John H Armstrong

Why Theological Education Fails the Need of Our Times

My title is big and broad, I understand. I believe, simply put, that contemporary theological education is failing to produce true leaders. We teach to our level of competence and the competence of most of our best schools is to teach courses that are helpful but not necessarily centered on the missional reality of the church. Generally speaking our seminaries fail to clearly grasp the gospel of the kingdom. Even where they do grasp the kingdom message (some teachers get it as evidenced by their academic writing) most have not learned how to put this message into practice. The kind of changes that are needed to produce real change at the congregational level is not being unleashed by our schools.

Please do not misunderstand me. I believe in higher education. I do not believe that it is desirable, in most cases, to put men and women in pastoral leadership who are not intellectually and spiritually prepared to serve well. What I reject is the idea that a 200-year old German model of seminary curriculum is the best model to base a good education upon. I also do not believe that those who train pastors should be so far removed from the everyday life of the local church. Our present system takes men and women out of the church, sends them off for higher education, gives them degrees in ministry and theology and then sends them back into schools where they will become the primary shapers of the next group of pastors. Something about this is wrong. Maybe this is why Catholic seminaries require their teachers to be active priests, not just teachers and academics.

If the church needs to recover a kingdom-oriented, missional understanding of its calling, a recovery which I believe is critical in a cultural context where the Christian faith has lost its impact on society and (most) congregations, then it is very unlikely this will happen in our present system. Reform is desperately needed. Some institutions are willing to talk about this reform but very few are changing nearly as fast as we need. The reasons are complex. I do not believe the answer is revolution, which would mean we burn down the house and start over. This is why I invest more than a little time of my own time in this discussion week-in and week-out. I love the church and believe that a good education is still very important for church leadership. I am not persuaded, however, that much of what we do to train leaders for the church is working very well.

If I understand the times in which we live then we need creative, fresh and theologically alive places where a good education happens and real practitioners are taught how to truly serve the church. Until theoria (theory) and praxis (practice) are closely aligned again I believe we will never get the balance that we need. The future is challenging and I fear most institutions are not ready for it.  If we keep doing the same thing, believing that it will produce different results, then the whole process gets very close to the definition of insanity.

Engaging the Culture, Changing the World

The late Jewish novelist Chaim Potok, whose work I have read and treasured, said several years ago that “we live in a world of colliding maps.” Dr. Philip W. Eaton, the president of Seattle Pacific University, understands this “world of colliding maps.” In his new book, Engaging the Culture, Changing the World (InterVarsity Press, 2011) Eaton suggests that “each of us has constructed our own little, individual story, our map, out of the bits and scraps of information we have been given.” Eaton believes that the philosophical, cultural and educational orthodoxy of our time says that there really is no big map, no overarching story, no drama into which we are all moved. In this context everything is personal. Everything depends on us. Eaton says that we've, “deconstructed any meta-map we have been given and then [we try to] construct our own map.” Is human flourishing really possible on this planet where so much is colliding around the world?

One contributor to this chaos has been the collapse of true universities. The very name means “unity within diversity.” But in most cases our universities are not one in any meaningful sense of the word nor is there any true diversity that leads to flourishing. Eaton calls for visionary leaders who care about equipping a new generation of kingdom agents for the difficult challenge of our complex world. His call is “hope-filled” and urges Christian schools, in particular, to engage this culture and work to transform it. He gives a hopeful account of what can happen, thus making this a book for educators, administrators and all Christians who want to understand how and why Christian universities and colleges still matter.

Eaton writes:

We need universities at the front edge of building up “vibrant moral cultures” (John Paul II). We need universities fully committed to educating “men and women of virtue",” people “capable of knowing, and choosing” the good (John Paul II). These are alternative universities in our day. And this is the way we can reimagine our Christian Universities; animated from the very core of their identity by the great mystery of Easter, these universities seek to build up vibrant, life-giving cultures by equipping men and women of virtue to choose the genuine good (90).

Eaton nails this, so far as I’m concerned, when he call this culture work, not political or ideological work. Following James D. Hunter’s masterful treatment To Change the World (Oxford, 2010), he quotes: “There are no political solutions to the problems most people care about” (90). Eaton, with James D. Hunter, fears that we have engaged in “the politicization of everything” (90). By turning to political power to speak to our culture we have lost the richness of public life and reduced real issues to simple political answers. The result is catastrophic.

