A few years ago, I had a conversation with a student at my university that remains emblematic of one of my worries about Christian education. No doubt aware of my interest in how faith shapes teaching, this student told me about how one of her classes had begun and the impression it made on her.
That semester, she explained, one of her instructors had started the semester by emphasizing that the class was a community, even if it was temporary. If it was to be a Christian community, that meant that everyone in the class was important. Each was made in God’s image. Each had gifts that could be applied for the benefit of all. It mattered, then, whether everyone attended class each day, because each person both mattered and contributed something to the whole.
My student said she found this beginning quite inspiring. This was not how semesters usually started. The opening minutes of a semester are more often focused on syllabi and deadlines and roll calls than on talking about the nature of community and how we plan to live together. Bureaucracy comes before vision. But this was something fresh.
She paused at this point in her narrative before confessing that it took her several weeks to realize that what had been said on the opening day was not really true.
As the semester unfolded, the way the class was taught seemed to have little to do with an interdependent community in which each contributes. As the class unfolded it included a heavy dose of lecture and note-taking. Having a good set of notes was enough to succeed at the exams. There was little chance for students to contribute anything significant. In the end, the framing language at the start of the semester was more pious position-taking than persistent practice.
Christian education is answerable to some weighty words and ideas. Love of neighbor. Community. Hospitality. Shalom. Mercy. Grace. Justice. Many more. All of them are worthy of careful thought, of discussion, of clarification. But if what emerges in the end is only perspectives and positions, verbal performances of righteousness designed to make sure we are signed up for the right team, then something has been missed. As John Calvin noted, Christianity is “not a doctrine of the tongue, but of life,” and so it “will be unprofitable if it does not change our heart, pervade our manners, and transform us into new creatures.”
Our talk of community is tested by each student in our classrooms who senses that they don’t quite belong, that their worth is contingent. It is proven true or false by teaching practices that nourish mutual support or foster isolation. Our talk of hospitality is tested by our tone and choice of examples when we speak about those who are different from us, by the chances of someone who is not from our immediate community being embraced and heard, by our ability in an increasingly hostile and accusatory society to push back with the practice of active care. Our talk of love is, as James noted in his New Testament epistle, dead if it is a verbal performance. Shalom is something God seeks in the everyday contours of our life together. Mercy not experienced by those who need it is mercy in word only.
As Christian educators gather from far and wide for the Converge conference, I suggest that we should be listening actively for that which helps us live well, not just in our individual selves, but in the fabric of our teaching, learning, and leading. No doubt there will be chances to think about positions and perspectives, and no doubt there will be value in those chances. But my own ear will be especially attentive to that which helps our practices.
References
John Calvin, Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1952), 21.
