Why bother?: Introduction

I read an article on Foxnews.com that a priest, Father Jonathan Morris, wrote regarding The DaVinci Code. The DaVinci code, is, of course, very controversial among Christians. Some people will preach against it, others will just ignore it, and others have either read it or will see the upcoming movie. What struck me in this article, though, was that Father Morris said:

"Dan Brown is capable of passing fiction for fact because Christians don’t know their faith — what and why they believe. That’s not Mr. Brown’s fault."

This is a statement with which I emphatically agree, yet with my yearning and passion for trying to understand why I believe what I do, I often feel that I am in the minority among Christians. It is probably fairly accurate to say that most Christians have no interest in learning the history or context of Biblical texts or the history of the development of Christianity.

One of my random quotes on the right side of this blog states that "Theology is seeking to understand with the intellect what the heart--a person's central core of character--already believes and to which it is committed". This is the first reason, I believe, why we ought to be more serious about studying different aspects about our Bible and our faith's history. If we only have a belief but do not know very much about that belief, how strong and deep can it truly be?
This post, therefore, is the introductory post to a series (I have no idea how long it will be) of posts in which I will explore different reasons for why this kind of study is important.