Eaton is right when he says we need to find ways that transcend our present obsession with politics as the only way to publicly discuss what really matters in life. “As important as politics may be at times, they are not everything or even the most important thing. We’ve got to get this culture thing right. We’ve got to equip young people in culture-savvy ways, understanding that in the end our potential to make the world a better place will only come through building up life-giving cultures. Indeed, this is the only way our Christian universities can be the place where the world change begins” (91).

This is the kind of book all who influence or care about Christian education ought to engage. I highly recommend it.

Waiting for Superman: A Critical Rethink

Yesterday, I wrote a rather laudatory review of the 2010 documentary film, Waiting for Superman. Today I want to give you my second look at the film. Why?

Shortly after seeing this worthwhile film I wrote the review that you read yesterday. Then I spoke in South Holland, Illinois, to the mayor, the city council and the community leaders network. This was a dinner gathering on March 5, the evening before I flew to Rome for my nine-day pilgrimage that I will write about tomorrow. My topic that evening was on how faith and freedom work best in the civic sphere.

Before dinner I met a very articulate educator who had spent 36 years in the Chicago public schools, both as a teacher and an administrator. This gracious, highly educated, very thoughtful Christian woman gave me considerable pause about my zeal for this film when I asked her, with a very honest desire to get feedback, “Have you seen Waiting for Superman? If so, what do you think is wrong with it?” Her answer, given in less than five minutes, challenged several of my arguments. I listened and pondered her wise words and then had to wonder, “What shall I do with this blog that I just wrote?” My answer was to let my blog stand, thus yesterday’s post and the positive review. I then reasoned that I should provide a “critical rethink” in today’s post. My purpose is to allow two things to happen: (1) To show you how I try to understand an issue by reading, thinking, asking questions, etc. (2) To reveal how unwise I was to jump to a completely positive conclusion based upon  emotion and the power of an argument that I did not think through carefully enough. If you want to read blogs by writers who know their own mind perfectly, and then write with deep certainty about what they believe on almost every issue they think about, then this is definitely not the place to be on the Internet. I reasoned, my friends do need to see how I messed up and then tried to work this one out.

Make no mistake about it, this film has justly earned praise and criticism from commentators, reformers, and educators. Even President Obama has shown it at the White House. He praised it. And as documentaries go it has done exceptionally well. It had a 88% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes on January 1, 2011. Remember, this film is made by the same producer/director who gave us the famous Al Gore film, An Inconvenient Truth. That film, rightly or wrongly, won the Academy Award for best documentary the year it was up for awards. I think this film is far superior, as such films go.

Remember, further, that documentaries are “opinion” films if there was ever such a category. The opinion expressed is always that of the person who wants to get the audience to adopt a position or take a specific point of view. Think of An Inconvenient Truth for a moment and stay calm while you read my words. The film was pretty good, especially as such films go. I remember feeling, as I left the theater, "This was not as bad as the conservatives told me it would be. In fact, there was a lot of good to be seen and learned from it." I still believe that is true. The fundamental flaw, however, is that the whole premise of the documentary is that humans are the primary cause of global warming (there really is observable global warming going on) and thus humans can stop global warming if they adopt a set of rather simplistic solutions offered in the film by the former Vice President. This is the point at which any thinking person should ask hard specific questions. And this is precisely the point I missed yesterday. I failed to ask the hard questions when I saw Waiting for Superman. I think I know why but will save that for the end of this post.

Film critic Roger Ebert, who I agree with about 80% of the time, gave the movie 3.5 stars out of 4 and wrote, "What struck me most of all was Geoffrey Canada's confidence that a charter school run on his model can make virtually any first-grader a high school graduate who's accepted to college. A good education, therefore, is not ruled out by poverty, uneducated parents or crime- and drug-infested neighborhoods. In fact, those are the very areas where he has success." Scott Bowles of USA Today lauded the film for its focus on the students: "It's hard to deny the power of Guggenheim's lingering shots on these children." And Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly gave the film an A-, calling it "powerful, passionate, and potentially revolution-inducing." Well, Lisa Schwarzbaum gets it right if, and this is huge, the film gets the facts and the solutions right. But this is the problem. Other papers and periodicals praised the film, including the conservative Wall Street Journal, New York Post and Forbes magazine.

