Scholarship is its own kind of cloak. It’s a cloak of knowledge. It doesn’t matter whether it’s philosophy, medicine, theology, or aeronautical engineering, when we’ve read all the primary literature, and all the secondary literature, and every single scholarly article on a subject, we’ve built up a pretty impressive cloak. We know all there is to know. We can think of a thousand reasons not to leap to our feet and a hundred ways to deconstruct Jesus’ call. But where does that get us in facing Jesus’ question, “What do you want me to do for you?” The answer isn’t in a book. What are we going to say? “Make me a bigger library?

Scholarship is its own kind of cloak. It’s a cloak of knowledge. It doesn’t matter whether it’s philosophy, medicine, theology, or aeronautical engineering, when we’ve read all the primary literature, and all the secondary literature, and every single scholarly article on a subject, we’ve built up a pretty impressive cloak. We know all there is to know. We can think of a thousand reasons not to leap to our feet and a hundred ways to deconstruct Jesus’ call. But where does that get us in facing Jesus’ question, “What do you want me to do for you?” The answer isn’t in a book. What are we going to say? “Make me a bigger library?

Scholarship is its own kind of cloak. It’s a cloak of knowledge. It doesn’t matter whether it’s philosophy, medicine, theology, or aeronautical engineering, when we’ve read all the primary literature, and all the secondary literature, and every single scholarly article on a subject, we’ve built up a pretty impressive cloak. We know all there is to know. We can think of a thousand reasons not to leap to our feet and a hundred ways to deconstruct Jesus’ call. But where does that get us in facing Jesus’ question, “What do you want me to do for you?” The answer isn’t in a book. What are we going to say? “Make me a bigger library?

Why does a person study religion? There are many incidental reasons, but there is only one reason if a person is really in earnest: in a word, it is to come into contact with reality, to find a reality deeper than the everyday reality that so quickly changes, rots away, leaves nothing behind and offers no lasting happiness to the human soul. Every religion that is sincere tries to open up contact with this reality.