \u2018shocked\u2019, \u2018upset,\u2019 \u2018hopeless,\u2019 and \u2018very anxious\u2019.\u201d [2]<\/a><\/p>\n Yep. That about sums up my experience.<\/p>\n I remember sitting in lectures not being able to connect the dots or understand why we were studying Sumerian or Babylonian creation stories when we were supposed <\/em>to be studying the Hebrew creation story. This is a class on Genesis right? \u00a0In some of my discussion groups I thought, \u201cDid I read the same book as everyone else?\u201d \u201cI didn\u2019t get that at all.\u201d Eventually things started clicking and pieces fell together. It was like receiving a key that unlocked a world of understanding that was completely inaccessible before.<\/p>\n These biblical concepts, although old news in religious studies, were VERY new to me. Also, I’ve realized threshold concepts, <\/em>are just that. <\/em>Concepts. Although these novel ideas were not irrefutable facts, they challenged my previous assumptions that ancient writers sat under a bright light from heaven and wrote what God told them. This ontological shift was foreign, complex, and, at times, extremely \u201ctroublesome\u201d.<\/p>\n During this journey I paused at many conceptional thresholds and asked God if I should continue. I would get a gentle nudge and kept moving forward. God has brought me comfort when I really needed it in life, but God has been notorious for kicking me right out of the nest so I\u2019ll spread my spiritual, emotional, and intellectual wings.<\/p>\n Why did I need to go through this uncomfortable process? I believe this is one reason.<\/p>\n This week I sat with a young man that I haven\u2019t seen for about eight years. He and his siblings were in my youth ministry. He went into the military, got honorably discharged because of an injury, and has now started college in Nashville at age 23. He is struggling with questions regarding God, biblical stories, other religions, the LGBTQ+, etc. The hot button issues these days. We spoke for around two hours, and I was able to help him navigate many of these issues from a new paradigm. I believe I was able to help him see the same texts with a new lens, because mine had been shattered years earlier.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t give him all the answers. In fact, I introduced him to some new questions. I acknowledged the things that at one point I would have defended against, dismissed, or denied. He eventually let me know, with tears in his eyes, how this conversation helped him overcome some major hurdles in his faith. This conversation, and countless others I\u2019ve spoken with who struggle with conventional answers or Christian apologetics, would not have been possible unless I went through an educational crucible. It sounds intense, but at times it felt like that.<\/p>\n Regardless of what many of us affirm or deny regarding the Bible, medicine, gender, sexuality, mortality, business, technology, morals, ethics, ministry, other religions, etc. I think it\u2019s critical that we move into uncomfortable spaces to examine data and hear perspectives outside of our echo chambers for the sake of development. One strategy mentioned by Land to overcome the Einstellung Effect is, \u201cBringing strangers to the tribe, to challenge, extend and render existing perspectives \u2018strange\u2019\u2026\u201d. [3]<\/a><\/p>\n According to our reading it seems the level of expertise we achieve in any discipline is dependent on our ability to be\u00a0uncomfortable<\/em>. There is a rite of passage between one state to another.[4]<\/a>\u00a0 It seems we have to not only sit in liminal spaces but embrace the uncertainty and troublesome feelings they bring. \u201cThe path of least resistance and least trouble is a mental rut already made. It requires troublesome work to undertake the alteration of old beliefs\u201d.[5]<\/a><\/p>\n According to Kaythrn Shultz, in her book, Being Wrong<\/em>, history proves that individuals, and even masses of people, can miss the mark. On a spiritual level, I\u2019ve noticed, the more certain and rigid I am that something is \u201cright\u201d or \u201cwrong\u201d the more judgmental, prideful, and self-righteous I find myself. \u201cTroublesome knowledge\u201d, mentioned so many times in this book, has truly been a catalyst to humble, renew, and deepen my understanding of our universe and human experience little by little.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Coven, Robert. \u201cBreaking Through: Threshold Concepts as a Key to Understanding.\u201d YouTube<\/em>\u00a0video, 19:11. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=GCPYSKSFky4<\/a><\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Meyer, Jan, F.H and Ray Land.,\u00a0eds.<\/em>\u00a0Overcoming Student Barrier to Student Understanding:\u00a0 Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge.<\/em>\u00a0(London, UK: Routledge, 2012), 4.https:\/\/georgefox.idm.oclc.org\/login?url=https:\/\/www.taylorfrancis.com\/books\/9780203966273<\/a><\/p>\n