What strikes me as odd here is that so many conservative publications praise a film made by the same people who produced “An Inconvenient Truth,” a film they hated on the whole. At the same time more liberal media sources criticized this film; e.g. Salon.com and The Village Voice. You can read as much of this as you would like on many sites. It is all readily available but I had not read it before I wrote yesterday’s praise.

The most important concerns I had after my conversation with the educator referred to above came in two areas: (1) Accuracy (2) Solutions.

A study was done by Stanford University on charter schools. It found that charter schools, on average, perform about the same or worse compared to public schools. I found this information shocking since the film treats charter schools as “the big answer” for the present moment in time. Here is a response that would parallel what my educator friend told me:

"The film dismisses with a side comment the inconvenient truth that our schools are criminally underfunded. Money's not the answer, it glibly declares. Nor does it suggest that students would have better outcomes if their communities had jobs, health care, decent housing, and a living wage. Particularly dishonest is the fact that Guggenheim never mentions the tens of millions of dollars of private money that has poured into the Harlem Children's Zone, the model and superman we are relentlessly instructed to aspire to."

— Rick Ayers, Adjunct Professor in Education at the University of San Francisco

Ayers challenges the accuracy of the film, describing it as "a slick marketing piece full of half-truths and distortions." In Ayers' view, the "corporate powerhouses and the ideological opponents of all things public" have employed the film to try and break the teacher’s unions. (Here we get into politics and we must be honest about this. I asked my educator friend if she thought that we needed an easier and more efficient way to get rid of bad teachers. She completely agreed that this was a serious problem. The devil, as they say, is in the details.)

The film accurately says that since 1971, inflation-adjusted per-student spending has more than doubled, "from $4,300 to more than $9,000 per student.” Has this increased the educational outcome? The simple answer is obvious. Over the same period, test scores have "flat-lined." But Ayers further contends that "schools are more segregated today than before Brown v. Board of Education in 1954", and thus criticized the film for not mentioning that in his view, "black and brown students are being suspended, expelled, searched, and criminalized.” I do not think this is entirely fair if you take the film in full. Decide for yourself but be aware that race remains a major problem in American society and a huge problem in education, not to even speak of the local church.

But the big flaw here is the overwhelming assumption that drives the film. That assumption is that charter schools out perform other schools. Diane Ravitch notes that a study by Stanford University economist Margaret Raymond of 5000 charter schools found that only 17% are superior in math test performance to a matched public school. The film presents none of this evidence but it subtly admits that most charter schools do not outperform regular schools. This is why it focuses on those charter schools that do succeed, and some do succeed famously. In fairness the film explicitly stated that only 1 in 5 charter schools (close to the 17% statistic) were truly superior schools. Ravitch is further critical in her observation that many charter schools also perform badly and become involved in "unsavory real estate deals" and expel low-performing students before testing days to ensure higher test scores. The most substantial distortion in the film, at least according to Ravitch, is the film's claim that "70 percent of eighth-grade students cannot read at grade level.” She says the statement is based on a misuse of the actual terms used in testing. Grade-level is not actually tested. The categories used are “basic,” “proficient” and “advanced.” 

Princeton professor Cornel West said, "I have great love and respect for brother Geoffrey Canada. But I had a deep critique of the film, in which he was central. Waiting for Superman scapegoats teachers' unions. Yet those countries with the best education systems in the world, like Finland, have over 90% of their teachers unionized, and their students take few, if any standardized tests. In Finland there are 2 teachers in classrooms of 14. Teachers receive the salaries of many of our businesspeople. Fifteen percent of their college graduates teach in schools rather than make their way to Wall Street to be millionaires. They reflect a fundamentally different set of priorities in America. And if we don’t adapt to those priorities, we will continue to scapegoat, demonize, and thereby undercut the morale of our teachers.”

I must admit that I am not deeply involved in these issues day-to-day. Much of it is beyond my level of comprehension. I am emotionally and intellectually disposed to think that one should always listen to both sides of debate before they decide how to think about a complex issue like public education in America.

In my reading of the various reviews about this film, pro and con, I note that almost no one brings up what my educator friend did on March 5th. She challenged the far too simple thesis that we could improve public education dramatically without changing families and neighborhoods. Let me explain what I heard her say to me.

