"Functional Illiterates" is a phrase coined by the late Robert Hutchins, who was dean of the Yale University Law School at age 28. He was appointed chancellor of the University of Chicago at age 32. One of the most important events of his life took place when he was a teenager. He never forgot it. His father was a professor of philosophy at Oberlin College in Ohio. Hutchins went to his father one day and started to give him his "opinion" on a particular subject. His father stopped him with these words: "Son"let me remind you, before you proceed, that you do not know enough about the subject to even have an opinion."
Would to God that every Tom, Sarah, Glen and Rush going around giving their "opinions" about religion and the bible would take that to heart. As the late Rev. Fred Farley',S.J. of Boston College ,a biblical scholar and Dr. Fred Denbeaux put it in the Layman's Theological Library series have both said "the person who is unwilling to study linguistics and literary distinctions and be able to differentiate between prose and poetry, history and mythology, legend and folklore, will not ever understand the bible."
Let me illustrate: I had an acquaintance at University of Massachusetts who had a PhD in Poultry Science. (I do wish they would stop calling those degrees "Doctor of Philosophy". He was not a philosophy major. He was a Doctor of Poultry Science. He knew all there was to know about chickens at that time. But outside of chickens he was one of the most ignorant, uninformed, poorly read, unlettered men I have ever known.
A total "functional illiterate." He could function in the area of chickens and that was the end of his knowledge and his "opinions" of religion, Christianity and bible were about as enlightened and informed as those of my dog.
And yet people assumed that because he had his PhD he was "educated" when nothing could have been further from the truth. He was a "trained" technician or "specialist" in poultry science and nothing more. I have met PhD's in the Middle East that are regarded as experts ,yet they are illiterate when it comes to actual experience. In Washington D.C. a physician was teaching bible classes. He was so religiously illiterate that when I told him the Old Testament was an English translation of Hebrew, he was amazed. And he often told me he refused to believe that Jesus was a Jew. And he was teaching bible classes. Even worse, people were listening to him. They assumed that because he had a degree in medicine he was "educated" and could teach the bible. The blind leading the blind would be an understatement. He is a total functional illiterate.
Hence we come to Sarah Palin and Glen Beck. Neither studied Biblical theology. Linguistics, Mythology, Nor did they even go to a religious seminary ,yet both preach as if they are experts. They are functional illiterates, or better yet functional morons put it better.
If the bible is such an easy to understand book, why is it that we have over 700 different, fragmented Protestant denominations all reading the bible differently? Add to this the Roman Catholics, Jews and Eastern Orthodox with different interpretations. The oldest Codex Bible is in the Vatican Archives and dates to 325AD. Add to this the fact that even within one single body, such as the Lutherans, there are continual internal fights as to how to "read" the bible. To such an extent that almost the entire staff of one Lutheran seminary was fired for not reading the bible "correctly". One to fully understand must have language foundations in classical Greek ,Hebrew and Latin to be considered even a serious biblical scholar. They must know the differences between the Torah, ,the Pentateuch ,books of Levi, The epistles, plus the cultures that wrote and produced various works that make up the bible.
The world of religion is filled to overflowing with functional illiterates or morons who do not know enough about the subject to even have an opinion from Mohammad to the Mormons to the Evangelicals .functional illiterates dominate religion today.
Becoming a religiously educated person is a difficult, demanding enterprise. But, if it is all as important as millions claim it to be, then surely it is worth the effort. The alternative is to live in a society saturated with religious functional illiterates, which is the current situation of religion in America"who in the words of Robert Hutchins, do not know enough about the subject to even have an opinion.
Willy Scanlon is a free lance writer based out of the box
