The professor of English Bible,

a former missionary to India with

a doctorate in comparative religion

from a prestigious university,

held the Bhagavad Gita in one hand

and the Bible in the other asking us

to compare the two. We thought he

was biased in favor of the Bible, so

that meant that we should be, too. It

was a denominational seminary, after

all, not a big time divinity school of

free thought. I knew I was in trouble

because I recall really liking the Gita,

and its Eastern poetic allegory as

versus the God blessed gory stories of

the Old Testament, for sure. I kind of

thought Jesus would have liked the Gita,

too. In fact, to be perfectly honest, I

think the prof liked the Gita, but it was

a denominational seminary, after all,

not a hot bed of free thought, like the

prestigious university where he got his

doctorate. I really liked him, he was a

sacred cow shatterer and, along the way,

he had been in some theological hot

water and I wondered if he were hiding

something. I think it was that twinkle in

the eye or the knowing, Peck’s Bad Boy

grin, but he did have a job at a denomin-

ational seminary, after all.