Staring Down the Canon

Holy Watermelon

Staring Down the Canon might be intimidating for some, but now that we've explored several holy texts, we're ready to talk about the nature of scriptural authority and how texts are measured against one another within religious traditions.

Books are a great way to preserve knowledge, testimony, and prophecy, but its imperative that readers remember that authors perform their work as imperfect people full of biases and ignorance, just like the readers themselves.

Canon is the criterion against which all ideas and writings are measured. No canon has been divinely established, instead, canon is the product of intense deliberation and authoritative ruling. To help illustrate the universality of this word's utility, Preston uses the Star Wars canon (pre-Disney) to lay down an intellectual foundation before getting into more germane examples in more religious realms.

Fundamentalism is a growing problem in some faith communities, particularly among those who run from a healthy education, seeing their parents' favorite version of their favorite book as the only authoritative source of information on history, physics, biology, geology, and astronomy. What could go wrong?

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