Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Religious Education

  • Bad Teaching and Abuse

    Al Johnson has posted a story about an abused wife on Recovery Poetry blog.

    Before I comment on this particular story, I want to note that a site like Johnson’s blog can be an important tool for people who are suffering abuse, no matter what the cause or the background. In working in ministry in various churches I’ve found that one of the most damaging problems, if not the most damaging, is a feeling of isolation.

    There are many causes for this feel.  One factor is the “faith face.”  We know we’re supposed to be doing well, because good Christians are happy people, so we paste a smile on our face and charge forward.  Another factor is gossip.  Churches are often small, closed (unforunately) communities, and gossip is a besetting sin.  As soon as someone’s personal story is repeated, trust is lost, and that person will become more isolated.  Judgment is also a factor, usually cloaked in a guise of simply protecting the reputation of the community.  But the more people any individual has heard condemned, the less likely that person is to share any problem they may have.

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  • Wisdom, Discernment, and Creation

    My Breaking Christian News E-Mail tipped me off to this article on http://www.worldnetdaily.com”>WorldNetDaily titled End creation-evolution debate in your home. This sort of thing amazes me and makes me very, very concerned. The article advertises a new printing of the book Bishop James Ussher, The Annals of the World.

    Now I certainly do not mind seeing an old book reprinted, but even the title of the article makes ridiculous claims for this book. It will certainly not settle anything about creation-evolution debates. One should be warned by someone giving a month and day for the creation of the world based on texts that are at best written in years and with considerable doubts about those.

    But the article also calls this book “. . . a favorite of homeschoolers and those who take ancient history seriously.” That is simply incredible. Practically the entire field of ancient near eastern archeology has been created since that book was written. It is, itself, a historical artifact, and not a good source for the facts of the history of the world or of their interpretation. If homeschoolers are being taught history in this fashion, we have a great deal to be worried about.

    This is not wisdom and disernment. This is gullibility. I was homeschooled myself. Understand that I’m not criticizing homeschooling as such, though I do believe that many people try to homeschool who have neither the skills nor the discipline for it. But I am criticizing the use of materials that are not appropriate to the task for which they are used.

  • More on Bible in Public Schools

    Ed Brayton calls attention to a Texas Freedom Network report on the teaching of the Bible in public schools. Not surprisingly, the report is not good. Bible teaching is constitutional under certain specific circumstances, largely amounting to requiring that it be taught as an academic subject in a non-sectarian way. The recommendations by the Texas Freedom Network, available at the link I provided, are good ones, if public schools are going to teach Bible courses.

    I have previously commented, however, and I continue to believe that it is not best to have Bible courses in public school. I still continue to believe that is the best policy. That doesn’t mean that the Bible shouldn’t be mentioned. I think it will find an appropriate place in literature, history, and comparative religions, for example. But a class specifically in the Bible presents problems.

    From the point of view of a conservative Christian, the possibility that Biblical criticism will be taught is a serious issue. What view of the Bible is to be taught? Should it be taught as inspired? Inerrant? Mythology? Each of those issues will differ depending on the particular religious view of the teacher. It will be difficult to find teachers who can teach the Bible in a neutral manner. I am practically certain, for example, that I could not give fundamentalists a fair hearing in class. In my view, academic study of the Bible makes such things as Biblical inerrancy and a literal understanding of such material as the antedeluvian material so improbable that I would have a hard time presenting them as having any kind of validity outside of faith. A rational person might believe they were historical material, but that would come from a faith position.

    From the point of view of any non-Christian, I think there is an overwhelming probability that a course will be taught from at least a generally Christian viewpoint. Even thought I think the Texas Freedom Network’s suggestions are good, as far as they go, but even though such a Bible class would be constitutional, I think it would be better to leave teaching of the Bible as a separate subject at the Elementary and High School level to churches, synagogues, and religious schools.

    As a part of other classes, I think it could and should be done appropriately. The Bible is involved in a substantial portion of our history and literature, and that background shouldn’t be lost. But that can be accomplished effectively as part of classes in those other subjects.

  • Nitpicking Translations

    Centuri0n responded, in a way to my post Conscience of a Christian Publisher. I posted a response once, and unfortunately that response was eaten by the server. I was able to restore everything else, but this I have to rewrite. I’m not trying to repeat the other post precisely, so if you read it, don’t look at this as a duplicate, though I am trying to cover the same ground.