Our families are broken, seriously broken. Our neighborhoods are badly broken as well. The idea that we can fix public education with more emphasis on charter schools, through better testing and by removing a significant number of truly bad teachers (which I’ve already said is desperately needed), is deeply flawed. It is, in one word, utopian! The film gives a strong impression that the solution lies in the system being fixed and the results will follow. There is much in this thesis that is good but it is way too simplistic.

Here is what I should have written after seeing the film. This is a good, indeed a must-see, film. But like An Inconvenient Truth it offers far too many simple answers to complex issues and problems. Come to think of it conservatives are prone to this kind of reasoning and I am not sure why, especially if they believe in personal and systemic sin and the need for real community. Sometimes I wonder if they say they believe these things but then act as if the solution is to attack what we have and then embrace the easy solutions offered by films and media sources. Life is just a little more complex than this version of conservatism understands. What we need is a little of the older form of conservatism, the kind that we once called “classical liberalism” before these words got hijacked by modern political opinion shapers.

Why then did I miss all this when I saw the film? Like most everyone else I want answers and this film gives them. I want hope, and this film offers it. And I would like to see everything in the best light, a weakness of mine at times. So I was taken up by the powerful answer this film offered me about a complex issue that I think Christians must grapple with deeply in our present cultural breakdown. My thinking is now more sober but I would still urge you to see the film.

Waiting for Superman: A Must See Video

Whether you realize it or not our public education system is seriously broken. Some will admit it but very few, teachers or politicians, are ready to do much about it. Myths about the real problem abound but the recently released DVD Waiting for Superman is the first thing that I have seen or read that makes a compelling, factual and emotional appeal about what can and should be done to change our schools. At the end of viewing this documentary I was angry, hopeful and had tears in my eyes. (I really mean this, I was all three at once!) This film simply blew me away. I intend to order a copy so all my friends can borrow it. I have been forced to act on this film’s message with a growing commitment to justice and mercy.

Many experts have said, for a long time, that public schools were never designed to prepare students for college, merely to join the work force and become competent citizens and employees. With high tech industries in need of better trained employees with skills in math, science and English speech, writing and grammar, businesses often have to look outside the country to find help because US students don’t have the aptitude or degrees to compete. Just a few days ago I looked for this video at Borders and the manager engaged me in conversation. He insisted that the “real problem” was in all our jobs going overseas. I responded by saying one way to stop this was to prepare more young people for the world they must work in to survive and thrive inside the US. He got testy and I backed off. (He is about to lose his job due to Borders closing many stores and filing for bankruptcy. I respect his feelings but think that as bright as he is this manager simply refuses to consider that the real problems are not in overseas business competition but in overseas educational competition and the failure of the most prosperous nation on the planet to find a way to educate our children properly.)

The fact is that new public schools (called charter schools) are opening in America’s inner cities every year. These schools plainly help students (they have the facts to prove this) but the whole movement has become a huge political football. Kids are the real losers. A lack of state funding, in major part held up by teacher’s unions, means that only a select few kids, chosen by a lottery, will ever get the chance to better themselves in student-oriented learning environment where great teachers are the norm. The documentary suggests that too often people wait for others to act, thus the title: Waiting for Superman. But Superman is not going to solve this problem. Only self-educated and concerned citizens can solve this one, which is one of our most pressing social problems. After watching the film I believe this is our most pressing social problem, period.

Saving Superman reveals how twenty years of observation, reports, and statistics have created a sharp decline in student performance in neglected school districts. Tenured teachers (those who have been employed for only two years in most states) are a major part of the problem, thus this film is guaranteed to be controversial. It is so hard to fire a tenured teacher that they can get away with almost anything. In fact, only 1 in 2,500 who are challenged by attempts to remove them will actually be removed. Compare this to 1 in 57 with doctors and 1 in 98 for lawyers brought before the bar and you see the point. Union based contracts make it almost impossible for schools to fire bad teachers regardless of performance, thus creating a void in real education. This has led some school systems to rotate teachers from school to school in the hopes of getting something better in the end. (Schools literally swap bad teachers and shuffle them around hoping to change the problem. Tell me what business could tolerate this system and thrive?) Public school teachers understand that private schools don’t have to follow union rules. But what happens when private schools and charter schools blow these other schools away by performance and results? One has to hope that the sheer force of this argument will eventually force a revolutionary change. One also has to wonder how much of this is involved in the Wisconsin battle but I leave that for another time and place. Meanwhile, it is our students who suffer, and not because teachers go on strike. They suffer because we retain bad teachers and refuse to solve a problem that cripples our best investment in America’s future---our children. Our kids deserve so much better in a land with so much wealth. We could give it to them but we lack the will and the voice of the people demanding it.

