Obama: The Constitution and The Bible – Subjects that Students Think they Already Know
Posted by NT Wrong on May 25, 2008
When Barack Obama taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago, he would often encounter students who thought they were already quite familiar with the subject. And so, they would fail to seriously consider the subject in the detail it deserves.
Barack Obama makes a worthy comparison with the teaching of biblical studies:
“Sometimes I imagined my work to be not so different from the work of the theology professors who taught across campus—for, as I suspect was true for those teaching Scripture, I found that my students often felt they knew the Constitution without having really read it. They were accustomed to plucking out phrases that they’d heard and using them to bolster their immediate arguments, or ignoring passages that seemed to contradict their views.”
- Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, 2008: 85.
agathos said
As someone who has marked many NT introduction papers whatever else Obama may be he is SPOT ON with that observation
ntwrong said
It is soooooo true, isn’t it? I’m glad somebody else told me they thought so, too.
Unfortunately, Obama may just be too smart (and of course, too black) for certain areas of the country to vote for him instead of McCain.
Bishop N. T. Wrong
Bishop of Durham (North Carolina)
Free Universalist Interfaith Church