    There are a number of things I could respond to, such as his comments on my use of “conscience,” but I think I’ll skip to what I see as the major problem of logic, and it’s one that is not unique to centuri0n. It’s quite prevalent amongst advocates of literal translations. Consider the following quote:

    My complaint about the TNIV, as you can read for yourself, is that it whitewashes the controversial nature of its methodology. Now, if the Bible is just a “signpost”, my complaint is, of course, nit-picking. What the Bible says isn’t actually of first importance but of far secondary importance

  • What the Greek Really Says

    There’s a moment in sermons that makes me cringe and my wife grin. She kind of enjoys seeing me squirm.

    What is this important moment? It’s when a pastor says, “What the Greek really says is . . .” Sometimes it’s worded a bit differently, but I believe that when you hear or read that phrase or something similar, the vast majority of the time you’re about to get misinformed. This week our pastor used the phrase “knowingly and with full intent” just to get the laugh out of us, which is all in good fun.

    There are several reasons for this. First, most pastors are not well enough trained in Greek or Hebrew to make such a statement with confidence. Unfortunately, this is often also true about writers who are not specialists in the language. I have found significant errors–not differences of opinion, but demonstrable errors–in books written by famous writers and published by well-known publishing houses. In one book I found a case where a Hebrew word was cited, and not only was the definition or the suggested glosses (English words suggested to translate it) questionable, but the word itself was simply not in the verse in question.

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  • Van Till a Freethinker?

    With a hat tip to Dispatches from the Culture Wars, I’d like to call attention to the text of a speech given by Howard J. Van Till (The Fourth Day) to the Freethought Association of West Michigan. Van Till’s work on evolution in general and intelligent design in particular is amongst my favorite reading, and he provides some excellent insights into working with truth, and our view of what truth is, in the context of a religious institution.

    While I experienced some hostility as a graduate student in a Seventh-day Adventist institution, I never experienced this degree of hostility, but I did reject the idea of signing a doctrinal statement in order to be able to teach. That was one of the things that led me away from even seriously seeking work in an Adventist institution. Now as a member of the United Methodist Church, I often actually seem quite conservative.

    Readers who come from my current side of the aisle–mainstream Christianity outside the Calvinist or Catholic traditions–may find it hard to empathize with Van Till. Calvinism tends to be much more creedal, and thus to be much more explicit.

    But I am no less subject to having an ODoR (operational description of reality) than anyone else, and often being less explicit about it simply makes it harder to examine, rather than meaning that one is actually more open minded. I think Van Till has again provided some excellent insight into the nature of the controversy over creation and evolution, and the relationship of science and religion.

  • Honoring God with your Mind

    I’m going to write today about a neglected part of God’s creation–the human mind. It is a wonderful element of creation, one that has provoked some of the most profound philosophical and scientific writing. No, I don’t mean merely that people think with their minds and then write philosophy and science. I’m referring to writing about how the mind evolved, how it functions, what consciousness actually is, and why the mind malfunctions from time to time. Those are all interesting topics.

    My topic, however, is how Christians can choose to honor God with their minds, and why they should. (I’m addressing Christians because that’s my own faith group, not to imply that other people cannot honor God with their minds.) Sometimes it seems that every element of our faith is used against the human mind instead of in cooperation with it.

    1. Our saving faith is sometimes seen as a termination of our ethical decision making
    2. Dependence on God is often seen as dependence on him solely in a supernatural sense, what God can do for you miraculously, but not in the natural sense
    3. The inspiration of the scriptures is seen as bypassing the people involved, whether, prophets, secretaries, or readers
    4. The church offices, especially those of teacher and prophet, are seen as bypassing good thinking
    5. Laziness replaces the hard work of good thinking, as when we accept something just because we saw it in a book, and it was written by someone holy
    6. An appearance of piety can replace wisdom. When someone announces–“God said it, I believe it, that settles it!”–without being certain that God says it, that bypasses the human mind.

    It would seem that simply from observation and logic we could discover that God wants us to use our minds. He provided them. They are necessary to our survival. Even if we didn’t have scriptural statements to confirm this, it is pretty obvious from nature. But we do, in fact, have scriptural confirmation.

    How long, simple-minded folks, will you love being simple?
    How long will scoffers delight in scoffing?
    And fools hate knowledge? — Proverbs 1:22

    Now I could spend my time listing texts that back this up further, texts that talk about thinking, wisdom, using our minds, and our choice. They are a strong theme in scripture. But I’m going to assume you either know or can find the texts. I’d just like to call your attention to two texts. The first is from the words of Jesus.