There are stories in this documentary that will move you. There are stories that will make you very mad too. And there are stories here that should prompt you to get involved whether your children attend public schools or not.

My children went to public schools, home school and Christian schools. They all had advantages and disadvantages. But that was several decades ago. Things have grown far worse since they were educated. Even in suburban schools the problem is growing. The way kids are tracked and slotted for classes will determine whether or not they have a real shot at college or not. And some of the reasons kids get put on a slow track have to do with things that are not related to academic ability. (This is frightening to think about if you are a parent whose child might stand out from the pack for one reason or another.)

When I finished watching this film I said to myself, “Every pastor and community leader in America ought to watch this film.” In fact, if churches and church leaders got involved in this issue it would be a marvelous way to express missional-ecumenism. For this reason, I would encourage you to get the film and show it to leaders and start the discussion. This subject really is that important. I am  sold on the importance of this film and the significance of its message for the future of this country. So goes public education so goes much of our society. Some Christians would rather public schools fail. The consequences of this are higher crime, more prisons and more jobs overseas. Is that what we want to support as Christians? I hope not. Make your own choice about how and where to educate your own children but do not close your eyes and hearts to the plight of your neighbors and their children. We have a time, a unique time I think, in which we can become involved as Christians in a great and needed social revolution. In some ways this is at the heart of a new civil rights era. I hear a lot about homosexual rights being at the heart of the new civil rights movement but whatever your sexual choice you will fail in life without the skills needed to compete and secure a good job. The field is not level. The rich can get a good education while the poor are stuck. Most of the poor are black and most of them live in our cities or in poorer counties in the South where schools fail as well. If we are serious about poverty and America’s future then we must get serious about public education and the massive reforms that we need right now, not tomorrow.

Watch this film. Get engaged. Help change America. Be a “good neighbor” in the name of Jesus Christ. Do something about this issue.

The bottom line of Waiting for Superman is that great teachers make for better students. Education is about the kids, not about politics. Our colleges are not equipping teachers to be great educators and our schools do not encourage and financially promote great teachers when we do get them. I know more than a few outstanding teachers who got out of public education for just this reason.

Tomorrow: Waiting for Superman Has Several Significant Flaws

Knox Theological Seminary: A Small Gem in a Sea of Huge Change

I had the unique privilege of teaching my course, “Unity in Christ’s Mission,” January 10-14 at Knox Theological Seminary in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. I had been to Knox many years ago to speak at a commencement service. It was a day-in and day-out experience so I got very little flavor for the faculty or the students. I remember arriving at the last minute, because of weather problems in Chicago. I also remember speaking to Dr. Kennedy after I preached, but only briefly. And I had breakfast with a few members of the faculty on Saturday morning before I flew to the West Coast. Other than this brief encounter I did not know much about Knox, nor do I recall knowing a single graduate from the seminary over the years. (Most Knox students have been from South Florida.) This all began to change in June, 2010, when I was introduced to President Ronald Kovack and Dean Warren Gage, along with their new theologian, Michael Allen (photo right). Michael completed his PhD at Wheaton two years ago. Soon after I met these good brothers I was invited to teach a J term (January or July) class for doctoral students. I picked January 2011 without even a prayerful thought! (So much for my imminent piety.)

Knox has undergone some significant changes in the last few years. It is now rebuilding from the inside out. The chairman of the board is my close friend, Dr. Luder Whitlock, the former president of Reformed Theological Seminary. Luder is clearly one of the brightest and most innovative Christian leaders in higher education in the world. A few others involved in the transition at Knox are people that I have known in other contexts. The close association of Knox Seminary with Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church remains. Pastor Tullian Tchividjian (pronounced cha-vi-jin) who I wrote about last year when the congregation at Coral Ridge was divided over his ministry, is also directly linked with the seminary. I worshiped at Coral Ridge on Sunday, January 9, and sensed a renewal of mission and passion that was pervasive. I also had the opportunity to get to know Tullian better through personal conversation over lunch.

