Biblical Scholar Joel Watts looks at what Christians don't know about Christianity.

photo by: Bolton

We're conditioned to believe the cultural and political divide between Christians and non-believers is a matter of worldview and faith. Atheistic science-types are trying to rescue us from ignorance while believers are saving our souls from a culture that's lost its moral compass. But these hardened battle lines leave most of us out of the equation. Polls measuring religiosity consistently find, "spiritual but not religious" among the fastest growing segment. Maybe it's time to take a fresh look at what really divides Christians and non-believers.

Join Alex Tsakiris for an interview with Biblical scholar Joel Watts, author of Mimetic Criticism and the Gospel of Mark:

Alex Tsakiris: [I’m] someone who doesn’t accept Christian doctrine. So I look at this institution and wonder why [this divide] is allowed? Why would there be this situation where, when you go to seminary, or dig deeply into Biblical studies, [you learn something completely different than what the rank-and-file churchgoer knows].

Imagine a corporation. We would never have that kind of divide. Where the group in charge knows a completely different story than the rank and file members.

Joel Watts: There’s a couple of ways to look at that: one, in American and the West, it’s all about convenience and consumerism. Christianity in its popular form is about consumerism. We educate our preachers this way. If you look at seminaries now, I would wager that the average degree plan is more about counseling and church administration than it is about doctrine or teaching people. So it’s about consumerism. You are educating these pastors and ministers to not lead people, but to feed people whatever their consumeristic desire is. We have a system that is predicated on "the customer’s always right."

Click here for forum discussion

Click here for Joel's Blog (UnsettledChristianity.com)

Read Excerpts:

Alex Tsakiris: I want to bring into focus how that chasm grows. I had an interview a couple years ago with Chris White. Really interesting guy. Very smart guy, intelligent, capable. He’s put together a well-done video documentary on the ancient aliens [topic] that has five million views. No easy feat. It’s a good piece of work. But in my conversation with Chris, who is a conservative Christian, as an aside we were talking about Noah’s Ark because there’s a very slight reference in the film to the Noah’s Ark story. I said, Chris, you’re a really bright guy. I think people would be astounded to find out that you literally believe there was this 500-year-old man who built this big boat, loaded it up with all these animals, and cruised around the world for a year. His response was, well, you don’t understand the text. The text is actually quite technical about Noah’s Ark, and it explains a lot of things and it’s very defensible. And he went into talking about metallurgy, and how maybe they had nails and stuff like that. And I [thought] do you realize how out of touch that is with what ordinary, rational, scientifically-minded people think? They can find a way to their spirituality and to God, but most people can’t find a way to Noah’s Ark.