A nearly essential part of attending a Christian university is fulfilling the required Bible curriculum. At John Brown University, students are required to take four Bible classes before graduation: Old Testament, New Testament, Essentials of Christian Formation and Evangelical Theology. At face value, these classes sound foundational and interesting; however, panic sets in during the first few weeks of every semester when students realize just how challenging the classes are.
JBU freshmen hear from their peers that some of these required Bible classes will become some of the most difficult classes of their college careers. While we support the related educational values—Christ-centeredness and the pursuit of learning—we must wonder about the overall messaging of the university by subjecting its students to nearly impossible to pass Bible classes.
On test days, the anxiety and uncertainty of the students is palpable in the cafeteria, with dozens of students looking over and comparing notes. Oftentimes, discouragement surges as scores are released. Some students must drop the class before their grades plummet too low. Later, they return to these classes with an easier professor.
Some students were required to highlight, color code by theme, annotate and synthesize with outside scholarly sources on each individual page of the Bible. Others were administered intensely detailed five-question reading quizzes over Old Testament books with thirty chapters or more. Assignments like these turn God-breathed words into a tedious assignment.
Further, most professors anticipate that the students have grown up as Christians and know the Bible references and stories. For students who are new to the Christian faith, this frightens them and makes them feel like outsiders. When these same students struggle to pass quizzes and tests, it could be the start of a long, never-ending pause from reading the Bible.
When students receive failing grades on quizzes that they studied for, this prompts a larger problem and gets to the heart of the issue. The message students subliminally pick up is that the Bible is too complicated a topic to understand and is inaccessible to the non-theologically trained reader.
JBU hopes to develop the spiritual being in their students, as evidenced by regular chapel, classroom integration of Christian principles, interesting guest speakers and topics and opportunities for missions and small groups. Yet, when the primary method of teaching the contents and importance of the Bible is inaccessible and unattainable to the student body, many students struggle with knowing whether the practices of Christianity are for them.
Sixty-four percent of students raised in a Christian home will leave the Church while they are in college, according to the Barna Group. If one of Christian education’s goals is to create lifelong Christians, they are overwhelmingly turning away and failing a majority of their students. Specifically, Bible classes draw no line between academics and spirituality, which may negatively affect some students and their faith lives in severe ways. JBU could work to make these required classes more focused on expanding theological understanding rather than testing and grading.
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