Talking about Religion

I took so many "Black Christianity" courses in college that my father used to tease that I was training to either take over for Jesse Jackson or start my own Baptist church. I ended up starting my own Baptist church, kind of a one-man-show. It was tough trying to play the drums, organ, sing in the choir and preach at the same time.

I have always been very interested in religion. The first book I ever bought for myself was a King James bible which I found at a used book store for 10 cents. I read it. I was facinated that so many people in our society look at this book as more than a book. It is an icon. I would venture to say that most of the people who treat the bible as cannonical have never read it cover-to-cover (reading it church, or hearing it read in church doesn't count). I studied the origins of the book. I found out how it was written (in different parts at different times), who wrote each part, and when they were written, and re-written.

One of the most facinating things about studying the bible is looking at the other people who are. Was when I was taking 400-level courses in biblical studies at Penn State, about 40% or so of the kids who attended the various classes (Old Testament, New Testimant, Bible in the Black Church, etc..) were born-again Christians, as opposed to the rest of the students, who were scientists or historians, or, in my case, psychologists. It was really fun to watch the born-again's try to asimilate the scientific canonical knowledge into their rigid belief system. Oh the things that used to amuse me back then.