    15Watch out for false prophets, who come to you dressed like sheep, but inside they are ravenous wolves. 16It’s by their fruit that you’ll recognize them. 17People don’t gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles, do they? 18A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. 19That’s why you will recognize them by their fruit. — Matthew 7:15-19

    This is a sentiment that Paul repeats in Galatians:

    7Don’t be deceived! God won’t be mocked! Whatever a person plants is what he’ll harvest! — Galatians 6:7

    These two texts make it clear that God has not abrogated the law of cause and effect in his kingdom. The law of cause and effect is one that is basic to human thinking. It’s clear that God wants you to think about the consequences of your own actions, not to mention the words and actions of others. What people think, what they say, and what they do does have consequences. (I discuss choice and the kingdom in the pamphlet Seven Kingdom Principles of Choice, and its relationship to salvation in my essay A Fruitful Faith. I believe that the twin principles of choice and fruit operate throughout the kingdom of God.)

    So how can one honor God with one’s mind? Primarily by using it!

    Our saving faith is sometimes seen as a termination of our ethical decision making

    Some may have wondered about this first point in my list of excuses above. Aren’t we saved by grace? Are we not to accept salvation as a gift? Indeed we are. But Paul noted the same problem I’m noting. My point is certainly not original with me–it’s Biblical! Paul uses most of Galatians 5 and the first several verses of Galatians 6 dealing with the possibility that some would take their salvation as permission to sin. He makes it clear that’s the point. I think the best antidote to this type of thinking is for us not to think of salvation merely as a ticket to heaven, but as spiritual healing. When we think of it like that, we might find the question rather silly. If the doctor provides you with a cure for your disease, and does not charge you (a true miracle, I know), you have received the free gift of healing. But if you go home and say, “I want the disease, I’m going to get it back,” you may well be able to make yourself sick again. You can’t then complain to the doctor that his free gift failed. You set his gift aside.

    Christians sometimes depend on Jesus to save them from sin, while at the same time they indulge themselves in destructive behavior. I’ve been working on a paraphrase or representation of the story of Susanna (Daniel 13, from the apocrypha) for my literature and fiction blog, The Jevlir Caravansary. Update: The article is now completed, Susanna: A Transformation. What struck me as I read that story is that the elders who falsely accuse Susanna do everything possible to lead themselves into sin and eventual destruction. They dwell on their temptation. They hide the fact that they are being tempted. They get as close to sin as they can. When eventually they are caught, everything that follows is inevitable. Christians are often like that. “Why won’t God free me from my addictions?” someone asks, at the same time sitting with the object of his addiction readily available. Grace opens the door, grace makes it all possible, but no number of gifts will make you rich if you throw them all away.

    Dependence on God is often seen as dependence on him solely in a supernatural sense, what God can do for you miraculously, but not in the natural sense

    In my second point I mention depending on God only supernaturally. The problem here is that Christians take actions that will bear one form of fruit while expecting God’s supernatural intervention to produce other results. I am not denying miracles, or asking anyone not to pray for them. I pray for God’s power and God’s action myself. But I also know from scripture that God normally folllows the simple law of planting and harvesting, or as Jesus said, of bearing fruit.

    God’s supernatural power is not there to provide you with a license to ignore God’s laws, whether moral or natural laws written in the fabric of the universe.

    The inspiration of the scriptures is seen as bypassing the people involved, whether, prophets, secretaries, or readers

    This laziness is generally manifested when people simply use “God said” for anything in the Bible. There are portions of the Bible that are identified as the words of God, but there are also large portions which are not. I have even heard Job’s friends quoted as what “God said,” and they are soundly condemned by God right in scripture. It takes more work to find out what God is doing when he acts in history or in our own lives than it is simply to find a phrase that says what we want it to, and then to quote it, but it also means that very often we are ignoring what God actually meant, while taking on the appearance of affirming his word.

    The church offices, especially those of teacher and prophet, are seen as bypassing good thinking

    God put prophets and teachers in the church for a purpose–to help bring his word to the people. I’m going to be brief about this, but it’s very important! Please think about it! Now that we can all enter the sanctuary with confidence (Hebrews 10:19), we have as our goal getting everyone to approach God for themselves. The goal is not to teach people to accept what we, as teachers, prophets, or leaders, say, but rather to get them to think for themselves, and to listen to God for themselves.

