Well, it’s official. Starting tomorrow afternoon I am teaching a bunch of freshman Intro to the Bible at NPU. I have my ID card, class roster (with student pics on it!), office key, and am printing out my assessment tests and syllabus this afternoon. I hope it will be a fun experience and that I can do justice to this course. The highly supportive chair of the department assures me that adjuncts usually overplan and advised me to just enjoy the class, stick to the basics, and have fun with the students. I think that is great advice for anyone launching into the school year! Â
We’ll be reading through the “IVP Introduction to the Bible,” and the classic “How to Read the Bible for All It’s Worth” by Fee and Stuart, as well as big chunks of the Bible itself. And unlike when I was a freshman taking this course (a whopping twelve years ago!), NPU’s student population has become even more diverse in terms of the religious backgrounds that my class will start with. According to a NPU fact book, 30% of students are Evangelical Covenant, 42% are Protestant, 17% are Roman Catholic, 10% have no faith background, and students that are Jewish, Buddist, and Islamic each make up 1% of the population. I am fairly sure that NPU is the most diverse college within the Christian Coalition – we were told this during our faculty training day – and it’s interesting to think through how that will affect a class on the Bible. And how students will understand or appreciate the campus theme, which for 2007-8 is “What is a Life of Faith?” The first lecture given on this topic on campus will be by Martin Marty, who is speaking about faith in a pluralistic world – and yes, my students are going to that!
So – here we go – many of us, back to the world of academia for another fall. And here’s a little reminder from Ursula K. LeGuin as we jump into the world of homework again: “It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”               Â
Can you explain the difference between Evangelical Covenant and Protestant? Seems to me that EC would fall under the same, or would it not? Thanks for clarifying, Liz.
Hi Bethany! Yes, the ECC is one form of Protestantism. All reformed traditions are under that larger heading – as compared to Roman Catholicism for example, or the Orthodox (Greek or Eastern) church. (The Anglican faith is usually seen in its own category, too.) The term comes from Luther’s protests against the state church, and the Reformation that led to the subsequent development of claims like ‘by faith alone,’ ‘by grace alone,’ etc. – and then all the ‘branches’ that came off that. The ECC developed a little later on, first in Sweden during the renewals within Swedish/German Lutheran Pietism and is now mainly a North American church body in the evangelical, free church tradition with heavy Lutheran and missional influences and members around the world. So most ECC people would not use “Protestant” as a main defining term I would guess (like many Lutherans, Methodists, or Presbyterians might), but instead say they are evangelical or neo-evangelical or something else. But we were formed from the Reformation movement and it’s subsequent theology is part of our DNA.
hi liz! like your blog… and I actually read that on Brad’s blog about the 10 things for a church/pastor and sent it to a friend before I saw you had posted it, too! So, I’m writing because I saw that you were a freshman in college 12 years ago… does that mean you graduated h.s. in 1995? if so, we were in college at the same time. yeah. okay, random. other random comment is that i recently saw you in the cov affirmations video – great job! I’m thankful for all the work you do and how you reflect theologically. peace, johnna