Rhetoric Race and Religion
The Republican response to President Obama’s State of the Union speech introduced many Americans to Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers. While those of us in Spokane are already familiar with our congresswoman, little is known about her alma mater, Pensacola Christian College.
Study of the Bible is a major concern at PCC, and every student is required to take Bible courses. The treatment of the Bible at PCC is somewhat extreme. The Florida school has a particular (and peculiar) attachment to the King James Version (published in 1611), noting on its website, “it is our practice to use only the Authorized Version (KJV) in the pulpit and in classroom instruction.” Their obsession with the KJV is at odds with scholars who consider dozens of alternative English versions (the New Revised Standard Version, for example) to be more faithful translations since they, unlike the KJV, are based on more ancient (and reliable) biblical manuscripts.
Academic or scholarly approaches to the Bible seem to be shunned at PCC. The seminary associated with the college seems to relish this lack of an academic approach: “Pensacola Theological Seminary has a biblicist approach in its graduate Bible program in contrast to the pseudointellectual approaches of our day. In an attempt to be academic, many focus on teaching erroneous views of liberal theologians. The goal of our Bible program is not to fill our students’ minds with doubts and questions raised by liberals, but rather to fill our students’ souls with the Word of God itself.”
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