premjan

If you're committed only to the existence of a God and not to a specific religion then you can be an unbiased theologian, as it is roughly an unfalsifiable (idealist) philosophy.

squiz

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

squiz

Many of the answers to your OP seem to have missed that you are talking about religious scholars generally and not theologians specifically. Perhaps you should rephrase the original question with this in mind.

The Dagda

Well I'm not, as the poll makes obvious, or should.

I think I've got my answer religious scholars would rather not comment, in case their words implicate them. You'll find that happens a lot. I can ask any other sphere this question without getting a load of people avoiding the issue. Says it all really. I never really expected a straight answer from religious people, that's not what they do. Non religious people on the other hand don't mind being brutally honest.

squiz

Maybe these topics warrant threads to themselves, but I think they are relevant enough to this thread to bring it up here.

When Pope Benedict (who is originally from Bavaria, was a theological academic in Regensburg in Bavaria and was archbishop of Munich and Freising until he moved to Rome) was in Munich after becoming Pope, the local press were ecstatic over the return of their famous son. Their were interview with various old colleagues from Regensburg, who seemed to be falling over themselves backwards declaring what a wonderful scholar he had been. Recently the pope wrote a book http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_of_Nazareth_(book). I am not familiar with the Pope's academic work, nor have I read this book, so I will not dare to attempt to pass judgment, however perhaps there are some in this forum who are familiar with his work and have even read this book. I find it hard to imagine that someone like the pope does not already have strongly held beliefs that influence his work in a way that would make it of worth to someone who does not share those beliefs, but perhaps someone more familiar with his work can set me right.

Another German religious scholar Gerd Lüdemann recently wrote a critique of the Pope's book on Jesus: Eyes that see not. Has anyone here read this critique? Are his criticisms valid?

The case of Gerd Lüdemann is an interesting one that is also very relevant to this whole question of bias in religious academia. I haven't been able to find much in English regarding this case, but according to this article it seems that he lost his chair in the theology department due to his doubts about the resurrection and his statement that Jesus meant nothing to him religiously. A compromise appears to have been reached in which his chair was renamed and the role of training lutheran ministers withdrawn from this chair. The case is still before the courts though and should have been heard in 2008, according to the wikipedia article. It is a public university, but the sep. of church and state is not so sharply defined in Germany as in the US.

There are a lot of articles about it in the journal Religion, but unfortunately I don't have access to the full articles. If anyone here is more familiar with the current status of this case, please fill us in. This case seems to me to be a strong indicator of pressure being placed on religious academics to toe the line, at least in Germany, but I would welcome it if someone who is more familiar with this case and with the whole scene would set me right.

Toto

There is a comment on Lüdemann's book here.

I have not heard of a resolution of the legal case. There is a page on Lüdemann in the Infidels Library with some old information. Lüdemann's position involved training Luthern ministers, and you could argue that this requires some doctrinal orthodoxy. But his chair was also government funded, a situation that would offend the First Amendment in America.

jjramsey

I'd say that the answer is, "It depends." If you are talking about religious scholars who are conservative, that is, hold to either inerrancy or a belief that the Bible is mostly correct, willing to argue that the Bible is good evidence for supernatural events happening in the past, and so on, then there is obvious bias. If you are talking about liberal scholars, then things get dicier because they have been willing, even eager, to propose ideas that undermine at least conservative beliefs, and perhaps even ought to undermine their own. I do think that some of the unwillingness to attribute apocalyptic beliefs to Jesus himself comes from a subtle bias in favor of the view of Jesus as a wise man worthy of admiration. What you don't have in academia, at least from what I've seen, is an overwhelming tendency to be biased in one particular direction.

The Dagda

See now what prevents the religious posters from admitting bias in a field, and makes the non-religious able to admit their bias? I don't get how that works? I know to some extent often their career belongs to their faith and their ability to justify their beliefs, but this is a forum, it's not like The Pope is hanging around ready to excommunicate anyone who posts. I'm sure there are a few religious posters and scholars on this forum. Again I'm not asking for anything but an opinion about your experience in the field.

Lugubert

I first took university Religious studies at Swedish universities some six years ago. I'm still at it (don't really aspire for yet another degree, and my main interest is languages). I have had lots of teachers, IRL and on distance learning. I have still found no bias, not even detected negative views from a belief point of view, on my sometimes rather irreverent translations of Scripture or in any teachings.

Two professors at two different universities, both of which have been enrolled as experts on the fairly recent multifaith translation project, Bibel 2000 (I don't have to translate that, do I?) have had no negative comments from any belief POW to my essays, but just commented on how to organize references etc. I still don't know if they are believers, and if yes, in what.

Case in point: When translating Gen 1:1 (and some), I kicked the Spirit of God thing in its teeth, (already watered down in Bibel 2000 as "a wind of God") rendering it, like, "God, how the wind was blowing over the waters!" I wasn't excommunicated, I lost no Brownie points, I just got the highest (of two non-fail) note.

It isn't all sunshine though. A friend of mine, whom I judge the Scandinavian expert on his fave personality, criticized the person who was the subject of his asst. prof's doctoral thesis. My pal should have had the higher note, not only according to me, but was barely admitted.

Still, this was not a case of the asst. prof's faith or calling, but looks too much like his defending his academic career towards full professorship, which is a bias type that I suppose is found most everywhere in academia.

ApostateAbe

If you focus on or include scholars who adhere to an ideology, belong to an activist organization, or signed a statement of faith, then no shit their bias is going to strongly affect their conclusions. But you need to be careful about dismissing the whole field as biased for the purpose of sticking to one's own uneducated and untested conclusions. There are plenty of academics of religious fields who are not especially slanted, and their collective authority is worth just as much as that of any other field.