April 1, 2007
Why Scholarship Matters in the Church
By Robert F. Hull Jr. It was Tertullian (ca. ad 200) who famously asked, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What has the Academy to do with the Church?” (Prescription Against Heretics, 7). Ironically, his own polished rhetoric shows his indebtedness to higher learning, which enabled him to write essays both in Greek and Latin in the service of his faith. Moreover, had he not been schooled in philosophy, he could not have argued so skillfully against it. Scholarship Matters It is still not unusual to find high-level scholarship derided as a sterile, if not dangerous, undertaking for those