Knox Seminary is forced to become more creative in their delivery system because of their history and what they now face in the future. I see this as an extremely positive outcome. One aspect of this is a deep commitment to online education, which some schools offer but very few have done enough with yet. A student in a Moscow cafe, as the president notes in the school’s recent report, can watch a class online, download notes, take tests and respond.

President Kovack notes:

Technology merging with God’s Spirit, meeting opportunity which He has provided is causing a complete paradigm shift in the way we think about theological education outside the boundaries of our local campus. The new paradigm is the hybrid model---traditional education on campus in the traditional classroom setting, and distance learning, video classes that allow the student to attend class and interact with the classmates and professor while in a remote location. How cool is that?! We now have over 400 students signed up in South America, with admission applications on file.

Knox needs only $108,000 to produce cohort classes in six Latin American countries and most of their students will be given scholarships out of these funds. Think about that for a moment. Traditional education could cover less than ten students on that amount of money.

And Knox is going on the road this year. But this is not the traditional way seminaries have done this. They are not spreading out across the U. S. by sending faculty to remote multi-site campuses, a thing done for nearly twenty years by major schools who wanted to attract new students and meet budget, etc. They are, for example, going into Cuba this year to teach and equip leaders. This has never been done since Castro came to power!

My friend Al Jiron, Dean of Students and Admissions at Knox, notes that the scenario is the same all over America. Men and women believe God wants them trained to become better leaders. Many will not enter the pastorate but want solid training. Knox intends to deliver it and they are on track to do it well. Knox has seen the vision I have promoted for over five years---take theological education into the home of the students wherever they live. Create a state-of-the-art theological training and distance curriculum that will serve many applicants who can never move to Florida. Says Al Jiron, “Our students are our mission.” Amen.

Dr. Warren Gage, Academic Dean (photo right), is a delightful and creative scholar with a vision for the future as well. He recently wrote about the late Dr. Kennedy once saying that someday the church would carry the gospel to the ends of the earth by “yet undreamed of” means. The day is here says Dr. Gage and the Internet is the means. The tools for a vision like that of Knox Seminary are there for all to use. I thank God these wise and faithful brothers and sisters are dreaming a truly great dream. I will be cheering them on and doing anything I can to help them reach their goal. May God bless Knox with even greater opportunities and donors to make this a great reality the world over. You want to make a kingdom difference, invest in a vision like this one! You will realize more kingdom impact for your investment in such a mission than you will in a hundred large building programs that are generally unneeded. (I’m sorry if that is offensive but it is, in my mind, simply obvious and true!)

Jonathan G. Smith, Dean of Distance Education, adds:

Gospel-centered theological education must meet the 21st-century challenges of instructing pastors, teachers, missionaries, and laypersons that are spread across the nation and the world. . . . by recognizing and even embracing the pattern our Lord has presented to us through the media of Holy Scripture, not only are we encouraged to follow this pattern, but rather we are mandated by none other than God alone to embrace what he ordained. This is the very heart of Knox Virtual: designing instructional media that carries on the great tradition of Christianity to be a media-based faith, rooted in history and grounded in truth. By making the biblical pattern the center of all that we are doing, Knox will become the leading seminary of the 21st century.

Jonathan might be a bit zealous about Knox’s unique role but I love his zeal. Every school ought to follow suit and get really serious about training missional leadership for the future. I hope to see something of how Knox Seminary does this and will prayerfully support them as much as possible.

Becoming Aware of Our Need to Grow Spiritually

Most of us do not become truly aware of the need to grow spiritually until we are at least in our adolescence. Spirituality is not child’s play. Spiritual growth is a process, like everything else in our lives. It develops in phases. It is frequently activated when we face a crisis, a trial, or a great test. Maybe a tragedy hits us or an issue that we cannot cope with in our own strength. Whatever it is we become aware that we need God and his grace. If we try to force this on children prematurely I am convinced that we will do serious harm.

It is right and good that we teach children about God. It is right that we teach them the Bible, especially the Gospel stories about Jesus. It is also right that we raise their curiosity. It is even right that we catechize them in sound doctrinal understanding of the faith. What is wrong is an attempt to push them beyond where they are mentally and emotionally. We can, and sometimes do, kill a child’s interest in spiritual reality by pushing them too hard, too soon. I think the best analogy here is sowing. We teach them the Word and sow it in their young hearts. They do not understand spirituality or spiritual life. In excessive zeal for making sure that our children are protected, or “made a decision” for Christ (which is even worse), we can do untold harm. And when they ask lots of questions and struggle as adolescents we should never be surprised. Horrendous fights with them will not make them spiritual. Relax and love them as they try to figure out life.

