Blue Cord

The Anglican Association of Biblical Scholars has announced its 2007 Student Paper Competition.  This is the second year that the AABS has held this competition.  The paper is awarded to the best exegetical study of a biblical text, theme, or concept or of a collection of texts relating to a question arising within the life of the church

The competition is open to any student at one of the eleven Anglican / Episcopal seminaries in the United States.  Papers are presented to the AABS faculty representative, who selects the best paper from the group and submits it to the AABS.  Papers are then read by a panel of judges from the AABS, who select the winner.  The prize includes $250 and a two year membership in the AABS.  The winning paper is also submitted for publication in the Sewanee Theological Review.

The deadline for entries in May 15th.  For more information, please check out the AABS Web Site (maintained by yours truly).

Mark Goodacre and Chris Spinks have both posted on the differences between Ph.D. programs in the US and the UK.  Mark did his Ph.D. in England and works in the US, while Chris did his doctorate at a US institution that has similarities to the British system. For those who don’t know, the main difference between the two systems is the presence of classwork in US Ph.D. programs, while British programs jump straight into research.

Since the topic of education in the US and Europe has been raised, I wanted to mention some changes that are currently being made in European universities.   I bring this up because many scholars in America are probably unaware of these changes.  I ony learned of them while working in Lithuania.

The changes are part of what is known as the Bologna Process — which is not to be confused with processed bologna.   The process is named after the University of Bologna, which first suggested the changes.  Twenty-nine countries met in Bologna in 1999 to discuss the changes.  Follow-up conferences have been held in Prague (2001), Berlin (2003), and Bergen (2005).  You will sometimes hear people discussing “Prague accords” or other things that were proposed at those conferences, but they are all part of the Bologna Process.

The basic idea of the Bologna Process is to bring the system of university education in Europe into some kind of harmony.  Currently, the system is widely divergent.  One country offers one degree as their first level (e.g., specialist) while another country offers a different one (e.g., license).  If specialist takes 4 years and license takes 3, there are problems when someone who has a degree from one country wants to do graduate work in another.

The Bologna Process is intended to provide some uniformity across the board.  They are implementing a system that resembles the US system in some ways:

• Level 1: Bachelor’s, 3 years
• Level 2: Master’s, 2 years
• Level 3: Ph.D., 3 years

The accords from Bologna stipulate how much work (i.e., credit hours) must be done to achieve each level.  They also include a standardized grade system, the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS), which is on a ten point scale.

Having worked in Eastern Europe, I can tell you it is a headache to figure out student transfer credits.  LCC is a liberal arts college on the American model, but we still had to do work to move toward compliance with the Bologna Process.  While I was there, we shifted to the ECTS system of grades and added the diploma supplement that was required.

It will be interesting to see how US universities deal with this.  Currently, US universities offer four year bachelors.  When European students with three year bachelors begin applying for masters work, the US school will have to decide what to do with them.  Of course, they already have to work with differences between the US and European systems, so this will simply be a change in the questions being addressed.

Every now and then I have seen other bloggers mention occasions where people have misquoted the Bible, often by attributing something to the Bible that was actually said somewhere else. One of the more famous examples is “God helps those who help themselves.” The beauty of that quote is that it is pretty much the opposite of what the Bible says. Paul, in particular, is pretty clear that God helped all of us because we couldn’t help ourselves.

The other day I came across a new example on a discussion group. The debate was over the government and whether or not it should have programs that assist the poor. One person chimed in to quote Jesus, who said “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Of course, Jesus never said this. It is a Chinese proverb.

I seem to remember Jesus giving 5,000 people fish, but I don’t remember him teaching them to fish. Perhaps that part of the sermon was not preserved.

I have had nothing to say on my blog about the tragedy at Virginia Tech because I have nothing to add. I grieve with the families and friends, and I identify with them as a fellow human, a fellow American, and someone who is part of academia. Like everyone else, I cannot understand how someone could do this. But unlike a number of people on radio and in blogs, I will not cheapen the deaths of those innocent people by turning it into an opportunity for criticism or a time to push a particular political agenda.

I just learned that some people have suggested a one day blogging silence on April 30 in honor of those who were killed. Although it is only a small gesture, I will be participating in that silence. I ask those of you who read this blog to please refrain from posting comments on that day.

May God grant eternal rest to those who were killed and His comfort and grace to their families and friends.

The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press has the findings of their latest survey on what people know about current events from different sources. It ranks peoples answers on a survey, and then divides them into three groups: high knowledge, medium knowledge, and low knowledge. These groupings are then compared to the news sources people frequent.

Not surprisingly, people who read national newspaper sites, watch the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and listen to NPR all scored very high on the survey. What is interesting is that people who watch The Daily Show with John Steward and the Colbert Report took the top slight, only slightly ahead of national newspaper website readers. And surprisingly, those who tune in to opinion mongers Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh were also in the top five.

People who read news blogs did not do particularly well. I suspect such people tend to confuse news and opinions. CNN viewers beat Fox News watcher quite handily, with the later coming in only slightly ahead of people who watch the Today Show and similar offerings.

The rest of the report is worth reading, as it breaks down a number of demographics (including how the level of education compares with what people know) and discusses what people know now compared with the same survey in 1989. One of the most pathetic statistics was that only a third of Americans knew that Muslims were broken down into Sunni and Shia. This does not compare well with the 62% of people who knew who Peyton Manning is.

A few of the lessons:

• People need to learn the difference between opinion and news. People seem to be tuning in to opinion shows in order to get the news.
• People remember things that are taught with humor. Kudos to John Stewart!
• A college degree does matter when it comes to understanding current events.