    For the individual, the goal is to approach God individually, and not to depend on the teacher, preacher, or even prophet. It may be harder, but it’s the right goal.

    Laziness replaces the hard work of good thinking, as when we accept something just because we saw it in a book, and it was written by someone holy

    This is the printed version of the previous point. Some people think that just because it’s in a book it must be true. Many who know that one can’t trust it just because it’s in print, will trust it because it’s in print written by someone well known. But I have a secret (not really!) to tell you. There are plenty of Christian books in print that contain misinformation. I’m not talking about differences of opinion–I’m talking about things that people from many different perspectives could agree were just factually wrong. I find, for example, that a distressingly large number of “insights” brought from Greek or Hebrew in popular books are simply wrong, while many others are at least misleading because they don’t have the proper context.

    When you get information from a book, you need to check references, and then you need to assure yourself that the references themselves are reliable. There are some facts making the rounds in Christian books that have simply been quoted so many times that everyone “knows” they are right, but nobody knows precisely where those facts came from. You need to check back to a primary source–the person who actually observed and recorded the data in the first place–whenever possible.

    You are responsible for planting seeds in your mind. You are the one who is going to bear the fruit. You need to honor God with your mind by looking up the information.

    An appearance of piety can replace wisdom. When someone announces–“God said it, I believe it, that settles it!”–without being certain that God says it, that bypasses the human mind.

    It’s easy to dishonor God while sounding extremely pious. I cannot count the number of times I have heard someone say, “I’m just doing what the Bible says,” or “That is just God’s word!” when they are not, in fact, correctly quoting the material or are taking it badly out of context. (For some help with context, see my essay Understanding Context.) What God says for a specific situation should settle it, but what God says and what people say God says may well be two very different things.

    Always remember: You will harvest what you plant, and you are the one who chooses what to plant!

  • Creation and Evolution Summer Camps

    Summer camps to indoctrinate children on creationism? Look at this article: Beliefwatch: Camping.

    I certainly have no objection to churches teaching their beliefs at summer camp, and I congratulate the Unitarian-Universalist church on having a camp on discoveries in science. What I sincerely wish we would see would be a Christian camp that would teach about the variety of views of God’s creation that are held by Christians. This could be a unity building event, letting children know that Christians disagree on how God created, but we all agree that God didcreate, and that he is the creator.

    Such classes could help ease the current atmosphere in which a Christian who is serious about his or her faith is often beaten back to the peripheries by misguided people who believe only creationists, or in some cases even young earth creationists are really Christians.

  • Educating for Reality

    This is good stuff! Kudos to North Carolina, not because they have succeeded, but because they are trying in a number of innovative ways to solve actual problems that students are observed having. You always have to try before you can succeed. The Newsweek story is here: The Future is in Their Hands.

    The key here is that North Carolina educational authorities are looking at what their young people actually need in the workplace and organizing their education around that, rather than around some traditional idea of what they need. I think this could get much more radical, and do so to good effect. We need to look at the needs of the workplace and examine every element of the curriculum asking, “Is this helping us attain our goal?”

    Those who are planning for college can afford, and may even need some detours to round out their learning ability, but those who are going into technical jobs need specific skills.

    I hope more states and communities learn lessons from this.

    Note: Something much closer to my daily life is the education of pastors. I would love to see churches, especially the United Methodist Church, re-examine pastoral training in the light of what pastors actually do. For example, training in prayer/prayer ministry, practical advice from other pastors on working with administrative boards and staff-parish relations committees, perhaps a year working with an older, well-chosen pastor as opposed to more classroom time. These are just ideas–I’d just like to see the whole thing looked at. I have yet to work with a pastor in a parish who does not state that a good portion of his seminary training was not relevant to his work.

  • High School Bible Classes Again

    In a previous post, The Best Place to Teach the Bible, I discussed my view that home and church or other private organizations were the best way to teach the Bible. I’ve had a couple of comments to that post that I think deserve some comment, and since I don’t like to make post-length comments here on my own blog, I’m going to comment in another post.

    First, Dave L. comments:

    Henry, I agree with your position concerning keeping the Bible out of schools, but had a question for you on one of your responses above, namely, “just because someone reads Hebrew, Aramaic and Koine Greek [doesn’t mean] they will agree on what the Bible says.