Real spiritual growth is not religious activity or pious expressions of religion. Such practice mimics the real and falsely satisfies a need to be in control religiously. “Unfortunately, many people think that they grow close to God by performing religious practices and doing religious things. That is not spirituality” (Never Alone, Girzone, 13).

Joseph Girzone makes an interesting observation that I had not previously considered. He notes that Jesus spent decades growing up in Nazareth and you would think the townsfolk would know about his eminent holiness. Yet when he began to teach they asked, “Where did he get this from? Isn’t this the carpenter’s son?” His holiness had not made a great impression outwardly. Girzone adds, rather provocatively I believe, “You might wonder how Jesus could have kept His exquisite spirituality hidden during all those years, so that even his playmates were shocked by His apparent newfound interest in religion. What made it possible for Jesus to keep His spiritual life hidden from the eyes of those who lived so close to Him that His holiness was genuine? It did not depend on showy external practices” (Never Alone, 13).

True spiritual life grows, virtually imperceptibly, beneath the surface of our lives. We think our myriad of activities make us more spiritual. We could not be more wrong. Doing a host of good things, even reading the Bible and praying, will not make us spiritual  We treat these disciplines as if we were taking a pill each day and the results of the pill will be clear to us and everyone else. If we think this way we are likely to be very nervous about our spiritual life and overload ourselves with even more burdens than we were ever meant to carry. The modern emphasis on spiritual disciplines is right but when it is used in the wrong way it create neurotic Christians. I have known more than my share of such people, pious and judgmental.

Remember, we always come to the Father as prodigals. This will continue throughout our entire life. It is not just the beginning of real discipleship and spirituality but it is the complete way itself. Where we begin is where we should continue. If you are off track come back to where you began and run home to the Father. He is the Father of prodigal sons and daughters and he is waiting for you to come home right now!

Changing Education Paradigms

For over 250 years the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) has been a cradle of enlightenment thinking and a force for social progress.  Their approach is multi-disciplinary, politically independent and combines cutting edge research and policy development with practical action.

I discovered this particular web-based learning resource a few days ago, via a friend’s link to it on his facebook page. Of course I do not agree with everything in this presentation, who would? What fun is it if you simply agree with everything you see and hear? If I already know something and agree with it then the sole reason for reading it will very often be to buttress my present view not to think at all. I encourage real thinking so I read and watch things that help me do that and then seek to make every thought captive to Christ.

This cleverly animated program is so relevant to our time. And it is completely apropos to training in discipleship and mission thus I believe it is extremely important for most of you to see it.

 

 

The Myth That Most Americans Ought to Go to College

President Obama is not alone in promoting it but he is massively committed to one of the greatest myths in modern American culture. This myth says that millions more young Americans ought to go to college. Who says so? A recent Harvard University study found that two-thirds of American high school graduates are unprepared to enter a four-year liberal arts program of education. In fact, the study concluded that “more than forty percent of students who enter college drop out before graduation.”

Why do so many go to college who are not prepared? The study says their parents pushed them too much, seeing it almost entirely as a means to a higher salary. But the majority of high school graduates are not only not ready for college they are much more suited to other types of work. There are great jobs in management and trades that will make a person as much or more money as most college graduates will earn. In fact, many college graduates are over-educated and under-prepared to really work and will not make what their peers will who used their skills more effectively.

Yet the president insists that we need a massive expansion of the Pell Grant program, thus creating a new entitlement program for college expense. Michael Moynihan, writing at reason.com concludes that “too many people are attending college these days.” He admits that it is “impolite and impolitic” to say so but this is the truth. I don’t expect the president to heed such advice, even when it comes from the left, because his own experience tells him how important college really is. Further, he worked as a community organizer among the poor and accepts the mantra that the way out is college. The truth is very few high school graduates in the places he organized can or will make it in college. For everyone his program helps there will be massive expense that only pushes us closer to bankruptcy as a nation. This is not a conservative position, simply an obvious one.

