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Christian Education Beyond Sunday School
Posted on Friday, June 15, 2007 at 10:52 AM by Jason Barker
Fr. Gregory Jensen links to another blog article discussing an article in a recent Christianity Today about the way in which Christian churches approach Christian education. Mark Galli (the author of the Christianity Today article) uses as the foundation for his argument yet another article from Theology Today discussing the fact that, under current educational strategies (particularly in Protestant churches), religious education is largely the attempt to transmit intellectual knowledge: "Understood this way, knowledge is perceived as a kind of repository of neutral facts, and the mastery of these facts constitutes the process and the ultimate goal of coming to know." Instead of a largely intellectual approach to Christian education, Debra Dean Murphy argues in Theology Today, churches must understand that true knowledge is to be transformed through "the praise and adoration of God within the eucharistic fellowship of the body of Christ gathered together in worship."
I mention these articles, not to imply that these articles in any way reflect upon the excellent work of the Department of Christian Education in the Antiochian Archdiocese or the pan-jurisdictional Orthodox Christian Education Commission, but instead because they bring to mind a serious danger of Bible study: the tendency to make Bible study an individual intellectual pursuit rather than a communal spiritual discipline.
Bible studies for youth - as with those for most adults - must be more than simply the transmission of data. A simple perusal of the titles given to my Bible studies - Follow Me; The Journey; See the Vision; Be Transformed - gives an indication of the intent of the studies (both individually and collectively): transformation through a worshipful relationship with God and His Church. While there are any number of intellectual components in my work - and cognitive strategies informing these components - the focus is always on growth as a Christian, rather than simply the memorization of facts. It is for this reason that my studies are not simply a collection of summaries and quizzes - although the studies contain these - but also include numerous articles on Orthodox faith and worship, and life application. Furthermore, these studies always encourage the individual to become ever more deeply involved with - and committed to - the Body of Christ.
At the same time, while avoiding "over-intellectualizing" Bible study, we must avoid "under-intellectualizing" it. There are any number of modern "Bible studies" that, instead of studying the Bible, simply use the biblical text as a launching point for the delicate art of navel gazing, endlessly discussing one's feelings rather than the text itself. Bible-related activity that effectively promotes biblical ignorance is arguably even more damaging than biblical study that focuses exclusively on data transmission: a person might still be reached by a cold recitation of facts, whereas a person is very unlikely to grow in his or her relationship with God when the focus is away from Him and the Scripture He gave.
In another writing I stated the ideal for which I aim when creating Bible studies (I've removed the paranthetical citations):
A full reading of the biblical text, with its incorporation of scholarship and academic methodologies, should not be contrasted with - or opposed to - reading for life application or devotional reading. As this general approach demonstrates, both are vital to comprehension of the text: reading devotionally without understanding the background or context of the text results in the individual constructing “a new sacred calf” that is molded by a hunger for comfort or desire for the control of familiarity. Conversely, an academic reading without devotion to the God revealed in the text results in God being diminished into a mere concept over which the reader has control. The function of the instructor is to “urge [learners] to creatively and actively perform the reading role in such a way that personal and social life (theirs, ours, our neighbors, even our enemies) is informed and (by grace) transformed into an encounter with God” through the text.
Edited on: Saturday, June 16, 2007 12:40 PMPosted in Miscellaneous