Homeschooling and Personal Freedom

Homeschooling, in various forms, is no longer seriously controversial. Most state governments have come to peace with the practice. I lived through an era when this was not the case (the 1970s). Our children were schooled in public schools, private schools and home school. My wife was a certified Illinois teacher, as was my son. Both taught in the public schools as Christians and had positive experiences in doing so. But both of us chose to home school at certain points in our journey. My grandchildren are currently homeschooled by their mom Adriana, who is not a certified teacher but is a brilliant and self-disciplined teacher if I ever met one. The girls, Gracie and Abbie, are also as bright and well-balanced as they can be, if I do say so myself. (A grandfather is allowed to write this, but in this case it really is true!)

Homeschooling parents can be insufferably difficult people in local church settings. Stereotypically they can be opinionated conservatives who seek to influence the congregation in ways that can, at times, be divisive. But this is not an entirely fair view either since some of the most dedicated, balanced and wonderful Christians that I have known, especially through traveling all over the U.S. to speak to churches of various types, were home school parents. The movement is too diverse to label so cheaply. In fact, many very secular folks now home school precisely because they believe it is a better way to educate, especially in the lower grades.

As a pastor I never taught my church that homeschooling was the right choice. I encouraged each family to study the issues and make up their own mind. I taught them that parenting was not by the numbers and no one approach fit everyone else. We had leaders and faithful members in all three camps; e.g., home school, private school and public school. I still believe, by taking this approach, we never had a single battle in our congregation over how to properly educate a child. We simply refused to turn this into ideological warfare. Simply put, when and where personal ideology is supremely important home schooling can be very divisive.

But, all these years later, some liberals are now trying to attack the right to home school again. I think they will fail but such attacks on personal liberty, especially when something as basic as this has been legal for the duration of American history, should be watched and opposed. Anyone who thinks that some are not out to create a state-controlled solution to all our important personal choices about our families should take especially careful note.

As one example, a California Court of Appeals two weeks ago determined that homeschooling was illegal in California unless a parent is a certified teacher. I thank God that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, sometimes hated by conservatives because he does not share their social agenda, has so boldly stood with homeschoolers in this battle. The Governor said:

"Every California child deserves a quality education, and parents should have the right to decide what's best for their children. Parents should not be penalized for acting in the best interests of their children's education. This outrageous ruling must be overturned by the courts, and if the courts don't protect parents' rights then, as elected officials, we will."

Thanks Governor Schwarzenegger for standing up for personal freedom in a very important area of our lives.

U.S. High Schools Learning Less: What's the Answer?

U. S. high school students are taking harder classes, receiving better grades, and from every indication in recent data, leaning much less than their counterparts fifteen years ago. Go figure. All the talk about spending more money and about improving testing and teacher standards and the end result is that two decades of educational reform may not have improved things overall.

The U. S. Department of Education released two studies Thursday that raised very tough questions. David Driscoll, the commissioner of education for Massachusetts, notes, "I think we are sleeping through a crisis." He called these two new studies "stunning." Two means were used for this study: (1) A standardized 12th grade test, and (2) An analysis of the transcripts of 2005 high school graduates.

The fascinating thing is that students in 1990 had a GPA of 2.68 and in 2005 it rose to 2.98, and this included students taking more college preparatory courses than ever before. 12th grade reading scores have been dropping steadily since 1992. So, what are students learning in college prep classes? As for math fewer than 25% scored in the "proficient" range.

This study involved 900 U. S. schools, including 200 private schools! 26,000 transcripts were used. The chief of curriculum for Chicago high schools said, "We know the root to solving the problem is having more rigor in classes." But how? We already have teachers who fear their students, killings in our schools, and armed guards in most U. S. high schools. What next? The fact is few leaders, and especially politicians and educators, have real answers. The system is broken. Do parents and citizens have the will to fix it? I have my doubts. Such problems call for Christians to make a difference. Talk about a cultural opportunity, here is a huge one. But most of us have run away from public education, condemning it with John Dewey and  his ilk to the pit. Even if we do not want our children in the public system can we afford to form ghettos for Christians and ride this storm out to its long term conclusions?

The movie Amazing Grace comes out this weekend. We desparately need a Wilberforce-like leader (or hundreds of lesser known but similarily courageous leaders) to begin to work for the real education of our children or our values will be entirely lost in a few more decades.